The warlocks and the Liberation Army realized that their camp had been invaded.
The chimeras they had left behind in the underground waterways were killed at a rapid pace and with this momentum; it was only a matter of time before the enemy would make a beeline for their underground facility so the Liberation Army took the initiative.
They would change the terrain, cutting off their escape routes, and then send in their own troops to take the intruders out.
"And this is the result?"
Veronica immediately realized what had happened.
She drew her sword and glared at the enemy in front of her. Her gaze was cold, a far cry from her usual lively self. It held a bone-chilling chill like the coldness of a long northern winter.
There is no denying that the opponent in front of her was evil and the moment she made up her mind, Veronica became a sharp sword.
She would not let her guard down.
The Liberation Army must know that this is an elite force so they wouldn't send regular members to face them and as if to prove it, the enemy was not numerous.
'The path is not very wide, so it would be difficult for a large number of them to attack at once. They could use firearms to slow us down, but guns are useless against people of our caliber.'
So instead of risking a futile battle of attrition, they'd opted for the sure thing.
"Get ready."
Veronica stepped to the front, and the wizard accompanying her, a servant wizard from the imperial family, prepared his spells.
A wizard who could not attend the Arcane Chamber, but was skilled enough to participate in this operation was more than qualified enough to have Veronica's back.
The wizard set off a flaming fire, and a chill hung over Veronica's sword.
* * *
A roar echoed from every direction.
Rudger looked up, trying to gauge how far away the source was from here, and in which direction.
'They must have gotten as far away from each other as possible.'
Rudger absorbed the scattered mana around him once more, making sure it was safe.
The bluish mist soaked into Rudger's body like a sponge and as the fog settled, the scene before him was nothing but ruins.
None of the surrounding terrain had collapsed or disintegrated due to his power control, but the scars on the ground showed that this was no ordinary fight.
Around Rudger lay the Liberators who had fought him only moments before, five in total.
Without guns, they were already stronger than the average man, but they were no match for Rudger's unorthodox fighting style.
'He's crazy.'
Watching Rudger's fight from a distance, Chris recalled the battle earlier. Rudger's fighting style was wizard-like, but not wizard-like.
Normally, a wizard would stand still and cast spells.
According to modern combat manuals, a wizard is like an artillery piece that sweeps through the enemy with powerful firepower.
Of course, not everyone was like that.
There were those who were wizards, but also used their bodies to shake up the enemy lines.
The most prominent of these were the war mages from the military but Rudger's fighting style didn't make much sense to Chris, even from that perspective.
The War Mages were just more advanced wizards, but they lacked Rudger's sense of something fundamentally different.
'He may have served in the military, but can he really be that good given that?'
Rudger's combat style was quite varied. At first, he fired fire magic straight at enemies from a distance. It was a suitable magic for burning enemies at once in a small area.
Naturally, his opponents saw it coming and went on the defensive. Two of the five were wizards, and together they used a barrier to block Rudger's attack.
Rudger then plunged into the center of the enemy line just as the flames rose, blinding them.
The flames obscured their vision, tricking them into not noticing his approach.
Once inside, Rudger channeled his entire body's mana outward and a dense blue mist spread around him, obscuring his enemies' vision.
From there, Rudger moved between them, engaging in magic and melee combat.
Rudger did not use any large-scale magic. Rather, he only used really basic magic, such as those of the first and second grade. But even with simple first-grade magic, he used ridiculous control to his advantage.
'It's not just his mana. It's his unbelievable control and utilization of magic, his combat sense, and his accuracy that doesn't allow for an inch of error. What on earth is this man…….?'
Moreover, the amount of mana he released was unbelievable.
To be able to emit a mana mist like that and then perfectly retrieve it?
Chris couldn't believe his eyes.
He'd seen Rudger compete against teachers at the Magic Festival, and he knew he was good but this was on a different level.
'He didn't even show his true skills then.'
Rather than panic, though, Chris was now entering a stage of resignation that came naturally to him.
"I'm done cleaning up. Too bad you didn't get a chance to make a move, Chris."
"I wasn't going to fight over something that didn't matter anyway."
Chris bluntly replies to Rudger, who turns around and speaks to him.
Belaruna, who had been hiding behind Chris and watching the fight carefully from start to finish, suddenly fixed her gaze on the corpses.
"……!"
Rudger and Chris are about to ask what's wrong when Belaruna's urgent gaze catches their attention.
Belaruna pulled a vial out of a small pouch on her waist and threw it straight at a corpse. The vial, which contained some sort of device, exploded in mid-flight, spilling the clear liquid inside onto the corpse.
At that moment, something surprising, or rather, ugly, happened. The liquid bubbled and quickly dissolved the corpse.
Rudger and Chris were horrified and wanted to ask what was going on. But their mouths dropped open as they watched the untouched body rise.
Its skin turned purple, its eyes reddened, and black blood dripped from its mouth. The changes didn't stop there: sharp spikes sprouted from its back, and its nails grew longer. It was amazing that a corpse could rise from the dead, but this thing was mutating.
[Kyaaah!]
There were two of them in total.
The ambush was thwarted, as even the one that had been resurrected stepped back to avoid the liquid.
If Belaruna hadn't melted the corpses beforehand, the enemies they thought were dead would have risen at once to attack.
"What is this…….?"
Chris's voice trembled as he realized that something that defied common sense happened.
"The warlocks use commands to move the corpse, but it's not the only thing they're using. They mixed in a lot of other things."
Pure necromancy only resurrects the corpse itself but doesn't change its form.
"……I think these guys came here with the intention of dying from the start."
"What?"
"That power writhing in their bodies, it's like the one from the chimeras. They've probably injected their bodies with genetic factors obtained through chimera research."
"Human experimentation on their own bodies? Who the hell would do such a crazy thing…….?"
"It's in front of you, isn't it, otherwise you wouldn't be able to explain that look."
"……Shit. That's it."
[Kyaaaaah!]
The enemies who had seized the opportunity at that moment, now deprived of even human language, lunged at Rudger and Chris.
Their torn open mouths were filled with razor sharp teeth. It was a creature that had lost all human form and could only be called a monster.
As the creature lunged with its mouth agape, Rudger spoke soothingly.
"It's a good thing, isn't it, Chris, that you can finally fight."
"Are you in a position to say that now?"
"Weren't you lamenting a moment ago?"
"I wasn't!"
"Then now is the time to show it, because Miss Belaruna is watching from the back."
"This bastard……!"
Chris shouted, but he didn't take his eyes off his adversary, who had gotten very close.
His hand moved faster than he could speak. He grabbed the vial of reagent between his fingers in a split second and hurled it at the monster in front of him.
[Kyaak!]
The creature that was lunging at Chris saw the flying vial and ducked low enough to avoid it.
'Dodged?'
He didn't know what the reagent was and dodged it with his bizarre movements.
He guessed from the way their bodies had changed, but they were already far beyond human.
Chris gritted his teeth and activated a spell he'd already prepared. The reagent he'd thrown down was just a trick to buy time in the first place.
The real thing was the spell he'd prepared in advance.
[Boom!]
The ground between Chris and the creature shook, and a sharp rock awl rose up.
The creature crouched low, unable to dodge the attack. But the creature pushed off the ground with both of its long arms, and the next thing you know, it's up in the air.
The rock awl missed its target, piercing nothing.
"What the……!"
Chris hadn't expected it to be able to evade the magic he prepared.
The creature swooped down toward him, spreading its arms wide. Razor-sharp blades protruded from the tips of its elongated arms and mutated bones had been transformed into blades.
"Don't be ridiculous!"
Chris glared and summoned his magic. His hair fluttered wildly from the force, and a translucent figure rose from his back.
A giant flower bloomed behind him, radiating a light green color. It was named Lau Bloomé, and it was a [Magic Tree] that Chris Benimore could control.
Countless vine stalks shot out from the mysterious flower and grabbed the monster in the air. No matter how fast one's reaction time was, there was no way to dodge an attack in the air with no foothold.
The monster struggled against the vines, but the vines didn't budge. It opened up like a flower bud in full bloom, and began to radiate magic at its center.
The fiery yellow energy gathered into a single point, compressed as much as possible, and shot forward in a great fan.
The creature was caught in the trajectory and vanished without a trace.
With the creature defeated, Chris released the spell and let out a ragged breath.
"Ha, ha."
"Are you done?"
Rudger walked up to Chris and asked while Chris stared at Rudger in disbelief.
Over Rudger's shoulder, the creature that had attacked him lay dead with a hole through its brow and heart.
"When? No, more importantly, how?"
"I just used magic to kill it."
"……."
Chris was dumbfounded that he took care of the creature with such ease, but tried not to let it show.
"More than that, was that a spell?"
"…… Yeah. I didn't want to use it much because it drains my mana."
Besides, there was another reason why Chris didn't use his magic tree much.
The last thing he wanted to show anyone was that his magic tree was in the form of a flower.
"One of the powers seems pretty cool. You can use vines to grab enemies, which seems pretty useful."
"……Well, it uses a lot of mana."
Just then, Belaruna approached and said.
"Oh my god, what was that magic tree you just used? That was so cool!"
"Well, was it?"
"Yeah. I don't know if it's because I'm an elf, but it felt very familiar, and something about it reminded me of Mr. Chris, which was really cool!"
"Hmmm. No big deal."
"……."
Chris avoided eye contact when he asked, trying not to explain, but now that Belaruna had asked, Rudger could tell he was getting excited.
The difference in tone had become second nature to him by now, and Rudger naturally looked at the corpse he'd subdued.
'When he came back to life, his rationality was gone, but his physical abilities became almost transcendent, which is why his instincts are so strong, and his reaction time is at an all-time high.
Despite his speed, the way he instinctively sensed his opponent's attack and tried to dodge it was extremely annoying.
It was something impossible for a normal human to do.
'I won't be able to hit them unless I'm really fast.'
Most disturbing of all was the foreign power he could feel emanating from the corpse, however faintly.
'No matter how I look at it, this must be demonic energy.'
Warlocks could manipulate demonic energy to the point of infusing it into human bodies but the worse thing was that they wouldn't stop there.