Alraune was special even among the founder’s familiars—she was among the select few allowed to guard the lowest floor of the tumulus, where the altar and gravesite stood. Always by the founder’s side in his eternal rest, and her power made the monsters on the fourth floor look cute in comparison.
I guessed that her roots covered the entirety of this tumulus, making this whole place her domain. The roots were incredibly nimble, and even if I cut them down, they’d regenerate in no time. I tested the waters and swung my special scythe down at her. A sliver—a single slice—appeared on the surface of her beautiful body, but the shadow immediately regenerated her wounds. I wasn’t surprised. True to their infamy, these familiars were all practically immortal due to their high regeneration capabilities. Which means...
“I can’t win,” I muttered.
I didn’t expect this monster to come after me. The founder must be livid at me for saving Lilka, who trespassed into these premises. Well, actually, I’m not sure if specters are capable of that.
As the roots tried to attack me, I raced through this large room and dodged them all, but that was only becoming more difficult as they continued to increase in number. Eventually, one of the roots managed to reach me. I only managed to protect myself thanks to my magic barrier.
This was a defensive system I’d put into place after my fight with the ridiculously powerful Wicked Whale. It was quite sturdy, and could easily repel even intermediate spells.
But just as I breathed a sigh of relief, the root penetrated my barrier and grazed my cheek. It happened so suddenly that I twisted my body around in an attempt to dodge, throwing Lilka off my back. She fell to the ground with dozens of roots pointed straight at her.
“Eek...” she cried.
Her face pale, she made no attempt to flee, perhaps petrified with fear. As the roots shot out, I used my scythe to cut them down.
“Stand back up!” I ordered. “We need to—”
I stood in front to shield her, my scythe at the ready, when I found myself facing over a hundred wriggling roots. They shot out straight for me, and my magic barrier was easily pierced through; it was as though their movements perfectly wove through the gaps of my complex, layered spell, like needles piercing through cloth. These roots were by no means honed for penetration; this sort of precise maneuver could only be seen as impressive and divine.
Theoretically, it was possible to slip through such minute, microscopic gaps in a magic barrier, but it was implausible to put into practice. Even I wasn’t capable of anything like that, so it was unthinkable that a monster could.
I slashed at the roots with my scythe, using my last blow to shred everything that I could. However, there was power in numbers, and I simply couldn’t deal with them all. As the roots headed straight for me, death flashed across my mind several times, causing me to shiver with fear. Yet, this grisly moment never came. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the roots had stopped just short of me.
Alraune’s face, though expressionless, emitted an air of bored disappointment, like she was staring at a weakling who simply wasn’t worth her time and effort. All of a sudden, something in me snapped.
“What’s with that look?” I snarled. “You’re just a measly familiar, a puny lackey of the founder. Who do you think I am? I’m the heir of House Lightless, Lofus Ray Lightless!”
I gave it my all and emitted an almost explosive wave of mana. Alraune’s roots trembled, but that was all. The cheeky little tree remained unfazed. Does she pity me because of my bloodline? If so, how dare this plant give me sympathy. It sickens me to my core!
Alraune’s ability to analyze and disperse a spell—perhaps called magic disassembly—required precise, exact mana manipulation and a deep understanding of magical formulas. This was undoubtedly an extremely difficult and complicated move that practically negated spells. But as powerful as such advanced techniques might be, they also required immense concentration and mastery of mana.
“Magic disassembly,” I said. “It’s not easy to analyze and disassemble a spell within seconds. You make it look easy, but I imagine that it takes a rather decent toll on you. Yes... For example, are you able to accomplish this feat if several spells are hurled at you at once?”
I activated several magic circles behind me, creating a wall of Dark Lances. Alraune could easily negate one spell, but what of many? What if I fired so many attacks that she simply couldn’t keep track of them all? I unleashed my barrage of Dark Lances. The roots immediately jumped to protect her, forming a lattice barrier. The moment my spells made contact, they neither penetrated nor exploded—only dispersed. I had dozens of Dark Lances at the ready, but they were all negated, proving that she could in fact deal with all these spells at once. It’s more than I imagined, but not completely out of my expectations.
A moment later, a hole was blown through her barrier of roots. It seemed that one spell had managed to make it through her magic disassembly, causing her eyes to widen just a tad.
“Hah!” I scoffed. “A cute parlor trick indeed, but I sense your limits now!”
A second hole, then another formed in her barrier before finally, one of my attacks managed to slip through all of her defenses. It wasn’t Dark Lance, but Dark Ball. Alraune managed to form a mana barrier to protect her just before taking a direct hit, but I saw the weakness of her spell.
Her magic disassembly was likely some kind of automated feature. She could fiddle with its settings—in this case, set to deal with my Dark Lances, effectively nullifying all of them—but the few Dark Balls that I managed to sneak within this barrage couldn’t be dealt with. But if she could set her disassembly to block multiple different spells...
My theory was soon proven true as no other Dark Ball managed to make it to her. The holes in her defenses had healed up as well, and my Dark Balls were nullified no matter how many I fired at her. It was hard to read her expressionless face, but I thought she looked a touch triumphant over me.
“So what? Do you think I’m out of ideas?” I asked.
Another hole was blown through her defenses as my attack managed to penetrate not only her root, but her magic barrier as well, even piercing through her stomach. Alraune’s eyes grew wide with shock as she noticed the head of a sea serpent peeking out behind me. It might’ve been a low-rank dragon, but it was a dragon nonetheless, and its Breath was powered as high as it could go with my own magic.
Countless other familiars emerged from my shadow as they crawled out and pounced on her. Many of these attacks were outside the configurations of her magic disassembly, and their variety was wide as well. Magic disassembly was an extremely difficult technique that required the user to analyze a magical formula and negate it, requiring very precise maneuvers. Perhaps one familiar’s abilities could be easily shut down, but with my little army of various beasts, she couldn’t possibly keep up with them all. Go ahead and try!
But as I stood there proudly, all of my shadow familiars were pierced through by the roots on the ground.
“What?!”
All of my many familiars that I’d gathered from the sea had been dealt with, the roots piercing through their stomachs. Not a single one was able to move; furthermore, the roots were absorbing the mana that I channeled into my familiars to regain energy.
“You!” I shouted. “How dare you take my mana!”
I immediately cut off all my familiars; that caused them to disperse, but I couldn’t allow these stupid roots to continue sucking up all my mana. One root or two was no big deal, but I’d had nearly a hundred familiars to do my bidding, so the numbers really added up. She’d managed to sap away a good chunk of my mana by killing all of my familiars in one go.
The hole I’d managed to create in her abdomen had healed up in a flash, and I noticed the roots stretched across the floor growing branches and leaves. We were underground, with no sunlight for them to photosynthesize, yet lush greenery began to surround me until it resembled a dense forest.
“I suppose you can control things other than roots,” I remarked.
Alraune was a monster that was half human and half plant. Normally, this species would take the form of a normal human, entice other humans to follow them, and devour them to gain energy—they were man-eating monsters. Though they possessed the ability to freely manipulate the roots and branches that were a part of their body, they usually had no control over other greenery and flora. The founder’s Alraune was an exception.
Still, I don’t get the benefits of creating greenery. The trees make the room feel a bit more cramped, but that’s all. Is she just ensuring that I won’t flee?
I was against a monster that was a close confidante of the founder and treated as special above the rest. She surely had power that lived up to her status, and every movement she made was calculated. I couldn’t let my guard down. My spells and familiars had already been dealt with, and I was stuck protecting dead weight; I clearly held the disadvantage.
I gazed at my surroundings, perplexed, as I tried to organize my thoughts. I realized that until now, her actions had all been orchestrated to shut down my every attack and strategy. In other words, this dense verdure must also be used to either keep me in place or give advantage to her other moves.