A drop of twenty meters was nothing to upper-class adventurers. Without waiting for Letsa to give the order, everyone scattered and landed on their own. Duncan, still holding Artemis by the waist, had no time to think. He pulled her fully into his arms and landed in a princess carry, planting his feet on the stone floor by force despite the damage to his legs.
The moment they touched down safely, Artemis hurriedly pulled out a high-grade healing potion from her pocket, snapped it open, and brought it to Duncan's lips. As soon as the potion went down, his blood-soaked legs recovered at a visible speed.
There was no time to celebrate surviving.
The instant Duncan regained the use of his legs, he scooped Artemis up again and leapt aside. In the next second, the boulders flung up by Andares's iron pincers crashed down where they had just been standing, swallowing the spot whole.
Being held by a man three times in a row made Artemis flush red.
As a virgin goddess of the heavens, Artemis harbored an unusual aversion to men. She had always been openly cold toward male gods, and even within her own Familia, she forbade her children from growing close to men—those who disobeyed would be expelled.
That rule was not something she imposed only on her followers; Artemis herself upheld it with her own conduct. And yet now, with Duncan coming into contact with her again and again, even amidst such a perilous battlefield, the normally unshakable goddess found ripples stirring in her heart at last.
"Lady Artemis, protect yourself!"
Duncan, however, noticed none of it. Or rather, the feelings of a god were never so easy for mortals to read. Carefully setting her down, he charged straight toward the rampaging Andares.
"Ah—right!"
Artemis froze for half a second, then gave her head a sharp shake, trying to cast off the stray thoughts. In a moment like this, how could she possibly afford to dwell on something so absurd? Half a second later, the posture of the Huntress Goddess once more took full command of her being.
"Lady Artemis! Are you alright?!"
The rest of her followers rushed over as well, asking in concern. Letsa had already moved in alongside Duncan to hold Andares at bay. No one had the leisure to think about something like a boy touching their goddess now. Even Landi, had she been here, would never have spared a thought for something so trivial in the face of a battle like this.
"I'm fine. Hold the formation and cover the casters. Begin bombardment spells."
Artemis answered softly. With Letsa occupied, she became the commander of the second group.
Duncan spun his spear. This time, with the previous exchange as experience, he activated Swift Heaven's Edge the moment he closed in. Though Andares's enormous body was terrifyingly powerful, just like the giant bears, its massive size also left openings for an enemy to exploit.
The spearhead pierced its shell far more smoothly than expected.
The sensation was so easy that Duncan was momentarily stunned.
He had assumed that, since even the giant scorpions possessed monstrous defense, Andares—being the original mother-body and covered in those red, magic-like markings—would be even harder. That was why he had gone all out on the very first strike, cleaving off one of Andares's legs in a single blow.
In terms of defense, Andares was indeed much tougher than the giant scorpions they had faced earlier. But it had not reached the realm of the absurd. At the very least, Duncan's attacks could still injure it.
The sudden pain made Andares let out an enormous shriek. Duncan had no idea how a scorpion even possessed the organs to produce such a thunderous sound.
Unfortunately, he had no time to dwell on that thought.
His body suddenly became unbearably heavy.
Seeing his knees about to buckle, Duncan jammed the butt of his spear into the ground and barely held himself upright—only for Andares's tail to smash into him the very next instant, sending both him and his weapon hurtling into the cavern wall.
His body slammed into the rock like a cannonball, blasting out a crater. Even Duncan—whose defense ranked among the very best of Level 3 adventurers—coughed up blood. Pain flooded through his body so violently that he curled up instinctively, his insides burning like they had been set on fire.
Andares did not pause after landing that blow.
Its massive claws plunged into the ground, tearing up huge chunks of stone and hurling them down at Duncan before he could even get back up.
"Spiral!"
Letsa came tearing in from the side. Her rapier was wrapped in a miniature whirlwind as she thrust viciously at Andares's right pincer. A tremendous explosion rang out, and the spinning thrust tore the pincer clean off. Reeling from the pain, Andares had no choice but to abandon its finishing strike and turn to deal with her instead.
Just before the falling stone could crush Duncan, two Level 2 members of the second squad rushed forward with shields raised, planting themselves in front of him. The impact drove them hard into the wall, but they had still prevented Duncan from taking the hit directly.
"Duncan!"
Artemis rushed over as well, pressing yet another high-grade healing potion into his mouth. Only then did Duncan's body, which had locked up from the injuries, gradually recover. The potions on him had all shattered from the blow, so he had no choice but to pour what remained from the broken vials directly onto his wounds. The effect would be worse than drinking them, but it was still better than wasting them entirely.
"The enemy's defense is weaker than expected. If we rotate our attacks—"
Having pushed himself up into a sitting position, Duncan had just begun to voice his idea when what he saw in front of him choked the words off.
The leg he had cut off had somehow fully regenerated.
Not only that—even the right pincer Letsa had blown apart moments ago had already returned to normal.
Exactly the same thing happened again.
In the middle of her attack, Letsa's body abruptly stiffened. Her normally nimble movements were suddenly burdened, as if a massive boulder had been dropped onto her shoulders. The black scorpion's tail lashed out once more—
"Silence."
At the critical moment, the pressure crushing Letsa suddenly vanished. Acting on instinct and battle-honed reflex alone, she rolled sideways before she even had time to think. The scorpion's tail slammed down where she had been an instant before, carving a deep trench into the ground. The shockwave and the scattered debris sent Letsa tumbling across the floor—but at least she had not taken the strike head-on.
"It has ultra-fast regeneration!" Duncan shouted as he rushed to Letsa's side, sharing the information at once. "It's using magic to boost its healing rather than just its defense! We have to hit its magic stone and vital points! And it can manipulate gravity!"
The only problem was that Duncan still did not understand when Andares used its gravity control, or over what range. He had only managed to deduce it afterward. His Silence spell could interrupt the ability, but on a battlefield where everything changed in an instant, staying on the defensive was a terrible option.
"So the eye and the main body are the targets, then?" Letsa asked as she struggled back to her feet. She downed a healing potion in one gulp, still looking ragged from her brush with death. "Duncan—you can shut down its ability, right?"
"Silence magic," Duncan said with a nod. "I can stop it from using magic for ten seconds."
....
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