By Zephyria As the damp air turned cold and his breathing eased, Leonardo reflexively raised his head and looked up.
Light streamed through the dust filling the deep, rugged valley, and the thick, massive ice surging from the cliffs on either side sparkled with the reflected light. Thanks to the falling rocks and soil being caught on the magnificent ice roof, they could buy some time.
The figure floating leisurely in the spectacle of the cliffs filled with ice was obscured by the thick dust and backlight, making it difficult to see clearly.
“……”
But even without seeing clearly, Leonardo knew who it was at once.
“Commander!”
Squad Leader 8 shouted towards the sky with an unusually welcoming voice. The figure in the sky seemed to turn towards them. Confirming him, Squad Leader 8 immediately said to Leonardo, who was hanging below her.
“Blaine, now!”
As she gestured with her chin as if to say they should go up, Leonardo nodded without replying.
Squad Leader 8 stepped on the cliff she had been hanging from and leaped into the dust first. Leonardo also changed his foot position and turned his body to follow her.
As he raised his head to look at her back to leap, Leonardo met the man’s bloodshot eyes in Squad Leader 8’s arms.
Leonardo instinctively stopped breathing.
The man, who had clearly been unconscious until just now, was looking down at him with eyes bulging as if his blood vessels would burst. Meeting those eyes, Leonardo paused and stared at the man, then suddenly shifted his gaze to the man’s glowing hand. The blue mineral in his hand was emitting a faint light.
Leonardo’s expression rapidly stiffened.
‘I put everything in the bag, where did he get that….’
The man looked at him and smiled with a bizarre expression.
Leonardo immediately pushed off the wall with his foot without thinking, moving as far away from the cliff as possible. Then, he threw the man’s bag, which he had been carrying on his left shoulder, down into the valley. If that guy threw it towards them, the other minerals in the bag would explode together, doubling the impact of the explosion.
However, contrary to expectations, the man did not throw the mineral at Leonardo.
As Leonardo moved away, he grabbed Squad Leader 8’s arm, which was holding him by the scruff of the neck, and instantly twisted her wrist. While the Squad Leader, who had been momentarily off guard, lost her grip on the man’s collar due to the sudden attack, the blue mineral left the man’s hand and flew in a straight line towards her.
In that instant, Leonardo, seeing the glowing mineral, reached out his hand towards Squad Leader 8.
* * *
A sonic boom spread through the air, and a strong gust of wind blew through the valley. As the dust that had been gradually settling was stirred up again by the unusual scale of the explosion, Hugo, who had been freezing the moisture absorbed into the soil to prevent the mountain from collapsing, jumped down into the cliff below without hesitation, where he couldn’t see an inch ahead.
Falling rocks blocked his path as they descended faster than gravity, but he swung his massive greatsword and instantly cleaved the rocks in two. The rocks, split with a cracking sound, collided with other rocks falling from above, creating dust.
As the scattered fragments swirled around annoyingly, Hugo turned his body and stretched out his arm towards the sky. Two white spheres emerged from his fingertips and were rapidly fired forward, creating a thunderous burst that temporarily blew away all the dust obscuring his vision and the rocks falling from above.
However, the problem was that the water in the soil that had been frozen by his mana was rapidly melting again due to the humid heat of the peninsula as the supply of cold air was cut off. Already, cracks were visible in the ice above, so Hugo turned around again and hurried down.
There was not much time.
Leonardo, who had slammed his back hard against the cliff due to the impact of the explosion, still held Kenneth and threw himself to catch Squad Leader 8, who was falling.
She had lost consciousness, and his mind was about to be swallowed by the ringing in his ears mixed with the sound of the explosion. Because of this, he lost his sense of direction and collided with the rocks several times, realizing that he was falling with them, holding Kenneth and Squad Leader 8.
He no longer had enough mana to float all three of their weights. However, perhaps due to the aftereffects of being caught in the explosion, his mind was hazy even as he fell.
The surrounding sounds were muffled, and the ringing and hallucinations were piercing his head, and his sense of reality was dulled, so he was just blankly staring at the rocks rapidly approaching before his eyes.
Just as Leonardo was barely holding onto his fading consciousness, a voice penetrated his mind.
The voice, faintly heard amidst the mixed noise, was both unclear and familiar.
In his blurred consciousness, Leonardo was unknowingly drawn to that voice. Then, the distorted sound gradually became clearer and pierced his ears in an instant.
“Leonardo—!”
The moment he heard the voice echoing through the valley, Leonardo suddenly felt his mind sharpen.
He twisted his body to barely avoid a boulder that had come right in front of him and raised his head towards the sky to look at the person who had called him.
Then, the massive rock that had been filling his vision was instantly cleaved in half before his eyes, and a person with blue eyes appeared, cutting through the gap and approaching him solely.
As their eyes met, perhaps because of the rapidly decreasing altitude, the pressure in his ears returned to normal, the stuffiness in his ears cleared, and the surrounding clamor disappeared as if washed away. His hazy mind was also pulled back to reality.
Leonardo immediately grabbed the belt straps of the two people he was holding with both hands and pulled them together into one hand. And he extended his other hand towards the one reaching out to him.
The two reached out towards each other almost simultaneously.
As they desperately wished for their fingertips to touch, the distance gradually closed. However, the rough wind blocked them, making it very slow despite their anxious hearts.
Hands that seemed about to touch hovered tantalizingly in the air, and their eyes stubbornly locked onto each other as if regretting the untouched hands.
It was clearly an urgent situation, but at that moment, everything around them felt slow.
Then it happened.
A sharp fragment that had been split off from colliding with another rock grazed Hugo’s arm.
Because of that, the distance between the two hands that had almost grasped each other rapidly increased, and at the same time, red blood scattered in the air.
As blood splattered on his face, his golden eyes momentarily wavered.
“Hugo!”
Leonardo called out his name without realizing it, his face pale.
Hugo, who had briefly moved away, descended rapidly again without showing any pain, but the graze was quite deep. Moreover, in that short time, the distance between them had become absurdly large, and because Leonardo was carrying two more people, the distance did not narrow easily even as Hugo sped up his descent.
With his vision obscured by dust and small rocks, making teleportation impossible, Hugo conjured a thin stream of water from his left hand and created a long whip. Then, he swung it in the direction of Leonardo.
As the slender stream of water stretched out through the obstacles obscuring his vision and headed towards him, Leonardo instinctively grabbed the end of it and wrapped it around his arm.
Confirming that the stream of water was taut, Hugo immediately drove the tightly gripped greatsword into the cliff, reducing his descent speed.
Because the speed was so fast, the friction between the greatsword and the cliff was directly transmitted to Hugo’s arm, causing a pain that felt as if it would be torn off. Nevertheless, he only frowned slightly and, even in the midst of it, wrapped the stream of water around the handle of the greatsword to firmly secure those he was holding so they wouldn’t fall.
However, that impact was also inflicted on Leonardo’s arm, which was holding the end of the stream of water. As extreme pain flowed through his arm, Leonardo squeezed his eyes shut. He wished that the sensation in his arm would just disappear.
The greatsword, stuck in the cliff, continued to slide down due to the acceleration until it barely stopped, caught on a protruding rock edge.
And the moment the fall completely stopped, a slight recoil occurred.
Leonardo, who had been enduring the pain while hanging from the end of the stream of water, felt his left arm, which was holding the belts of the two people, momentarily lighten after the recoil.
As an ominous sensation traveled up his arm, he stopped his rough breathing and immediately looked down.
“Ah—.”
His pale face expressed despair as he let out a sigh.
It was because he saw a figure disappearing into the darkness.
Of the two belt straps he had been holding, one of the connecting links had broken.
Kenneth was still falling.