Leon's face darkened at her words, the corner of his mouth twitching silently.
It brought back some less-than-pleasant memories.
Luck?
Persephone clearly hadn't seen him when his luck was actually bad...
"I'll go collect the loot. Nobody come near."
Then, under the group's vigilant watch, Leon cautiously layered himself with Frost Armor before approaching the charred remains step by careful step, ready to recover the Magic Stone and any rare Drop Items that might exist.
...
As Leon slowly closed in on the corpse, everyone's nerves wound tighter. Only after he was standing safely beside the charcoal-like remains, Carving Knife drawn, crouching down to work, with still nothing out of the ordinary happening, did the group quietly exhale.
Laurier laughed lightly and said to Aura, "See? Even a Moss Giant with that kind of vitality, Strengthened Species or not, there's no way it could play dead a second time after eating that many Fireballs from Leon plus all of our attacks."
"Hmph, pulling off one fake-death ambush was only possible because this was our first time exploring down here. We got burned by inexperience."
She wasn't making excuses. It was just the truth.
Pioneering unknown territory and routine exploration were two completely different levels of difficulty.
"Laurier! Watch out!"
"?"
"Upper left!"
"Those are... Iguazu!?"
"No! Rose...!"
Jeanne's words had barely left her lips before Rose had already moved in front of Laurier and Aura, seemingly instantaneous.
"Barri!"
"Pure White Kite Shield!"
The very next second after Rose's shield was enveloped in pure white light...
A storm of flesh-on-steel impacts hammered against her shield like a downpour, the sound erupting in everyone's ears all at once!
"Holy shit!"
Leon was still clutching the large Magic Stone he'd just extracted from the Moss Giant. He spun around... and saw a swarm of countless Iguazu forming a kamikaze squadron, launching a terrifying suicide assault against Rose as she braced behind her shield!
"What the hell is this!?"
He stood rooted to the spot, jaw hanging open. He'd known all about the Iguazu's characteristics from the manuals and reference materials, but seeing this insane kamikaze attack pattern up close and personal...
It still delivered a massive shock, even to someone with two lifetimes of memories under his belt.
"Stop gawking and fight back!!"
Persephone's sharp bark snapped the stunned elf girls out of their daze. At the same time, she rapidly sidestepped to Rose's flank, drew her silver sword, and cut through the air in a blur, slicing down several incoming Iguazu in an instant!
The Iguazu that couldn't complete their suicide runs dropped like rain in front of Persephone, and within moments the ground before her was carpeted with a thin layer of small Magic Stones.
"Fireball!"
A streak of red trailing flame arced over everyone's heads and detonated in midair with a thunderous blast!
The flash lit up every tense face, and charred Iguazu corpses rained down in the wake of the shockwave.
"Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!"
Leon hurled one Fireball after another, each detonating in midair like fireworks. The feeling was... incredible.
"Hahaha! Now THIS is a fight!"
"If flying monsters weren't so damn rare, I'd have been doing this ages ago!"
Just as Leon was about to completely lose himself in the moment...
Jeanne's expression twisted as Revelation activated without warning.
"Leon, watch out!!!"
From the darkness of the cavern, a beam of light no thicker than a pinky finger shot out, crossing dozens of meters in the blink of an eye and striking Leon dead-on as he was busy lobbing Fireballs at the Iguazu swarm.
The explosion swallowed everything. Leon's figure was instantly consumed by the blast.
Except for Rose, who was still defending against the Iguazu kamikaze runs, everyone froze for a beat after the explosion. Then the screaming started.
"LEON!!!"
The color drained from Jeanne's face. She was already lifting her foot to abandon her position and rush toward the blast site.
"Jeanne, calm down! You trying to get us all killed here?"
Rose's sharp shout stopped Jeanne in her tracks. At the same time, while maintaining Pure White Kite Shield's continuous activation for defense and recovery, Rose began a second chant:
"O Gold!"
"Golden Oath!"
As the magic took effect, a golden ring of light bloomed at the feet of every party member, its patterns shimmering like the branches of a golden tree. A warm, surging power flowed through their entire bodies in an instant, bringing tangible enhancement.
Rose had chosen not to dump the full massive boost onto herself alone. Instead, she'd gone with the group-wide buff, covering the entire party.
"Cough, cough..."
"Don't worry, I'm fine!"
From the dust cloud kicked up by the shattered rock wall, Leon's voice rang out.
"Cough... almost choked to death!"
The dust gradually cleared, and an arm thrust out from the rubble. Then a dirt-covered, somewhat disheveled figure climbed his way out.
Looking closely, despite being coated head to toe in dust and looking far from dignified, the thin, barely-holding-together layer of Frost Armor around him was still stubbornly intact, providing that final layer of protection.
The laser sneak attack from the cavern tunnel clearly hadn't breached Leon's absurdly over-stacked defensive layers. The real reason he'd embarrassed himself in front of all these women was simply that he'd been caught off guard, taken the beam to the face, and the resulting explosion had launched him into the rock wall. That was it.
As for actual injuries, Frost Armor had absorbed every last bit of damage. The sorry state he was in was nothing but cosmetics.
"Damn it!"
Leon wiped the grime from his face, yanked off his hood, and glared into the cavern's dark depths where a monster's silhouette was gradually materializing. He let out a cold laugh.
"So it's not just one Strengthened Species, huh? Interesting. First a Moss Giant, and before it even gets a chance to mourn its little buddy, next up is a Light Quartz!?"
The Light Quartz. A crystal-type floating monster found on Floors 25 through 27. True to its name, it was essentially a diamond-shaped crystal hovering some distance off the ground.
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