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Chapter 181 Strongest Sage, Plunges into the Herd
Chapter 181 Strongest Sage, Plunges into the Herd
Chapter 181 Strongest Sage, Plunges into the Herd
The battle this time will be a brief showdown.
We'd have run out of mana long before we could defeat all these small fry if it weren't.
Yet these monsters aren't so weak we could easily annihilate them all.
While the magic tool is in effect, I'll charge in at once and kill the boss.
Frankly speaking, that is our only chance of victory.
For that to happen, I need to slip through nearly 5000 monsters, grasp the boss's mana composition and impart that to Ruli.
"Okay, in five seconds I'll pry open the barrier and commence the attack!"
"""YES!"""
I pull my sword after hearing their response.
And just about five second later.
I erase the barrier by shooting a simple anti-magic on it, and activate ?Enforced Detection?.
Drawing attentions of all these monsters isn't possible as long as the boss is giving orders, but it should considerably lessen the girls' burden.
In exchange, more monsters will be coming at me, but there's not much difference between 1000 and 5000 monsters.
In both scenarios, my surroundings will be completely full of monsters with attacks coming from all directions.
"HISSSSSS!"
"GAAAAAAAAAA!!"
There are several thousands of monsters inside the barrier as calculated.
Most of which are coming at me.
First, the monsters are shooting out their fangs at us.
As fangs are a necessary tool for monsters, normally they would never do such attacks… however, these monsters controlled by the parasite monster made use of their fangs as projectiles without a hint of hesitation.
It'd be nothing if there were only one monster that did that, but when so many monsters they look like a wall did it, it's practically a barrage.
"…It's taken complete control huh."
I probe the surrounding mana while backstepping the projectile fangs.
Just as I thought, the parasite monster seems to be in dead center.
The distance to there is only 40 meters.
However, those 40 meters are so far.
The monsters aren't just attacking, they're also positioning themselves to block the path to the boss.
…Alma and the others have started to provide support fires, but it won't make any difference.
A boss in an ordinary monster herd can only give extremely simple orders like ?Fight?, or ?Run? at best.
And the herd monsters will act autonomously while still following those orders.
Thus, no matter how many monsters there are in one such herds, you'll ever end up fighting 20 monsters at most.
--However, this herd isn't anything like that.
It's as if all of these monsters share the same view, moving in perfect unison.
As such, I ended up fighting more than 100 monsters at once.
The monsters should be moving in accordance to the actions I take, but I just need to misdirect them whenever I'm about to be read.
That's all it amounts to since we're near the entrance to the barrier now, however the number should increase the deeper I go.
Right afterward--I plunged into the herd.
"HISSSSSSS!"
All kinds of attack like fangs, rocks, venoms are pouring on me who went in solo.
I don't evade.
As I've plunged myself into the herd, there's no space to evade.
Instead, I activated multiple magic at the same time toward the incoming attacks.
They're super simple magic like reflection and small-scale explosions.
The firepower probably isn't even 1/10th of these monsters' assaults.
However--not even one of their attacks reached me.
"…It went well huh."
Of course, it wouldn't have gone this smooth if I used ordinary counter magic.
What enabled that is ?Perfect Detection?.
It's one of the magic I newly developed after getting hold of Disqualified Crest as the past me never used it.
It's only recently that I've gotten the grasp of magic control good enough to be able to use this.
The detection range of ?Perfect Detection? is only 3 meter around me even for the current me, but its capability is far above your average detection magic.
Other detection magic can only manage to grasp enemy's position, type and speed, but ?Perfect Detection? adds projectile's weight and center of gravity, and everything from mana quality to magic composition on top of those.
Furthermore, once the target enters the range, there is no limit to its number.
Even if the targets are omnidirectional attacks of hundreds variety, everything will be instantly analyzed.
And then I activated the most efficient magic to obtain the end result from that.
"…Giiga?"
The monsters I attacked stopped for a moment, looking like they didn't know what just happened.
No wonder.
Ordinary attacks would have produced some forms of sounds or splinters after all.
However, true no nonsense attacks don't afford such things.
From these monsters' perspective, it must look like they suddenly fell down helplessly the moment they entered my range.
?Perfect Detection? does not only give me info about enemy attacks.
But also info about the enemy itself incomparable to that gotten from ordinary detection magic.
With that info at hand, I defeat monsters that block the way to the boss and create enough space to tilt my body as I move forward toward the center.
In exchange for a limited range, I've got complete control over that range.
Truly the magic that embodies the Disqualified Crest.
"This is more convenient than I thought."
More than the the obvious utility like blocking attacks and killing enemy, it makes going forward a simple task.
Ordinarily, in a herd of monsters so dense you can't even move about, you'll have to move them out of the way.
Of course, that's while neutralizing attacks that are coming at you at a rate of around 100 shots per second.
But it has its drawbacks too.
It consumes a lot of mana.
The current me can only maintain this magic for 10 minutes at most.
It's only natural though as I'm doing many complex operations while basically performing rapid invocations of detection magic at hyper speed.
You might even say that it's low cost relative to the info you get.
A few minutes later.
I reached the center of the barrier.
"…There huh."
The boss's mana reaction is close by.
I slip into the slight gaps that ?Perfect Detection? found in the ever-increasing density of monsters.
Then--?Perfect Detection? perceived the boss's magic stone.
"Gi-GYAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
The next moment, the boss monster shrieked out an unfamiliar sounding scream.
Looks like it's not fond of ?Perfect Detection?.
And then a magic circle was developed out of the boss monster, emitting a huge amount of mana.
It's a genuine attack magic, unusual for monsters.
This is… Even if we have its composition, we'll need a large amount of mana to negate it.
I'd better off letting itself to blow up.
Judging that in a moment notice, I diverted my mana from ?Perfect Detection? to defensive magic.
Immediately after, an explosions blew away the surroundings, swallowing the monsters around me.
Moreover, the lackey monsters protecting the boss appear to be very dutiful, they're still trying to attack me even while suffering fatal injury from the explosion.
In addition, lots of those lackey monsters are flying type monsters, those will be coming for me too surely.
"Mathi-kun!"
I could hear Ruli's worried voice.
I can't see her among the blown monsters, but she must be looking here.
"No problem here! More importantly, here you go!"
While shouting that, I took a magic stone from Storage magic, and threw it at Ruli when a straight line toward her opened for an instant.
Disqualified Crest isn't suited for augment magic, but in truth, there is one augment-related thing that it's better than the Glory Crest at.
--And that is augmenting speed, where precision don't matter at all.
Thanks to that, I was able to throw the magic stone in that instant.
Of course, an augment that ignores precision serves no purpose at all… But I'm sure Ruli will be able to understand the composition I wanted to make from that shabby magic circle and create a proper one from it.
Believing in that, I activated ?Perfect Detection? and endured attacks from countless monsters.
This parasite boss monster isn't so weak that it could be beaten while blocking this many attacks.
--A few seconds later.
"Here I go!"
I could hear Iris from far away.
Looks like the magic tool is done.