As Leon fell into his cycle of crowd control and burst damage, the entire battlefield had shifted into the mage's rhythm.
Monster killed, Excelia +1
Monster killed, Excelia +1
Monster killed, Excelia +1
...
...
As the monsters were mercilessly vaporized by his Fireballs, it was as if he could hear the System's cheerful notifications going off in his head.
On the surface he showed nothing, but inside he was drowning in a wave of euphoria.
Behind him, Ais and Heith, completely spent as combatants, stumbled back to Riveria's side.
Heith planted her hands on her hips. Even though the motion was a little wobbly from her drained stamina, she clicked her tongue and arched her eyebrows, staring at the figure ahead... the one with what seemed like an infinite mana bar, using magic like a basic attack, raining down saturation bombardment.
Her face was a picture of "How the hell is that even possible?!" shock, mixed with a sliver of undisguisable envy.
Ais still wore that delicate, expressionless face of hers, her gold irises likewise locked on Leon without a blink.
Her gaze was sharp and focused, as though she were trying to see straight through him to dig out his secret, or maybe just calculating how much longer this insane output pace could physically last.
And out on the battlefield, Leon, now lost in some kind of monster-farming trance, was reveling in the pure joy of efficient harvesting, fully convinced this "Excelia feast" would just keep going forever...
Until Riveria's cool voice, weighted with solemn gravity, reached him from the rear.
"Leon, fall back!"
"..."
His heart jolted, and the smile vanished at once.
Here comes the big one.
"Come forth, crimson lotus flame, merciless blazing fire. Thou art the incarnation of karmic fire. Sweep aside the thousand armies, drop the final curtain on great war. Burn all, Surtr's sword... my name is Alf."
As Riveria's Chanting reached its end, Leon understood instantly. At the edge of his range, he hurled one more Frost Nova to briefly freeze the surging monsters, then fell back without a moment's hesitation.
"Rea Laevateinn!"
The elf royal swung the supreme staff set with its top-grade magical gems, and its tip snapped forward!
The intricate, arcane magic circle beneath her feet expanded instantly, swallowing the entire dense forest.
The next second...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
Countless spiraling pillars of flame erupted skyward, like swords of Damocles dropped straight from hell, rising from every inch of ground the magic circle covered.
In a heartbeat, everything in sight was transformed into a horrifying sea of fire. Trees, earth, monsters, small, medium, large, even the Strengthened Species hiding among them, all of it was swept into the all-consuming inferno.
Before this sword of magic, symbol of victory and annihilation, no monster escaped its verdict of total purification.
"Crackle..."
Stray embers flickered in and out like breaths, carried by the hot wind to settle near Leon's feet.
His hood was blown back by the violent gust, short hair whipping wildly in the scorching winds.
He tilted his head up, eyes reflecting the raging, all-devouring crimson inferno, taking in the pure violence of that all-consuming burn.
Standing before this wide-area bombardment cast by the city's top mage, a Lv. 5 at her peak, Leon felt a storm rise inside him.
This was the first time he'd witnessed the might of a top-tier mage this close.
He'd already tried to overestimate her firepower, and reality still came out looking like something out of a fantasy. The range, the destructive power, you couldn't sum it up in a few words.
It was unbelievable that so much energy could erupt from within Riveria's slender frame.
"The kind of result this one spell just achieved... I don't even know how many weapons a warrior would have to break to match it."
Leon sucked in a breath and murmured the remark aloud.
Riveria heard his muttering, and the corner of her mouth ticked up almost imperceptibly.
"Warriors and mages aren't so easily compared. Everyone has their role, their own duties. In a party, each person has their own task."
"No one is perfect. Everyone has what they're good at and what they aren't. That is exactly why we need the strength of a party or a team to make up for what we lack."
Leon nodded seriously.
"Lady Riveria, I'll take that to heart."
"It's nothing. Every Adventurer understands the principle. Whether they can actually carry it out is the real question."
Leon caught the implication clearly. He glanced at Heith, sprawled out on the ground, thought about the general state of her Familia, and a small smile tugged at his lips.
Wasn't that basically the textbook example of what not to do?
"Hmm?"
Leon and Riveria suddenly noticed something at the same moment. Both sets of sharp eyes snapped to the slope at an angle ahead of them.
"Is that...?"
"Evilus!"
At their alert, Heith's expression changed and she wobbled up to her feet.
Her eyes narrowed, her face contorting with rage, knuckles cracking audibly.
"Finally... decided to show up, you scum!"
"Because of you, the combat clothes I just bought got shredded into rags! I'll make you pay for this!"
Ais said nothing. She simply walked silently to Heith's side, sword in hand.
Leon gave a small laugh and chose to answer with actions rather than words.
"Frost Armor!"
...
On the other side of the slope.
The small-time leader of Evilus, captain of this operation, was staring slack-jawed at the stretch of forest being razed to the ground by that world-ending magic. Cold sweat had already soaked through the back of his robes.
Especially when he made out the face of the elf royal standing at the edge of the inferno with the supreme staff in hand, he froze as though struck by lightning, completely stunned.
"Wh... why?! Why is the Loki Familia's Nine Hell here!?"
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"
"An illusion... this has to be an illusion!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"
He clutched his head and let out a scream, on the verge of breaking.
Watching their captain's mental defenses crumble, the rest of the grunts went ice-cold in the hands and feet, their hearts sinking into numb despair.
"It... it's really her... the Lv. 5 Nine Hell!" someone confirmed through chattering teeth.
"Damn it! What do we do?!"
The moment the words left his mouth, panic spread through the group like plague.
"This isn't what we were told!"
Another voice came with a reckless, I'm-going-down-swinging edge. He turned his crazed eyes on the others and screamed:
"Go back? Mission failure, and the higher-ups will make us wish we were dead anyway!"
"Better to take them down with us! Every one we drag to hell is one we drag to hell!"
Someone seized on that like a last lifeline, pointing at several figures at the edge of the battlefield and crowing:
"That's right! Look over there!"
"Besides Nine Hell, there's also the Sword Princess and Vana Mardoll!"
"Those two are only Lv. 2! With the Magic Swords we've got, we can more than handle them!"
His words were like a sickly flame of hope lit in despair. In an instant, they pulled everyone out of their terror.
"Yeah, yeah, that's right!"
"Take those two down the road with us, dying's worth it!"
"Those are the rising stars of Freya Familia and Loki Familia!"
"Heh, heheheheheh!"
"Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!"
Manic bloodlust swept through them like wildfire, overpowering their fear in an instant.
"Grant them death and salvation!"
"Grant them death and salvation!"
"Grant them death and salvation!"
The group's fanatical chant, their twisted conviction, rose as a final war cry.
However...
"Fireball!"
BOOM BOOM BOOM...!!!
Before their desperate madness could even fully crystallize, a massive Fireball came flying at them and detonated right in the middle of their formation.
"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"
The shrill screams were instantly swallowed by the roar of the explosion!
Several black-robed figures at the center were vaporized outright in the flames.
Those on the edges were flung by the monstrous shockwave, slamming into surrounding rock walls and trees like rag dolls!
BOOM!
BOOM BOOM!
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
And it wasn't over.
It was just the beginning.
A few breaths later, one wagon-wheel-sized Fireball after another was raining down from the sky, hammering the area where they were hiding with saturation bombardment. Rubble, splintered wood, and torn limbs scattered through the explosions.
Behind him, the sight of his underlings being swallowed by flame; in his ears, the unrelenting roar of explosions. In the captain's eyes, that last sliver of fear twisted in extreme despair into something pure and reckless. Pure madness.
He whipped around, his face warping with utter hatred and insanity, and roared with every ounce of his strength:
"A mere Adventurer! Lv. 5 means nothing!"
"A person who is stabbed!!! Will die!!!"
"Grant them death and salvation!"
"Follow me!!!"
...
[Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]