I've Got A Mana Processor In A Magic World-Chapter 203: Pioneering Enigma

The Orc scrunched his boar-like face, grunting, but he remained silent.

The demon variant watched with a distant look in his eyes before glancing at the four elf variant girls. "You lot are surprisingly silent. What? Cat got your tongue?"

Contrary to the expectations that the girls would lash back, considering their fiery nature, they remained silent, only glancing up absentmindedly before looking down again.

"Ho?" The demon variant chuckled, about to say a few more goading words, but the next person that spoke made him pause.

"We're being sidetracked here," Elara said, walking forward from behind Riel. "The strength of the team ahead has already been established. We have all seen it with our own eyes," she looked at each of them pointedly, "each second we waste here is being used to the fullest by them—"

"Even if we catch up to them, what do you expect us to do…? Fight them?" One of the elf variant girls suddenly spoke up softly.

Everyone was silent.

It was an obvious point. One that even with their egos, they had no choice but to consider, and accept.

"..." Elara swallowed, narrowing her eyes.

"Why do you think we are here…?" she asked everyone quietly. "It seems you have all forgotten the purpose of this trial," her voice went toneless, "only one world would emerge victorious. So if that isn't you… if you're too scared to push forward against others that are obviously stronger than you even this early on… then I'd ask why you bother fighting at all."

She stared at each of them carefully, before deadpanning, "You might as well just kill yourself already, no?"

The orc grunted loudly in response, visibly pissed.

He looked ready to charge at Elara, even disregarding Riel whose casual-looking poise was already primed for battle.

But the orc didn't charge in the end, realizing the truth in Elara's words.

"Cheee…" the demon variant breathed out through his teeth, "it doesn't feel good being told off by someone that pisses you off naturally, but there is sense in your words," he stood up. "I, Vagras, know no fear."

"Neither do I, Gorok!" the orc variant roared, jumping to his feet.

The dwarfs were less enthusiastic, but they saw the sense and inevitability of the situation. If they turned back here, it would not be the last time they would.

The elf variant girls also lacked the enthusiasm the others displayed but they stood up as well.

"So, how do we go about it, eh?" the second dwarf asked, looking at Elara who had spurred all of them on. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"We don't go in separately. We go in groups this time. At least two each. And if you find the correct path, do not engage. You come back and alert the others…" she stared at them, waiting for confirmation.

They all nodded one by one, before splitting into groups of two and heading down the unmarked tunnels.

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.

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Back in the Level 3 Chamber…

Zephyr was still locked in the death dance with the Void Phantom, cutting close calls with every dodge. But at least, now he had a goal.

'Is that it?' He squinted his eyes as sharply as he could, noticing the faintest of outlines right at the edge of the space the Void Phantom occupied immediately it made another blink.

But as if it was never there, it disappeared again.

'That's what I'm supposed to hit?!' he practically yelled in his mind, noticing how tiny the seam and how brief the window for him to hit it was.

But it wasn't like he had any choice.

'There's no way I'm hitting that with my normal spells…'

The only option was to use his register-memory saved spells.

He stopped dodging for a single, perilous instant. The Void Phantom, sensing the hesitation, took advantage and immediately made the last few blinks to Zephyr's position, preparing to lash out with another spatial strike.

Zephyr seemingly ignored the impending danger, standing still as though he couldn't see the Phantom coming.

In reality, he was fully aware, but was simply waiting for the Phantom to make a blink into his 10ft effective radius for his register-memory saved spells to activate.

All his senses were heightened to the limit, waiting for the millisecond when the tell-tale sign of the Phantom making a jump would appear within his effective range.

'There!!' his reaction was nearly in exact sync with his speed of thought immediately he noticed the beginnings of a distortion within his range.

He had activated the fire arrow saved in memory within that same instant, watching in slow motion as the spell actualized in the space he intended.

For a moment, nothing happened...

Then abruptly, the shimmering space the Void Phantom was about to occupy violently rejected the foreign energy, causing a chaotic destabilization that twisted the Void Phantom roughly, shifting its form that previously looked only like a shimmering distortion of shadow, into something evidently corporeal.

Zephyr could see and feel it within the same space he existed. Not at all different from any other monster he had fought.

This moment of full corporality was agonizingly brief — less than a second — but for Zephyr it was like an eternity.

In his state of extremely heightened senses, he processed the fact that the monster could now be touched in the same instant that he was already moving to attack it. There was no delay whatsoever.

Instant fire arrows were being executed as fast as Zephyr could think, bombarding the solid body of the Void Phantom with searing heat.

His brain registered that the spell still did not appear within the monster's body, but his reaction to that was only to bombard the exterior with even more spells as he charged at the monster, unwilling to give it even a single moment to recover.

He rammed his shoulder into the monster with the full momentum of his charge without any care for whatever injury he might sustain in the process.

The only thought on his mind was to kill the monster with this single chance. There were no do-overs.

The Void Phantom roared, a loud, wet, guttural sound, utterly different from what one would've expected of a monster its size.

The obsidian-like structure of its body cracked visibly at the point of impact, and shards of dark energy scattered, dissolving into the air like flecks of dust.

Zephyr felt his shoulder flare in pain, but he didn't care. His fists were already raining down with consecutive Galestrikes, dealing heavy blows to the monster, even as his hand bled.

The register-memory fire arrows were still bombarding the Phantom, rocking even Zephyr with intense heat and vibrations as he attacked right in the thick of it.

The monster had no reprieve at all. Zephyr was going to kill it with this one chance!

But suddenly, out of nowhere, an ear-piercing shrill emanated from the monster, causing Zephyr to stop mid-attack and cover his ears that were surprisingly bleeding already.

It was a sonic attack unlike Zephyr ever thought possible.

Despite the hands over his ears, he could still hear the shrill sound — or rather, feel the sound to the fullest. It bypassed the solid nature of his body, vibrating his innards to levels so dangerous, he could barely hear his own thoughts at all.

Suddenly, as the sound had come, it ceased. And Zephyr found himself screaming at the top of his lungs.

His voice sounded alien to him, as though coming from somewhere very distant.

It wasn't until a few seconds after that his mind processed that his ears had been injured so much, he could barely hear anything at all.

Little by little, more thoughts began to appear in his head again. More feedback from his organs that were trying to rapidly heal. More information from what they could sense.

He squinted his eyes open as traces of situational awareness began to come back to him.

'Where is the Void Phantom…?'

'I need to move…'

He blinked his eyes repeatedly to clear the red-filled visage he could see.

'Blood?'

Somewhere at the back of his mind, Aegis was sending him anxious thoughts through their neural link, but he was too dazed to focus on them.

His eyes slowly cleared up and he could finally see through the red, making out the details and current situation.

'Where is it…?' He searched around his immediate surroundings that he could make out very quickly, expecting the monster to have taken advantage of the effect of its attack to finish him.

But instead of spotting the monster right next to himself, or at least very close, he spotted its dark figure in the distance, flickering in and out of reality, jumping and twitching across a short distance in a loop.

Zephyr saw the result of his attack on the monster and a slight sense of fulfillment and satisfaction couldn't help but surface in his mind.

The Void Phantom was leaking… void particles? — Black particles like dust were pouring out of holes and cracks Zephyr had made on the body of the monster with his heavy barrage of spells and brute force.

They seemed to be what made the monster maintain its void magic, because the more they leaked, the more violently the monster twitched between its phantom-like state and a more corporeal and solid state. With the solid state being more frequent.

The tiny spatial jumps became less frequent, slowing, until eventually, both the twitching and the jumping stopped entirely.

The monster floated in silence for a short second, before dropping to the ground in a crumpled mass.

[Notice: Champion <Unknown> has single-handedly cleared Level 3: Void Phantom Den.]

[Title: Pioneering Enigma, earned]

[Benefit: First-Priority-Right to memory fragment reality.]

[Champion <Unknown> has gained the first right to battle—]

The Voice of The World suddenly halted.

[Personal Notice]

[Proctor Pyreus Blazefury has taken an interest in you.]

[Proctor Arnawen A'Eguilia Jun has taken an interest in you.]

[Proctor Tiamarath has taken an interest in you.]

[Proctor Morwen Adrenus has taken an interest in you.]