◈ Chapter 473. Great Monster (2)
It was only natural.[Great Monster, “Bella’s Colossus,” changes the field.]
He was an Arcanian, after all.
Yugwid Lufeng could not see system messages.
Even so, he sensed the threat. It had been a manifestation into which he had poured his entire being. Yet even a golem powered by a highest-grade mana circuit could not halt the creature’s advance.
“Well, this is rather embarrassing.”
Yugwid gauged his burning mana.
Just to manifest a golem large enough to face the Colossus,
he had already consumed a considerable amount of mana.
And yet it still wasn’t enough.
Boom!
The golem and the Colossus locked hands and tested their strength.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The sheer pressure of their contest made the entire area quake.
It isn’t my style, but I suppose it can’t be helped.
Yugwid set aside his stubbornness and mixed a slight trick into his earth magic.
Crack.
In an instant, he weakened the ground beneath the Colossus’s feet.
Thanks to that, the Colossus lost its balance and staggered.
The golem did not miss the opening.
The golem’s body accelerated.
The recoil that followed.
The golem’s mana heart burned fiercely.
“Kuh.”
His hand went to his heart on its own. Yugwid instinctively sensed that mana exhaustion was near. Which meant he had to end the battle against the Colossus with this blow.
Crunch.
The golem grabbed one of the Colossus’s arms and threw itself flat. With a dull, rupturing sound, the Colossus’s forearm was torn free. The creature staggered as it lost its balance, one arm gone.
The armor covering its entire body was still intact, but that last strike had not been the sort of damage armor could block. But then… what was this creature?
“!”
Yugwid’s pupils trembled minutely after landing the attack.
They had no choice but to.
Yugwid could not see them,
but at that moment, such messages must have appeared.[“Bleeding” occurs on Great Monster, Bella’s Colossus.][“Paralysis” occurs on Great Monster, Bella’s Colossus.]……
Blood scattered across the earth.
As befitted its size, the amount of blood was considerable.
A drop of it even splashed onto Yugwid’s cheek.
Swipe.
When Yugwid wiped his cheek with his hand, the blood smeared.
Yugwid confirmed the Colossus’s blood with his eyes, and by its warmth.
Thanks to that, he could say it.
“You are alive.”
Thanks to that, even Yugwid, who could not see messages, could identify the creature’s true nature. I see. The beings of the Arcana Continent said to have inspired golem summoning magic.
“Colossi.”
In other words, the warriors of the giant race.
The corners of Yugwid’s mouth twisted.
No wonder a golem could not stand against it.
“An imitation can never surpass the real thing.”
Drip, crumble.
Mana exhaustion drew near.
Yugwid’s golem was slowly returning to earth.
By contrast, the Colossus regained its stance despite its grievous wound.
“At this rate, who is the golem here?”
It felt as though the knowledge he had built up as an elder mage was being shaken. The mere fact that the giant race had survived on the continent was astonishing enough, yet that very giant race was carrying out merciless destruction.
“My epithet isn’t Gentle Giant for nothing, you know.”
According to legend, the giant race was considered gentle.
And among that giant race, the Colossi of the past
were said to have served as stalwart guardians of the ancient Arcana Continent.
But what of the Colossus before his eyes?
Crunch.
It was not only the village Yugwid had restored.
The Colossus had trampled the dense forest beneath both feet,
and stolen the lives of countless creatures breathing beneath it.‘And it cannot even feel pain.’Yugwid could sense it.
Clearly, something was wrong with the Colossus.
Unfortunately, however,
Yugwid opened his mouth like the mage he was.
“I do not possess Chief Lee’s delicacy.”
Chief Lee, if it were you,
you might even have saved this rampaging Colossus.
But I am not of such a temperament.
Was I not born a mage through and through?
“It means my disposition is eccentric from the start.”
Whoooom.
Yugwid drew up the last of his mana.
His mana heart, unable to form a circle, was beating as though it would burst.
It had been warning him of his limits for a long time.
Even so, Yugwid did not retreat.
The reason was simple, was it not?
In the direction the Colossus was advancing,
there was earth his own hands had touched.
Yugwid opened his mouth.
“I have no intention of planting corrupted seeds in soil I worked so hard to cultivate.”
Rumble, rumble, rumble……!...
The Great Sage, Rise.
“Is this not too much for a powerless old man?”
He had defeated the Great Monster, the “Beast of Slaughter.”
In the process, he had been wounded so badly that he could not heal himself.
Rise reflected on the creature’s actions.
“Were you not afraid of death?”
Even I, called the Great Sage,
have not overcome my fear of death.
How could a mere beast surpass its primal instincts?
The Great Sage’s wise mind offered an answer.
“Then you must have been tormented by ‘something’ that surpassed even the fear of death. Yes, what made you that way? Oh dear, you are dead, so you cannot say a thing.”
At times like these, he missed Pandora’s Attic.
But Rise shook his head.
It had not been long since he declared that he would not believe the attic’s divinations.
He could not let his resolve go to waste.
Yet an old man’s worries could not be helped.
Whoooosh……
An ominous roar came from afar.
“……
No matter how clouded my memory may have become.”
As though rendering his defeat of one Great Monster meaningless, other Great Monsters were appearing all across the continent. They emitted a dreadful killing intent as they advanced toward the imperial capital, Antonium.
“I do not recall witnessing such a prophecy in the attic, either.”
If so, there was only one possibility he could think of.
Claudi.
There exists another being besides you who has escaped the attic’s divinations.
Rise smiled.
“Oh dear, then perhaps this is fortunate instead.”
For as he had said earlier, it meant that the divinations Pandora’s Attic produced could not be wholly trusted. And so… Rise quietly closed his eyes.
“For even Lord Claudi may be able to evade an inescapable fate.”
Soon after,
over Rise’s head,
the shadow of another Great Monster fell.[Great Monster, “Eight-Colored Bird,” changes the field.]*
The Great Sage, Rise.
Orc Auction.
And lastly, Yugwid Lufeng, former elder mage of the Magic Tower.‘Great Monster, are you determined to live up to your name in the end?’It seemed my, Lee Hoyeol’s, concerns had become reality. Other forces aside, the three I had just mentioned were not people who would lose to mere level-one-thousand monsters.‘Even if they were boss monsters on an entirely different level.’It might have taken time
for them to settle the fight,
but defeat made no sense.
The Great Sage Rise, who could enter the upper floors of the Transcendent Salon. Yugwid, a former elder mage of the Magic Tower. And Orc Auction, said to be an organization where even the peerless Shadow Mercenary Corps followed their laws while within their territory.‘Then as expected, he has stepped into it.’Oxidin had entered the realm of the extraordinary as well.
The fact that he had moved the Great Monsters on the Arcana Continent was proof enough.
AAU had sent me information about the Great Monsters.
-“The Colossus, the Beast of Slaughter, the Eight-Colored Bird. All have been identified as raid boss monsters whose development concepts remained from the early days of the Arcana Continent! However, at that time, they were planned to be so high-level that they could not appear…….”
By the power of the class that had entered the realm of the extraordinary, [Tyrant],
he must have been able to awaken the Great Monsters that had been sleeping due to their settings. Moreover, the one wielding that power was not an ordinary Arcanian, but a transcendent.‘This won’t be easy.’But did I not say it?
No matter what,
I was not in a position to fear Oxidin.
“Are you ready?”
I straightened my clothes.
Now that the Great Monsters’ assault had already begun,
there was no time for leisure.
It meant we, too, had to go all out from the start.[Those Who Await the Dawn 5/5][Set item effect is applied.][Currently applied set effect: 5/5][1. When you are the commander, allied morale reaches its “maximum.”]……
The effect of morale reaching its maximum was impressive no matter how many times I saw it.
As the representative of the perfectly disciplined Holy War Alliance Army,
Harkon, commander of the Lionheart Knights, bowed his head.
“Please give your orders.”
Near the Maw of Behemoth.
Now that Paimon had returned after making something like a promise with me,
we did not need to worry about demons flowing back out of the Maw for the time being.‘The one left wanting won’t be me, but him.’Thanks to that, it meant that for the time being we could focus all our strength on cleaning up Raymon Sean’s trolling and hunting the Great Monsters. I immediately divided the forces.
“Using Antonium as the standard, the Iron Castle will advance west. To the east, establish a defensive line centered on the Holy War Alliance Army and the adventurers who will join us later. To the north, Froznax and my private soldiers standing by in Antonium’s main castle will advance.”
If heard roughly, it might sound like I had simply assigned roles appropriately.
But every deployment had its reason.
Nam Cheolmin, who had joined the Arcana Continent through this emergency update,
rustle.
unfolded a map and added an explanation.
“The western region of Antonium is mountainous, making it difficult for ground forces to operate. Therefore, it would be right for the Iron Castle, which can operate in the skies, to move out. The reason the largest number of troops has been deployed to the east is because the greatest number of Great Monsters—four—have been spotted there. And……”
Of course, the imperial mage Nash, who knew Antonium’s geography even better than Nam Cheolmin, did not stay silent either. Ssssss. A mana model rose above the map and supplemented the explanation.
“In that sense, elite forces have no choice but to be deployed to northern Antonium. The newly sprouted World Tree, and the byproducts of Primordial Evil that seek that World Tree, are still stretching out their demonic hands.”
Likewise, a reliable reinforcement who had joined the main force.
The proud tower master of the Magic Tower.
Our Marcelo opened his mouth.
“The Magic Tower will spare no appropriate support in every direction. And in the process, we will secure the person of Yugwid Lufeng, former elder mage of the Magic Tower.”
Marcelo mentioned only Yugwid, but it was not merely Yugwid. The Great Sage Rise had been one of those who responded to Claudi’s invitation.
I asked Marcelo.
“I also ask you to look into the Great Sage’s movements.”
“I shall obey your words.”
“Um, I’m sorry to interrupt, but……”
The one who spoke after asking permission was Nam Taemin.
Nam Taemin’s finger was pointing below the map, to the south.
Thanks to the vividness Nash had added with his mana model,
I could immediately understand the intention behind the question.
“The southern territory of Antonium.”
To the south of Antonium was none other than the Maw of Behemoth.
As I said earlier, there was no need to worry about Paimon.
But Paimon was not the only high-ranking Demon King.‘And he is a demon, after all, isn’t he?’It meant his words could not be accepted naively.
The Holy War Alliance Army must have known that as well.
If judged purely by danger level, the south was the most dangerous,
so the largest number of troops should have been deployed there.‘Yet I haven’t mentioned it at all.’But there is no need for anyone to worry.
I had been planning to deploy them anyway.
The strongest force, one that would not fall to any Great Monster or demon.
As though it were only natural, I opened my mouth.
“I am there.”
That was right.
I intended to stop the Great Monsters advancing from the south myself.
At my declaration, a brief commotion arose within the Holy War Alliance Army.
“Commander-in-Chief, no matter what, alone is too……!”
Of course, I ended their concerns with my usual attitude.
“To be precise.”
At that moment, a roar rang out from outside the tent.
“I am already there.”
Kroaaaaar.
Together with the Dragon Fear that struck the eardrums,
my vision,
and the players’ vision, flickered.[Dragon Lord, “Black Dark Dragon Lee Hoyeol,” reveals his enormous wings on the Arcana Continent. Beneath the Black Dark Dragon, three dragons roar.]
“!!!”……
I was as shocked as everyone else.‘Dragon Lord, Black Dark Dragon Lee Hoyeol? Y-you’re announcing that like this?!’Seriously, this is driving me insane.