Chapter 436 - An Unparalleled Monster 3

Cecil and Karen made their way towards the city's inner floors. Along the way, the two had to combat against the numerous black tentacles that appeared through the spatial magic circles that randomly popped out.

They were able to rescue a few of Karen's knights but some were beyond saving so they had to unwillingly abandon them.

Rescuing the knights weren't a problem. The problem was that the magic circles that would randomly appear grew larger and stronger as time passed. Bigger and stronger tentacles passed through the magic circles and it became tougher for Cecil to defend against them.

Their strength increased to the point where Cecil struggled to even chop one in half with his techniques. It became even harder for him to defend against the tentacles and as their group's size grew, the harder it became for them to even move forward.

It was a relief that they were already close to the sky fortress's inner-city teleportation formation so all they had to do was breakthrough a few more blocks and pass-through this formation. The problem was that the next stage's transfer gate that Cecil found was situated in the core area of the sky fortress so they would have to pass through a few teleportation formations to get there.

"Lord Cecil, how are the other groups? Were they able to safely arrive at the inner city?" Karen asked after she deflected a tentacle that was aiming for her head.

"My clones are with them so they're safe. I was able to get to them first and their members were together so they retained most of the people in the group..."

"That's good...are we getting close?"

"The teleportation formation is just past this block. We have to hurry. Since everyone else is now in the inner city, the tentacles here are all focused on us so it'll only get harder for us..." Cecil said.

He gathered his mana and fired an Ascending Blade in front of him and disintegrated all of the tentacles in his path and even caused the spatial magic circles to collapse along the way.

Seeing the magic circles collapse, Cecil had a revelation.

"The magic spell was interrupted...if I can destroy the magic circles I can probably cancel the spell's activation!"

Cecil wanted to immediately test this out so he let go of his Adamantium Gunsword and pulled out a few knives from his spatial ring.

He activated the first stage of his Hyper Sensitivity and waited for the spatial magic circles to appear. Once the first magic circle began forming, Cecil quickly detected it and focused his attention on the circle.

With his Mana Eyes, Cecil was able to observe in real-time as the magic formation slowly formed in the air just above him.

He quickly wrapped mana around the knife in his hand and aimed for the critical point of the magic circle. He threw the knife and quickly exploded it after it struck the magic circle.

"Yes, it worked!"

"Huh?!"

"H-he canceled the magic spell?"

The people following behind him saw Cecil's quick actions and noticed that he had suddenly canceled a magic spell from invoking just by destroying the spell's magic circle. Normally, if one tried to aim an attack at an opponent's magic circle, all it would do was phase through the circle without anything happening.

However, from Cecil's earlier Ascending Blade, he noticed that if an abrupt surge of mana was forcefully injected into a magic circle, it would allow him to interrupt its casting. In theory, any human should be able to do it, but the only problem was locating the point of where they should inject that mana into.

Thanks to his sight and his new technique, Cecil was able to locate that point but even then, if a person did have a similar ability to his which let them find the critical point of a spell's magic circle, there was the problem of whether their actions were quick enough to interrupt the magic spell before it was invoked.

The magic circle of a spell would only appear for a brief moment before it was invoked and would quickly disappear right after. It was an impossible feat for just about anyone, but with Cecil's abilities, it wasn't impossible for him.

Of course, this method of interruption would take quite the toll on Cecil since he would have to use his Hyper Sensitive state.

"...it looks like I'll have to create a pair of guns for myself. It's easier to just aim and pull a trigger than to throw knives around..." Cecil mumbled to himself.

He stayed in his Hyper Sensitive state and continued to cancel the ancient monster's spatial magic spell. Cecil didn't only use the moment to interrupt the monster's spell but he also recorded in his mind the numerous runes that constituted the spatial spell's magic circle.

He would take the monster's spell and learn how to use it for himself. Any sort of spatial magic was useful and this one was a battle-oriented spell that would undoubtedly be very useful to him.

"It's just up ahead. Everyone, quickly get onto the transfer circle and activate it! I'll continue to cancel the monster's magic so hurry!"

Karen and her surviving knights and mages quickly got onto the transfer circle and began injecting their mana into it. While in the meantime, Cecil continued to perform his magic cancellation. The circle began to slowly light up and it soon activated, quickly whisking them away from the outer city and into the inner city.

******

Ren had met up with Cecilia and her group while they were on their way to the inner city's teleportation formation. Ren was relieved to see that Celestina was okay while Cecilia was rather sad to see that her sister's group had been reduced by a substantial amount.

Cecilia was fully aware of how weak the people of the Silvaria Kingdom were so she feared the worst after she remembered that it wasn't only her group that was affected by the mysterious sound attack.

She didn't know what had attacked them but she assumed that whatever it was, it was strong. The attack from earlier was monstrously powerful but Cecilia didn't fear too much because, on their side, they had the similarly monstrous Cecil.

If anyone could get them out of their predicament, it was going to be him. For now, they would move to the next stage's transfer circle and forgo getting any sort of reward from this floor because of the dangerous situation they were in.

Once Cecil took care of the monster or whatever it was that attacked them, they'd be able to rest for a while before going out to look for some treasures.

It was unfortunate however since Cecilia's wishful thinking was immediately dashed by Ren's words.

"S-sir Cecil was...was injured?!" Cecilia exclaimed incredulously.

"Yes...whatever it was that attacked us was able to injure my Master... Also, it wasn't any light injury, he said," Ren said with a frown.

"...All the more reason why we have to get to the next stage...if we stay here any longer—"

"—we'll all die."

After finishing Cecilia's words, Ren pinched his brow and sighed.

"...How is my Master's sister-in-law?"

"She's doing alright...Cecil's clone is continuing her treatment, but her life is no longer in danger at least," Cecilia replied while turning her head over to look at Cecil's clone which was carrying her unconscious sister.

"That's good... we lost too many from the initial sound wave attack. Unfortunately, my Master couldn't save any of them since they directly died from the attack."

"We're all lucky to have survived."

"Yes," Ren nodded in agreement.

He was lucky. No, he was very lucky. If Ren had participated in the trials without his master, then he would have died today. The thought itself really frightened him and he couldn't help but think about Angelia.

Just how did that little girl who was younger than him even survive past this stage? The better question was, did she even pass this stage at all?

Ren remembered his teacher saying that he had lost their trail. He couldn't help but think maybe his master lost the trail because they had...died, maybe?

Ren shook his head and denied such thoughts.

'Yeah, there's no way that kid would die that easily...she has so many strong monsters. I bet she eked a way out somehow and passed through to the next stage...'

While Ren was thinking as such, Cecilia tried asking him, "Where's Sir Cecil?"

"Master? I think he went to rescue Karen and her knights?"

"So they're behind us?"

Ren nodded in affirmation. This caused Cecilia to be a little worried.

She had long since noticed that the number of tentacles that attacked them after reaching the inner city had toned down by quite a bit. The only worries they had to deal with were the moving mechanical dolls that protected the inner city and the occasional spatial magic formation that would send out a black tentacle to harass them.

"Let's hurry and find the transfer gate! My master is connected to his clones so he'll know of our whereabouts. We can just go straight to the transfer gate without worrying about Master!"

"Mhm, but I'm a little bit concerned..." Cecilia voiced.

Ren only shook his head at her words and said, "Don't be. My Master isn't weak enough for us to be concerned about him. If anything, we should be concerned about ourselves. We have to get to the transfer gate before Master catches up with us."

"...I guess you're right..."

The group continued to move forwards while combating against the sky fortress's mechanical guardians and the occasional attack from the ancient monster's tentacles.

*****

In the administrative subspace, the wisp of light which was the administrator continued to observe how much more dangerous his target became with each passing minute.

It was like all of the trials that it had sent to the young man only served to strengthen him instead of killing him.

The Ancient Devil Kraken, the monster that was supposed to be sealed on the fourth stage's floor, was supposed to act as a final barrier for the trial's participants. Well, not the ancient Kraken itself but its offspring who were only a few levels below its strength.

However, because Cecil was the one partaking in the trial, the administrator had purposefully released a partial bit of the Ancient Devil Kraken's seal in hopes of the monster being able to kill Cecil since he didn't want to use his original plan which was supposed to be his final resort.

"Grrr...looks like I'll have to use that plan instead. All I'm doing is powering this bastard up!"

The administrator quickly tightened the seal around the Ancient Kraken and let Cecil and his teammates get to the next floor.

On this floor, he would begin implementing his real plan to get rid of Cecil.