Chapter 407: Elentir
"The Moon God Dragon, Selene? Do you know her location?" Ren asked, his gaze sweeping over the dark mages.
"Well..." Skullion trailed off, momentarily speechless at the directness of the question.
"I do not know," Suzaku answered with absolute bluntness, his stoic expression unchanging.
"You see, the Moon God Dragon is fundamentally different from the others," Skullion explained, quickly recovering his composure. "She possesses the innate ability to travel freely between different dimensions. Tracking her down is as difficult as ascending to the heavens..."
"So you have absolutely zero concrete information, yet you speak so grandly of subjugating a God Dragon!" Ren cast a mildly disdainful glance over the Diabolos mages. He had assumed these elite Dragon Eaters would at least possess some actionable intelligence regarding their ultimate targets, but they were entirely empty-handed.
Just as the conversation stalled, the wooden floorboards beneath their feet rippled. A strange, mirror-like surface materialized directly under them, reflecting a distorted, swirling sky. Before anyone could react, gravity inverted. Ren, Suzaku, Skullion, and Kyria plummeted straight down into the glassy abyss. The mirror shimmered once before vanishing completely, leaving behind a perfectly ordinary, empty dining room.
A moment later, a waiter carrying a tray of steaming food stepped out from the kitchen. He stared blankly at the vacant chairs and the empty space where his patrons had been sitting just seconds prior.
"Dine and dash... They ran away without paying the bill!!!"
Elentir
Hakumetsu Village
High above an unfamiliar landscape, a massive, watery mirror materialized in mid-air. Several figures tumbled out from its rippling surface, landing with varying degrees of grace onto the solid earth below.
"Spatial magic?" Skullion muttered, brushing dust from his dark coat as he analyzed the sudden shift in their surroundings.
The group immediately went on high alert, taking in the alien environment. The atmospheric magic density here was suffocatingly thick, practically buzzing against their skin. It was glaringly obvious that someone had forcibly relocated them using high-tier Spatial Magic.
"Esteemed guests, welcome to Elentir," an aged, raspy voice called out.
An elderly woman stepped forward to greet them, flanked by several younger women dressed in traditional shrine maiden attire.
"Hey! Granny, are you the one who dragged us all the way out here?" Kyria snapped, her natural impatience flaring. Being forcefully teleported against her will without the slightest provocation left a deeply unpleasant taste in the Blade Dragon Eater's mouth.
"No, to be precise, it was a summoning," the old woman corrected gently.
"What's the damn difference?"
"It sounds a little more polite, at the very least."
The Diabolos mages fell silent, exchanging flat looks. They hadn't expected the elderly woman to be quite so shamelessly honest, fully aware that kidnapping people across dimensions was a highly questionable act.
"Gentlemen, I know this was wrong of me, but I truly had no other choice..."
Just as the old woman prepared to explain her plight, a panicked shrine maiden sprinted into the clearing, her chest heaving as she gripped her staff.
"This is a disaster! High Priestess, the Rebeage have arrived, and they are absolutely massive this time!"
The color drained from the faces of the surrounding shrine maidens. Panic rippled through their ranks.
"Everyone! Take up your weapons! We must defend the village!"
"Please, strong ones, lend us your aid!" the High Priestess pleaded, turning desperate eyes toward Ren and the Diabolos members.
"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?" Kyria scoffed, resting a hand on her hip. "You yank us out of nowhere, drop us in the dirt, and then expect us to do your dirty work?"
Ren ignored the bickering. His senses had already locked onto several monstrous signatures rapidly converging on their position. The sheer volume of magic power radiating from the approaching beasts was staggering. Through the treeline, grotesque, hulking silhouettes tore through the foliage, their dark, twisted forms projecting an aura of pure malice.
At that exact moment, Suzaku's hand drifted to the hilt of his katana.
A singular, sharp click echoed as the blade left its scabbard by a mere fraction of an inch. A blinding arc of crimson light flashed through the air. Before anyone could even blink or process the movement, the charging horde of giant monsters abruptly froze. A clean, horizontal line appeared across their massive torsos, and an instant later, their upper halves slid off, crashing heavily into the dirt in a spray of dark blood.
"The giant Rebeage... all of them...!"
"In a single instant..."
"W-What just happened?!"
The shrine maidens gasped in sheer terror and awe, their weapons trembling in their hands as they stared at the carnage.
Even Skullion and Kyria stared at Suzaku with wide eyes. They had always known that the Dark Dragon Slayer Knights represented the absolute pinnacle of Diabolos's military might, but witnessing Suzaku's swordsmanship firsthand still shattered their expectations. The speed and precision were monstrous.
Ren raised an eyebrow, mildly impressed. 'Not bad at all,' he mused. The swordsman's technique was undeniably sharp, carrying a lethal efficiency that demanded respect.
"S-So incredibly cool!!" The High Priestess clasped her wrinkled hands to her cheeks, her face flushing with an entirely out-of-place, fangirl-like infatuation as she stared at the stoic samurai.
Kyria rolled her eyes, breaking the silence. "Hey! Granny, the monsters are dead. We're done here, right? Hurry up and send us back."
"Well... our crisis is far from resolved," the High Priestess coughed, quickly regaining her composure.
Ren stepped forward, his tone calm but carrying a weight that demanded answers. "Exactly what did you summon us here to accomplish?"
The old woman met his gaze firmly. "I wish to ask all of you to hunt down a dragon named Selene."
"Selene?!" Skullion and Kyria blurted out simultaneously, unable to hide their shock.
The primary mission assigned to them by Guild Master Georg was to track down and consume the Moon God Dragon. They had been hitting dead ends for weeks, completely clueless as to her whereabouts. To have the answer literally drop into their laps in another dimension was absurdly fortunate.
Skullion stepped closer, ash swirling around his shoulders. "Are you saying Selene is currently in this world?"
"Yes! Are you gentlemen already familiar with Selene?" the High Priestess asked, a glimmer of hope returning to her eyes.
"Of course we are," Skullion replied, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "That creature is one of the Five God Dragons. How could we possibly not know of her?"
"Five God Dragons? I know nothing of such a title," the old woman murmured, looking confused.
Ren gestured toward the bisected corpses bleeding out into the soil. "What were those things?"
"They are the primary reason I summoned you powerful individuals here," the High Priestess explained grimly. "Those creatures are called Rebeage."
"And what exactly is a Rebeage?"
"They are a specific type of monster formed directly from the 'Hands'."
"And what are these 'Hands'?" Kyria pressed, her patience wearing thin again.
The High Priestess blinked in surprise. "Do 'Hands' not exist in the world you hail from?"
"No," the group answered in unison, shaking their heads.
"In the distant past," the old woman began, her voice dropping into a solemn, storytelling cadence, "there existed a monstrous entity in this world known as a walking calamity. It was a beast capable of infinitely generating and amplifying magic power... Alta Face."
"Alta Face?"
"High Priestess, even we have never heard of such a thing!" one of the shrine maidens gasped, looking just as bewildered as the outworlders.
"That is because it occurred an incredibly long time ago, and it is a closely guarded secret," the High Priestess admonished her subordinates gently. "That monster used its overflowing magic power to obliterate cities, corrupt the land, and swallow the seas. Legend states that the ancestors of our Hakumetsu Village repeatedly challenged the beast. After many long, bloody years, they finally managed to seal Alta Face deep underground."
She sighed, leaning heavily on her staff. "Although the world found peace for a time, it wasn't long before the 'Hands' that everyone now knows began to sprout from the earth. The villagers quickly realized that these appendages were extensions of Alta Face's sealed body. They made it their duty to cut them down whenever they surfaced."
"It was only after several centuries passed that they discovered the 'Hands' harbored no inherent hostility. Occasionally, a few Rebeage monsters would spawn from them, but even those incidents were exceedingly rare. Because of this prolonged peace, we gradually forgot the true, apocalyptic threat of Alta Face, foolishly believing that with our Hakumetsu White Arts, we could maintain harmony indefinitely."
Her expression darkened, the wrinkles on her face deepening with sorrow. "But now, the 'Hands' are emerging with terrifying frequency, and they are overflowing with pure malice, just as you all witnessed moments ago."
One of the shrine maidens stepped forward, her voice trembling. "High Priestess... has Alta Face been resurrected?"
The old woman shook her head slowly. "I do not know for certain. But what I do know is that all of this chaos began immediately after that dragon appeared. The 'Hands' are multiplying at an alarming rate. You can feel it too, can't you? The ambient magic power in this world is constantly expanding, swelling like a volcano on the verge of a catastrophic eruption. If this unchecked growth continues, Elentir will suffer a magical explosion that will wipe out everything."
"Therefore, I had no other choice but to activate the forbidden summoning magic, pulling you master Dragon Slayers into our world."
"O powerful ones! Please, I beg of you, save our world!"
As she spoke, the High Priestess dropped to her knees, pressing her forehead firmly against the dirt in a deep, desperate bow. Seeing their leader prostrate herself, the surrounding shrine maidens immediately followed suit, kneeling in unison.
Kyria, Skullion, and Suzaku remained silent, looking down at the bowing women. The mages of Diabolos were certainly not heroes, nor were they inherently evil villains driven by malice. They were simply predators. They had absolutely zero interest in playing savior to a doomed world, but their goals conveniently aligned. They needed to eliminate the Moon God Dragon, Selene.
Ren broke the heavy silence, his voice cutting through the tense atmosphere with absolute clarity.
"Where is the Moon God Dragon, Selene?"
[Akarin's Note: Alta Face is a colossal, subterranean monster native to Elentir. Its body is so massive that it spans entirely beneath the earth's crust, with only its giant, tree-like 'Hands' breaching the surface. It constantly absorbs and amplifies the world's magic power, acting as a living catalyst for Elentir's magical overabundance.]
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