Chapter 220 Odysseus [2]

"Huff… Huff…"

Leon plopped to the ground. Sweat glistened on his forehead along with the blue blood of monsters that was slowly disintegrating into pixels.

"What was the level of monsters?" An incredulous Anna asked.

Years of survival in these damned trials had honed her instinct. She was proud to say she could judge the approximate strength of monsters at a single glance. And this was why she couldn't believe that Leon won.

'The monsters must have been low Enma rank for Leon to defeat them alone.' She tried to tell herself.

"The two leading the pack were Lvl 46 and Lvl 48, while the rest were a bit weaker, Lvl 41, Lvl 43, and Lvl 42."

"I-I see"

All Anna could do was stutter.

Leon defeated the five Enma-rank monsters. Although she helped him, it was still unbelievable that they won without any casualties.

Two mid-Iota-rank awakeners defeated 5 high Enma-rank monsters. If this news spread outside, they would be placed on top of their generation.

'My hard work wasn't in vain.' Anna couldn't describe her feelings.

For one, she was incredibly happy that even as a support mage she had grown stronger to the point she could contend against Enma-rank monsters, but on the other hand, it made her more curious about Leon, who engaged in close-quarter combat with the monsters and came out on top.

Drinking a stamina potion, Leon turned to her.

"You said previously that because of your mistake, some strong monsters appeared in the trial. Were these those monsters?"

"No, the one that was released was…."

Grrrrr-

The air trembled and an unfathomable amount of pressure collapsed on Leon and Anna.

Cold sweat ran down their backs, yet Leon couldn't stand up. His senses were telling him. One wrong move and he would die.

From the corner of their eyes, they saw the monster stepping into the light.

Pale blue body, the head of a lion, a goat's torso, the end of the tail hissing at them with its frolicking tongue and its massive wings similar to an eagle's.

A chimera. And a powerful one at that.

The monster roared and breathed flames from its mouth. Anna, who reacted swiftly, conjured 5 consecutive magic circles to act as a shield.

But the smoldering flames bypassed the shields without any obstruction and hit the ground.

Boooom-!

The four-armed ethereal giant appeared in the air and picked them up at the last second, saving them from the explosion.

Leon, who had reacted a bit late, jumped to his feet and spluttered.

"Is that the monster that you were talking about? What is its level?"

"It's a Chimera-type monster with Lvl.100."

"…what?" For a moment, Leon forgot to breathe.

Lvl.100 was the limit of Tesla rank. It was one step away from reaching Hatamoto-rank.

But he regained his composure fairly easily.

'It shouldn't be harder than Abomination.'

'I'm not weak anymore.'

Was it the last victory against Abomination that instilled such confidence in him? He didn't cower, and without a moment's hesitation, decided to fight.

"I'll fight the monster. Please back me up with your magic and-"

Fwosh-

Leon felt a strong gust of wind touch his cheek.

Majestically spreading its wings, the chimera was flying in front of them. The monster swung its talons.

'Raikou can block 90% of physical damage. I should use this chance.' Strengthening his grip at the last second, Leon retaliated.

BOOOOOOOM-!

His katana broke and, like a projectile, his figure shot back. Blood spurted from his mouth and both of his arms bent unnaturally. Crashing into the four-armed giant, the impact was strong enough to drag Raikou along with Leon for several kilometers.

The two crashed into the ground far away from the area they clashed with the chimera.

"Can you move?!" As she was protected by the giant, Anna was relatively healthy and able to move. But the same couldn't be said about Leon.

His eyes were hazy, and he couldn't stand properly without her support. Laboriously breathing, he looked like he would die any second.

"We need to run away!"

Anna threw a disc on the ground. The disc whirred and expanded.

Jumping on it, the disc floated and moved at an extremely fast pace.

"I didn't want to do this." Moving in a specific direction, Anna used smoke-screen artifacts she had on her.

Thick smoke filled the area for several hundred meters. With smoke's special nature, anyone who would enter it would lose their senses and get lost.

Despite this, Anna wasn't very optimistic. She fed Leon the elixir he had given her earlier and watched him healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.

"A…are we r-running?"

His voice croaked as he attempted to speak. A single hit from peak Tesla rank had decimated him.

"In a way, yes."

Giving an ambiguous response, Anna focused on running away.

Grrr-

The chimera's growl came from next to them. Without thinking twice, Anna touched the ground and executed a short chant.

"<Mega-Quagmire>"

The ground beneath them turned squishy and bought them a few more seconds.

Swiping her forehead, Anna focused on maintaining the spell. As they were escaping, she realized that the heat was slowly becoming unbearable.

"huh, heat….?"

Before they could react, a massive fireball dropped from the sky. It was the size of a 5-story building and the forest was set ablaze before the spell even hit the ground.

Gritting his teeth, Leon summoned Raikou and attempted to use the 7th form along with its essence. Since they couldn't escape the impact radius in time, he could only try to cut the fireball.

Vrrrooom-

However, a single massive magic circle appeared in the air. As the fireball phased through the magic circle, Leon realized that the spell had lost its power by a big margin.

Besides him, veins almost burst on Anna's neck as she used her magic.

Although Leon also wanted to help, he was stunned beyond belief, too shocked to move. He finally realized what kind of magic Anna had been using.

"Deconstructing…? You can deconstruct the visualized magic sequences?"

Magic spells are activated with magic circles. The combination of chants, mana, and the mage's visualization forms these circles.

Depending on the mage's mental image, the spell might not work even if they use the exact chant. Vice versa, two people could use the same fireball while using different chants.

Of course, randomly changing the spell's visual imagery never works. A visual image has to be complemented with specific chants and a set type of magic sequences. Thus, it was hard to create new spells.

Nevertheless, if two people use the same chants and visual image to create a spell, the magic circle they would create would always be different.

It is because a magic circle is made up of magic sequences. Every person has a different structure of mana nerves in themselves, thus when they pour mana through their mana nerves, the resulting magic sequences are always different.

As a result, <Dispel>, a magic spell shown in many kids' commercials, where one could destroy other magicians' magic spells, couldn't be used in real life. Because every person has different magic sequences, every spell would need a different <Dispel> to deconstruct it.

Yet Anna was doing that very thing at this very moment.

The sheer audacity of the fact that she was analyzing, creating, and adjusting her magic sequences to counter the magic of the chimera baffled Leon.

"You were using this magic to stop those hundreds of eagles…?"

Not one, ten, or dozen but a hundred. Earlier she was using hundreds of <Dispel> simultaneously. It made Leon realize, maybe the past few years Anna spent alone weren't as simple as she made them out to be.

"C…an you stop gawking and hel…p?"

Veins wriggled on Anna's forehead and blood flowed down her eyes.

Leon commanded Raikou to attack, but he suddenly felt cold wind flowing from beneath him. Instantly, they fell to the ground under the influence of gravity.

Boooom-!

The magic circle stopping the giant fireball disappeared, and it hit the surface.

However, Anna and Leon were already far under the ground to be included in the attack radius.

*

The smoke inhibiting the chimera's senses slowly disappeared.

Flapping its wings, the chimera looked below to find its prey. Below it, a large section of forest had been burnt and laid waste.

Grrrr-

Noticing the dark, deep canyon the chimera growled. Due to the smoke, it didn't notice that it had reached this part of the jungle.

As soon as it noticed the canyon, it flew back to its abode without even trying to find the two preys that it was hunting. For the chimera, a monster known to hold deep grudges against enemies, to leave its prey spoke lengths about the danger lurking in the canyon.

By this time, Nathan had defeated the Abomination and moved to collect his reward.

While Anna and Leon fell into the canyon, Nathan was waiting in the empty space for Administrator to call him.

However, Leon and Anna had yet to get any notification about the Abomination's defeat.