I Became A Collaborative Character In The Game

Chapter 47 – Night of Mana 2

—–CROW—–

Death fell upon the avatar of death.

But they weren’t the same.

Valakia, engulfed in the fragments of the collapsing purple sun, screamed and thrashed.

“Annerose!”

“Coming!”

Annerose responded to Arma’s call.

The giant mud golem, left by the Lizardmen of the city-state of Vulcan, rose again and charged towards the struggling Valakia.

The golem, identical in appearance to a Lizardman, slammed its fists into Valakia’s head several times, then spun its body and struck Valakia’s waist with its tail.

-Boom!

The force was so powerful that the mud golem’s tail nearly shattered.

But the damage inflicted on Valakia was equally significant.

Valakia, which had been standing on two feet, stumbled backward and collapsed.

“Yes!”

Annerose pumped her fist, and the adventurers watching from afar cheered.

But Arma was different.

She launched four magic swords towards Valakia simultaneously and shouted,

“Annerose! Get back!”

“Huh?”

Annerose asked, not understanding.

And because of that, her reaction was delayed.

As Arma’s magic swords struck Valakia, a burst of purple flames erupted from its gaping maw, engulfing the mud golem.

“Kyaa!”

The mud golem stumbled backward with Annerose’s scream.

But the flames of death didn’t subside easily; they grew larger, fueled by the mud golem.

The flames of death that made the Demon King Valakia practically invincible on the first day.

In the original story, it couldn’t use these flames until the third day, but this was only the first.

Stopping its flames was impossible.

“Annerose!”

Arma shouted again and charged towards Valakia.

The four magic swords, which had flown ahead, scattered in different directions and slashed at Valakia’s body from all sides.

Wind, Water, Earth, Fire.

Arma Valentine’s four magic swords.

The light emanating from the swords, each imbued with a different elemental power, created cracks in Valakia’s darkness-shrouded body, but it wasn’t enough to dispel the darkness completely.

Blue lines appeared, and the darkness parted, but new darkness quickly filled the wounds.

The tips of the magic swords couldn’t reach deep into Valakia’s flesh.

So, Valakia withstood Arma’s continuous attacks, rose, and spread its giant wings, roaring.

“Graaaaaaa-!”

It didn’t make the mistake of creating another purple sun.

It unleashed deathly energy and utilized the mana vortex created by the Night of Mana.

Just as the life force had spread throughout the atmosphere through the mana vortex, its deathly energy began to envelop the surroundings.

“Fall back!”

“We must retreat!”

The clerics of Lete emitted purifying light, pushing back the deathly energy, but they were only buying time.

The adventurers screamed and began to flee, and as if fueled by their fear, Valakia roared triumphantly again.

“Master!”

Annerose shouted from within the golem, engulfed in the flames of death.

The Arma she knew wasn’t this weak.

The four magic swords, Wind, Water, Earth, Fire, could unleash far greater power.

But the current Arma couldn’t.

No, it would be more accurate to say she *wasn’t able to.*

“The mana vortex?!”

Annerose’s guess was correct.

What was here wasn’t Arma Valentine herself.

It was merely a terminal, created by modifying a homunculus from the Magic Kingdom that she had excavated.

The real Arma Valentine was far away, controlling the doll remotely by perceiving the situation through the doll’s sensory organs.

But the mana vortex was interfering with the control system.

The mana vortex, intensified by the deathly energy, was strong enough to disrupt the signals between the homunculus and the real Arma Valentine, naturally slowing down the doll’s reaction speed and movements.

“Annerose! Get out of there!”

At Arma’s command, Annerose ordered the mud golem to charge and swung her two swords wide, momentarily dispelling the flames of death that surrounded them.

The mud golem charged at Valakia, and Arma caught Annerose as she jumped from the golem’s head, recalling her four magic swords.

-Crash!

The golem and Valakia collided.

No, Valakia’s tail slammed into the charging golem’s waist.

The golem’s waist snapped from the powerful, spinning attack, and the debris, engulfed in flames of death, rained down on the Vulcan Ruins like meteors.

-Whoosh-!

And then, more flames erupted.

The flames of death spewing from Valakia’s mouth were aimed directly at Arma Valentine.  Anticipating this, Arma spun her four magic swords like a windmill, creating a barrier of the four seasons’ power.

-Crackle-!

The flames of death, blocked by the barrier, split in two and scorched the air.

But the barrier couldn’t hold for long.

Eroded by the flames of death, it collapsed, and Arma, along with her four magic swords, soared into the air, dodging the flames.

The situation wasn’t good.

Looking down from high above, Arma saw skeletons, previously destroyed, rising again within the deathly aura.

There weren’t many yet, but if she gave them time, the army of thousands of skeletons would surely be restored.

‘I can’t win.’

It was clear that Valakia wasn’t at its full strength.

Its power had been significantly weakened by the life force it had been subjected to upon awakening and the deathly sun it had created itself.

But even in its weakened state, it was powerful.

She couldn’t defeat it with a doll, especially not in this situation where she could barely control it.

Of course, Arma wasn’t alone.

But the Vulcan Mud Golem, controlled by Annerose, had been destroyed, and the assembled adventurers couldn’t participate in the battle due to the deathly aura emanating from Valakia.

“Grrrr-”

Valakia looked up and glared at Arma.

It seemed poised to take flight with a few flaps of its wings.

So, Arma made a decision.

Holding on any longer would be pointless stubbornness.

“Annerose! Hold on tight!”

After instructing her student, who she held in her arms, Arma flew south, away from the battlefield.

Encouraged by Arma’s retreat, Valakia spread its wings and flew after her with a sinister chuckle.

Arma fled.

One of the world’s top ten superhumans was retreating.

“Graaaaaaa-!”

Valakia chased after Arma, its black wings beating against the purple sky.

Arma continued to fly south without looking back.

It wasn’t a long time.

Just a few minutes.

But the distance they covered wasn’t short.

A Hecatonchires mage, holding a crystal ball, chased after Arma and Valakia through the forest.

Hecatonchires’ primary objective for the Demon King Valakia was to destroy the west, so the current situation, with Valakia flying towards Venus City, wasn’t a problem.

‘Is she trying to prevent the resurrection of the skeleton army?’

If they remained at the Vulcan Ruins, the skeleton army would be restored.

So, she had to move the Demon King Valakia first.

It was a reasonable judgment.

But it was also a tactic born of necessity.

The current Arma couldn’t defeat Valakia.

“Graaaaaaa-!”

Valakia spewed flames of death again.

As the flames rained down from above, Arma responded by accelerating sharply, then launched her four magic swords towards Valakia’s head.

-Clang!

The four magic swords, Wind, Water, Earth, Fire, slashed at Valakia’s body once more.

But they still couldn’t dispel the darkness.

The wounds inflicted by the four magic swords quickly healed, and Arma’s attack only bought her a few seconds.

“Garr!”

Valakia flapped its wings powerfully and unleashed another wave of deathly energy.

It intended to resurrect the corpses of the dragons and monsters scattered throughout Asain Gorge.

Arma sensed it.

But instead of luring Valakia away again, she landed on the ground, holding Annerose tightly.

The purple sky rippled.

The mana vortex, combined with Valakia’s aura, transformed the surroundings into a land of death.

Arma held her breath.

Marion, watching through the crystal ball, smiled faintly.

And Luther looked up.

While Arma was luring Valakia away, he had been running towards a single location.  He now stood before a giant stone pillar.

An unidentified stone pillar erected at the entrance to Asain Gorge.

It looked so significant that most Dragon Hunter Origin players would try to interact with it, hoping to trigger an event.

But in the western region, considered the early game, nothing they did could elicit a response from the stone pillar.

The stone pillar’s role came much later, at the beginning of the central region arc, after the eastern, western, southern, and northern arcs were completed.

[Are you using a future asset?]

Using an object meant for the central arc in the western arc.

This would make the object unusable in the central arc.

But Luther didn’t hesitate.

If he couldn’t overcome the present, there would be no future.

“I’ll just borrow it and pay it back later.”

Luther’s Plan B.

A last resort, prepared for the scenario where even a combined assault with the Spirit’s Jewel, the deathly sun attack, the mud golem, and Arma Valentine couldn’t defeat the Demon King Valakia.

[That’s a pathetic excuse, but it’s true, so I suppose it can’t be helped.]

[Activating Plan B!]

At Integra’s cry, Luther activated the magic stones installed in the magic circle he had drawn beneath the stone pillar.

This too had been prepared by Lilia.

Activating an ancient relic.

Creating a massive mana vortex!

-Crackle!

A mana vortex, originating from the stone pillar, began to expand.

Shining pure white, it absorbed the other mana vortices created by the Night of Mana and grew larger, eventually becoming a massive mana vortex that consumed all the mana in the surrounding area.

The purple sky trembled.

The deathly energy that had been about to engulf Asain Gorge was sucked into the mana vortex along with the collapsing mana vortices.

It wasn’t a natural phenomenon.

And because of that, it didn’t follow the laws of nature.

The mana vortex, dozens of meters tall, spun majestically above the stone pillar, transforming the surrounding area into a mana void.

“Graaa!”

The darkness covering Valakia’s wings dissipated.

Unable to maintain flight, it plummeted to the ground, its true form, a skeletal frame, revealed as the darkness receded.

The mana void’s effect didn’t end there.

Arma’s four magic swords lost their power and fell to the ground.

Arma herself lost consciousness inside her giant armor.

The Vulcan Mud Golem, which had been trying to crawl back to the battlefield with its broken body, lost its mana and crumbled into dust.

Mana in the atmosphere couldn’t be used.

Anything emanating magic power had its power drained by the mana vortex.

That’s why Arma couldn’t fight.

Annerose, who relied heavily on artifacts, couldn’t fight either.

The mud golem couldn’t rise again, and the adventurers were too far from the battlefield.

But there was one person.

Someone who could fight at full strength even within the mana void.

[Twin Drive deactivated.]

[Emergency power activated.]

[Combat time: 12 minutes 30 seconds.]

The crystal ball’s connection was also severed.

Jenadu couldn’t see what would happen next.

[Demon King Valakia.]

[Target is rising.]

[The energy shield surrounding its body has disappeared.]

[It is now possible to directly damage the target’s main body.]

Integra was right.

Valakia’s true form, revealed with the dissipation of the darkness, was pathetic.

It resembled a dragon, but its bones were so thin and fragile that they looked like they would break at any moment.

A form that wouldn’t be seen in the original story until day 7—no, day 8.

Luther exhaled slowly and extended his hand.

He lifted the massive weapon he had prepared for this day.

A new weapon to replace the large axe he had lost in the fight against Balboa.

It was a giant axe with a 2.5-meter-long handle.

But it wasn’t ordinary.

Instead of an axe head, a giant circular saw blade was attached to the end of the handle.

[A man’s romance, activating.]

With a loud roar, the circular saw blade spun rapidly.

A smile spread across Luther’s face as he gripped the chainsaw axe, larger than himself.

—–CROW—–