Chapter 95

As the ground shook with a resounding sound, Hugo and Leonardo raised their heads, became vigilant, and scanned their surroundings.

Leonardo stopped speaking and sharpened his senses. Sensing an unusual energy, Hugo used the wind to blow away all the swirling smoke.

As the smoke cleared and visibility was secured to some extent, the vast plains beyond the ridge in front of the ridge where they were standing were revealed. And before long, the ground vibrated irregularly, and that vibration gradually approached closer.

Eventually, their eyes caught the culprit of the vibration, spewing out from between the foothills, raising dust at a fast speed. The pitch-black swarm running like crazy towards the unfolded plains, as if whipped, was rushing urgently somewhere, crossing their line of sight.

Hugo narrowed his eyes at the number that seemed to be easily thousands.

"Is it Dermocas?"

As soon as his words ended, Leonardo suddenly leaped to jump towards the plains ahead to exterminate the creatures. However, the moment his feet left the ground, his body was suddenly pulled back and couldn't go higher. Wondering why, it was because Hugo had wrapped his firm arm around Leonardo's waist as he was about to fly up, preventing him from advancing.

Leonardo, who had been half-floating in the air and then had his feet touch the ground again due to Hugo's strength, looked back at him with a quite startled face. Eventually, he frowned, grabbed Hugo's arm that was pulling his waist, and asked,

"What are you doing?"

Hugo shook his head.

"You're very tired. Don't intervene."

For a moment, Leonardo stared at him as if he had heard something strange. Then, he turned his head, looked at the thousands of swarms moving at a fast speed before his eyes, and asked,

"Then what about those creatures?"

Hugo pulled him a little further back before releasing his waist.

"I'll handle them. You stay still."

At those words, Leonardo blankly looked at Hugo with puzzled eyes. Of course, he knew that he was strong, but he knew that his explosive mana was more suitable than the nature of Hugo's main attribute mana to handle that scale.

Hugo held Leonardo's hand tightly this time, lest he might rush out. As the strong grip conveying the meaning not to intervene was transmitted through his hand, Leonardo decided to watch what he was doing, feeling absurd. It seemed like a good opportunity to see Agrizendro using long-range attacks.

"Perhaps because it's been raining continuously, the clouds are nice today."

Hugo muttered as if talking to himself, looking at the thick clouds in the sky. Leonardo also raised his head and looked at the sky.

At the moment he was thinking about what was so nice, Leonardo felt a powerful energy completely different from Hugo's mana he had felt so far.

Not the calmly surging cool mana, but the explosive mana felt along with the cruel chill that seemed to freeze and tear the skin. Although it was clearly a different nature from his own mana, the emitted energy and impact were undeniably powerful.

Leonardo moved his gaze to Hugo's face, feeling the intense energy transmitted more fully through his held hand. At the same time, a strong wind gradually blew, shaking his hair as it passed by. It wasn't just a gust of wind. A strange and overwhelming force that moved the entire air in the area.

Looking up at Hugo, Leonardo suddenly narrowed his brows, seeing the thick clouds slowly moving above his head.

'Is the cloud moving because of the air flow?'

Before he could even be amazed inwardly, the air currents brushing his skin were unusual. Leonardo unknowingly parted his lips slightly.

The beating sound that began to resonate in his body after sensing the powerful mana mixed with the majestic sound spreading to the sky through the flow of the atmosphere. Even the creatures that had been running like crazy seemed to falter as if they had felt something strange as the nature of the air completely changed.

In the meantime, Hugo stretched out his right hand towards the sky in the direction where the Dermocas swarm could be seen. Leonardo closely observed his actions.

In general, when a mage used magic with their hands, it was to more easily draw out mana and visibly shape it using the hands that could move most comfortably as a medium.

However, Agrizendro had often shown the ability to freely use mana without using his hands much, so Leonardo became quite curious about what kind of magic he had stretched out his hand to shape.

As if responding to that expectation, a loud sound that could be heard when thunder struck came from the sky, and a huge vortex of clouds began to form as the air convection occurred towards where Hugo's hand was pointing.

The clouds that had been spread out in the vast sky were sucked into one vertex, becoming a storm of a fairly large diameter. As more clouds gathered, the force of a powerful low pressure drew in all the air from all directions, creating the shape of a destructive tornado.

Leonardo blankly stared at the scene, feeling the wind created by his mana. Eventually, when he turned his gaze back to Hugo, he saw him lowering his arm that had been stretched towards the sky to the direction where the creatures were and chanting a spell.

"Mega Storm."

As the solemn voice resounded, the slowly rotating vortex of clouds spun rapidly. An intense bursting sound was heard in the sky, and at the end of the huge storm, the icy water vapor transformed into sharp ice and plunged towards the black swarm running far away.

Kwaaaang―!

As the end of the storm pierced the ground, the vibration shaking the ground was felt once more. Following that, the screams of the creatures dying, sliced by the pouring long and straight ice spears, were heard. The creatures caught in the storm and dragged up collided with huge chunks of ice in the air and exploded, falling like meteors along with the fragments.

Those numerous corpses and chunks of ice trampled and crushed the creatures on the ground, turning the middle of the plains into a scene of chaos.

Kiaaaak―!

When the creatures scattered to avoid the judgment descending from the sky, a blue magic circle covering the sky once more unfolded. Then, ice walls gushed out from the ground, blocking the retreat of the Dermocas, and thick water serpents crawled out from the cracks and strangled and bit the creatures.

Although the inside wasn't vividly visible because the surface of the ice walls was opaque, it was obvious even without looking that the creatures were struggling to survive and dying miserably.

The acidic liquid from the torn bodies melted the ice, but as the ice walls melted, new walls endlessly rose from the ground, making it seem like a fortress for slaughtering the creatures had unfolded in the middle of the vast plains.

Leonardo silently admired the sight.

'Strong.'

Agrizendro's mana was clearly not of an emitting nature. However, his mana still possessed destructive power and impact comparable to his own explosive mana. The reason it was possible was probably due to the perfect trinity of his vast mana, the adaptability of the techniques he used, and his precise control ability.

Apart from using hands, the reason why mages chanted spells was to manifest magic with the shaped mana, reduce the casting speed, and increase the scale.

The reason why Leonardo didn't usually chant spells well was because the manifestation speed of magic was faster than he thought, and his primitive mana was strong enough that he didn't need to increase the scale.

However, the magic that Hugo Agrizendro was chanting and using now, in Leonardo's view, went beyond the conceptual level of reducing the casting speed and increasing the scale.

The huge magic he had shaped in the sky was reminiscent of a natural disaster as it actually utilized nature, and the two other magics that additionally erected ice walls and drew out thick streams of water were being executed independently without spells, sufficiently proving their destructive power.

'Even if I release what's on my neck, I'm not sure if I'm stronger.'

Leonardo felt pure awe at the sight that filled his vision. That's how strong he was, this man.

At that moment, the creatures that had been struggling to survive inside the ice walls dug their claws into the ice, stepped on it, and crawled up. Not only that, they trampled on the bodies of their kin to survive and climbed up, eventually jumping over the tall and huge wall and escaping the fortress of slaughter.

As the escaped Dermocas began to run again, Leonardo, who saw it, alternately stared at the direction the creatures were heading and the huge swirling clouds.

'If it's that scale...'

He thought it was a good opportunity to try what he had only theoretically thought about so far.

In fact, although he was already quite tired from consuming a lot of mana and stamina, he thought that seeing a tornado created with that level of mana in front of his eyes might only be possible now when Hugo Agrizendro was in the Elder Millie Peninsula.

Therefore, he concentrated mana not on his right hand that was held by Hugo, but on his left hand, even if it was a bit overexerting.

Eventually, intense sparks flew from Leonardo's hand, and soon golden lightning was grasped in his hand.

As Hugo felt his mana and turned to the side, Leonardo threw the lightning in his hand with all his might towards the huge storm. The lightning crossed the void at a fast speed and soon disappeared into the clouds without a trace.

Hugo raised one eyebrow and moved his gaze along the trajectory the lightning had flown. Eventually, the entire gloomy cloud flashed and emitted light for a moment. As the storm itself became a large capacitor, thunder and lightning began to strike due to the rapid low pressure.

Leonardo, sensing that the simulation he had only run in his mind had a chance of success, stretched out his arm towards where the fleeing creatures were and chanted a spell.

"Thunder Stroke."

The sky briefly turned yellow and spread dazzling light in all directions. In an instant, a discharge occurred in the air, drawing zigzag lines, and a huge lightning bolt struck heavily in the middle of the plains.

At the same time, a bursting sound and a fierce explosion occurred, and a gust of wind rushed to where the two were standing. Hugo immediately shielded Leonardo's front with his own body and cast a barrier in the direction the gust was blowing from.

Positively charged particles struck back up to the clouds, causing lightning strikes, and the sky flashed a few more times as a result. The moment he felt that the thunder sounded particularly louder due to the sudden high temperature expanding the air, lightning fell from the thundercloud to the plains, burning everything on the ground.

As lightning struck the huge ice walls, an even bigger explosion occurred. As a result, the Dermocas with ice shards stuck in their bodies tried to flee but were struck by lightning, leaving no trace of their forms.

The bottom of the plains boiled with the soil burned by fire and the acidic liquid that burst out from the creatures' bodies, and the piles of corpses that had been piled up in the area disappeared without a trace, leaving only black powder fluttering.

Perhaps because the medium was good, Leonardo felt the energy draining from his entire body at the unexpectedly tremendous power, but he still poked his head out to see the front that Hugo had blocked.

Although a few creatures survived here and there, most of them were either burned by lightning or electrocuted to death, and the ground was completely scorched black and devastated.

At that moment, when Leonardo was feeling somewhat satisfied while looking at it, he suddenly felt a gaze from above, and when he raised his head, Agrizendro was looking down at him with a face that had a lot to say. At that, Leonardo frowned and took the initiative.

"Well, this hand stayed still."

As if he knew that he was going to say something because he didn't listen to the words to stay still, Hugo shook his head while looking at Leonardo, who was holding up his tightly grasped right hand and shaking it in front of his eyes.