“—!”
Fana burst free from the muddy torrent and leapt up into the air.
“W-what was that just now!? All it did was stomp the ground, right!?”
Anje shouted, clawing her way out by pushing aside the soil with earth magic.
“This is Behemoth—the one hailed as the strongest among myth-class monsters. When it stamps its foot, it creates a tsunami of earth. Its breath alone can become a tornado. Calling it a living natural disaster wouldn’t be an exaggeration.”
“N-now I understand why the pass rate for the second trial is only ten percent…”
“And that’s not all.”
Somehow, all five of them had managed to escape the landslide unscathed.
“But whether by luck or misfortune, with a body this enormous, it shouldn’t be able to do anything more than crude, wide-area attacks like that! If we can just endure for thirty minutes—”
One of the examinees, the holy knight, voiced that faint glimmer of hope.
That was when it happened.
The ground began to swell in places, one after another, and the earth rose up, molding itself into gigantic humanoid shapes.
“““Golems!?”””
What appeared were countless golems.
Each and every one of them towered over ten meters tall. All at once, they lunged toward the examinees.
“Behemoth is also adept at manipulating golems with earth magic.”
“It can do even that!?”
“And each of those golems is strong. Very strong.”
The golems moved with a speed that belied their massive size.
Their power and durability far surpassed that of ordinary golems, and being surrounded by so many of them, even the seasoned veterans who had cleared the first examination were forced onto the defensive.
Goooooooooooooooooou!
As if that weren’t enough, the Behemoth’s breath swept over them in a violent gust.
Once again, they were caught in the whirlwind, flung high into the air. And as they crashed back to the ground, the golems surged in for another relentless assault.
“Ugh… this… this is—”
The holy knight gritted his teeth, straining to withstand the onslaught. He tried to cast healing magic to recover from the damage, but there was no time—not even a moment to spare.
“Gah!?”
Perhaps due to his rising panic, the holy knight’s movements faltered. He was struck squarely by a golem’s massive fist. Tossed across the ground, he barely managed to roll to a stop, struggling to rise again.
Luckily, the gate Randia had left behind was just within reach.
“I-I can’t… I—I have to retreat…”
Desperation fueling him, he leapt through the gate.
With that, one examinee was out of the running.
And yet… another adventurer was already on the brink.
“My sword… it might as well be useless…”
It was the veteran adventurer.
He conjured sword after sword, letting them rain down on the swarm of golems.
However, they simply bounced off their hardened armor. Meanwhile, the relentless assaults from the golems and the Behemoth’s wide-area attacks continued to rack up damage.
“How long has it been!? …Not even ten minutes!? There’s no way anyone can endure thirty minutes in this!”
On the verge of retreat, the veteran looked around desperately and shouted,
“Those three youngsters… are they really still alive—!?”
Fana, Anje, and Orion—the three of them—had somehow managed to adapt to this storm of a battlefield and were holding their ground.
Fana darted through the onslaught of the approaching golems with nimble, acrobatic movements.
The golems created by the Behemoth were not only incredibly durable, but any that were destroyed could be instantly reproduced.
Fana’s only strategy was pure evasion—constantly moving, never stopping.
Even the Behemoth’s foot-stomps, which could have crushed an ordinary human, were anticipated with uncanny precision. She would take to the air before the foot struck, completely avoiding the impact.
Meanwhile, Anje took a more aggressive approach. She leapt into the midst of the golems, striking them one by one with devastating palm strikes. The golems would immediately recover, unharmed by her blows. But since defeating them outright was pointless, her goal was to forcefully maintain distance, preventing them from surrounding her. When the Behemoth executed a foot-stomp, Anje simply used earth magic to deflect the attack, effortlessly sidestepping the danger.
And then there was Orion.
Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt!
“Is something sparking from his feet?”
“Lightning, yes. I see—he’s converting lightning into propulsion to achieve this incredible speed.”
Orion weaved through the maze of golems with a velocity that truly resembled a bolt of lightning. In terms of instantaneous acceleration and top speed, he might even surpass Fana.
“I had hoped to save this trump card for the very end…”
With his extreme mobility, even the Behemoth’s tidal waves of earth and tornado-like blasts of breath posed no challenge. He dodged them effortlessly.
“Haha… it seems that reaching S-rank is reserved for adventurers overflowing with talent… just like them…”
Perhaps realizing the gap in talent between himself and the others, the veteran adventurer let out a dry, bitter laugh and retreated through Randia’s gate.
“BUMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
Then it happened.
Frustrated at the pesky insects that refused to be swatted away, the Behemoth let out a furious, earth-shaking roar, and…
“DOOOOOON!!”
“It… it leapt!”
“W-what!?”
“Wh-what the…!?”
With a powerful thrust of its four massive legs, the Behemoth leapt into the air.
Its colossal body, stretching well over 300 meters, soared above Fana and the others.
Then, spreading its legs wide, it twisted midair like a gliding flying squirrel, driving its enormous belly down into a devastating flying body press.
“ZUDOOOOOOOOOONNN!!!”
The entire wasteland shook violently.
A violent earthquake shook the entire wilderness, and the resulting shock waves shook the Seno Grande Kai, which was supposed to be floating at a distance.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com.
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