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Chapter 325: We Meet Again
"Since that's the case, we don't need to keep hiding either." Riveria supported the slightly weakened girl beside her, slowly standing up and saying in a low voice, "Ais, can you still fight?"
"Yeah." Ais nodded, her eyes turning sharp once more.
"Um... shouldn't I make myself scarce?" Alise stood with her hands on her hips, tilting her head with a playful smile. "If Ottar and the others see me, I feel like things are going to get really bad for me."
"That would be for the best," Riveria's expression turned serious. "The fewer people who know about your situation, the better. Keep it hidden as long as possible. The moment news of the dead returning to life leaks to the outside world, it will trigger unimaginable chaos. Both Orario and the entire lower world will be shaken to their cores."
"Riveria."
Just then, Ais, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke up. Looking up at the cave ceiling above them, she reached out and gently tugged on Riveria's sleeve.
Riveria blinked, following Ais's gaze upward.
The solid ceiling, a weave of crystal and rock, was trembling violently. Countless tiny pebbles and dust rained down like a downpour.
"Not good!"
Riveria's face instantly paled. Almost subconsciously, she grabbed Ais's hand and sprinted toward the cave's exit.
Rumble—!!!
The very next moment, the ceiling above them shattered with an earsplitting boom. A colossal object, enveloped in a cloud of dust and debris, crashed heavily and brutally right where they had been standing just a moment prior.
"Whoa, what just happened?!" Startled out of her skin by the sudden catastrophe, Alise reflexively threw her hands up to block the choking wave of dust.
"Tempest!" Ais chanted softly.
A green wind materialized out of nowhere, instantly blowing away the suffocating dust. The scene in the center of the cave clearly presented itself to the three of them.
A massive, debris-dropping hole had been smashed through the ceiling. And lying quietly directly beneath that hole was a gigantic serpentine monster covered in deep blue scales. Its body was riddled with countless gruesome wounds, and it had long since lost all signs of life.
"Is this... a Lambton?"
Riveria instantly recognized the species—a monster that was only supposed to appear on the deeper floors. Her brows furrowed tightly.
"Why would it... be here?"
Before Riveria could puzzle out how a deep-floor monster had 'fallen' all the way from the 27th Floor, a pitch-black silhouette plunged out of the massive crater in the ceiling right behind it with a deafening crash.
Bang!
The figure slammed heavily onto the corpse of the dead Lambton, letting out a dull, booming thud.
It was a bizarrely shaped, pitch-black monster that neither Riveria nor Ais had ever seen before.
Almost half its body had been beaten to pieces. On its sole remaining left arm, a claw resembling a vicious blade flickered with an ominous blue-purple light. Bone-deep slash marks and burn wounds covered its form, and blue blood steadily gushed from its injuries.
Yet, despite being half-crippled, the ferocious and tyrannical aura radiating from the monster instantly caused Riveria's and Ais's nerves to pull taut.
But Alise's reaction was even faster, and far more intense. The second she laid eyes on that monster, the vibrant, energetic smile vanished completely from the red-haired girl's face.
"Riveria, Ais, be careful!" she shouted a warning. "That monster is dangerous!"
As if responding to her warning, the Juggernaut also noticed the three people inside the cave. It slowly turned around. Inside its hollow eye sockets, two clumps of blood-red light instantly flared with a bloodthirsty, vicious glare.
Riveria's reaction was purely instinctual. The staff in her hand lit up with a faint glow, and the complex incantations of high-tier magic already began to flow from her lips.
"Don't use magic!" Alise's voice rang out again, laced with anxiety. "That thing's armor reflects magic!"
That single sentence made Riveria cancel her chant immediately. She looked back at Alise.
"You know this monster?"
"Yeah, of course I do."
Alise slowly drew the longsword at her waist. Her face formed a smile full of self-deprecation and sorrow.
"After all... we died by its hands."
Boom—!
Those words exploded like a thunderclap in Riveria's and Ais's minds. Both of their eyes went wide, and when they looked back at the pitch-black monster, their gazes were completely different.
They both knew the Astrea Familia had been nearly annihilated due to the malicious schemes of Evilus. But the specific details of that event were largely unknown, even to the Loki Familia's extensive intelligence network.
They never imagined that the entity responsible for wiping out the Astrea Familia was a never-before-seen monster like this.
Roar—!
Before they could snap out of their shock, the Juggernaut transformed into a pitch-black blur, instantly closing the distance to the nearest targets: Riveria and Ais.
That sole remaining Destruction Claw came whistling in, accompanied by a vicious gust of wind that tore through the air.
Though Ais's body was weak, her combat instincts were etched into her very bones. Her sword, Desperate, carved a silver trajectory, perfectly parrying the Juggernaut's attack.
Clang—
A deafening crash echoed. Ais's body was involuntarily forced back several steps, every footfall leaving a deep imprint in the solid ground.
If she had been in her prime, this half-crippled monster wouldn't pose any threat to her. But unfortunately... she was currently at her absolute weakest.
However, she wasn't fighting alone.
Riveria swung the staff in her hands. Even though she couldn't cast magic, she ruthlessly smashed the staff into the Juggernaut's joints, forcing the monster to stumble.
Dodging the thrust of the Juggernaut's pitch-black tail, Riveria quickly backed away, opening up the distance.
Immediately after, a red silhouette wrapped in blazing flames charged fiercely forward like a cannonball bursting from the barrel.
"Bastard, we meet again!"
Alise's longsword and the Juggernaut's claws clashed madly in midair, sparking a brilliant cascade of sparks. The crisp, dense symphony of grinding metal echoed violently throughout the entire cave.
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