Through the chaos of Rivira, a deafening roar rang out, and a pillar of starlight erupted upward, shooting straight for the heavens, brilliant and dazzling.
The blinding starburst set off a powerful shockwave that not only shattered countless buildings but flung the very ground into the air, scattering countless bits of rubble and debris along with the smoke and dust.
The atmosphere itself cried out, and the whole Under Resort shook as if it had been jolted.
Everything nearby, Violas and adventurers alike, was knocked flat by the sudden, violent starburst, any sound they made buried under the deafening roar, completely inaudible.
Under a shock like this, even something as huge as the Viola female was blown back a good distance by the blast, and Tiona and Tione, tangled with the Viola female, were sent flying outright, drawing an involuntary cry even from Lefiya, who lay on the ground with her head covered.
That single blow blasted a whole corner off Rivira, leaving a massive crater in the middle of the town.
And Leo, the culprit behind all this, was completely unharmed under the double protection of his flight magic and the Giant's Battle Garb, shooting out of the center of the explosion and coming to a stop in midair.
But soon another figure flew out of the center of the blast too, black smoke and a haze of blood rising from her whole body, landing on ground that had been plowed a full layer deep.
"..."
The mysterious woman lifted her bloodstained face, ferocity written all over it.
Right now the skin across her whole body looked as if it had been burned raw, scorched black marks everywhere, and at her hands and feet the flesh was exposed outright, hot blood streaming out and gradually staining the ground beneath her red.
Her equipment had shattered, every piece of it, no surprise there, and even her clothes had burned to tatters, baring large stretches of skin.
But the mysterious woman paid no attention at all to her nearly bared body, only turning a gaze full of killing intent on Leo up in the air, her face twisted.
"You've actually managed to do this much, adventurer!"
The mysterious woman had lost her composure again, nothing left but a chest full of fury and viciousness.
"...I'm the one who should say it. You actually took that attack just now and only got hurt this much."
Leo looked down at the enraged mysterious woman from above, silent for a moment before speaking mildly.
That last spell, though he'd cast it without a staff in hand, he'd vaporized a huge amount of Mind to end it in a single blow, raising its power enormously.
You could say the firepower of that strike had definitely exceeded the Lv.5 tier, enough to match a full-force blow from a Lv.6 Mage.
Even if Riveria, this city's strongest Mage, had come, unless she brought out her trump card, the magic she cast wouldn't have overshot that strike by much.
And yet a strike like that, landing on the mysterious woman, had only burned her skin raw, and no matter who saw it, they'd be astonished.
Consider this: that strike, even if Gareth, who'd trained his Endurance to S, had come and taken it head-on, would likely have left him flat on the ground for a good long while.
The mysterious woman before him had a body whose hardness was strong in a way that didn't look like a Human at all, more like a... monster.
The monster meant here wasn't the kind Lulune meant when she called Leo a "Monster Rookie," but a genuine, real monster of the sort bred in the Dungeon.
Just like how the hide of the 17th-floor Floor Boss Goliath could block most physical and magic attacks.
Just like how the Black Rhinos of the 51st floor had hides you could call terrifyingly tough.
The mysterious woman's bodily toughness gave the same impression as these monsters, hard in a way that a Human simply shouldn't be capable of.
Her attacks were as fierce as a Floor Boss's too, and it was hard to imagine how that slender body could hold that kind of power.
To be honest, without magic power a cut above everyone else, even with Comet Chase backing him up, Leo would most likely have been no match for this mysterious woman.
If he didn't know what she really was, then even Leo would probably feel a heavy weight in his chest right about now.
Of course, even knowing where she came from, facing a being like this in person still left Leo feeling that weight.
Feeling the faint ache in his head, Leo knew his Mind was nearly spent again.
Even with the Spirit Healing Development Ability constantly helping him recover Mind, casting such powerful magic one after another had still brought Leo's Mind close to running dry.
Under these circumstances, Leo had no choice but to cut off Comet Chase's effect first, letting the starlight wrapping his whole body scatter into a sky full of stardust.
Because of that, Leo's body was once again drawn by gravity, falling toward the ground and coming down in front of the mysterious woman.
The mysterious woman's gaze full of killing intent had followed Leo the whole time, and seeing him drop from midair with his starlight already dispersed, she sneered.
"Looks like your Mind can't hold out anymore." The mysterious woman spoke coldly. "Makes sense. Whether it's that flight magic that accelerates without limit or that attack magic just now with its frightening power, the drain on Mind has to be no small thing."
"Your own Level can't be that high. Not even Lv.5, so, Lv.4. How could you possibly use that kind of power, so far beyond your current strength, however you please?"
"And without those two spells, in front of me, you're just a lamb waiting for the slaughter."
The mysterious woman could no longer hold back the killing intent in her heart, and she started walking toward Leo.
"Ready to die, Human?!"
That blood-chilling death sentence couldn't so much as make Leo's expression flicker.
"Did you forget?"
A second later, Leo said it.
"I'm not the only one who's your opponent."
The words had barely left him when a gust of fierce wind shot in from far off at astonishing speed, aimed straight at the mysterious woman.
"!!!"
The mysterious woman's face changed sharply, and without hesitation she brought up her longsword to guard her flank.
A silver saber wreathed in wind tore through the air and rang off on the longsword the mysterious woman had raised, bursting with astonishing force.
The shockwave spread out like a whirlwind, and the mysterious woman was knocked violently flying by the blow, the soles of her feet grinding hard across the ground and plowing up a sky full of rubble and dust.
"...Your opponent is me."
Wind wreathing her whole body, Ais swept onto the scene, her blonde hair swaying, clear eyes locked on the mysterious woman, her tone harder than ever before.
She looked somewhat battered, but clearly hadn't taken any serious wounds.
Plainly, with the protection of her wind magic, even taking the Viola female's tentacle attacks head-on, Ais could still come away in one piece.
"You okay?"
Even knowing that, watching Ais's back as she came riding the wind, Leo couldn't help speaking up.
But Ais, unusually, ignored Leo, keeping her eyes on the mysterious woman the whole time.
You could tell she was extremely fixed on that mysterious woman, fixed to the point that her heart itself was shaken.
"You people..."
The mysterious woman was in no such good mood, looking at Ais and Leo standing before her one behind the other, furious beyond measure.
"One after another... You really think I've got no way to deal with you, huh?"
Though blood streamed from all over her, the mysterious woman's presence only grew stronger and stronger.
Seeing this, both Leo and Ais felt a chill run through them.
Just then...
"Fusillade Fallarica!"
A sweet cry came from far off, and with it a huge surge of magic power came pouring out, so that the sky over Rivira was suddenly blanketed in a fiery red, raining down a sky full of fire.
An endless downpour of fire rained down from the heavens, falling over the Viola female in an overwhelming deluge and bursting across its whole body.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
The Viola female let out a shrill scream, its whole body struck as if by lightning under the bombardment of the fire rain, flames rising without pause, and the violent explosions burned, blasted, and shattered its huge body one piece at a time, until its lower half, like a giant octopus, was reduced to a heap of cooked, broken meat, incinerated in the firelight along with the Violas that had become its feet.
The upper half of the female-form was gravely wounded too, its tentacles burned away one by one, and even the long hair that was the one thing you could call beautiful was scorched clean off, leaving only a ruined husk.
"Lefiya..."
Ais's attention was finally pulled away a little, her eyes flickering as she watched.
That yuri-obsessed Elf finally did something good.
Even Leo hadn't expected a certain Elf girl to seize the opening, taking the chance to cast her maximum-power magic and grievously wound the Viola female, which hadn't yet recovered from what had just happened, leaving it half-dead outright.
"Ha... ha..."
Standing not far from the Viola female, Lefiya stood on her slowly fading magic circle, staff raised, gasping in great heaving breaths.
Only a little earlier she'd been flat on the ground, protecting herself as best she could through the shockwave. Then she'd noticed the Viola female had gone down and not yet risen, right there not far from her, with the air still thick with the magic power left over from Leo's Meteor Dance. After a fierce inner struggle she'd worked up the courage, chanting while doing everything she could to suppress the magic-power reaction her own casting stirred up, hiding it behind the residue lingering in the air so that the Viola female wouldn't sense her.
And so she'd managed to cast this shot of wide-area annihilation magic before the Viola female could sense her own magic power.
For this single spell, Lefiya had poured in more than eighty percent of her Mind, and only then had she achieved a result like this.
"I, I can fight too!"
The Elf girl, who no longer wanted to be left behind, still less to become a burden, let out that cry.
At that, her companions were of course not stingy with their praise.
"Nice work, Lefiya!"
"That's our girl! Leave the rest to us!"
Tiona and Tione came racing in from another direction, sweeping over the air above Lefiya and charging at the Viola female, now nothing but a ruined husk.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH...
The Viola female sensed the danger and swung out what tentacles it had left, screaming all the while.
Unfortunately, those tattered tentacles could no longer threaten two first-class adventurers.
Tiona and Tione moved nimbly through the air, at times stepping on the tentacles that came at them, at times pushing off each other, dodging the Viola female's dying struggle.
"It's over!"
The twins cried out together, and right after, one swung down a great slash of astonishing destructive power while the other cut out a flashing double strike, both landing on the female-form's body.
With the sound of flesh being cut, the great double-blade and the kukri sliced into the female-form at the same time, one cleaving it in two from top to bottom, the other chopping its head into three pieces.
Great gouts of green blood sprayed out, and the female-form froze in place, moving no more.
A few seconds later, the female-form dissolved into drifting ash.
"We, we did it!"
Lefiya, already slumped on the ground, let out a joyful cry at the sight.
"Tch..."
The mysterious woman, on the other hand, darkened and clicked her tongue.
With the Viola female subjugated, the crisis facing Rivira was as good as resolved. Not many of the remaining Violas were left, and they couldn't provide much more support.
She could already foresee it: before long, the women who'd dealt with the Viola female would come here too.
And then she'd face, alone, three Lv.5 first-class adventurers and two Mages with powerful magic.
Against a lineup like that, even she didn't dare think she'd win.
She wasn't willing to accept it, but the outcome was decided. It could only end here.
The mysterious woman glared at Leo behind Ais.
"What's your name?"
She asked the question.
"Leo Eligos."
Leo narrowed his eyes, and rather than choosing to hide it, he calmly gave his name.
"I'll remember you." The mysterious woman spoke with a cold expression. "Next time, I'll definitely kill you."
Hearing this, Ais couldn't help stepping forward.
"Wait..."
She saw the mysterious woman's intent to retreat and wanted to stop her.
"Don't be so eager. I won't let you off either." The mysterious woman looked at Ais. "Next time, I'll bring you before that guy."
"Remember it well, Aria."
Leaving those words behind, the mysterious woman spun around abruptly and shot toward the outskirts of the town like a cannonball.
Ais didn't think twice, bursting into her top speed and riding the wind in pursuit.
Leo wanted to give chase too, but the mysterious woman seemed to have prepared for it, sending several Violas charging out from the side to block the two of them off.
By the time Leo and Ais had dealt with the Violas in their way, the mysterious woman was long gone.
"Leo!"
"Ais!"
Tiona, Tione, and Lefiya came hurrying over, only to find Leo and Ais standing stock-still, staring in the direction the mysterious woman had gone.
Leo was silent, and Ais was silent too.
Neither of them said a word, and the stillness turned oppressive.
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