A sharp hiss split the air, the sound of a massive tentacle slicing through it.
The giant tentacle was like a spear, and the instant it shot out it became a blur, tearing through the atmosphere as it lashed forward, closing on Ais in an instant.
The speed was terrifying.
Ais, still locked in a standoff with the mysterious woman, barely had time to raise the Desperate in her hand to guard in front of her before the tentacle slammed into her and sent her flying, howling through the air like a cannonball fired from a barrel, crashing straight into the wall of Rivira and smashing it to pieces.
"Ais!"
Leo's expression finally changed when he saw it.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
The Viola female let out a cry that could only be called delighted, and its huge body began to move.
It crushed the blue crystal pillars in its path, flattening every building it passed, and it didn't even spare the Violas that appeared around it, pouncing on them as if it had found a delicious feast, swallowing these Violas whole into its lower body. Its lower half swelled larger as a result, and the Violas became its feet, wriggling to carry it along.
As more and more Violas were swallowed, its lower body grew more and more bloated, countless Viola tentacle-limbs sprouting beneath it, and its height climbed higher and higher, until every adventurer in Rivira could see the colossus.
"...What is that?"
"A monster?"
"What monster looks like that...?!"
"That thing's already a super-large category, same as a Floor Boss!"
"Damn it! Why would a monster nobody's ever seen show up in the Under Resort, a safe floor?!"
The adventurers wore looks of horror, and some, faces full of despair, even forgot to run.
"I-isn't that the female-form monster that showed up on Floor 50?!"
"No, something looks different about it."
"Damn, I get this less and less."
Fighting a running battle against a swarm of Violas, Lefiya, Tiona, and Tione looked at the shrieking Viola female with expressions of shock, or confusion, or grim discomfort.
Grim too was the face of the mysterious woman.
"Tch. At this point I've got no choice but to give this embryo up."
The mysterious woman clicked her tongue, thoroughly displeased, and irritably yanked off her helmet, revealing a head of bright red short hair and a distinctly unfriendly face.
Foul emotion was plain on her features, but she didn't dwell on it long, quickly pulling her gaze from the Viola female and turning instead toward the direction Ais had been sent flying.
"If this embryo's a lost cause, then I'll at least bring that girl back..."
But the thought had barely surfaced in her mind when a thick meteor tore through the air, blasting toward her, hurtling straight at her.
The meteor shattered the ground in a roar, kicking up rubble and dust that rose high and spread in every direction.
The mysterious woman had leapt aside a step ahead of it, dodging the sudden meteor, then looked toward where it had come from with a dark expression, cold cruelty in her eyes.
"You want to die, Human?!"
The mysterious woman was like an enraged beast, radiating a vicious aura from her whole body.
Where her gaze landed, Leo was slowly lowering the hand that gripped the Emerald Staff, sliding the staff back into place at his left hip as he spoke, expressionless.
"You think I don't know what you're thinking?"
"Want to take Ais away?"
"Did you ask me first?"
Leo's attention was no longer on the Viola female at all, but fixed dead on the mysterious woman.
The mysterious woman's temper was clearly poor, and at Leo's words she was so angry she laughed instead.
"A mere Human... don't get too cocky!"
With that, the mysterious woman kicked off, shattering the ground outright as she shot forward.
Her speed was still fast enough to look like teleportation. One second she vanished from where she stood, the next she was already in front of Leo, swinging her sword down in a single stroke.
With a shriek of metal the longsword came down hard on the Dragon Fang Sword he'd raised in a hurry, and in a burst of scattering sparks it sent Leo flying.
Leo felt that terrifying force again, the kind that left his arms numb, and the hand holding the sword nearly split at the base of the thumb, making him grit his teeth.
His feet ground violently across the ground, plowing two deep furrows, sand and gravel spraying everywhere, and he only just managed to steady himself before the phantom-like figure came at him again.
Metal rang on metal without pause as the mysterious woman, catching up to Leo at an astonishing speed, swung her longsword mercilessly, hacking at him again and again. Her moves were broad and sweeping, not as sharp as Ais's swordsmanship, but every single strike carried terrifying power, hacking down until the arm Leo used to parry creaked and groaned, his very bones crying out.
At one point the mysterious woman suddenly drove out her free arm, slamming a fist into Leo's stomach and knocking him flying.
She didn't only use her sword. She was also very good at using her body, and her ferocious assault often slipped in punches and kicks, a fist thrown out of nowhere to catch a man off guard, or a whip-kick swung in from a blind spot, impossible to defend against, impossible to hold back.
So this is the opponent Ais was facing just now?
Leo could only hold on with great difficulty, visibly falling into a disadvantage and then into real danger. If not for the great strides his skills had made under Finn's teaching, and the Giant's Battle Garb with its outstanding protection that he wore, the mysterious woman would likely have finished him off long ago.
Against a being that could fight even Ais, wind magic active, to a standstill, a Leo who was currently only Lv.4 had no chance of winning at all.
"Looks like all you can do is talk big, adventurer."
The mysterious woman sneered at Leo, the longsword in her hand becoming a cold scythe, cutting toward the head that the Giant's Battle Garb didn't protect.
This strike, Leo couldn't dodge.
The mysterious woman had that much confidence.
She could already see it, the scene of this eyesore of a Human adventurer losing his head right in front of her.
Until she heard a low murmur.
"...Race onward like a comet."
In that instant, dazzling starlight blazed up.
"Comet Chase!"
Endless starlight, like dancing fragments of stars, rose slowly around Leo, wrapping his body.
With a bright chime, the mysterious woman's sure-kill strike was knocked away the moment it touched the starlight that had suddenly risen.
"What?"
The mysterious woman's eyes went wide in shock.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Crushing everything before it like a giant tank as it rampaged through Rivira, the Viola female reacted to the powerful magic power, whipping around toward this side and letting out a shrill cry.
It swung its tentacles, each one turning into a spear that shot out fast and fierce.
Against tentacle attacks that even Ais could barely react to, the Leo of before would surely have failed to mount any real defense.
But right now, his whole body wrapped in starlight, he only flickered aside, his form becoming a brilliant comet that shot suddenly skyward, dodging the incoming tentacles.
That comet streaking straight for the heavens was too dazzling, too beautiful. Never mind Rivira, even people staying elsewhere on Floor 18 could see, at one corner of the high cliffs, a comet flying out of the little town and racing across the sky.
"It's Mr. Leo!"
"It's Leo!"
"He's over there!"
Lefiya, Tiona, and Tione naturally saw it too, and while others might not recognize what it was, the three of them knew at a glance who it was. Without another word they abandoned the enemy in front of them and rushed toward where the comet had risen.
"H-he's flying!"
Hunched in a corner, arms over her head, not daring to poke it out at all, Lulune stared at the racing comet, utterly dumbstruck.
In that moment, what Lulune thought of was her own captain, the master magic-item maker known as Perseus, Asfi Al Andromeda.
Others might not know her captain's Talaria existed, but as a companion in the same Familia, Lulune of course couldn't not know.
She'd always thought that in this world only her captain could fly into the sky by her own power. She'd never imagined that now, of all things, a second adventurer with the ability to fly had appeared.
The comet that had soared into the sky wheeled and suddenly came diving back down, its speed not slowing but instead building throughout the flight, cleanly breaking the sound barrier and rushing at the mysterious woman with tremendous momentum.
With a muffled sound, the mysterious woman was struck flying by the comet that came at her without warning, smashing through several wooden huts and ruins.
"Bastard!"
The mysterious woman heaved the rubble aside and burst out, thrown fully into a rage.
She swooped low and flew, her speed likewise surging, her form shooting like a bullet at that comet, the longsword in her hand already splitting the sky as it slashed forward, hacking the very atmosphere apart.
Faced with this blow, the racing comet didn't retreat but instead kept accelerating, kept advancing.
At an angle that could only be called incredible, it dodged the longsword that had come down with force, and at a glance it looked as if the comet itself had suddenly begun to spin, curving around the sword like a whirling flash of light.
The mysterious woman's reactions couldn't be called slow. Seeing the comet round the sword, she instantly burst out with a flying kick, driving it hard at that comet, only for the comet to dodge it with another sudden change of direction.
The comet slammed into the mysterious woman a second time, knocking her body sideways.
In the blink of an eye the comet changed direction again and again, came flying again and again, striking the mysterious woman over and over, until it felt to her as if she were being attacked from all sides, muffled impacts coming from all over her body like being struck by lightning, no telling how many times the comet had hit her already.
"What the hell kind of speed is this...?!"
The mysterious woman couldn't even parry anymore, able only to passively take the attacks from every direction, and she cried out.
After activating Comet Chase, Leo's speed kept climbing under the magic's effect, and by now it had surpassed both Ais and the mysterious woman, leaving the mysterious woman completely unable to keep up.
If someone looked down from above, they would see the comet that Leo had become flying, weaving, and racing endlessly through all of Rivira, like flashes of light coming from every direction, striking without pause at the mysterious woman in the center.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
The Viola female was also chasing Leo, whose magic-power reaction was strong, but its tentacles likewise couldn't catch that elusive comet, let alone its enormous body. There was no way it could catch the Leo of this moment.
Instead it was Lefiya, Tiona, and Tione who finally reached the scene.
"Lefiya! Chant your magic!"
"We'll go help Leo!"
The Amazoness twins flew forward without hesitation, charging at the Viola female.
"Right!"
Lefiya hurriedly raised her staff and began to chant, spreading a deep-gold magic circle beneath her that instantly drew the Viola female's attention.
The Viola female abandoned Leo and instead tangled with Lefiya, Tiona, and Tione.
"Thousand Elf, Amazon, and Jörmungand...? They're here too?!"
Lulune spotted the three women, her eyes lighting up as if she'd seen hope.
"I'll go too...!"
She worked up her courage, drew her weapon, and prepared to fight side by side with the others.
But a tentacle came whipping in, and before she could even react it smashed the building beside her, sending cold sweat streaming down.
"I-I'd better find a way to run!"
Forced to face reality, knowing her own measure, knowing she couldn't possibly compare with the monsters of Loki Familia, Lulune fled in tears, arms over her head.
The brilliant comet slammed the mysterious woman flying yet again, no telling which time it was, sending her crashing through the ground surface.
But at this point the mysterious woman instead grew calm.
She had already found Leo's weakness.
"The speed really is astonishing, always accelerating, breaking past its limits, fast enough that even I can't react. But all that increases is the speed. The attack power is still the same as ever."
She looked down at herself. The protective gear she wore had all been shattered, but she'd taken essentially no wounds.
"With that guy's attack power, he can't hurt me at all."
The mysterious woman began to sneer coldly.
"And that magic that raises his speed with no limit at all... how long can he even use it?"
Magic like that had to consume more and more Mind. Once his Mind ran dry, her opponent wouldn't just revert to his original state, his condition would drop sharply as well.
"When that happens, the one who wins is still me."
The mysterious woman was certain of it.
Indeed, as the acceleration went on, Leo's Mind was draining faster and faster, and Comet Chase could only accelerate, not add attack power. With a Lv.4's attack power, Leo simply couldn't deal much damage to the mysterious woman.
But on that very point, the leaders of Loki Familia had said it long ago.
Leo was not short on attack power at all.
"Light of heaven, sword of stars."
When the comet, having completely shaken free of the mysterious woman's sight, moving too fast to be caught any longer, flew to a spot behind her, that chant rang out.
A hand pressed against the back of the mysterious woman, whose pupils shrank violently, starlight bursting across it.
"Meteor Dance!"
[Read 40+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]