Leave a comment

The monster was more than ten meters long, a size in line with dragons like its name suggested. Mira’s eyes quickly darted around the area, without lowering her guard. She was setting up locations for summons.

(Alright… I’m really looking forward to seeing how much damage I can do to this big monster!)

Mira was used to doing that, setting up more than a hundred summon locations in the blink of an eye. That was just a tenth the number of summons she used for her army, though summoning her army was something she did in conjunction with Sage Arts, and could not be performed by regular summoners. Summoning that number of Dark Knights and Holy Knights could easily dry up Mira’s mana without aid as well.

But she wanted to know if Partial Summoning, which required less mana, would work even with such numbers.

The Skull Dragon got tired of watching Mira stand there with a devilish grin, so it charged ahead with a monstrous roar. Just its size was a menace, but it also had terribly sharp claws and fangs.

Compared to Mira’s small frame, a direct hit would clearly cause plenty of damage.

「Good, come at me!」

But Mira had fought plenty of foes larger than the Skull Dragon. She skillfully dodged its attacks, and then prepared her own attack with a twinkle in her eyes. A second later more than a hundred magic circles lit up in mid-air, the arms of Dark Knight sprouting from them, but not the rest of their bodies.

The Skull Dragon’s momentum made it plummet into the wall, shaking the entire area. Then all the incomplete Dark Knights swung their sharp swords aiming at the large monster.

It was no mere swing though, as the swords left their hands and flew at a merciless speed. The more than a hundred Dark Knight swords had been thrown like javelins.

After a short delay, the rain of Dark Knight swords fell upon the Skull Dragon, causing a thunderous sound that rivaled the monster’s howls.

「…That was even more sublime than I thought.」

It had been a breathtaking sight. Some seconds passed, and all the Dark Knight arms and swords vanished without a trace. But the damage caused by them remained, and Mira looked astonished at the pile of rubble, the remains of the Skull Dragon’s bones.

The Skull Dragon was powerful enough a group of A rank adventurers was needed to defeat one. Mira was still stronger, but if she fought it fairly, using six Dark Knights, it would take her five minutes to beat the monster. This time the fight lasted barely a few seconds though.

Partial Summoning only consumed about a tenth of the mana necessary for a full summon. In other words, Mira had used about ten Dark Knights worth of mana to defeat the Skull Dragon in a matter of seconds.

「That was quite effective!」

The Skull Dragon’s remains turned to dust and vanished. Mira picked up the large Magic Stone left behind and chuckled seeing her power had exceeded her expectations.

The process of designating summon locations was something she had practiced for tens of thousands of times in the past, so she could do it instantly now. Multiple Simultaneous Summons was also Mira’s best skill. All things considered, the rain of Black Knight swords could be activated in almost no time at all, while having incredible power.

「I’ll have to come up with a cool name for it later!」

Mira was pleased with the results, so she made a mental note to come up with a name for that attack.

Regardless of that, the distracting roars were gone now. Now she could search the spirit in peace, so Mira walked to the center of that opening and focused again, trying to grasp the presence of the spirit.

She focused much better than before, nothing else disturbing her, and she managed to establish a stronger connection with the spirit.

They were still far from each other, so the image she got was too blurry, but whenever she prodded their connection she would get a clear response. The spirit kept turning its head, desperate to find Mira as well.

(Just wait a bit longer, I promise I’ll find you.)

Speaking in her mind, Mira continued to focus. She was slowly grasping and holding onto their connection.

(Over there? Alright.)

Twenty minutes of much focusing passed, and Mira finally succeeded in determining the direction of that connection. Now she just had to find out the height and distance, but she had enough information to start searching and call for the spirit a bit louder.

Just like how Mira could feel the spirit, the spirit could also feel Mira. The spirit would always answer when Mira tried calling to it.

「No way..!」

Mira exclaimed in shock hearing the spirit’s response, and she sprinted to the white wall on the other side of that area.

「You’re on the other side…」

Their connection had grown so strong she could tell the location of the spirit. It was on the other side of the white wall with stains, across where the Skull Dragon had spawned.

「This will be tricky…」

Mira knocked on the white wall and frowned.

She could not see any doors or holes on the wall. The only way there was to find a different route leading there. But Mira had already strayed a considerable distance from her personal route through the sixth floor, and she could not remember how to get to the other side of that wall.

Not to mention this was the complex sixth floor, oftentimes one would have to go some levels up or down, move a distance, and then return to the current level to access certain areas.

If the spirit’s location also required such a trip, it would take a considerable time to get there. There was a chance Soul Howl would finish his business there and go somewhere else during that time, making Mira’s trip useless.

But Mira also could not just leave the spirit be.

「If only I could open a way there.」

Mira hit the white wall a bit harder than earlier. Almost all the buildings and walls of the sixth floor were made of the same indestructible material as the towers of the fifth floor. This was close to the deepest reaches of the dungeon as well, so Argolest Alloy was used copiously.

「I didn’t know there was still another room past here though.」

Mira was surprised to find there were other rooms past that spot.

Clinging to a thin string of hope, she continued pounding the wall in case there was a switch for a hidden passage. This place, accessible only through a spiral staircase, was the lowest spot in the entire sixth floor. Mira found it really strange to learn there was another room beyond that spot. Even if the way there involved a large detour, she could not think of any corridors that went so deep.

(Isn’t an empty location like this the perfect place for a secret?)

There was no concrete evidence of that, but she still felt suspicious that such a large space was empty. Everyone avoided it knowing Skull Dragons spawned there, but maybe that was just a curtain to hide a secret.

Mira started to remember the map of the sixth floor once made by volunteers in the past. That map was gone together with her Floating Continent, but she still remembered one particular detail. This space at the end of a spiral staircase seemed to protrude out of the rest of the structures.

Now that Mira knew something existed on the other side of the wall, she found the empty space rather suspicious. That made Mira examine the white wall with more attention.

She was trying to find any type of hidden switch or button to open a passage, something she often saw in movies or comics. She started from the middle of the wall and first checked the left side, then the right side.