Chapter 227: There Was No Dodging It
The silver-white lightning along the blade fused instantly with the wind element, turning into a crackling radiance threaded with countless tiny wind blades.
Ryan stepped forward and slashed at the joint gap that had just been struck by Wind Pressure Burst.
Sccchhk!
Lightning and wind blades bit in. Fine cracks spread across the shell, and purple-black fluid splattered out.
The damage was not deep, but the pain made the Illusion Spider let out a furious hiss. The leg that had been attacking Vera snapped back at once and came crashing down at Ryan instead.
Ryan had already withdrawn. At the same time, he swept out his right hand, sending several fist-sized blazing fireballs made purely of Mana streaking in rapid succession toward the creature’s compound eyes—not to wound it, but simply to disrupt its vision.
On the other side, Ilyss faced the scythe-like foreleg that was hacking down at her in a frenzy. She moved with nimble grace, retreating and shifting sideways as though dancing on the edge of a blade, her violet eyes fixed on the path of every strike.
Each dodge was pushed to the absolute limit. The scything limbs tore through the air, yet always missed the edge of her clothing by the narrowest margin.
Her hands never stopped moving. Again and again, they traced simplified lightning sigils through the air, sending one violet lightning bolt after another toward the relative weak points of the Illusion Spider—its leg joints, its mandibles, the edges of its compound eyes.
She was counterattacking, but Ryan could feel that something was missing from her strikes. They were precise, but they lacked that merciless edge that drove straight through an enemy.
Every so often, her gaze flickered toward the stone doorway in the distance before snapping back again. Her brows were slightly drawn, as though part of her mind was elsewhere.
Vera, meanwhile, displayed an entirely different combat style. She remained at the outer edge of the battlefield the whole time, like a calm controller overseeing the entire fight.
She rarely used large-scale offensive spells. Instead, she wielded the wind element with a level of precision that was almost astonishing.
“Airflow Guidance.”
At a light tap of her finger, the currents beside the Illusion Spider suddenly turned chaotic, causing one pounce that had seemed certain to hit to veer off by half a foot.
“Vacuum Trap.”
She quietly laid down Mana across a patch of ground. When one of the spider’s legs stamped over it, the air in that area was instantly evacuated, creating a brief moment of suction and drag. The creature tore free almost at once through sheer strength, but its rhythm was disrupted.
“Wind Echo.”
She even used Mana to imitate the sounds of Ryan’s and Ilyss’s movements, along with their magical fluctuations, interfering with the Illusion Spider’s hearing and its ability to sense energy.
The teamwork of the three of them was growing smoother by the moment.
Ryan was the sharpest spearhead, constantly using the versatility of all-element magic and the precise control granted by the Seal of Enlightenment to create one tiny wound after another across the Illusion Spider’s body, drawing most of its hatred onto himself.
Ilyss was the steady source of ranged damage and the one who intercepted at critical moments.
Vera was the invisible net, controlling the battlefield with one subtle wind spell after another, covering defensive openings and creating opportunities for Ryan and Ilyss.
Though the Illusion Spider held an overwhelming advantage in strength, speed, and defense, it was actually being tied down for the moment by the three of them and their fluid, ever-changing tactics. Small new wounds kept appearing across its enormous body, and one furious shriek followed another.
And yet, the gap in level and the drain on stamina were objective facts.
The Illusion Spider’s shell was simply too thick. Aside from the deeper damage Ryan occasionally managed to inflict whenever he found a gap in the joints, most of their attacks amounted to little more than superficial wounds.
But every single attack from it forced the three of them to expend enormous amounts of Mana and stamina just to dodge or defend.
Ilyss, in particular, nearly paid for one moment of distraction. While evading a scything slash, her movement lagged by half a beat. Though she barely managed to avoid the strike itself, the cutting wind skimmed across her left arm, tearing her sleeve and leaving behind a line of blood.
“Ilyss!” Ryan caught sight of it from the corner of his eye and frowned. “Do not lose focus!”
Ilyss bit down on her lower lip, frustration flashing across her face. Lightning gathered in her hand once more, denser than before.
“I know.”
The battle dragged on.
Sweat soaked through Ryan’s back, and his breathing grew heavier. Vera’s face had begun to pale; the cost of such fine control had far exceeded what anyone might have imagined. The wound on Ilyss’s arm was starting to affect the smoothness of her movements as well.
And just as the fight was gradually turning into a battle of attrition, one that was becoming more and more unfavorable for Ryan’s side—
“Ryan! I’m here to help!”
Rex’s roar came from the direction of the stone doorway.
With his greatsword dragging across the ground and Mana surging from his body, he came charging over like an enraged bull.
He had been guarding the doorway the entire time, protecting Lillian and the unconscious Eleanor, but now that the fighting outside had grown so fierce, he had finally been unable to hold himself back.
His arrival instantly changed the local balance of power.
Rex cared nothing for finesse. He swung his greatsword like a windmill, thick earth-yellow Mana wrapped around it in heavy waves. Every blow was massive and crushing, slamming hard into the Illusion Spider’s legs or shell with deep, muffled booms.
He still could not break through that thick carapace, but the sheer impact of his strikes made even the creature’s huge body sway, disrupting its rhythm all over again.
“A good chance!”
A sharp light flashed through Ryan’s eyes. Mana surged through his body at full force. He brought both hands together before his chest without fully touching them, and the lightning, fire, and wind elements began to intertwine and compress along some profound, intricate trajectory.
But just as he was about to release the compound spell he had been preparing for so long—
A sudden change erupted.
The Illusion Spider, which until now had relied mainly on physical attacks, suddenly turned all eight of its compound eyes toward the charging Rex at once. Within those eyes, the black abyss seemed to begin spinning.
An eerie fluctuation burst outward from its body.
It had no form, no substance, and yet it made the soul itself tremble.
It was an Illusion Shock that acted directly on the mind.
Rex took the brunt of it.
His body stiffened violently. The force of his charge stopped dead. His greatsword slipped from his hand and crashed to the ground with a clang.
His eyes instantly lost focus. A horribly twisted expression appeared on his face, and he froze where he stood as though trapped inside some nightmare.
Vera and Ilyss were farther away, but both of them still let out muffled groans. Their movements became visibly sluggish, and pain flashed across their faces as they resisted the mental attack.
Ryan felt a stabbing agony pierce his own mind as well. Countless broken, chaotic images tried to flood into his consciousness.
But the Seal of Enlightenment suddenly flared with intense warmth.
That heat rushed through his entire body in an instant, especially around the core of his mind, shielding it.
The pain was quickly forced down, and the chaotic hallucinations receded like a retreating tide.
A mental attack.
Ryan’s heart tightened. This was the Illusion Spider’s true killing move.
The reason it had not used it until now was probably because it had been saving it for prey already driven into a corner—or because it needed time to gather the power for it.
Rex’s reckless charge had walked straight into the muzzle.
And after unleashing that wide-area mental shock, the Illusion Spider’s aura visibly weakened.
But it seized that precious opening at once.
One of its scythe-like forelegs, which had clearly been gathering force for some time, ripped through the air with a shrill scream and came slashing down viciously at the nearest target—who also happened to be dazed by the aftereffects of the mental attack.
Ilyss.
In her violet eyes, the shadow of the blade rapidly expanded.
She struggled to move, but under the lingering effects of the mental shock, her body felt as heavy as lead. Lightning gathered at her fingertips, but it was slow and unstable.
There was no dodging it.
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