The very bottom of the ruins was nothing but a straight, narrow bridge, and the stench of decay hung in the air.
The bridge was wide enough, and zombies, skeletons, and ghouls were all mixed together into a massive horde.
"How tasteless. They're cannibalizing each other."
Narcissus looked at them the way you'd look at vomit or shit.
Ghouls and zombies were fighting each other for food. Skeletons were getting caught in the crossfire.
Ugly. But the numbers still weren't really going down.
"I'm gonna throw the holy water I got from Wol."
Holy water, huh. I'm skeptical.
Not from Wol. It was Wof who'd filled her canteen with something really effective against undead.
It was obviously the liquid from that little bottle.
Dokkasu popped the lid open and splashed it liberally all over the undead.
Sprayed across a wide area, the undead caught in it evaporated in an instant.
No—purified. Everything just vanished.
"Daba?!"
"What the heck is that?!"
"Hoh. Not bad."
"...An undead-specializing attack, huh."
Once again, completely over the top.
That liquid really was something. I had a rough idea what its true nature was.
I don't know why she's got so many of those, and I'm not about to ask.
My time with Wof has been short but intense.
Still, even I've got a trick or two I can't let him in on.
Well, nothing on Wof's scale, though.
She beat Alveld, and she's beaten Treasure-class too. In raw combat power alone, she's First-rate.
Well, that's about all she's got. Overall, she's Fifth-rate.
She splashes the liquid, and Narcissus dives in.
That guy — I just can't figure him out.
He's definitely got something, but you can't see it.
He's probably carrying a transparent weapon.
That's why being anywhere near him is terrifying.
Rather than Edda, that's probably "Generous."
In other words, he's the same type as Wof — combat power at First-rate.
Everything else, though? He's barely even fit to call himself a delver.
I really can't figure him out.
Suide draws fire from his spear. His Relic is "Fire."
And the spear he's carrying is an OOPArt called "Heatran."
The tip heats up and generates flame.
Add that to his spear technique, and he's Second-rate.
We swept through the single-path bridge and arrived at the deepest point.
Maybe it was because That had been sealed away entirely. The deepest level was circular and spacious.
Spacious meant more undead, or so I thought—but the place was completely empty.
At the far end, a black sphere floated in the air, and in front of it stood a skeleton draped in a white mantle.
It wore a rusted crown and carried a staff topped with a skull.
"A lich."
When I called out, it turned around smoothly.
Then it raised its skull-topped staff.
"Alexandre. Dumas. Père."
As it chanted something, a massive amount of blood surged up from the ground.
From within that blood, three knights clad in rusted armor emerged.
Pale ghostly flames burned deep in their eye sockets—Wraith Knights, lower gold rank.
"How annoying. Doom Sword!"
Narcissus lunged toward one of the Wraith Knights.
At the same time, Sweed and Dockas each took on a Wraith Knight of their own.
So that's how it works. I'm the lich, apparently.
"That being the case—wanna go one-on-one?"
I extended Flametongue to its full length, and blue-black flames wrapped around the blade.
The skull on the lich's staff chattered and laughed.
I swung Flametongue. The annihilation flames hurtled toward the lich.
The lich shot out a blood-red blade from the mouth of its staff's skull.
The lich's scythe and Flametongue cancel each other out, but I don't let that stop me. I close in.
The lich pulls a curved, red-black blade from the skull mouth of its staff and comes at me wielding it as a scythe.
We clash twice, three times—just exchanging greetings.
Then I slash lightly from the right, follow up with a downward diagonal from the left. When that's deflected, I thrust.
It dodges with a flutter. I click my tongue, step in, and cut with nothing but a snap of my wrist.
"There—there—there—there—there—there!!"
Slightly rough, purely force-driven, I slash in every direction without restraint.
This isn't an elegant dance—it's a powerful tango. I keep my steps light and just keep hacking away.
"Not bad, bone boy!"
Seriously. It deflected, dodged, and parried everything, practically on autopilot.
Then a black line flashed from the red-black scythe. I burn through it with my annihilation flames.
"Too slow!"
A small opening appears. I leap in and cut the lich apart in one burst.
"Tch."
The feedback is weak. The skull on the lich's staff rattles and cackles.
Annoying. I widen Flametongue's blade. I extend the annihilation flames out from Flametongue.
A red-black fire breathes from the mouth of the skull on the lich's staff.
"Don't look down on me! One-Stroke Demonsever!"
I cleave through the red-black flames. They smell of blood.
The lich pulls back.
"Tch... a stalemate, huh?"
I didn't really get it, but that red-black stuff was roughly even with my Doom Flames.
I had no idea what kind of necromancer he was, but the guy was seriously skilled.
"Well, nothing I can do about it, I guess."
If I kept this up, I'd just be wasting stamina for nothing.
I pulled a small, ominous horn from my pouch and popped it into my mouth.
The Horn of Amalthea.
A legendary Relic made for Fawn. Drinking it granted infinite power.
The catch was that the human body normally couldn't handle that infinite power.
Drink it, and you'd die in exchange for the power.
"GwaaaaaooooooOOOOOOH!!"
I screamed, collapsed to my knees, and craned my head back in agony.
My whole body felt like it was about to split apart.
Especially my head—the horn was going to crack everything open, explode, burst apart at any second.
My hair grew longer and a black horn swelled to enormous size. Once I registered that, the searing pain vanished as if it had been a lie.
My vision, my consciousness, everything went white and expanded outward.
I stood up. I gripped Flametongue and swung.
"Doom."
A streak of black-blue flame too fast to see carved through the lich. And set it on fire.
'G-guh—!?'
A flicker of panic appeared in the lich for the first time. There's no time. I'm finishing this in one go.
Until now I'd been wielding it one-handed, but I gripped Flametongue tight with both hands.
"Flametongue — Double Standard ——"
Flametongue swelled and stretched, splitting down the middle so the tongue became two blades.
"'Destruction Demon''Karma Demon''Sever Demon''Black Demon'—— Destruction-Karma-Sever-Black bead exorcism……!"
Between the split tongues, four orbs of flame — red, blue, green, and black — spawned in a linked bead formation.
'————!!!'
In a panic, the lich fired off a rapid volley of crimson-black blades from the skull's mouth on the staff in its hand.
How sloppy. It's pointless.
Just before the crimson-black blades reached me, I swung Flametongue.
They were swept away by the heat wave of Destruction-Karma-Sever-Black.
Right now, I have a heat wave draped around me like a barrier.
Any ordinary attack is rendered meaningless.
I raised the two-bladed Flametongue overhead, its tongues still holding the four linked flame orbs between them.
"This is the end. Destruction-Karma-Sever-Black…… Flame Sword Demon Explosion!!!!"
I brought it down with everything I had.
The instant it touched the lich, who tried to dodge, Flametongue erupted in a massive explosion.
The four flame orbs chained between the two blades detonated all at once.
Even I, the one who used it, was trembling at the sheer power.
The lich, caught dead center, was obliterated.
The staff clattered to the ground. The charred skull rattled and cackled.
"Annoying."
I crushed the skull underfoot. I thought I heard a death rattle.
"Phew."
Feeling my hair and horns return to normal, I went limp and sat down on the floor.
I opened the small bottle Wof had given me and drank. The stamina I'd lost in one burst came rushing back.
Flametongue, set on the floor, was reverting to its original single tongue.
"Good work."
There was a little left, so
my partner
got the rest.
Maybe because it was living metal, but I could've sworn it seemed pleased.
Come to think of it, what happened to those guys?
Wraith Knights are tough. I glanced over.
Narsess had just blown the upper body clean off one, while Swede was burning through another that was riddled with wounds.
Dokkas was smashing one apart with a spiky steel mace.
No need to worry, then.
All that remained was this floating black sphere. I just had to destroy the event generator.
"A floating sphere, huh?"
Blue and white lines ran through the middle, with something red inside flickering on and off.
Was it my imagination? I felt like I'd seen a color variant of this thing somewhere before.
Where was it, though? Where was it?
Hmm. I definitely saw it somewhere.
"Ah well, probably just my imagination."
The event generator was destroyed by Seed and Dokkas.
Narcissus joined in along the way, cheerfully and thoroughly smashing it to pieces.
I just sat there watching blankly. Those guys sure have energy.
A thought occurred to me.
"The undead I get, but... what was with the sahagin?"
The event generator was definitely behind it, but why sahagin of all things?
"...Well, whatever."
With this, the event that had been occurring would vanish.
It would vanish, right?
"Man... I want a drink."
When we got back, maybe we'd throw a big party and do a drinking contest.
"The improvised wolf squad wins big!"
Narcissus held up a chunk of the destroyed sphere above her head and declared.
Yeah. A big victory.
Man, I want a drink.