episode_0046

It was common knowledge that magic power was originally an intangible energy that emitted a faint bluish light.

However, Killua showed that if such magic power was condensed to its absolute limit, it would shine with a pure white light.

Unlike ordinary elemental magic, the white ray that simply concentrated immense magic power to its limit and shot it out like a beam of light, without any technique, was a spell that showcased her overwhelming magic power and her ability to condense it.

The white ray, which even the most powerful and complex defensive magic or physical barriers reinforced with dozens of layers of brick and steel plates could not block, was one of the reasons she was called the White Mage.

“Light!!”

The magic power clumsily gathered in my hand did not possess the brilliant and clear pure white light like the Mage-nim’s.

Instead, it was a lump of light shining with a clear, faint blue, like a cloudless sky.

However, the magic power, clumsy as it was, condensed into a single point, barely forming a line that vaporized the thick, viscous body and pierced the eyes of the creature glaring at Killua.

Gurgle!

With a single beam of light piercing its core, the creature’s body began to boil with pain.

Being pierced through the core was a fatal wound for an ordinary slime, enough to cause its body to collapse, but the viscous monster, brimming with magic power, quickly regenerated even the injury from having its core pierced.

But for a single moment.

The moment its eyes were destroyed by the core being pierced, blocking its ability to see.

The tentacles that had been reaching for Killua lost their target and began to flail in the air.

“Good!!”

Even in that moment when she was out of reach and starting to fall, Killua, who had not given up or despaired, did not miss that brief instant.

She grabbed the strap holding her cloak around her neck and tore it off.

She half-turned her body and threw the flowing cloak towards the slime.

“Go, Killua-nim!!”

The moment the cloak, drenched in beeswax, which she had thrown, touched the slime’s tentacles.

The creature, having lost its sight, seemed to perceive the cloak that touched its tentacles as Killua, and urgently grasped the cloak with its tentacles.

Killua, who had forcefully stepped on the cloak that the slime had grabbed, once again used the rebound of her entire body to vigorously leap towards Ariel.

“Hyaah!!”

Soaring once more, she effortlessly grasped the shard embedded in Ariel’s chest with all her might this time.

Then, pushing off Ariel’s shoulder with her foot, she squeezed out all the strength in her body and forcefully pulled out the shard that had been fixed by the sealing magic circle.

“It’s… Ugh?!”

The moment the shard was pulled out, the supply of the immense flow of magic power that had been maintaining the giant viscous monster’s body was severed.

At that, the giant viscous monster’s body violently thrashed, trying to swallow and digest everything around it to secure the energy needed to maintain its body, which had evolved with the shard’s magic power.

“Urgh… Whoa?!”

And the top priority target was naturally me, who was caught by the creature, including Ariel.

The fiercely withdrawn tentacles wrapped around my body, trying to swallow and digest me into its own form.

With my limbs weakened from excessive magic consumption, I tried to resist the tentacles trying to swallow me, but the creature, like a gluttonous fiend, haphazardly pulled my body into its own.

“Ugh?!”

The moment I panicked at the creature’s sudden gluttonous act of predation, the slime’s movement, which had been trying to swallow my body, froze in the face of a light so brilliant it could obscure even the midday sun.

“Wh-What?!”

The slime, which had been ravenously trying to swallow and digest my body, stopped even the act of eating due to the dazzling light and focused all its senses on where the light was emanating from.

There, Killua stood, holding the shard in her hand.

Befitting her alias as the White Mage, the transparent pendant shard in her hand emitted a brilliant pure white light, like a miniature sun.

“White Mage-nim…”

At her appearance, as if she had regained her past glory, I unconsciously murmured her alias.

As if responding to my murmur, she slowly raised her right hand.

Her face was obscured by the intensely brilliant pure white light emanating from her hand.

But it was clear she was smiling.

“LIGHT!!”

With a shout that seemed to pour out all the anger and frustration accumulated until now, she swung her raised right hand towards the core of the giant viscous monster.

Then, the lump of pure white light condensed in her grasp became a colossal pillar capable of overwhelming everything, shooting precisely towards the viscous monster’s core.

Gurgle…

As if submitting to its annihilation by an overwhelming and absolute power, the giant slime spread its entire body without resistance, meeting the colossal pillar of light shot at it.

BOOM!!

The moment the beam of light she fired struck the viscous monster’s core.

A massive explosion of light, condensed pure magic power, surged up from the ground, spreading weighty waves of magic power in all directions, enough to shake the forest.

As if proving her immense magic power, within the light explosion soaring high into the sky, the viscous monster’s body scattered into pieces, leaving no trace of its existence, as if returning to nothingness.

“Wh-Whoa?!”

The powerful magic power condensed light explosion, imbued with Killua’s will, surged up from the ground and only disintegrated the slime’s body.

However, the shockwave of magic power, so powerfully condensed that it clearly emitted a pure white light, exerted enough physical force to lift my body into the air as well.

“Jazel!!”

As my body was thrown into the air by the shockwave surging from the light explosion, Killua called my name like a scream and stretched her arm towards me.

“Ariel first!”

At my shout, Killua looked at Ariel.

Unlike me, her unconscious body was falling helplessly, with her head pointed towards the ground.

It was obvious that if she fell headfirst to the ground like that, she would suffer severe fatal injuries.

“Ugh!!”

In the end, Killua turned the arm she had stretched towards me towards Ariel.

Then, intangible magic power, moving according to her will, held Ariel’s body suspended in mid-air, preventing it from falling to the ground.

“Good… calmly…”

Having confirmed that Killua had secured Ariel’s safety, I took a light deep breath and looked at the ground where I would fall, having been thrown back by the shockwave.

Fortunately, there were no obstacles like stones or trees in the wide clearing that could injure my body.

It seemed I could avoid serious injury if I curled my body into a ball and landed on the ground with a light breakfall.

“Ugh?!”

The moment I looked at the ground I was falling towards and tried to adjust my posture to prepare for a breakfall.

Violent nausea surged from deep within my chest, and dizziness instantly filled my head.

At the same time, my consciousness faded into a haze where up and down became indistinguishable, as if I had been forcibly plunged into a dream.

“Th-This is the slime’s venom?!”

The slime had been annihilated by Killua’s magic, but the toxins it had injected into my body had not disappeared.

The intense haziness that surged and engulfed my mind blurred the boundaries of reality, making me momentarily forget the situation I was in.

“Ugh… Eh?!”

This very moment, as I was thrown by the shockwave and falling through the air, felt like an unreal scene from a dream.

It was a haziness so profound that I couldn’t even tell if I was falling to the ground or flying into the sky, or if my head was pointing towards the ground or the heavens.

Mentally, I knew very well that this was a phenomenon akin to alcohol poisoning, but my body wouldn’t move according to my will, and my limbs merely flailed weakly and pointlessly with the flowing wind.

“Jazel, snap out of it!!”

What jolted my hazy consciousness was Killua’s sharp cry.

At her shout, I forced my head, which felt rusty and difficult to move, to turn and look at Killua.

“Please, snap out of it!!”

She was using all her concentration to catch the falling Ariel.

I couldn’t understand why the strongest Mage-nim, who had regained some of her power, was struggling so hard just to save a single falling Ariel.

“Heheh…”

In my hazy consciousness, I only registered the fact that she was worried about me, and simply let out a foolish laugh.

“Jazel!!”

Looking at my foolish laugh, Killua belatedly seemed to realize something was wrong, and her face turned pale.

CRACK!!

Soon after, with the impact of something strong striking my entire body, my vision violently distorted, and the thread of my consciousness was forcibly severed.