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Volume 7 Chapter 9 Part 2

Translator: Kell

After I jumped backwards, the Ether Canon pierced the spot I was in. For a guy who’s aiming randomly, he actually managed to land a hit at my location. Maybe the enemy has a Mage who excels in detection.

I returned to killing monsters. “Ice Pillar. Ice Pillar. Ice Pillar.”

The ten seconds after Ether Cannon is cast is crucial. By killing the monsters and securing the safety of our surroundings during this downtime, we will have space to evade when we become the target of the Ether Canon. Killing monsters this way, while being wary of the enemy’s attacks from above, is quite inefficient, but I still consume the same mana for each monster anyway, so it all comes down to how fast we can kill them.

The rate at which the lava pools produced monsters was gradually slowing down. Even at our current pace, we’ll be able to kill them all in time.

“Please stay still!” Michael said.

This time he instructed us to not move. It means that the enemy’s spell will not hit anyone, but it will land somewhere nearby. We might get hit if we moved, so it’s best to just stay put and wait until the spell hit.

The fact that he gave such an instructions means that the enemy likely doesn’t know exactly where we are. It just so happened that the first two shots followed a trajectory that would have hit us—nothing but a coincidence. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that they’re missing on purpose to make us think that, but if that’s the case, they could have done it in a more obvious manner.

“Impact confirmed. You’re free to move!”

“Copy that.”

And so we continued killing the countless monsters coming out of the pools. Over time, fewer and fewer monsters appeared. Even while dealing with the Ether Cannon, we still managed to kill them all. At this point, it wasn’t us killing the monsters in front of us, more like we’re waiting for the monsters to spawn and then kill them.

The enemy on the mountaintop has not made any movement. They’re just doing what they’ve been doing so far—firing Ether Cannons every time it comes off cooldown. If they closed in on us, Spirit Clairvoyance might not allow us to dodge in time, which would spell trouble for us, but they seemed to be just staying still.

Ether Cannon consumes very little mana, so while we’re not moving yet, they just keep firing in hopes that they’ll land a shot. More like a gamble, really. The fact that you can fire a powerful spell like this a hundred times from a safe place is unfair. But Skills that require Awakening tend to be broken to begin with. In fact, Ether Cannon is not a particularly powerful Skill among the Awakened lineup.

The fact that the enemy has been attacking us one-sidedly for so long yet aren’t able to make us suffer casualties is proof of that. Skill-based combat isn’t so easy that you can win just by firing off a bunch of magic from a safe distance.

If it had been Count Gaze’s army that came to Raijis instead of us, they might have been annihilated by the sniper alone. While Count Meigis’s troops are not trained for human warfare, some of them were the right choice for this mission in their ability to deal with a possible Awakened enemy. I chose one with the Skill Spirit Clairvoyance, perfect against Awakened Mages, because I already considered this possibility.

Now if you ask me if it’s good that the enemy is not moving, I’d say no. If the enemy’s main force left the summit, I could leave the squad and take the Sanctuary, and then undergo Awakening. That would’ve been the quickest way to end the mission. In the end, it doesn’t really matter either way because I had a strategy prepared for each situation.

“It’s about time,” I said as I watched the monsters appearing. “Get ready to change formation.”

My fellow troops adjusted their positions slightly and prepared for the next instructions. Then a few minutes later, the monsters stopped coming.

“Everyone, get away from the lava!”

The squad all moved away from the pool of lava. Flames erupted from the center, transforming into countless monsters.

This is proof that the volcano has recognized that it can’t defeat us by just sending monsters endlessly. Because the volcano can absorb dead monsters as well, even if we kill them, the volcano won’t lose that much power.

But that only applied to monsters that took time to create. The more unnatural the phenomenon it brings about, the more power it consumes. Spewing out lava like it did earlier to lure us in didn’t consume much power because lava is just a natural component of a volcano.

The monsters that had appeared earlier were originally from here, and the volcano just gathered them. That’s why they didn’t appear that fast, and their rate of appearance gradually slowed down. All the volcano really had to do was move the monsters, allowing for minimal power consumption.

But the monsters right now were created directly from the volcano’s power. That’s why it was able to create numerous monsters in an instant that were much stronger than the ones earlier. This is basically an emergency measure for a volcano, one that consumes a great deal of energy.

Now if a large number of monsters appear in one place and at the same time, dealing with them is easy. I have the perfect spell for this situation.

“Steam Explosion.”

With a deafening bang, a blast blew away the monsters that had spawned. The monsters created from the power of an active volcano are certainly stronger than the ones that came before, probably as strong as the stronger Area Bosses.

However, Steam Explosion was still able to kill them all in one shot. It doesn’t matter if the enemy has resistance to fire. They can’t block the fierce gust of wind that comes afterwards. The monsters that the volcano created using so much energy were wiped out before they could even show their power.

“Okay… What next?”

If the volcano was as intelligent as a human, it would have waited five seconds just in case of a Dual Cast, and then recreated the monsters. Steam Explosion is a spell that can’t be cast continuously, and there aren’t many magic that can kill that many in one shot.

For the volcano, it’s a demanding move, but for one as big as this, it should be able to produce a second swarm of monsters without fatally depleting itself. In human terms, it’s like casting a spell that consumes a lot of mana twice.

But an active volcano is a kind of monster, driven by instinct. It doesn’t have the ability to name the spells that its enemy is using and come up with some sort of a strategy. With the monster horde it spent so much energy to create killed instantly, it’ll try to eliminate us using other means.

But there’s not a lot of defensive measures left for it to use. When you think of volcanoes, you think of lava flows and volcanic projectiles, but it would take months before it could incorporate those kind of things into its attacks. There is only one weapon that it can use now that’s more powerful than the monsters it summoned.

“I knew you’d do that.”

Right in front of me, a large amount of lava erupted from the pool. Unlike earlier when it built the bridge, the lava did not cool and harden. Instead it gradually changed shape, its temperature increasing.

After changing shapes, there stood a giant made of lava—a lava golem of some sorts.

This monster is called a Volcano Avatar. It’s the ultimate weapon of an active volcano, the volcano’s power itself materialized.