Chapter 186

Chiiiik-

The scorched ground sizzled. The soil and rocks melted and rippled red along the path where the beam had passed.

Hot steam created by the vaporizing ice and scattered corpses covered it. Uprooted trees and half-destroyed structures were also among them.

There was no sign of life in the devastated scene.

The mother body, clinging to the rock wall and hidden in the clouds, quietly observed the scene.

The chunks of flesh glimpsed through the rising smoke were half-mixed forms of humans and monsters. However, the three humans who had blocked its way were nowhere to be seen, as if they had vanished. The monster, slowly rolling its eyeballs, soon looked up at the sky.

The frozen ice crystals were melting and disappearing in the air. The same was true for the giant atmospheric vortex that had been growing.

As if the caster had lost control, the artificially created natural weapon gradually dispersed and returned to its original form. The dark red eyeballs that had been assessing the situation also rolled back into place.

"How trivial."

Eventually, the mother body, spreading its wings wide to both sides, slowly rose from the thick smoke screen. Even then, it trembled its raised protrusions, sensing the air currents around it. It seemed that quite a few things had hidden in this area by now.

At that moment, the mother body's eyeballs suddenly rolled upwards as it caught a faint smell of blood. One foolish shadow that had exposed its position hurriedly fled from view.

The massive body's wings immediately turned in that direction. Its red-hot maw was already wide open, savagely snapping as if ready to chew up anything.

A few seconds later, the ferocious head emerged, piercing through the thick clouds. At that moment, Isabella, who had been waiting in the sky, immediately signaled to the commanders surrounding the creature.

"All-out attack-!"

The mother body, instantly recognizing the mana masses pouring in from all directions, once again wrapped its entire body with its hardened wings. The battle uniform it had bitten and pierced with its teeth was only soaked in blood, flat with nothing inside. The enraged monster's cry fiercely echoed throughout Peak 118.

Kwagwagwagwang-!

The creature, which had glided downwards to avoid the bombardment and fled between the mountain ranges, frantically jumped on top of the sheer cliffs, striking the rocks with its blunt tail.

The weakened ground, where vegetation had been uprooted, easily split, and huge rocks began to roll down one by one, gradually increasing in scale. The swept-up soil and rock fragments soon became a vast landslide, threatening the members below.

"L-landslide! Everyone get to higher ground!"

"No, maintain formation! Protect the barrier stones!"

While the members with differing opinions failed to make a decision, golems and earth-attribute mages flew in to directly block the oncoming soil. However, due to the overwhelming pressure, the mound of earth crossed over the foot of the mountain to the nearby flatlands, even digging up the underground traps that were crucial to the operation.

Before anyone could shout to avoid it, the impacted traps caused fierce explosions, scattering pale smoke. Moreover, it spread rapidly like a lit fuse, creating a chain of explosions that turned the surrounding area into a wasteland.

Bang-bang- Kwaaang-!

The impact on the ground was so severe that soil and rock fragments flew up to quite a high altitude. As successive destructive forces and vibrations swept through, the softened ground began to sink into empty underground caves. The barrier stones that had just been activated couldn't have been safe either.

In the midst of this chaos, the mother body spread its wings and charged towards a point where space was rippling in front. This was because the poured soil had been blocked everywhere else, but only burst out in that area.

Just as the mother body flew relentlessly towards the barrier of the defense line where a gap had formed, the voice of the annoying human, thought to be dead, echoed from somewhere.

"Meterion, catch it!"

At that moment, savagely rising ice pillars crossed in front of the disrupted barrier like bars. Soon after, the dust that had billowed up from the explosion's aftermath quickly gathered near the ground.

The dust, transformed into a giant hand, instantly swallowed the tail of the flying mother body as if to prevent it from approaching the barrier. Then it strongly pulled back, spinning it several times in the air before using centrifugal force to throw it forcefully into the distant sky.

Kyaaaak-

The massive body, which seemed like it would fly away cleanly, didn't move as far as expected, perhaps due to its weight. The creature, which had been shrieking sharply, soon flew high and instantly escaped from the range of the hand.

But what followed to cover the creature's view was another human who was thought to have died from the beam.

As if she had known it would come here, Charlotte activated the magic circle she had deployed in advance, firing transparent threads towards the mother body's back. The spider web covering the queen's body then clung to its flapping wings, gradually reducing the range of motion of its skeleton and muscles.

Because of this, the massive body that couldn't overcome gravity gradually fell downwards, and Isabella, who had been waiting for the moment, burst a purple sphere, thoroughly soaking the creature's entire body with deadly poison.

As the toxin dug into the cracks of the split hide, the mother body writhed in pain. Thanks to the creature angrily spewing flames and yellow gas in all directions, Liner, who had identified its position even in the clouds, signaled to Hugo standing opposite him.

"Commander."

Hugo met his eyes and nodded lightly.

The other's empty left arm, wrapped in the sleeve of his battle uniform, kept shimmering, but given the situation, he deliberately withheld worried and sympathetic glances. Both of his arms were completely burned from directly blocking the beam, and the members below had also suffered severe casualties.

Liner, receiving the signal with a determined look, immediately deployed a wide magic circle in front of the Commander. Then, dozens of ice spears floating in the sky passed through the magic circle that flashed like thunder and poured down in an instant.

Then, they extended at a terrifying speed towards the mother body, which was finding its normal orbit again after melting the spider web with flames, their hardened tips gleaming.

The queen, unable to regain its senses from the coordinated attack, soon discovered something glittering in the air and hurriedly spread its hardened wings.

However, unable to withstand the power of the 'real' hardening technique and the added acceleration, the sharp ice spears tore through the creature's wings and firmly embedded themselves in its hide and flesh.

Amidst the creature's bodily fluids bursting like fireworks and its monstrous cries, Hugo and Liner, grasping hardened ice greatswords, charged at the mother body at almost the speed of light. Then, quickly attaching themselves to the rear of the creature, they tried to cut off both wing joints to prevent it from flying any further.

But at that moment, a red ball of flame flickered in the queen's maw.

'...!'

Hugo, who noticed that energy first despite being behind, instinctively pushed Liner away with his body. Then, putting up a barrier in front of the following battalion commanders, he urgently warned,

"It's a breath! Get away from it!"

Kyaaaak-

No sooner had the two avoided it than the enraged queen began to emit violently, shooting flames in all directions.

At the Commander's voice and the heat rushing towards them, all the nearby battalion commanders also retreated.

Dark red flames erupted explosively from the creature's maw, as if spewing from a flamethrower.

On a completely different scale from what it had fired at Charlotte inside the fortress, the savage flames mixed with black smoke boiled with strong pressure and destructive power. The heat evaporated the clouds floating in the sky and burned all the vegetation growing on the peaks and ground.

Because of this, as the fire spread to the Council's temporary forward base positioned on the mountainside and the area, part of the southern land of the peninsula instantly became a sea of fire. The mother body continuously spewed breaths from within the fiercely burning flames to prevent anyone from approaching it.

At that moment, a sharp sound of air friction, cutting through the void, instantly flew in, aiming for the queen's nape.

Kiiiing- Kwang-!

Kyaaaak-

Suddenly ambushed from within the flames where surely no living creature could survive, the mother body, sensing the threat, howled fiercely. Following this, blue-glowing lightning of ultra-high temperature flew in, persistently bombarding the creature's skull and nape.

The mother body tried to find the attacker, busily rolling its ten eyeballs while protecting its nape with its long tail.

Soon, what appeared in the red pupils that felt heat on their spine was a golden fire demon charging in, aiming for its vital point.