CHAPTER 195: CHAPTER 195: AN INCOMPLETE VICTORY

"Dead," Riveria answered, her gaze swept past Emiya supporting Filvis, paused slightly, but said no more.

"Originally I planned to freeze him, bring him back to the surface for proper interrogation."

She continued, her tone carrying a trace of regret, "But, his life signs suddenly disappeared... After defrosting, it was discovered that the magic stone in his chest had already shattered."

Once the magic stone breaks, death follows. In this regard, the Monsters seem to be the same as ordinary monsters.

"Magic stone, shattered...", Emiya said thoughtfully.

"Yes."

Alicia nodded, "It’s possible he crushed the magic stone himself to avoid being captured. Not willing to let us catch and interrogate him, so he chose this way to end his life."

"Because of the enemy’s obstruction, we were delayed quite a bit. Now, it’s time to return and regroup with Finn and the others."

Riveria pondered for a moment, then spoke, "We actually encountered one Lv.5, and one Lv.6. The enemy’s strength is far greater than anticipated."

———

"Totally defeated, huh."

Thanatos’s enchanting yet hollow voice echoed in the dark room. He stroked his slightly curly long hair with one hand, the corners of his mouth curling into what seemed like a mocking smile, "Valletta-chan also died... As expected, maybe I shouldn’t have prayed for her?"

There was not the slightest sadness in the god of death’s voice. He merely sighed lightly. As the god of death, Thanatos naturally would not be saddened by a "beautiful" death.

Even so, Thanatos still let out a soft sigh, a faint hint of regret flashing in his eyes. The one who understood him best, the most in-sync child, was now gone, and he would never again share those cruel pleasures with her.

This sense of loss left him a little wistful.

"Well, if she was killed by the [Braver], Valletta-chan should be satisfied. After all, she was always muttering about Finn, obsessed with killing him."

Thanatos sighed, "Humans, such creatures, when fixated, really resemble being in love."

To give up everything, with the sole obsession being to kill the other, this, to the god of death, was nothing short of love~

However, his gaze soon returned to calm, turning to the side.

"Valletta-chan is dead, Olivas-kun is dead, Revis-chan and Ein-chan were both defeated too... Now isn’t it completely hopeless?", Thanatos absentmindedly played with his deep purple hair, as if talking to himself in the mirror, "So, what should we do next, Enyo?"

Thanatos’s voice lingered softly in the room, yet the shadow beside him remained silent.

It was a tall man, dressed in black, wearing a gloomy mask that hid his facial features, revealing only indifferent eyes.

"Enyo", that was the name he called himself.

His true identity, even Thanatos, the god of death and his ally, didn’t know. Only that, he too was likely a god.

In the past, when mingling with Thanatos and the other Evilus members like Valletta, Enyo always maintained an air of perfect strategizing and mysteriousness, as if everything was within his calculations.

But now, faced with this outcome, Enyo found himself momentarily speechless.

Ein’s "failure" was within expectations. Her strength wasn’t enough to defeat Riveria’s Lv.7-led team alone.

Besides, her mission wasn’t to defeat the enemy.

As for the [White-Haired Demon], that useless guy, dead is dead.

Even after becoming a "Monster," Olivas’s limit was still only Lv.5. Compared to Revis and Ein, who could reach Lv.7 by consuming enough magic stones, there was an insurmountable gap.

Moreover, Olivas did not obey Enyo’s orders. To him, this guy was an unstable element prone to causing trouble.

What surprised Enyo was the crushing defeat of Valletta and Revis.

[Killer Empress] Valletta’s meticulously prepared "suicide attack" squad was entirely wiped out by [Blaze Devourer], and she herself nearly died. Afterwards, she tried to take Finn down with her, but failed.

Revis, too, was defeated again by the Loki Familia.

"The intervention of the Hephaestus Familia is too troublesome. If it were only the Loki Familia, the result would not have been like this," Enyo said.

"Our trump cards aren’t used up yet, but I don’t think now is the right time," Enyo’s final weapon, the Fallen Spirit, was not yet fully trained.

Thanatos asked, "So, what do you plan to do?"

"Contract the front line."

Enyo said, "If we detonate the artificial dungeon, can we trap the Loki Familia people here?"

"Of course not. That’s a dungeon made of super-hard metal, not so easily collapsed, at least not the layer where the Loki Familia is now."

Thanatos chuckled lightly, "Even Baka-kun could at most collapse a few passageways."

"If that’s the case, then have Baka seal off the area where the Loki Familia is as much as possible, isolating it from other sections. At the very least, it can delay their movements."

"If you want Baka to do that kind of thing, you’ll have to persuade him yourself. Baka-kun treats this dungeon like his treasure. He’s not going to let it be damaged so easily, you know."

Thanatos stood up, muttering to himself, "Looks like, now we really need to think carefully... about how to escape this city."

———

Riveria’s group returned along the original route to regroup with Finn and the others.

Their condition was good, none of them were injured. But Finn’s side was in less optimistic shape: Gareth, Tiona, and Bete were all wounded to varying degrees.

Though these injuries weren’t fatal for first-class adventurers, what was worrying was the curse of [Incurable] affixed to the wounds, causing continuous blood loss.

Especially Gareth, his abdomen was pierced, blood gushing out nonstop, and his face had grown pale.

Riveria stepped forward, raised her staff, and began chanting healing magic.

[Van Alheim]

A warm light enveloped Gareth and the others, but even so, the bleeding did not stop. The curse clung tenaciously like rot on bone.

Seeing this, Emiya stepped forward. He closed his eyes and projected a Noble Phantasm, [Pain Breaker].

A Noble Phantasm possessed by Medea, the Princess of Colchis. It was the counterpart to [Rule Breaker], the Noble Phantasm of Medea the Witch of Vengeance. It nullified all curses and magical damage.

"Pain Breaker" did not manipulate time, but automatically restored things by calculating their original form.

Emiya, holding the projected magic wand, lightly passed it over Gareth, Tiona, and Bete’s wounds.

The wand emitted a faint light with purifying power. When it touched the cursed wounds, the shadowy curse fled like evil driven away by light. The bleeding stopped, and the wounds healed rapidly under the restorative power.

"Feeling much better. Thank you, Emiya," Gareth said, some color returning to his face.

"Finn, are you okay?", Riveria looked at Finn leaning against the wall. The pallum warrior looked exhausted.

"I’m fine. I used berserk magic in the temporarily ’level boosted’ state, which consumed a lot," Finn rubbed his aching temples.

Riveria looked around, taking in the injured Gareth and others, and Finn who had used up all his trump cards, [Uchide no Kozuchi] and berserk magic, and said softly, "Looks like you encountered quite a troublesome enemy."

"Yeah. Lv.5 [Killer Empress] Valletta, and a Lv.7 [Monster]," Finn nodded.

"How did the battle go?", Riveria asked.

"Valletta, killed by me," Finn sighed, pointing with his spare spear at an indescribable pile of "flesh."

A heap of mangled flesh, reeking of burnt and bloody odor, with a few bone fragments scattered on the floor.

This was once the body of [Killer Empress] Valletta, now completely unrecognizable.

Riveria looked at the mess that used to be Valletta and shook her head.

"[Killer Empress] Valletta... so she was still alive."

"Yeah, the Nightmare Event on the twenty-seventh floor was their fake-death plan to escape. But now, she should be truly dead," Finn explained, "Before dying, Valletta fused with a colored magic stone, but instead of becoming a [Monster], she turned into a twisted creature."

Riveria nodded, "And the [Monster] you encountered?"

"That red-haired beast tamer... she escaped. I only managed to cut off one of her arms. Couldn’t finish her off," A hint of regret appeared on Finn’s face.

He looked at the cleanly severed arm on the ground, "We can take this arm back and let Miss Airmid analyze it. Maybe we can find something useful."

"Captain!", At that moment, Raul ran over urgently, "I just scouted around, all the exits in every direction are closed."

"Looks like the enemy has gone on the defensive, trying to use the artificial dungeon to delay our movements," Finn analyzed calmly.

In other words, to continue exploring this dungeon, the adventurers would have to breach every adamantine gate or tear through walls of hardened steel.

It was possible, but if they had to break down all the gates one by one, the durability of their drilling machines would soon run out, and Riveria and Emiya’s mana would be heavily depleted.

Also, although Gareth and the others had been healed, recovering stamina after blood loss and combat wasn’t easy.

"Better safe than sorry. Let’s retreat for now," Finn pondered for a moment and finally made the decision.

The adventurers retreated and returned to the surface.

This operation, the joint force of Loki and Hephaestus Familia, achieved an unquestionable victory.

In terms of results, they killed two Lv.5 enemies, Valletta and Olivas, both remnants of the Evilus.

Riveria’s group also brought back Olivas’s corpse, a valuable "trophy" with propaganda value, enough to show the Guild and all adventurers in Orario exactly who their enemies were.

Unfortunately, Valletta’s body was too mangled to piece together.

In addition, they confirmed that the enemy’s secret base was actually an [Artificial Dungeon], and learned the enemy’s identity, a collaboration between remnants of the Evilus and [Monsters].

All of this was achieved with no deaths and no adventurers permanently injured, which was quite remarkable.

But even so, this operation could only be considered an incomplete victory. While the enemy was dealt a heavy blow, their main forces, Lv.7 Monster Revis and suspected Lv.6 Ein, were still alive and had escaped. The enemy had not been fully defeated.

———

In the conference room, the adventurers were reviewing the battle.

"This was my mistake. I didn’t expect that using berserk mode on top of [Uchide no Kozuchi] would cause total loss of control," Finn sat at the table, blaming himself.

Originally, with his overwhelming rationality and willpower, even berserk mode wouldn’t cause total loss of control. However, the [Uchide no Kozuchi] enhanced Finn’s level temporarily and greatly boosted his abilities, but also caused him to lose all control while berserk.

If he had retained some sanity, and cooperated with Ais, Gareth, and the others, they would have had a solid chance of defeating the red-haired beast tamer Revis.

But because Finn went completely berserk, Ais and the others didn’t dare join the battle. Otherwise, they might have been struck down by Finn’s uncontrollable attacks.

If Ais and the others weren’t defeated by the [Monster] but were knocked out by Finn himself, it would’ve been too embarrassing.

"This couldn’t be helped, Finn-senpai. You can’t call that your mistake," Emiya spoke, "In that situation, you already did your best."

Finn leaned back in his chair, exhaling deeply, weariness flashing across his face, I have to admit, we really underestimated the enemy."

Finn continued, "I didn’t think there’d be someone at the Lv.7 level among them."

Even during the dark age, aside from a few special external forces, the strongest fighters in the Eviluss were only Lv.5.

Those enemies were hard to deal with mainly because of their overwhelming numbers in the lower ranks, their devious tactics, and complete lack of morality.

So in Finn’s assumptions, even in the worst-case scenario, the enemy’s strongest would only be at Lv.6.

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