Chapter 64

"Wait here. This is the safest place."

Leonardo said as he helped the member he had been holding with both arms to stand on his own feet again.

The member, who had been in his arms and now stood on the ground, barely maintaining balance, slowly nodded at his words with dazed eyes, as if lacking a sense of reality.

While blankly watching his back as he walked away, stretching his shoulders and neck, the member suddenly remembered the words of gratitude he had forgotten and belatedly parted his lips.

However, before his voice could reach, Leonardo, who had lightly leaped into the air, glanced back, leaving an incomprehensible smile, and instantly disappeared from sight.

"They're coming!"

In front of the eyes of the 6th Battalion members who had formed a line beside their comrade, the Sigal's grasp stretched out at a terrifying speed. Delua's golem, which had been half-tattered, hurriedly blocked the front, but its body was pierced by the Sigal's heavy fist, losing balance.

"Commander!"

As Marlen, who was behind the collapsing golem, urgently shouted, Delua, gritting her teeth, controlled the golem's arms to catch onto the cliff above. Thanks to that, the catastrophe of the members being crushed could be prevented, but it couldn't stop the approaching Sigal.

The Sigal, which had been shaking its arm stuck in the shattered rock, pushed forward with its weight like that. The golem's two arms, which had been barely holding onto the wall, were scraped against the cliff, and rock fragments and piles of dirt fell.

As the hazy dust rose and the valley became blurry, the Sigal's eyes, staring at its prey, became even clearer. At that moment, when the creature opened its mouth wide, filled with rotten smell and dried blood, reaching out its hand towards the prey beyond the obstacle.

Kraaaah!

Suddenly, the Sigal's agonized roar was heard, and the huge arm that had approached right in front of the members was cleanly severed.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the Sigal's filthy tongue and head were sliced off, and the creature's blood, which was said to flow only in the head, neck, and spinal cord, gushed out like a fountain.

The severed neck fell to the ground with a loud thud and wriggled for a while. The headless body collapsed as it was, colliding with the Sigal beside it, and the other creature also fell over due to its massive weight.

The 6th Battalion members, who had been highly tense, blankly stared at the Sigal horde, whose arms and necks were suddenly severed and fell like dominoes.

Leonardo's figure, which had disappeared, abruptly appeared in front of the member trapped in the hardened Sigal's hand. Leonardo squeezed between the creature's fingers, leaning his back against one side and strongly pushing the opposite side with his foot, forcefully widening the gap. Then, the fingers that had been stiff and unyielding cracked with a crunching sound.

After creating a fissure and changing his posture, he grabbed the fingers with both arms and completely broke them by bending them backward. Then, he threw the heavy boulder far away and pulled the trapped member's arm to lift him out of there.

"Step back."

The member, who had almost been sucked out by the strong force, immediately nodded vigorously before even coming to his senses upon hearing his words. After confirming that the member had stepped back while holding his abdomen, Leonardo immediately turned his eyes and rushed towards the Sigal.

He appeared like a flash of light in the darkness and slashed the Sigal's torso and arms at a speed too fast for the eyes to follow. The Sigal, unable to even discover him, helplessly had its body severed and collapsed while spilling blood.

Its screams echoed through the cliffs like a reverberation, and the blood flowing from the monsters formed a stream between the valleys, flowing down to the lower elevation. It was like a scene from hell.

Leonardo flew at a fast speed, confusing the Sigals' sight, and while they were disoriented, he briefly appeared in front of them and stopped.

The Sigal tried to grab him as he appeared in front, but instead, it strongly struck its own head with its fist. Then, unable to withstand the impact, its body fell backward, and Leonardo took advantage of that gap to deliver a powerful blow to the Sigal's head with his fist from above, as if crushing it. The creature's head, which was not only dented but also crumpled, couldn't withstand the pressure and burst in all directions.

Delua stopped controlling her golem and watched that sight.

Feeling threatened as their kin was instantly defeated by Leonardo, three Sigals simultaneously rushed at him. Leonardo extended the length of the flame sword he was holding, turning it into a greatsword. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he deeply pierced the three creatures at once, as if skewering them on a skewer, and with strong arm strength, he split them in half in an instant.

The three pairs of upper and lower bodies, completely separated, wriggled in a scattered state.

"..."

The 6th Battalion members couldn't say a word as they witnessed the monster extermination that was close to a massacre.

At that moment, an eerie shadow loomed over the already dark valley, and a creature of an extraordinary size emerged from the fog behind. It was the largest Sigal they had ever seen.

Even Delua had never seen such a terrifyingly large size before, so she just looked up with her mouth open. That creature, perhaps having heard the miserable screams of its kin, growled at Leonardo and stared at him warily.

Eventually, the creature tore off the cliffs on both sides with its hands, picked up heavy rocks in both hands, and began throwing them at him. Even though huge rocks were flying towards him, Leonardo didn't dodge because the 6th Battalion members were behind him, and he lightly shattered them with a single swing of his sword. Then, he frowned and muttered,

"This is why bipedal creatures that use their hands are troublesome."

Leonardo, who had been floating in the air, landed on the ground and stood in front of the 6th Battalion members, stretching out his arm towards the Sigal. Sensing the dangerous energy emanating from him, Delua signaled her battalion members to step back.

A fierce aura of mana swirled around him, and a current of wind that penetrated the valley was created. The 6th Battalion members shuddered at the overwhelming sensation of directly facing the mana flowing from Leonardo, feeling suffocated just by being in the same space.

Even the Sigal, with its low intelligence, instinctively faltered at that energy and showed signs of stepping back. In front of Leonardo, who leisurely gazed at the Sigal, a huge golden magic circle large enough to cover the entire creature was generated.

Soon, sparks crackled fiercely from his hand, and in a fleeting moment that felt less than a second, a fiercely glowing lightning bolt appeared and was fired at high speed toward his front.

As if a giant thunderbolt had struck from the sky, the lightning that extended from his hand pushed away the corpses of the monsters piled up in the valley, burning them all, and even engulfed the huge Sigal at the very back, shattering it into pieces.

At the thunderous sound that shook the surroundings, the 6th Battalion members put up barriers and covered one ear.

When they closed their eyes reflexively at the destructive light and opened them again, the cliffs that had been narrowly rising on both sides had all been blown away, and the corpses of the monsters that had been piled up, along with the last standing Sigal, were all crushed beyond recognition. The thick fog that had been surrounding the area also flew into the air and dispersed along the wind.

The sky that had been obscured was revealed in the valley, and sunlight shone through. As Leonardo's mana spread, the area was brightly illuminated for a brief moment.

However, it was short-lived as the blood and flesh of the Sigal, whose limbs had been shattered by the explosion, poured down like rain and hail.

Under the sky where a golden glow rippled, the sight of red chunks of flesh falling and splattering on the ground with a thud was grotesque yet thrilling, sending shivers throughout the body.

Leonardo stood still with a barrier in the midst of the falling debris of the explosion, like a red rain. Not a single drop of blood was stained on his ivory-colored mage robe.

A strong wind blew through the cliffs, and his hair and cloak fluttered.

The blood rain pouring down above it adorned Leonardo's back, who stood silently in the middle of the hellish scene, in an oddly splendid manner. That scene simultaneously stimulated a primal fear and evoked an indescribable sense of awe.

In front of Delua, who was watching that sight in a daze, a large chunk of Sigal's flesh fell with a thud, splattering blood on her face. Delua lowered her eyes and blankly stared at the lump of flesh that was still wriggling with cells. Then, she swiftly wiped the blood on her face with the back of her hand.

Silence once again descended upon the valley where countless debris had fallen. However, that scene, where the ground was completely soaked with dismembered corpses, could never be called peaceful like before.

Leonardo silently looked down at his hand.

'Is it because I wore the handcuffs for a long time? The control is not good.'

Just as he had blown up the third peak when his goal was to blow up two peaks, due to wearing the handcuffs for a long time, a problem arose where the scale of his mana was activated larger than expected.

Thanks to that, in front of Leonardo's eyes, who had only intended to blow away the Sigal, a path that was cleanly opened to the point where it was ambiguous to call it a valley was once again spread out.

Although it wasn't a big deal now, if he couldn't control it like this on the huge peaks he would encounter countless times in the future, it could cause landslides or even erupt volcanoes, making it a considerably dangerous problem.

Leonardo clicked his tongue at his mana control that had become terrible just because he had worn the handcuffs for a long time, losing his sense of control. He withdrew the barrier and turned around, walking towards where the 6th Battalion members were.

He scanned the surroundings once and confirmed that there were no major injuries by his standards, then walked through the middle of their formation and said,

"Let's go, we'll lose the procession."

Behind him, who had cleanly done his job and passed by as if nothing had happened, the gruesome scene of the massacre he had left behind was visible.

The red valley of blood where not a single monster was alive, and the huge gorge created by his mana completely blowing it away. The blond man in a neat ivory-colored mage robe and a black cloak, leisurely walking through it.

Delua and Marlen, who had been watching his back, suddenly met each other's eyes without a word.

They kept silent for a moment, and as if they knew that what they wanted to say was the same just by looking into each other's eyes, they simultaneously spoke with intense sincerity, without anyone taking the lead.

"Damn, he's cool."