Ch.988Why You Should Develop Your Party Members Evenly

======[ Demian ]======

Despite their four-to-one numerical advantage, Demian’s group couldn’t provide any help in the battle against Great Guardian Varnir Freyus.

They had tried their best to support, but perhaps the gap in skill simply wouldn’t allow such intervention.

“Too fast…!”

The overwhelming speed difference. That was the problem.

Haschal was using her Tale of Heros to counter Varnir’s speed, but the other three had no such talent.

Perneisia, who was only supplementing her physical abilities with dwarven machinery, and Ophelia van Sigmillus, who wasn’t a physical fighter to begin with, found it nearly impossible to even keep the two transcendents within their field of vision.

Firing ranged attacks at an enemy they couldn’t even track would be pointless—they’d be lucky if they didn’t hit their ally and cause defeat.

Perneisia’s attacks were essentially sealed off, and even Ophelia’s magic with added tracking formulas couldn’t keep up with Varnir’s speed, rendering it meaningless.

“Tch, if it weren’t for this rain…!”

The pouring rain severely limited the types of magic she could use.

To keep up with Varnir’s speed, she would need to fire lightning magic with tracking formulas or use wide-area frost formulas to slow down the opponent.

However, using lightning magic in this downpour meant electrocuting everyone—friend and foe alike.

The same went for frost formulas. With Haschal’s entire body soaked in rainwater, the spreading cold would freeze not just Varnir.

With lightning and frost sealed off, fire magic was obviously unusable, and wind magic was shattered to pieces by the shockwaves from the sword strikes of the two monsters.

On top of that, the homunculus army she had created using all the magic stones she had collected was completely annihilated by a single strike of Varnir’s power.

Even Ophelia couldn’t find a solution in such a situation.

The last person, Demian—the only one capable of matching Haschal and Varnir’s movements—couldn’t even attempt to join their battle.

“Teleport for a surprise attack…? No, too dangerous against that speed.”

The reason was simple.

To attack Varnir while ensuring Haschal wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire, he would need to engage in close combat, which would leave Ophelia and Perneisia defenseless in the rear.

If the enemy were an ordinary warrior, that wouldn’t be a problem, but their opponent was a monster with speed equal to Haschal’s plus spatial teleportation abilities.

Demian was certain. The moment he approached Varnir with “Skywalk” and swung his sword, Varnir would also leap through space to target Ophelia and Perneisia.

That was why Demian couldn’t move carelessly. He couldn’t risk sending his two allies to their deaths for the sake of attempting meaningless support attacks.

And then, shortly after.

– Rumble…!

Varnir stretched his left hand toward the sky, fully manifesting his power of creation, and instantly trapped himself and Haschal inside a forest of giant trees that appeared out of nowhere.

Like a barrier, the densely rising trees created a battlefield where those inside and outside couldn’t see each other’s situations.

“…That looks a bit dangerous.”

“More than just a bit, I’d say? Still, we might be able to do something now. At least we have a large target.”

The three finally gained an opportunity to attack.

—-

Demian, Ophelia, and Perneisia unleashed their maximum firepower at the tree barrier Varnir had created, only to realize it was meaningless.

– Whoosh…

Perneisia’s consecutive spirit arrows and Ophelia’s magical bombardment—attacks that had shown definite destructive power against tree spirits—vanished futilely upon contact with the forest. They couldn’t even leave a trace, let alone break through the tree barrier.

“It erases mana…?!”

Ophelia realized the reason with shock.

The tree barrier Varnir had deployed was annihilating the very mana in the surrounding area, destroying approaching magic along with its formulas.

A anti-mana barrier that reverted incoming magical attacks to nothing and prevented the casting of magic from within.

It was literally the natural enemy of mages.

Since it annihilated the surrounding mana itself, the only effective attack against the tree barrier was Demian’s Celestial Fury.

Even that was barely effective—as soon as the bombardment of light ended, new giant trees sprouted up to fill the gaps left by the destroyed ones.

“…This seems endless.”

Demian muttered with a groan.

By his judgment, to destroy that forest with Celestial Fury, he would need to expend every last bit of his power without reservation.

If he exhausted all his power in front of an enemy who could use spatial teleportation, his remaining lifespan would be reduced to mere seconds.

In other words, the three of them couldn’t destroy that forest with their power.

It was actually obvious.

Varnir’s wide-area power, “Blooming Battlefield,” was an ultimate technique that combined the power bestowed upon him by the World Tree with his own divinity.

If it could be easily destroyed, he wouldn’t have deployed it in the first place.

—-

The three eventually gave up on intervening in the battle between Varnir and Haschal.

There was no point in obsessing over the impossible. They thought it would be better to look for alternatives instead.

And the alternative they came up with was—

“Let’s head to the World Tree. I’m not sure if we can destroy it, but destroying all the facilities around it would still be meaningful.”

They would leave Varnir and Haschal here while the remaining three directly attacked the World Tree.

“Will that be okay…? What if that monster comes out after us…”

“If he could do that, he would have come out and eliminated us first. Since he didn’t, we can assume he can’t target us outside the barrier while maintaining it.”

“That… does make sense.”

Ophelia agreed with Demian’s speculation.

From her perspective too, there was no other explanation for why Varnir hadn’t prioritized targeting the three of them.

Either the barrier itself would be dispelled the moment he left through spatial teleportation, or he couldn’t activate spatial teleportation inside the barrier to begin with.

Either way, for Varnir to attack them now, he would likely need to dispel the tree barrier containing Haschal.

‘Even for him, deploying such a large-scale miracle must have consumed considerable power. He wouldn’t easily give up something that cost him so much.’

From Ophelia’s perspective, the skill gap between Haschal and Varnir didn’t seem that large.

It was close enough that the winner and loser could be reversed by a small variable.

In such a situation, he couldn’t easily abandon a barrier that he had deployed by allocating enormous power.

‘He definitely can’t give up. If wasting that power causes his defeat, he’d die with regret.’

Attachment to sunk costs is the essence of all beings with intelligence.

With this reasoning, Ophelia agreed with Demian’s proposal to target the World Tree first instead of Varnir.

—-

The three headed straight for the World Tree located in the center of the capital.

Their intentions were obvious to anyone watching. However, none of the fairies of Alvheim could block their path.

Most of the capital’s residents had been turned into horrible chunks of meat scattered about, and Varnir was too busy fighting Haschal to spare attention for outside matters.

Therefore, only one being could stop the threat approaching the World Tree.

【 I҉̱͉̥̩̜͚͚̭̞͉̣̇͊͐͌̿̋̚n̵̮͈̫̜̲̏͗͗͑͐̔̓c̴̪̦̙̳̤̰̠̱̔͐̀̈̃͆͂̇o҉̙̖̘͚͈̪̯̗̱̫̔̉̓̌̆̂̈̅m̸̜̜̟̟̳̖͛̈͋̊͌m҉̲̝̝͍͇͂̂͆̄o̴̮̩̤̰͑͑̀͛͂̊̈́͋̏̌̑̽ͅd̵̗͈̰̣͈̤̪͚̜͔͓̳̑̀̒̋̐͒̈́͑̇̊͊i̶̝̥̪̝̪̐̑̂̈́͛ṫ̷̲̱̪̰̦͛͋̀́̔̚ͅa̷͚̫̟̫̳͉̱̩̪͇͎̙͊͆̓̔̾̈s҈̭̮̝̠̯̱͙̓̀̏͆̓́̈́̑̚.̶͎̯̠̖̙̗͇̝̰̉̓̿̽͆ 】

Only the World Tree itself.

“Just now, that voice…?”

Demian, who had been running, jerked his head up with a start. A voice of indeterminate identity and gender thundered through his mind.

A voice mixed with all kinds of noise, its meaning impossible to grasp.

All Demian could barely understand was the infinite hostility contained within that voice.

“Voice? What voice did you hear…?”

In contrast, Ophelia and Perneisia tilted their heads in confusion, as if they hadn’t heard anything at all.

Indeed, that was the case. Only Demian could hear that voice.

The two women lacked the qualification to hear a god’s voice—they had no connection point with the divine.

Ophelia never had such a thing to begin with, and Perneisia had her blessing from the World Tree revoked by the fairy elders.

Of course, Demian also had no particular connection with the World Tree…

But he had the qualification to hear a god’s voice.

The tiny divinity he had gained by being acknowledged as the master of the holy sword Caliburn and by slaying the void-type monster, the Starlight Whale.

It was such a faint divinity that he could barely hear the god’s voice without understanding its meaning.

Not that it mattered anyway.

The World Tree was merely expressing the disgust it felt. Whether the master of Caliburn heard its voice or not made no difference to her.

Master of Caliburn. Human archmage. Fairy who lost her blessing. To her, all three were just inferior insects to be crushed.

So that’s what she did.

– Hissss…!

In an instant, a vast area equivalent to a quarter of the great forest withered and turned into a wasteland.

The power of life absorption, which consumed life force itself as nourishment.

Trees, grass, small animals, and even the earth—everything living under the World Tree’s domain offered up all their life force to her, withering into scattered dust.

And then.

– Rumble…!

Before Demian’s group, the ground split open, and a massive monster slowly began to crawl up through the crevice.

A monster created by the World Tree using the life force absorbed from a quarter of the great forest and all the remaining spirits.

“No, what is that now…?”

Ophelia muttered with a sigh.