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Chapter 339

Boom!! Boom!!!

Magical beams crashed down like bombardments, tearing up the ground wherever they struck.

The multicolored pillars shimmered with a low hum, scattering visible ripples in all directions as if forbidding any intruder from approaching.

When the first wave of bombardment ended, Gordon gasped for air and coughed up a handful of blood.

“Cough!”

He tried to cast a defensive spell by reflex—but honestly, it was far too late.

The attacks came too quickly to react to each one, and every blast carried terrifying power.

Was it high-circle magic?

He couldn’t tell, but one thing was certain—the spells completely ignored the known structure and laws of magic.

Magic is knowledge—knowledge is power.

When defending against an attack spell, one must rapidly analyze its type, mana quantity, and flow to respond effectively.

But if even one of these is miscalculated, the defense shatters instantly.

The reckless speed of his chanting had caused severe internal injuries.

He was alive only by sheer luck.

‘It’s not that the magic itself is strong… it’s just so bizarre.’

He had witnessed countless spells in his life, yet none so twisted as this.

Looking around, he realized with confusion that the surroundings were untouched.

An illusion?

Could all those blasts have been hallucinations?

Just then, Leon, standing unharmed near one of the pillars, spoke.

“Hmm… This is blasphemous. Whoever made this rewrote the rules to their liking.”

“The outer dimension is like that,”

Luna replied flatly.

“Nothing stable remains there—life, matter, even laws themselves.”

“This’ll need to be forcibly fixed before we can destroy it.”

“Can you?”

“It’ll take a bit.”

The two spoke in riddles that made no sense to Gordon.

“What nonsense…! Whatever that thing is, it’s structurally unsound. Saying you’ll fix its laws before destroying it is like pouring oxygen on a fire to put it out—physically impossible. If the shape’s that distorted, breaking it will—”

Crash!!!

The pillar shattered before he could finish.

“You said it’d take a while,”

Luna remarked calmly.

Leon nodded.

“Yeah. Thirty seconds is a long time for something like this. My head could’ve rolled off a dozen times already. But once you get the hang of it, it’s doable.”

As he waved his hand, magic circles bloomed midair, and in moments, every other pillar collapsed as well—far faster than the first.

‘No incantations?’

‘How can he even maintain that? The mana cost must be absurd.’

‘Is that even something a human mind can calculate or construct?’

Any stable phenomenon required a pattern.

Even twisted by the outer dimension’s distortions, once you analyzed the pattern, you could undo it.

At least, that’s how Leon made it look.

Gordon was dumbfounded.

“That’s impossible… No human alive could do that.”

“Right here.”

Leon grinned.

“Uh…”

Gordon muttered weakly,

“But you’re a Sword Master—you use aura blades. How can you possibly—”

“Magic’s just a side job.”

At that moment, Gordon remembered what Ashuria had once said.

‘Ah…’

Now he understood.

Seeing it with his own eyes made it clear: calling Leon a “monster” was an understatement.

“Archmage? The greatest magician on the continent?”—all meaningless titles.

He finally grasped why Rubas Hontail, once obsessed with reaching “Demon Sage” level, had abandoned that ambition and lived so casually afterward.

Watching Leon’s back as he walked ahead, Gordon reached out with mana-sense to trace his lingering aura—and laughed hollowly.

“Damn… I don’t even have the right to look up at him.”

When the gap is too great, you can’t even measure the other’s level.

Leon pointed toward something.

Across the area, dozens of colored pillars stood arranged in a precise pattern, like a ritual site.

“What’s that one?”

“Looks like it generates illusions.”

“Ah. Great.”

Another new kind of pillar—different again from magic.

Even Leon wouldn’t—

But before Gordon could finish the thought, Leon raised a spectral hammer.

“Utopia—twist.”

The hammer flared, striking empty air.

Reality itself cracked, and an unseen force swallowed the illusion field whole, ripping control of it away.

All eyes turned to Gordon.

‘Was that… also magic?’

“I give up,”

He muttered, utterly defeated.

* * *

Illusion pillars.

Twisted-law pillars.

Even aura blades struggled to cut them—yet Leon and Luna were dismantling them all.

By now, 80% of the ritual array was destroyed.

“Seems something regenerative is attached to them, unless we annihilate them completely, they’ll keep healing.”

“Use poison.”

Drip—

A single drop fell from Leon’s fingertip.

As it merged with the air, the grotesque flesh-like pillar began to hiss and melt away.

And still, the strange parade continued.

“That forest looks bad. Entering it would trigger attacks from all sides. The pillars inside must be shielded.”

“Falling Blossom.”

Crackkkk!!

The trees protecting the pillar were torn apart as Leon’s claymore glowed, and the ground erupted with new roots that crushed the pillar completely.

Even ghostly wraiths emerged—only to shriek and flee the instant they saw Leon.

They looked terrifying, more dangerous than ordinary monsters, yet they trembled before him.

The professors and students of Kona Academy all shared the same thought:

‘How can one man have so many talents? It’s endless… like peeling an onion that never stops.’

“That’s the last one,”

Luna said, pointing ahead.

A massive pillar loomed—far larger than the rest.

“The serpent coiled around that one is the core of the ritual. Destroy it, and it’s over.”

“That thing? The scale’s absurd. No way a few traitors made this.”

“Agreed. A normal distortion field wouldn’t reach this level. Something got tempted across the rift.”

“Something?”

Leon’s eyes narrowed.

“A nest, huh…”

Luna tilted her head.

“That’s a rare entity. Even in the Great War, we barely saw one.”

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“I know. Nemesis, right?”

Her eyes widened.

“Leon…”

“It’s dangerous, but not impossible.”

He glanced at the countdown clock.

Three hours left—plenty of time.

He stretched out his hand.

The air split open, and the sword Elekstra slid into his grasp.

Luna readied herself.

“W-wait! Do you even know what that is?!”

A Kona Academy professor shouted, struggling to stay conscious as the creature’s aura distorted their senses.

Several students were already half-fainted.

“Gather,”

Leon commanded.

His shadow rippled—and countless wraiths poured out: forest wendigos, wyverns, and other monstrosities.

They floated in formation, surrounding the group, an army of the undead.

“That should do. Let’s go.”

Boom!!!

Luna moved first.

Her figure vanished—then reappeared point-blank before the massive serpent.

KABOOM!!!

The sound arrived a moment after the impact, delayed by sheer force.

Her blow tore into the creature, forcing it to recoil, though it wrapped tighter around the pillar to hold its ground.

A hideous scar split its scales; one of its yellow eyes snapped open, glowing ominously.

Impact resistance.

It braced itself, coiling tighter to counterattack.

Hundreds of mouths along its body gaped open, sucking in the red mist that filled the air.

Crack… crack!!

Its flesh turned golden as it hardened and swung at Luna.

Her blows distorted space itself, yet this time it endured—then retaliated.

Leon, who had fought Nemeses thousands of times before, calmly summoned a fireball.

[Flame Cannon]

The creature flinched, twisting its body to evade.

Nemesis’ trick was simple: when it activated one resistance, it became vulnerable to another.

Leon knew its patterns by heart.

While it strengthened its shock resistance, it grew extremely weak to fire.

Boom!!

A blazing shell slammed into the monster, detonating on contact.

It roared, its body now burning crimson—but it wasn’t finished.

It had switched to magic resistance, surviving though part of its tail was shredded by Luna’s blow.

Now wary, the Nemesis hesitated.

But Leon was, after all, a Nemesis hunter.

“Luna, it can’t use impact resistance anymore.”

Crack.

Luna smiled and flexed her fingers.

“Then easy now.”

Though the creature possessed power rivaling a Mind Master, that meant little when facing two beings stronger than that.

BOOM!!!

Luna’s assault warped the air, forcing the creature back.

It tried to evade—but made a fatal mistake.

Just because Leon had used magic didn’t mean his physical strikes were harmless.

“Peekaboo.”

Leon appeared behind it, smiling.

Its many eyes darted in panic.

A purple-tinged sword slash—

Schwik!

Before it could react, Leon’s blade carved a red arc, cleaving the monster cleanly in two.

Screeeech—!

It screamed as its eyes flickered; its body color shifted again.

Regeneration mode.

It sacrificed all resistances for overwhelming self-healing.

But then it saw the violet venom glowing at Leon’s fingertips—and despaired.

Regeneration forms were strong against any damage… except one.

Poison.

And Leon’s “Heaven-Slaying Toxin” could melt even the Hydra, a being made of pure venom.

Ssssss—

“SKREEEEEEEEE!!!”

The Nemesis writhed in agony, its flesh dissolving rapidly.

It thrashed and howled, but the fight was already over.

Leon and Luna knew its every weakness; it knew nothing of them.

Thud!!!

The corpse turned entirely purple, then rotted away.

Leon stretched out his hand.

[Wraith Bind]

The otherworldly predator’s essence twisted and rose again as an undead bound to his will.

At the same time, the countdown slowed—

[56:57]

Beep—

[56:56]

The time limit, now in minutes and seconds, no longer mattered.

It had completely stopped.

“Oh, it stopped,”

Luna said.

“Nice. But why do you know so much about Nemeses?”

“I’ve caught one before.”

“Nemesis are extra-dimensional beings. Not single entities, but if one appeared on Lazarus, the continent would’ve gone insane.”

“Not Lazarus,”

Leon said vaguely.

“Hard to explain. Anyway…”

“Hmm…”

“Now what? How do we get out of here?”

“No idea.”

They looked at each other.

Both tilted their heads.

“You don’t know?”

“I was going to use its core to trace the rift back to Lazarus—but you turned it undead and broke the core. You seemed so confident I figured you knew another way.”

Silence.

“Huh?”

Leon blinked.

“Huh?”

Luna blinked back.

They stared awkwardly at each other.

“I had no idea it even had a core like that!”

“How can you know everything else and not that?!”

Meanwhile, surrounded by the undead army, the professors and students could only stare blankly at the two monsters arguing.

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