Tiona and Tione slashed again and again at the oncoming tentacles.
Gareth, Bete, and Tsubaki faced off against the swarm.
Raul, Lefiya, and the other supporters unleashed arrows and magic in fruitless onslaughts.
And Aiz. The rain of whipping tentacles still approached her, relentless in its pursuit.
The spells and endless throng of tendrils made for an impenetrable wall of armor protecting the spirit.
Everything came at them at once—an opponent that could attack, defend, and chant all at the same time—and as Finn took in the battle before him, he could feel his teeth grind with increasing ferocity.
“—Retreat! Pull back to Riveria’s barrier!!” He gave the order, knowing all too well where things were heading.
Still backed by Lefiya’s and the other supporters’ cover fire, those on the front line made their way back to Finn. Riveria completed her chant the moment they arrived, almost as if she had planned it.
“Materialize, mighty barrier of forest’s light, and lend us your protection—my name is Alf!” With a wave of her hand, Riveria completed her chant—the ultimate protection spell. “Via Shilheim!!”
A jade-colored magic circle formed beneath Riveria’s feet, the light gleaming before transforming into a dome-like green structure. It surrounded all thirteen of the adventurers, Riveria included.
It happened at the same time. The exact moment that the high elf’s physical-and magic-attack-canceling barrier erected itself around them…
The spirit finished her own chant.
“Fire Storm!”
The world turned red.
“”
It was a massive inferno, akin to a fire elemental.
A raging, broiling wave of wind. A tsunami of flame. A river of incendiary crimson that closed in on Riveria inside her barrier.
It swallowed everything. The monsters. The magic dome with the adventurers inside. The entire floor itself.
“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”
The impact was sensational. A thundering boom as hellfire met barrier, joined by Riveria’s anguished cry as she struggled to support her staff with both hands.
Screams of agony surrounded them as everything outside the barrier fried instantly, and Riveria’s jade eyes dilated to their limit.
The party found themselves petrified as they watched the world turn to a living hell past the safety of their barrier.
And then.
Crack.
A splinter formed in the barrier of the strongest magic user in all of Orario.
“The shield…?!”
In front of them, above them, to their left, to their right, spiderweb-like cracks ran the entire length of the wall of light. Raul’s and Lefiya’s faces lost all color.
The explosive wave of hellfire closed in on them from all sides.
“—Gareth! Protect them!!” Riveria screamed, the scorching heat all but consuming her.
Gareth responded in an instant and snatched two large shields from the supporters before leaping behind Riveria.
There was a high-pitched shriek. Riveria’s Via Shilheim shattered.
“RIVERIA—?!”
Riveria went first.
As she was swallowed up by the massive stream of raging crimson fire, Aiz’s scream disappeared into the roiling swell.
Then it hit Gareth with a colossal impact as it slammed into the two giant shields.
“GrrrruuuuooooooooooooaaaaAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!” the dwarf soldier groaned as Riveria disappeared into the swirling inferno.
Behind him, Tiona threw Aiz to the ground. Finn and the others were already hugging the earth in Gareth’s shadow.
But it wasn’t enough. The two shields melted at a laughably rapid speed. Gareth’s helmet and armor liquefied around him.
“GRAMPS!!” Bete cried out as the shields disappeared entirely.
Gareth had no choice but to fling his arms out, using his body itself to block the relentless conflagration.
“GGGRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”
The dwarf’s titanic roar met the incoming inferno—
The explosion was immeasurable.
Everything went red. The blast sent Aiz and the others flying back with an incredible force.
Their skin and armor sizzled and charred as the crimson cyclone tossed the first-tier adventurers about, yet somehow they still managed to hold on to their weapons. They couldn’t even scream. The charred hiss of flaming destruction enveloped the world around them. Again and again they tumbled along the ground, Lefiya, Raul, and the other supporters escaping the brunt of it thanks to Finn’s protection.
The flame purged everything.
“Grrn…hnn?!”
The storm finally cleared to reveal Aiz and the others scattered about like corpses atop the scorched earth.
Nothing remained but charred ash as far as the eye could see. No monsters. No magic stones. Not even the jungle behind them was left. Everything had turned to cinders and dust. The floor of the Dungeon around them had become a different world with nothing but the spirit at its center unchanged.
They’d escaped the full force of the wave, but even the aftershocks had left them in disrepair—their armor and bodies were marred with cuts and burns. Moaning in pain, they shakily peeled themselves off the ground, no one saying a word.
Riveria lay facedown, the magic gem of her silvery white staff cracked. Her robes, made from holy fabrics of considerable magic resistance, were burned to a crisp and lying in tatters around her.
Gareth had tumbled a short distance away, his body charred and lying faceup. He’d held out to the very end in order to protect Aiz and the others, and his armor was painted black.
The elven magic user and dwarf soldier lay motionless. Silent.
Lefiya, Raul, Tiona, Tione, Bete, everyone could do nothing but look on, a kind of crippling despair twisting and contorting their features.
They were gone. All the familia’s leaders save Finn.
Two of Loki Familia’s strongest warriors had passed.
They’d reached an unprecedented state of emergency.
“Riveria…Gareth…” Aiz’s voice was hoarse as the two names passed her lips.
They’d lost their familia’s two pillars of support. Morale had hit a new low.
The sight in front of them was enough to break the hearts of the young adventurers.
Even Finn, holding himself up by his charred arms, found his green eyes tightening.
“Moan, mighty earth—”
But it wasn’t over yet.
“”
The spirit began her next spell, a coy smile playing on her face.
—it was too fast.
Already, the black magic circle was forming beneath her, a deep obsidian color different from the one before.
She hadn’t paused even a moment to allow the post-magic rigor to abate before her next chant was well on its way, and the unbelievable spectacle rooted Aiz and the others to their spots.
“Rise, rise, RISE! Husk of the earth! Sheen of iron! Hammer of the cosmos! May genesis’s pact upheave rock and stone! The sky shall burn! The earth shall split! The bridge shall rise! Heaven and earth shall become one! May the axes of the ether rain down and bring about calamity’s ruin—!”
Another long, protracted chant. But they knew that destruction was imminent.
“Your envoy beseeches you, Gnome! Incarnate of the land! Queen of the earth—!”
There was no hesitation. No pause. She sang the melody bestowed unto her with an incredible facility, bringing it to completion.
It was partly shock that triggered the first-tiers’ instincts. The moment they hit the ground running, the spirit let out her final note as a dark cloud of blackest light enshrouded her body.
“Meteor Swarm!!”
The circle flashed, and light shot straight up to coat the ceiling in shadow.
The magic converged, and thousands upon thousands of meteorites formed in the ma
ss of darkness.
“Protect Raul and the others!!” Finn shouted, dashing forward to grab one of the supporters’ arms.
And in that moment, the storm began.
“WhuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Raul’s scream echoed throughout the fifty-ninth floor as they were caught in a vortex of destruction and exploding bedrock.
Bete grabbed hold of him as the two were knocked off their feet. Aiz grabbed Lefiya, holding her tight as they disappeared into the inky blackness. Tiona and Tione flung themselves toward the remaining two supporters, and Tsubaki used her body as a shield to protect them. The entire Dungeon shook around them as the glimmering black meteors pummeled the earth over a tremendous radius.
Aiz felt her gauntlets go flying, but she paid them no heed, never releasing her grip on the magic user in her arms. As they rode the shock wave, she saw Riveria’s and Gareth’s bodies being pelted mercilessly by the swarm of black comets.
She screamed, but no sound came out.
Everything was under the control of those savage chains of light.
“…ghn…ah.”
“D-dammit…!!”
Bete dug his fingers into the already scorched earth, Raul moaning listlessly in his arms.
A giant crater had formed. The adventurers lay sprawled out a short distance from the massive hole, smoke and inky black particles marbling the air above their bodies. The spirit smiled sweetly at them from atop her massive chassis as first one, then two, then the rest of them began to stir, somehow managing to push themselves shakily to their feet.
Their quick instincts and expeditious defensive maneuvers had allowed them to weave their way through the massive storm of meteorites and narrowly escape with their lives.
“Everyone alive back there?” Tsubaki smiled weakly, her right arm completely carbonized and hanging uselessly at her side.
“Just barely…” Tione responded as she pushed herself free of the supporter she’d been protecting.
Tiona, too, hazily cracked open her eyes. Narfi, in tears, administered a restorative potion for the pain.
“M-Miss Aiz…?”
“Hnngh…hah…hngh…” Aiz could reply to Lefiya’s plea only with stilted gasps. The instinctive cast of her Airiel had lasted mere seconds against the direct blast of meteors, and the mix of golden hair atop the two girls’ heads was smattered and disheveled.
The golden pools of the spirit’s eyes narrowed as she took in the scene before her. Spreading her supple arms, the two great flower buds along her lower half began to bloom.
“Is she…”
“…absorbing magic power?”
First the inky black particles floating around the room, and then the red particles, almost like embers, began drifting back toward that colossal, vibrantly colored ring.
Tiona and Tione could do nothing but stare in wonderment as the spirit recharged her consumed magic power. It was unthinkable—she should have used up almost all her magic reserves by this point, but by reabsorbing the scattered particles, she’d have a full tank. The hearts of every adventurer there dropped into their guts. The spirit devoured everything. Every single particle. Even the jade-colored magical residue left over from Riveria’s shattered Via Shilheim.
Once she was fully recharged, she’d be able to ravage them with her dreadnought-like, wide-range annihilation spells once more.
As beautiful as the spirit looked with those particles of light around her, all Aiz and the others saw was the grim reaper’s scythe about to bestow the finishing blow.
“Laa—…”
The spirit lifted her slender chin, a new melody lilting from her lips.
The high-pitched voice weaving its cherubic song seemed so childlike and innocent, and as she sang, a multitude of shadows formed behind her.
“Are those…monsters?” Lefiya’s eyes trembled with anguish as she took in the sight of that vivid yellow-green skin.
They were coming from a massive hole behind her—a hole reaching all the way to the sixtieth floor—a legion of caterpillars and violas all summoned by the singing spirit.
The sight of that great army, of that spirit wrapped in her gown of many colors, dispelled what little strength the adventurers had left.
“Is this the…end?” Tsubaki murmured, supporting her useless arm as her right eye blurred with an unspoken truth.
The others knew it, too. Bete, Tiona, Tione, all of them still kneeling on the ground. The last thing they’d wanted to do was abandon hope, but the current situation appeared beyond dire. Lefiya felt her eyes well up with tears as she bit down on her lip. Raul’s and the other supporters’ eyes refused to leave the ground.
Still on the floor herself, Aiz kept her hand around Desperate’s hilt, her eyes trained on the writhing mass of approaching monsters.
All around her, the weapons of her fellow adventurers lay strewn across the ashen earth.
Swords. Spears. Axes. Staves. Shields.
A desolate scene that brought back memories of her dream.
Though the unbreakable weapons still retained their shapes, their luster had faded to a dull sheen, as though resonating with their owners. With disgusting sounds, the swarm of monsters gathered around their queen, simply staring up at the sea of stars that was the drifting particles of light.
Aiz was silent, unable to so much as lift her blade.
“…”
It was then that it happened.
Finn rose to his feet, wiping his soiled face vigorously.
Step by step, the golden-haired prum advanced.
Farther and farther he continued, past Raul with his head raised, past Lefiya in her bewilderment, past Bete as he turned around questioningly, past Tsubaki with her right eye trained on him, and past Aiz, staring at him wordlessly.
He picked his spear up from off the ground and stood defiantly before the spirit and her army, his back to his companions.
Then he thrust the head of the spear into the ground.
“We’re going to destroy that thing.”
He made his declaration, green eyes flashing as they stared down the sweetly smiling spirit in front of him.
Tiona and the others let out audible gulps.
He shot a glance back at the stunned adventurers.
“I ask you for courage. Tell me, what is it you see before you?”
A repulsive amalgamation of spirit and monster.
A being that surpassed human knowledge with the ability to command an army of monsters.
“Do you see fear? Despair? Ruin? I see nothing but an enemy we must bring to its knees. We can surely prevail.”
A tremble passed through the shoulders of the entire party.
He continued. His tiny frame was all that stood between them and the horror that awaited them.
“We’ve never needed an escape route. And we don’t need one now. I’ll clear a path myself with this very spear!” he exclaimed, eyes filled with determination as he looked back at his companions. “I vow in the name of Phiana herself that we shall prove victorious! So follow me!”
Their whole bodies were shaking now. Tiona’s, Tione’s, Bete’s—all of their chests and eyes, their arms and legs quaked violently.
As they gazed at the figure standing before them, Raul curled his hand into a fist, and Lefiya felt her heart well up with courage.
If the ability to incite armies, to uplift, to promote, to demand inspiration no matter the time, no matter the place was a requirement for herohood, then truly, the “Braver” Finn Deimne was more hero than anyone else.
“Or is following in the steps of that boy Bell Cranell too much for you to handle?”
More than anything else, Finn was a prodigy when it came to lighting fires in people’s bellies.
“”
In an instant, Bete and the others were transported to the scene of that decisive battle.
The crazed bull and the lone boy carving away at each other’s life force. That true adventurer, wagering everything, his body, his soul, for t
hat one fight.
The lingering memory of that brutal match set their very souls alight.
There was nothing more passionate. Nothing more pure. Nothing nobler.
It was a page in the great epic.
Aiz’s eyes widened as the sight of that boy’s back played across her mind once more.
The back of that boy overlaid on her father’s.
“—Hell if I’m gonna let some pipsqueak like this take me down!!” Bete howled in fury as he rose to his feet.
“…A little full of ourselves there, are we?” Tione responded as she swept her bangs out of her eyes before joining him.
“This is our adventure, too!” Tiona jumped up, a giant smile plastered across her face.
Aiz rose, too, a glint in her eye as she adjusted her grip on her silver sword.
They snatched their weapons from off the ground. Twin blades, halberd, greatsword—they all shone with a renewed brilliance as though filled once more with their owners’ fighting spirit.
Raul and the other supporters could only gaze in wonder as, one by one, the first-tiers swelled up with an invigorated dynamism. Gone was the grief and hopelessness. There was only their brilliantly burning spirits.
Bell Cranell…!
Lefiya’s heart ignited with a fiery passion as that name graced her ears.
In her mind, she could see him running out ahead of her, and the thought of it stoked the coals already ablaze within her chest. Following in line with Aiz and the others, she tightened her hands around the grip of her staff and rose to her feet.
Raul and the other supporters looked on in mute amazement and then pulled themselves together and leaped off the ground, jaws set.
A kind of immeasurable energy that went beyond limits had seized the party.
“Raul! You and the others will stay behind and back us up! The rest of us will charge that thing! You, too, Lefiya! You’re with us!” Finn shouted at the reawakened adventurers, returning his eyes to the spirit still at work absorbing magic power from the air, while the supporters scrambled about to retrieve their scattered weapons.
“Understood!”
Once their armaments had been speedily returned to them, Lefiya and the first-tiers readied themselves for their first—and last—charge.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 4 Page 26