Hearing his Monarch's order, what else could Beru possibly say?
[Yes, my liege! I guarantee that your order will be fulfilled!]
Meanwhile, Talahze remained completely unaware of the disaster that was rapidly approaching it. From its hiding place, the Ancient Undead continued observing the battlefield between the Seventh and Eighth Legions, carefully watching everything that happened while making sure to keep itself hidden.
For Talahze, the information it could gather here was simply too important to ignore. An unknown Legion had suddenly appeared in Death Land and was now fighting against the Eighth Legion, so rather than leaving immediately to report what it had already seen, Talahze decided to stay a little longer and observe the battle until the end.
Unfortunately, that decision would become the first and last worst decision of its life.
While Talahze was still focused on the distant battlefield, the light around it suddenly disappeared.
[...?]
At first, Talahze thought something had simply blocked the light from above, but the moment it noticed the enormous shadow covering its body, every instinct inside it suddenly screamed the same thing.
RUN! RUN! RUN!
Talahze immediately tried to move, but before it could even turn around, a large claw came down and grabbed its entire body.
[?!]
The claw tightened before Talahze could react, holding its soft body firmly enough that it couldn't slip away normally.
However, after the first moment of panic passed, Talahze quickly remembered that being physically captured had never been enough to stop it.
After all, Talahze wasn't an Ancient Undead known for overwhelming combat power. What made it troublesome was how ridiculously difficult it was to capture or kill.
As an undead with a slime-like body, Talahze could liquefy itself and freely change its shape, even separating parts of its body to create autonomous clones. On top of that, ten hearts belonging to it were stored elsewhere, and even if its body was completely destroyed, it could consume one of those hearts to recreate itself where it had died.
Because of those abilities, escaping from a single enemy should have been simple.
The moment that thought crossed Talahze's mind, its body immediately liquefied inside Beru's claw before splitting apart. Pieces of the black slime shot away in different directions, rapidly changing shape as they moved until multiple Talahzes were fleeing from Beru at once.
[Hehehe!]
Seeing its clones successfully scatter, Talahze immediately regained some confidence. Its opponent might be incredibly powerful, but there was no need for every clone to escape. As long as even one managed to get away, Talahze would survive and the information it had gathered could still reach Magnus.
And there was no way anyone could capture every single clone in such a short amount of time, right?
Unfortunately for Talahze, the opponent standing behind it was Beru.
The first clone had barely managed to move any distance when Beru's figure suddenly blurred.
WHOOSH!
Before Talahze could understand what had happened, a claw was already wrapped around that clone.
[Eh?]
Another clone immediately changed direction and tried to flee toward the trees, but Beru disappeared again before reappearing directly in front of it. His claw shot forward, grabbed the clone, and the moment it was secured, his figure blurred once more.
[W-Wait!]
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
One clone tried to hide beneath the ground, another changed its body into something smaller and rushed in the opposite direction, while several others scattered as far away from one another as possible.
Beru simply moved between them faster than Talahze could keep track of, and every time his figure briefly became visible, another clone had already been caught.
What should have been Talahze's perfect escape method quickly turned into something completely ridiculous. No matter which direction its clones fled or what shape they took, Beru reached them before they could get far enough away, until less than half a minute later, the chase suddenly ended.
By the time Talahze realized what had happened, every single one of its clones had already been captured.
[...]
For the first time since Beru appeared behind it, Talahze completely froze.
It had already prepared itself to lose several clones if necessary, and if things became truly dangerous, sacrificing one of its stored hearts wasn't something it couldn't accept either. Yet the possibility that someone would simply catch every single clone almost immediately had never even crossed its mind.
The shock was so great that Talahze couldn't even think properly, much less contact Magnus and warn him about what had happened.
Naturally, Beru had no intention of giving it enough time to recover. With every Talahze safely secured, he immediately returned to where Cyrene was waiting.
***
Back on Kizen's side, the tense standoff had continued without any major changes. Bahil, Hong Feng, Aaron, Silage, and the Crow agents were still watching Cyrene carefully when the space beside the pink-haired woman suddenly blurred.
A moment later, Beru reappeared right beside her, just as suddenly as he had disappeared earlier.
His unexpected return immediately caught everyone's attention. After all, they had been on high alert ever since he vanished, worried that he might suddenly appear somewhere and attack them.
Yet despite all their preparations, seeing that terrifying ant-like Shadow suddenly appear again was still enough to nearly give several people on Kizen's side a heart attack.
Their bodies tensed immediately, with more than a few preparing to defend themselves before they realized that Beru hadn't appeared among them. Instead, the insect-like creature had simply returned to Cyrene's side while carrying what looked like an entire bundle of strange black creatures.
Before anyone could figure out what those things were, Beru handed all of them to Cyrene.
[My liege ordered this creature to be captured.]
"Oh~? So this is the little spy?"
Cyrene looked over the strange bundle with obvious curiosity before casually raising one hand. Her fingers gave a small, almost playful wave, and whatever she did caused every Talahze clone to suddenly become completely still.
Watching that happen only left Kizen's group with even more questions.
They had already suspected that the beings standing in front of them were related to summons or perhaps Ancient Undead, especially after everything they had witnessed since arriving in Death Land. However, knowing that much didn't bring them any closer to understanding what Cyrene and Beru actually were.
After staring at the two for a while, Bahil finally turned slightly toward the man beside him.
"Senior..."
Aaron glanced at him without taking his attention completely away from Cyrene and Beru.
"You're an expert in summoning, right? We already know those two are most likely some kind of summons or Ancient Undead, but... what exactly are they?"
Bahil's gaze returned to the two beings standing across from them as his expression became more serious.
"What kind of creatures can give off this much pressure...?"
Even Hong Feng, normally one of the most cheerful professors in Kizen, had remained unusually quiet throughout the standoff. Her eyes stayed fixed on Beru as she gulped slightly, showing just how seriously even she was taking the pressure coming from the two.
Aaron didn't answer Bahil immediately.
He continued observing Beru for several seconds, his expression gradually becoming more complicated before he finally spoke.
"...Actually, I have a rather bold guess."
His answer immediately caught Silage's attention, and the professor looked toward him with visible surprise.
"...You really know them?"
"Well, saying I 'know them' wouldn't be quite right."
Aaron slowly shook his head before looking toward Beru again.
"I've only heard about something that resembles that insect-like one. As for that pink-haired woman beside him, I have no idea who she is. I've never even heard of someone like her before."
Unfortunately for Aaron, the person he was talking about apparently had very good hearing.
The moment his words reached her ears, Cyrene's eyes immediately moved toward him.
"Hmm~?"
Noticing that Cyrene had suddenly turned her attention toward him, Aaron's expression stiffened. Meanwhile, Cyrene placed one hand against her cheek and tilted her head slightly, looking rather offended by what she had just heard.
"How rude! What do you mean, 'that pink-haired woman'?"
As she finished speaking, Cyrene puffed out her cheeks in a small pout. However, the expression didn't last long, and soon, her pout turned into a sweet smile.
Then, while Aaron was still trying to figure out how to respond, she casually raised her hand and gave them another small wave.
"This cute girl has a proper name, you know~♪"
Cloud Retainer: "How insolent! Which woman?!