Each projectile was weaker than Lulu’s Fireburst Gun, but the firing speed made up for that—this was designed to handle enemies that moved quickly.
In no time, all five rocket trees were downed—but the bird-monster second wave had far greater numbers.
And they were nimble enough that some of them dodged through her barrage.
“Looks like Nana alone won’t cut it. Should we back her up?”
“No need, Arisa. This is my Gunslinger mode.”
Like Nana, Lulu equipped her exoarmor and began backing Nana up.
The hardware was virtually identical, but while Nana sprayed and prayed, Lulu was employing the same rate of fire to focus her target on the monsters’ weak points. Pretty absurd.
“Pochi can help, sir!”
“And Tamaaaa!”
Pochi drew her sword and charged it with “Spellblade Shot,” while Tama held up a shuriken.
The Gunslinger’s hail of Fireburst shots had set them both off.
LYURYU!
A White Dragon popped out from Pochi’s chest.
Her excitement must have woken it up.
“Lyuryu, sir! We’re in enemy territory!”
LYURYU!
It bobbed its head, looking confident.
“Our turn will come once we land. Save your power for now,” Liza chastised.
“Aye.”
“Yes, sir!”
Both kids nodded—and Lyuryu saw Pochi nod and copied her.
Not long after, Nana and Lulu had finished exterminating all the flying monsters.
Once that happened, the initial projectile attacks resumed, so I locked on to the cannon-type monsters and pinpoint-sniped them with my Laser spell.
“One hundred percent accuracy even at this distance—one of these days, you’re gonna start sniping things from orbit,” Arisa said.
“This isn’t a manga—,” I started to argue, but realized as long as the map let me lock on, I totally could.
“No more waves of flying creatures—removing Gunslinger.”
“Situation handled. Gunslinger removal, I commence.”
Lulu and Nana put their exoarmor away.
I examined them before they vanished, and both sets of barrels were on the verge of burning up. Maybe I should add a function to exchange barrels mid-combat.
“Master, there’s a whole horde of monsters on the surface.”
“You can tell from the distance?”
“Yes, I trained for this in the Azure Land!”
Like Arisa said, there were several thousand monsters down below.
“Master, no one down there to get caught in the cross fire, right?”
“Certainly not on the surface.”
If she had to ask, her accuracy wasn’t too high.
“Then let’s wipe it clean. Mia, ready?”
“Mm, on it. Caster.”
Mia called out the magic support exoarmor.
It was an extension of a staff, so I’d considered just calling it “Staff,” but Arisa argued vehemently in favor of this.
“Long-Range Blast mode.”
At Mia’s command, the exoarmor spread wings of woven emerald branch and orichalcum.
“ ……”
As Mia chanted, the wings changed shape, forming a large barrel with her at the center.
Her mana resonated with the vast quantities produced by the Holytree Stone Furnaces in the exoarmor, and all of it flowed through Mia.
This took its toll on her young body—there were beads of sweat on her brow.
As we all watched, the chant wound down.
“…… Leviathan Breath Kairyuu Hakusen!”
That huge reserve of mana all converted to a spell, and a laser-like torrent of water shot through the barrel formed by the exoarmor’s wings.
The same forbidden spell she’d used against the Sandstorm Lord in the Parion Province, but on a scale multiple times greater.
The pressurized streams slammed into the ground, uprooting the thickets and scouring the soil below. Everything for several yards around instantly vanished, and with no loss of force, it demolished a streak of ground from there to the temple. Along with every monster unlucky enough to get in its way.
“I thought as much during testing, but the Caster boost is far-out,” Arisa said, gleefully.
“It’s an amalgam of all the boost gear I’ve made so far.”
I’d held nothing back, but even I hadn’t expected it to be quite this effective.
The range was ten times higher, and the force had several multiples added, too.
Still—
“I’m bushed,” Mia muttered.
Its task complete, the exoarmor folded back into Storage.
For that single shot, the furnaces had used three bluecoins—not exactly fuel-efficient. I’d have to tackle that next.
Mia’s own mana expenditure was the same as a regular cast—the gear’s mana all went to range and power boosts.
“Landing now.”
I set us all down on the edge of the valley Mia’s spell had made, right in front of the ruins.
“No welcome party?”
Inside the fake temple, it was silent.
This section was part of the same map.
“Wait here a second.”
I took a step across the map divide, casting Search Entire Map.
“Still, it really does seem like an evil temple…,” Arisa said, looking around.
“Mew!”
“Sense Danger.”
“Nana, ‘Castle’!” I yelled, “Warping” to her.
“‘Castle’ emergency deployment, I announce.”
At her command word, her golden armor shifted, orange and crimson lights flashing. A bunch of barrier walls deployed, a multi-layered dome of protection.
Bright light.
It shot up through the floor, enveloping us.
The sound hit on a delay. The golden armor’s light-blocking system and my “Light Intensity Adjustment” skill soon restored my vision.
Half the temple’s architecture had been blown away, and there was a bottomless inky pit beneath us.
The source of that shot had been below us—the protection of “Castle” had been so solid, we hadn’t even felt a tremor. Actually sort of weird.
“Mew.”
“Shocking, sir!”
LYURYU!
“Master, that was a greater demon,” Liza warned.
“We beat that thing already! No one likes a repeat villain!” Arisa fumed.
“It couldn’t fire that in rapid succession, so let’s close in. Arisa, get Tactical Talk going.”
“Way ahead of you.”
Nana put “Castle” away, and I hoisted everyone up with Magic Hand, “Skyrunning” on my way down.
That hole had punched through a solid five underground floors to the bottom layer, where our villain awaited.
But even this bottom layer was filled with smoke and steam, and the floor was badly cracked with jagged spike-like crystals growing from those cracks.
We landed on a heap of rubble from the collapsed ceiling.
It was the size of a school gym, with a carpet laid out on polished stone like an audience chamber. Temple-like columns were evenly spaced on either side. The only illumination was the spooky glow of the candles attached to those columns.
Our foe was at the far end of that carpet.
I used a Gust spell to get the mist out of our eyes.
This seemed to kick the fires back up, and sinister shadows rose from the darkness.