"And then there's that silver-haired swordswoman with technique beyond Kaguya's, speed faster than Ryuu's, clearly above Level 2, and almost certainly in possession of a rare skill..."
"Doesn't that mean Leon's entire group leveled up in a short period of time? And some of them more than once?"
After hearing Lyra's analysis and summary, everyone sucked in a collective breath.
"What the hell are these people?"
"Their leveling speed is absolutely ridiculous!"
"Something's off. A hundred percent off!"
Lyra struggled to her feet and let out a self-deprecating laugh.
"If they're leveling up that fast, doesn't that make us in Astraea Familia, stuck in place, look kind of... pathetic?"
"What do you think, Alise, Kaguya, Ryuu, Neze, Maryuu?"
Watching her companions' faces flush red with shame, Lyra turned her gaze to those still lying on the ground.
"Noin, Asta, Ryana, Celty, Iska, you all just stay down."
"But when Lady Astraea asks what happened, you'd better be able to give her a straight answer."
With that, the standing members exchanged glances, bent down and picked up their scattered weapons, tossed aside their shattered cloaks and broken armor, and marched toward the battlefield with resolve in their eyes.
"D-damn it..."
"We're not dead weight!"
"Move, you stupid legs!"
Alise, walking at the front where her companions couldn't see her face, smiled.
...
...
Rose held the front with her shield, steadily and relentlessly parrying the barrage of heavy blows from every part of the two-headed dragon's body that could serve as a weapon.
Dragon fangs, dragon claws, dragon tail, the impact of its massive body itself, sweeps from its serpentine necks. Every attack was met by that kite shield blazing with pure white light, skillfully blocked, parried, or deflected.
The two-headed dragon's lumbering attacks couldn't push past the defensive line Rose anchored by even a single step, let alone with Jeanne beside her as an off-tank, stepping in to cover whenever needed.
It was hopeless.
Even with Amphisbaena's limited intelligence, having its attacks repeatedly shut down by the two tiny creatures beneath it was starting to piss it off.
On top of that, there were the swordswomen on both flanks carving fresh wounds into it at every opportunity. Its chest, its legs, its scales were covered in more cuts than it could count.
Amphisbaena decided to show these insects something brutal, to teach them what the might of a Monster Rex truly...
"O flame, grant me your power!"
"Fireball!!"
The blast hit like a thunderclap.
...
...
A few seconds earlier...
When the two-headed dragon took a clean shield bash from Rose's triggered passive skill, Steel Knight's rapid counter, its entire massive body rocked backward. Its dragon face was a picture of stunned confusion and dizziness, nearly flipped clean out of the water. It staggered into another brief moment of rigidity.
Naturally, the Crimson Mist shrouding its body as a magic barrier flickered and briefly broke.
That split-second opening made Leon's eyes light up. Without hesitation he began Chanting while simultaneously charging his spell, refusing to waste the precious window Rose had fought to create.
Scarlet King activated. Time jumped forward several seconds.
Leon stood atop a red magic circle over five meters in radius, staff raised high overhead. Above him, a massive fireball over ten meters across slowly coalesced like a rising sun, radiating suffocating heat and blinding light.
Scorching waves of heat set his cloak snapping violently, and his already messy black hair was blown into total disarray.
His lips curled into a crooked grin. He stepped forward, threw his whole body into it, and with a roar, swung the staff forward.
That heavy sun scorched the air and warped the light around it. Sparks crackled and spat from its surface as it hurtled toward the still-staggering two-headed dragon with devastating force.
Jeanne saw Leon's charged ultimate closing in fast and immediately fell back, shouting orders to everyone:
"All units, pull back! Watch the shockwave!"
The words had barely left her mouth...
The next second, every sound in the massive cavern seemed to vanish. The world plunged into eerie silence, and blinding white light swallowed everything.
A flash of searing brilliance.
Then a chain of detonations ripped through the cavern in one continuous, earth-shaking roar.
...
On the far end of the embankment, Alise and her group had just finished strapping on their damaged gear and grabbing their weapons. Battered and filthy, they'd barely started running toward the battlefield when they stopped dead, jaws dropping at the sight of the sun rising from Leon's outstretched hands.
As their mouths gaped wider, the fireball seemed to swell in tandem. From where they stood, the thing looked nearly as large as Amphisbaena itself.
This scene, which obliterated everything they thought they knew, froze these apostles of justice in their tracks. Their brains crashed.
Alise went silent.
She looked down at Crimson Order, the beloved sword in her hand. She thought about her prized fire-element enchantment finisher, Blazing Blossom. Her mouth began twitching uncontrollably.
Kaguya let out a quiet sigh, her gaze sweeping over Ryuu, Lyra, Alise, and the companions around her.
"I don't understand..."
"What else does this guy have hidden up his sleeve?"
Ryuu kept a straight face and turned to the Familia's mage, Ryana Lietz.
"Ryana, does this spell reach Level 4 power?"
As the only member of the group with formal magic training, hailing from the great magic nation of Altena and possessing the most refined magical technique in the entire Familia, Ryana Lietz, a Level 3 mage, should have been the authority on this question.
But right now, the formally trained mage had her lips pressed tight, staring blankly at that massive fireball, her mind completely white.
"Level 4?"
Her eyes were distant, her voice cracking:
"How could a Level 4 mage possibly produce magic with this kind of insane destructive power? Even with a rare skill that amplifies magic effects, or even as an elven mage, there's absolutely no way to boost a rapid-cast spell, the weakest in the entire magic hierarchy, to this level of destruction!"
If a rapid-cast spell can hit this hard, then what's even the point of short chants, long chants, super-long chants, and wide-area annihilation magic?!
Seeing the young mage from the magic nation starting to lose it, everyone wisely kept their mouths shut. They all understood that right now, it was best not to provoke her any further...
The magical theory she'd devoted herself to, the foundational principles drilled into her since childhood in the magic nation, had just been shattered to pieces by this one man. Getting her back on her feet was going to take a while.
...
...