Following Sven's command, the Hunters unleashed their attacks in perfect unison.
Treasure Hunters who had fought through all manner of gimmicks and a wide variety of Phantoms excelled at adapting to the situation.
Even when confronted with sudden developments and unexpected opponents, that quality was properly put on display.
In the dim darkness, brilliantly glowing light streaked through the air at tremendous speed.
Attack magic launched from just a few meters away — the Arrow of Fire, the most basic of offensive spells — struck the Slime with muffled thuds across its head, arms, and torso. It didn't even show the slightest hint of dodging.
A strange, ear-splitting sound echoed from the Slime.
The impact sent dust billowing up, shrouding the creature's massive form.
The Arrow of Fire was a low-level spell that nearly every Mage could use. Easy to control, low mana consumption, and fast to activate — it was the go-to offensive spell for everyone from seasoned Mages to complete beginners.
Its power was on the lower end among attack magic, but it had enough force to pierce thin plate armor.
Moreover, this time the target was a Slime, widely considered weak to fire.
With over ten Mages firing at once, if every shot hit, total evaporation wouldn't be out of the question.
Without confirming the target's annihilation, another volley of Arrows of Fire was launched into the dust cloud. Explosions scorched the air, and intense heat reached Sven, nearly ten meters away.
The excessive barrage finally ended, and silence returned to the battlefield.
The brown-haired Hunter, who had retreated while pressed flat against the ground, opened his eyes as wide as they would go.
"...Did we get it?!"
"Don't let your guard down! Fall back! This is the Thousand Trials!"
Sven roared, keeping his bow fully drawn and aimed squarely at the Slime in the smoke.
The tension that had begun to slacken after the attack snapped taut once more.
The Slime's appearance was utterly grotesque. This wasn't the first time a party belonging to Footprints had encountered this kind of situation, but no matter how many times it happened, you never got used to it.
Approaching an unknown enemy was far too risky. They slowly retreated further from the still-lingering smoke.
Keeping his bow ready to fire at a moment's notice, Sven finally addressed the brown-haired Hunter who had managed to stand up.
"Hey, what the hell is that thing?"
"I-I don't know! I ran into it on my way back from taking a piss... It was heading straight for camp."
Sven clicked his tongue at those words.
He should count himself lucky they hadn't been ambushed.
The brown-haired Hunter was clearly combat-incapacitated. Being a swordsman who'd lost an arm wasn't much use — not like he was a Mage.
Henrik's powerful healing magic could mend even severe wounds in seconds, but it couldn't regenerate lost limbs.
The brown-haired Hunter's face was twisted. An expression like a demon's.
Gritting his teeth as if biting back some impulse — whether fear or rage — he spoke.
"It... hadn't noticed me yet. It was completely wide open. I slashed it from behind! Damn it! My... arm is—"
The dust settled. One of the Mages who had launched the assault stared wide-eyed in disbelief at what emerged.
The Slime was unscathed. Its dripping, viscous body didn't have a single mark.
The Slime raised one of its arm-like appendages upward, as if simply stretching. There was no visible anger in the gesture — nothing suggesting it was upset about having been attacked.
Marietta, a party member who had participated in the attack beside Sven, stared at the creature's hideous form.
"Eh...? After taking all that... not... a single wound?"
Was it resistant to fire? Or was magic itself ineffective against it?
Every possibility flashed through Sven's mind.
The Slime took a slow, lumbering step forward. In that instant, Sven released an arrow.
The concentrated energy was nothing like the Arrow of Fire. A pitch-black arrow, loaded with incomparably greater power, hit its mark unerringly — boring straight into the Slime's head, between its eyes.
A lethal shot capable of piercing even dragon scales. The very strike that had earned Sven the title of Storm Strike pierced the creature's brow — and in the next moment, was violently launched back into the air.
A sharp crack, like something snapping.
"What...?"
At the unexpected sight, Sven furrowed his brow.
The arrow that had been flung back sailed through the air and fell somewhere beyond the trees.
The brown-haired Hunter's eyes went wide, his mouth flapping wordlessly. Henrik, standing nearby, was equally speechless.
Gaark, positioning the researchers behind him, let out a low growl.
Sven remained calm. He'd experienced arrows being ineffective against targets more times than he could count since joining this Clan.
It wasn't that the arrow hadn't pierced. It wasn't that it had been dodged. It had been repelled. And the Slime hadn't even taken a defensive posture.
He hadn't been at full power, but he certainly hadn't held back either.
Without letting his composure waver, he smoothly nocked a fresh arrow from the quiver on his back.
The Slime advanced with unsteady footing.
In front of his frozen companions, Marietta shouted.
"A different spell! Don't let it get close! Thunder Storm!"
Before her raised staff, a golden orb of light crackling with purple lightning appeared.
An offensive spell that ravaged a medium area with lightning strikes. Normally, it wouldn't be used against a single Monster.
Generated rapidly at the cost of tremendous mana, the thunderball hurtled toward the Slime, scattering its energy.
A flash indistinguishable from real lightning tore through the darkness, and a deafening roar echoed throughout the area. Yet, even after receiving this potentially lethal strike, the Slime merely stopped in its tracks for a brief moment.
Marietta gasped for breath, her mana depleted.
As if nothing had happened, the abomination resumed its advance. A beat later, attack magic erupted from every direction — blades of wind, spears of earth, wind wreathed in flame enveloped the Slime. Vegetation ignited, the ground was gouged open.
Each of those individual strikes was the same attack magic that had felled countless Phantoms before. Sven knew their power well.
But the crimson Slime tanked every single hit without apparent effort. Perhaps from the impact, it took a single step back — but that was all.
"...Impossible... it's not working?"
The Mages' faces twisted with despair. These were attacks of varying properties, launched after expending considerable mana.
Given enough time, they could cast more powerful offensive spells, but the attacks they'd just unleashed should have been more than enough to kill a single Slime.
If it had been repelled by some kind of hard armor, that would at least make sense. But the abomination in front of them looked plenty soft.
If it had used its limbs to deflect the blows, that would make sense. But the Slime had simply taken every hit without any defense at all.
Leaving the shaken Mages behind, Sven released an arrow with a short grunt of exertion. The arrow shot forward so fast it was nearly invisible, descending upon the Slime like a storm.
Face. Neck. Arms. Legs. Torso. No matter where they struck, every arrow bounced off without any sign of penetrating.
Invincible. The word flashed through his mind.
The creature's movements were slow. But if attacks couldn't reach it, there was no way to bring it down.
Unable to endure the situation any longer, one of the Hunters let out a battle cry. He charged forward and swung the massive metal warhammer he'd been wielding down onto the Slime.
There was no time to stop him. A devastating blow launched from the sheer physical strength of a high-level Hunter bore down from directly above.
The moment the spiked metal hammer was about to crush the Slime's head — Sven witnessed a strange sight.
A massive crack spread across the metal hammer. It twisted and warped as if forcibly wrenched out of shape.
And that force traveled straight through to both arms of the Hunter holding it.
"GAAAAAAAARGH!"
A bestial roar of agony.
Gripping the enormous weapon firmly in order to support it had worked against him in the worst possible way.
The sound of bones being crushed and flesh being mangled. Arms that had been protected by muscles and bracers were twisted casually, as if they were nothing.
That sight — Sven remembered the brown-haired Hunter who had lost both arms.
This was — the cause of those inexplicable wounds!
"Let go of it!"
Gaark shouted. The pulverized hammer shattered and flew apart almost simultaneously.
He let go just barely in time — his arms were still attached. Bent at unnatural angles, hanging limp, but still connected.
As the male Hunter froze for a moment from the searing pain, the Slime reared up, pressing its body down upon him.
It was a monster. Despite appearing to have no emotion, the Slime had definitely recognized Sven and the others as enemies.
Instinctively, Sven nocked an arrow to his bow. Without time to aim carefully, he fired.
The arrows that had previously felled every Phantom that appeared pierced the ground, and the Slime's footing crumbled. Seizing the opening this created, Sven fired a continuous volley.
His aim wasn't the Slime itself, but the ground beneath it.
The male Hunter stumbled back, putting distance between himself and the creature.
Gaark growled. His breathing was ragged, his eyes gleaming with fierce fighting spirit as he glared at the Slime.
"It's a Force Field. This thing is wrapped in some kind of force field... That's why magic isn't working!"
At those words, Sven narrowed his eyes. The Slime's surface was sizzling and melting.
The space around it was distorted. He'd thought it was residual heat from the Arrows of Fire, but that wasn't it.
"A Force Field... mana... barrier...?"
One of the most common techniques used by Mages.
Releasing the mana hidden within one's body in a form other than spells, deploying a barrier around oneself — a magic that could barely even be called magic.
A barrier that blocks all energy — all attacks — but because of its inefficiency, it was only practical for Mages with truly vast mana reserves. A hallmark of a first-rate Mage.
If anything, it was more commonly associated not with human Mages but with powerful Monsters like Dragons, who were born with immense mana.
The idea of a Slime using one was inconceivable. But if that assumption was correct, then landing an attack on this creature would be extraordinarily difficult.
He needed a new approach.
Either deliver enough energy to overwhelm the barrier, or wait for it to exhaust itself.
"Damn it, Krai... that bastard — and Ark too—"
Ark's individual combat power was among the strongest. Perhaps with that strength, he could have forced through the defense.
But in terms of raw attack power alone, Sven was significantly inferior to Ark. From Sven's perspective, Ark and the others just had overabundant abilities, but complaining about it now wouldn't help.
Should he buy time and attempt a breakthrough with higher-tier offensive spells?
But the power of attack magic was proportional to the caster's proficiency. There wasn't anyone here who stood out as a particularly skilled offensive Mage.
Sven's party member, Marietta, was an excellent Mage, but whether she could break through a barrier that easily repelled Sven's arrows was questionable.
And if that failed, Marietta would be completely drained of mana and unable to fight.
They were short on personnel. If the Star's Holy Thunder — the strongest Mage party in all of Footprints — were here, it would be a different story entirely.
Or if Thousand Transformations, who could predict everything, were present, they would have found a way no matter what.
It was as if everything they needed had been deliberately withheld. The image of Krai's grin, having sent the Black Gold Cross into this situation, suddenly flashed through Sven's mind, and he shook it off.
Talia the Alchemist rushed over. In her hand, she clutched a thin glass vial.
"Sven. It's no use... let's use it."
The Anti-Slime Potion. Their trump card for this battle.
The Slime, which had been momentarily pinned down by arrow suppressive fire, was slowly resuming its advance.
The mana barrier was powerful. But it wasn't deflecting everything around it. If it did, it wouldn't even be able to walk.
The barrier only repelled attacks above a certain energy threshold. Toxic mist, for example, couldn't be blocked by it.
Creatures strong enough to maintain such a barrier were generally immune to poison anyway, so it wasn't usually a weakness — but this time was different.
"If even a single drop touches it, it should begin to self-destruct from that point."
"Got it. ...I'll do it."
Sven took the potion from Talia. It was in a fragile throwable vial.
If the creature was protecting itself with a mana barrier, simply throwing it would probably result in it being deflected.
The Slime's two eyes were fixed on Sven. Its massive body compressed, as if crouching down.
Sven twisted his lips into a grin.
It really was a monster. An outrageous monster. But this thing didn't see Sven and the others as enemies to be feared.
No — it was hostile, yes, but what it was directing at them was a predator's gaze. At the very least, it wasn't being cautious.
Whether it even had intelligence was uncertain. And therein lay an opening.
The Slime, its body like molten flesh, compressed itself and then launched skyward like a spring-loaded mechanism.
Its speed was incomparable to before. It closed the distance in an instant, swooping down as if to cover the entire sky above them. Sven snorted.
"Don't underestimate me, Thousand Transformations."
He'd read it. The Black Gold Cross was, after all, a party called first-rate.
The party members who had been flanking either side grabbed Talia and retreated, reading Sven's intent without a word.
Fast. Certainly fast — but only compared to its movements up to now.
Compared to the Phantoms they regularly fought, its speed was easy enough to track.
The Slime descended as if trying to crush him with its body. Sven ducked, kicked off the ground, and placed the vial he'd been holding onto the ground.
The target it had locked onto — Sven — vanished, and the Slime's limbs cut through empty air. By that point, Sven was already well clear of its landing zone.
The Slime splattered down onto the ground.
Right on top of the Anti-Slime Agent Sven had dropped.
Sven's ears definitely caught the small sound of glass breaking.
The barrier wasn't invincible. Even the Barrier Ring, famous for deploying powerful barriers, had its openings.
The Slime's movements froze for an instant after receiving the Anti-Slime Agent.
"Die...!"
Talia, Marietta, Lyle, the brown-haired Hunter, and Gaark all stared intently at the creature.
And then, suddenly, an arm extended from the Slime's side. Sven took a single step back, casually avoiding it.
The Slime began moving again as if nothing had happened. Its body was still the same dripping, molten mass, but its movements were far smoother than when it had first appeared.
Talia, the one who had provided the Anti-Slime Agent, collapsed to the ground, her lips trembling.
Sven stamped his foot and screamed.
"...Damn it! I knew it — this isn't a goddamn Slime!"
His shriek rang through the darkness of the night.
He'd expected this. Sven had dealt with Krai for a long time.
The creature before him had clearly deviated far beyond the classification of "Slime." It was obviously some subspecies of Wolf Knight.
Lyle, who had extracted advice from Krai, went pale and suddenly recalled as if just remembering.
"O-oh, now that you mention it, Krai... it wasn't a slime — it was something slime-like—"
"That man — enough already! Deliver information accurately! Don't use the Wailing Spirit as your damn baseline! How many times are you going to get us killed?!"
The Slime-like pressed forward with nimble footwork.
In front of his stunned companions reeling from the shocking revelation, Sven lowered his body and barely dodged the creature's advance.
He didn't know what would happen if it landed on him, but it definitely wouldn't end well.
Cold sweat scattered from the tension. He heard the sound of something wet slapping the ground behind him.
"Damn it, what the hell am I supposed to do with this, Krai! Die already!"
"B-but Krai said, even half would be fine..."
"Shut the hell up! Kill it yourself!"
As Sven deftly dodged while shouting, magical attacks resumed in a panic.
The Slime-like's momentum was halted by the impact, and they managed to use that opening to create distance.
Some of the attacks were high-level spells that took time to cast, but every single one missed its mark.
No solution was in sight.
Whether something had gone wrong, or the creature was actually growing stronger, the Slime-like's movements were gradually getting faster. It seemed to have switched targets away from Sven and was now attacking the surrounding Hunters indiscriminately.
A living hell made manifest. The Hunters scrambled desperately to put distance between themselves and the Slime-like.
It wasn't using any unusual attacks, but the Mages were severely depleted from the continuous spellcasting. If their mana ran out and they collapsed, holding the line would become impossible.
Sven desperately tried to think while using arrows to suppress its movement, but his arrow count was running low.
"Sven, we need to retreat..."
One of the Hunters shouted.
But there were still several comrades inside the Treasure Hall. If they retreated now, those left behind would be in danger. Besides, even if they did retreat, they couldn't very well lead this Slime-like back to town.
A Hunter took the Slime-like's attack on his shield and was sent flying.
He'd been holding the shield with the intention of letting go from the start, so he appeared unhurt and immediately scrambled back to his feet.
Its attack power wasn't that high. But that defense was too hard.
Arms, legs, head — front, back — no matter where they attacked, everything was repelled. It was less a defense and more like a counter.
And even if an attack did get through, whether it could actually bring the creature down...
Just then, Sven noticed something: the Slime-like's body had grown slightly smaller.
The Slime-like leaped into the air. Its body was close to amorphous, making it hard to tell, but its volume had visibly decreased.
The Slime-like's surface was liquefying, sizzling and giving off steam, but nothing remained on the ground.
As if it had simply evaporated.
If they bought enough time... would it destroy itself?
Despite all the running around, the change in the Slime-like's size wasn't that dramatic. There was no way to predict how long it would take to reach zero.
But right now, even a sliver of hope was welcome. This was a trial. Overcoming a trial required will.
Krai was a man of unfathomable depth, but he wouldn't throw Clan members into a completely unwinnable situation.
If he'd said half the force would be enough, that meant the man who had read everything had made that judgment.
"Buy time! Look closely — it's getting smaller! Mages, conserve your mana and stamina! We'll rotate in parties to hold it back!"
At Sven's words, everyone's expression changed. Hope emerged from the depths of despair.
He ran around, collecting the arrows that had been deflected. There were nearly a hundred Hunters in total. The Slime-like's current movements were random — if they rotated to draw its attention, targeted it, and lured it around, they might be able to buy time.
A single hit wouldn't be a problem.
Sven and the rest of the Black Gold Cross could all use recovery magic. They couldn't restore stamina, but they could heal wounds.
As long as they didn't get their arms tangled up like that other guy, they'd manage.
Besides, this was Krai's trial. The members of Footprints would have brought supplies in even greater abundance than usual.
If there was no chance of winning, that was one thing — but if there was a chance, they could make it work.
Thanks to Sven's orders, composure returned to everyone's faces.
And then — the Slime-like changed targets, abandoning the Thief Hunter it had been chasing.
Its targets were two researchers positioned at the far end of the formation. The golden eyes turned toward the pair who had risen and were hiding behind a tree.
The Slime-like dragged its body forward in a swift dash. Another Hunter tried to intercept midway, but the creature ignored him entirely, bounding past.
Approaching at a speed more than sufficient for ordinary people, the researchers screamed and bolted.
"Hold it back!"
Sven took a deep breath and fired.
The arrow flew with a thunderous sound and pierced the ground at the Slime-like's feet, disrupting its balance. As the creature stumbled, Sven fired a continuous volley, blocking its path of advance.
His fingertips stung from the rapid firing — it had been a while. His quiver emptied in the blink of an eye.
But even with all that, he could only slow the Slime-like's advance by a fraction.
The Slime-like launched itself into a massive leap, as if attempting to pounce on the two researchers.
— Before it could, a gigantic shadow interposed itself.
A massive figure clad in crimson armor drove the enormous blade of its halberd between the researchers at the last second.
The Slime-like that had come hurtling in slammed belly-first into the wide, dark blade with a wet splat.
The arm gripping the halberd trembled from the impact. But the hand did not release the weapon.
"...Branch Chief?!"
"Hey, you lot — run toward Sven's group!"
A tattoo on the left half of his head. A deep scar carved across his cheek.
The man once called the War Demon was smiling. His armor clanked as he stepped forward before the Slime-like.
The Slime-like, smashed to the ground, slowly rose and fixed its eyes on Gaark.