By Zephyria If Sigal was following from behind, the Droks’ bizarre behavior of trying to pass through this place even while facing the water they hated could be somewhat understood.
‘I was wondering why the Droks were here… If I assume that the ones the Southern Branch, which went east, failed to deal with after their operation, crossed over, then it makes sense.’
Since the Droks’ habitat was located a little further inside than the entrance of the peninsula, it would have been considered strange that they were already being seen.
And if it was because the Southern Branch members had lured the Droks out of their habitat to carry out their operation, then the decisive reason why the Droks had run here as if fleeing must have been the presence of the higher predator, Sigal.
As soon as Leonardo guessed that far, the cliffs suddenly echoed loudly with a thud, and the feeling of something huge slowly approaching from not far away was felt.
Dellua, who had been talking to Leonardo, watched the battlefield again with a much more vigilant appearance. However, Leonardo stared at the foggy path that the formation had walked on beyond it and said in a low voice.
“It’s Sigal.”
“What?”
Dellua, who asked back in surprise, felt the vibration once more and looked at the path they had passed, just like him.
After a while, the heavy rumbling that had been heard from within the fog gradually grew closer, and with a growling sound, huge Sigals with red skin began to appear one by one.
Sigal was a bipedal demon beast with a height of at least 5m, and although it had low intelligence, it had hands with free movement of joints like humans, so it mainly used attacks using its hands.
Moreover, once a Sigal was provoked, it was very violent and cruel, and if caught in its hands, it was common for a human body to be crushed and burst by its grip strength, and it was characterized by not letting go until death.
As the large shadows of such creatures filled the eerie valley, the members who saw them all stopped fighting the Droks and slowly stepped back.
The creatures’ whitish eyeballs, with no pupils visible due to the turbid energy, discovered the members in front and suddenly roared loudly. Leonardo intuitively realized that this was an act of informing their comrades that they had found prey.
Hearing the ferocious Sigal’s roar, the Droks suddenly screamed and hurriedly began to crawl up the cliff to escape.
The Droks, who had fearlessly rushed at them, were suddenly running away madly to survive, and the members who were frozen at the sight could not take their eyes off Sigal with pale faces.
Originally, even if Sigal was discovered, only one or two were found, but the Sigals that were visible in front of them now numbered at least four.
However, judging from the fact that the ground was still rumbling, it was impossible to guess how many more were coming from within that fog.
Seeing the fear in the members’ eyes, Dellua urgently shouted.
“Maintain a 50m distance from the targets and reorganize the formation!”
The members, who had retreated slightly, quickly formed a defensive formation again in response to Dellua’s command.
After confirming that they had moved a certain distance away, Dellua immediately placed her hand on the ground. Then, a huge magic circle unfolded between the members and Sigal, and the ground in that vicinity shook and trembled greatly as if an earthquake had occurred. Soon after, the ground undulated like waves, and huge golems began to rise one by one from below.
The size of the golems that had broken through the ground was comparable to Sigal, and they were shaped similarly to Sigal. Judging from the golems’ bodies, they seemed to be made of rocks and soil from underground.
One of the golems, which had risen and stood on two feet, immediately ran towards Sigal and violently collided with its torso. The power was extraordinary, and Sigal, which had been hesitating, was pushed back at the same time as the collision, and the roar of the enraged creature echoed throughout the cliffs. Leonardo said with an expression of admiration.
“You, you’re controlling golems?”
“No, to be exact, I’m controlling inanimate objects.”
“You’re controlling inanimate objects?”
As he asked back with surprised eyes, Dellua smiled triumphantly at his reaction and replied.
“I make naturally occurring inanimate objects, excluding gases, into my golems and control them. That guy was made from the rocks in this ground.”
At Dellua’s explanation, Leonardo looked interested and turned his eyes back to the golem. It seemed that Sigal, which had an arm strength of tens of tons, was being pushed back by the golem.
As the situation was reversed in an instant, the members who had been in a defensive formation jumped in again and began to attack Sigal. The Sigal screamed as it felt the sharp blades penetrating its flesh, and wildly swung its arms.
Kwaaaang―!
The golem, which had been fighting evenly, was hit head-on by the arm that Sigal swung, and its head was blown away. As the golem’s head turned to dust in one blow, Dellua withdrew her triumphant smile and seemed a little embarrassed as she pulled out one more golem from the ground.
“This terrain is basalt, so it breaks easily.”
Being able to control inanimate objects at will was an incredible skill. Although the current combat method could not be said to be a close-range type, what her ability meant was that as long as the caster herself was in a safe place, she could fully use golems to perform both close-range and long-range attacks.
Leonardo pondered as he looked at her and the golems she was summoning.
‘Is it a similar ability to Miraile’s… No, if she utilizes inanimate objects, it’s a superior ability to Miraile’s.’
He stepped back slightly to watch the Council members fight a little more without readily stepping forward.
The golems created by the battalion commander filled the valley without a gap, and at the forefront, two of them were constantly being destroyed and regenerated, blocking Sigal from advancing.
Taking advantage of the gap, the soldiers nimbly moved to avoid the collision of the two giant monsters, distracting Sigal, and inflicting minor but continuous damage, so the teamwork between the unit members seemed decent. The defense was going well enough that I didn’t need to step in.
“Aaaaargh―!”
At that moment, a soldier suddenly screamed. Turning his head immediately, he saw a soldier fighting a Drok who hadn’t managed to escape being grabbed and lifted up by Sigal.
Seeing Sigal opening his heavily developed maw to devour him, the 6th Battalion soldiers quickly changed direction and rushed in to save their comrade.
Sigal was large, and his hide was hard and thick, making it difficult to cut through in one go. Having fully realized this fact through the battles so far, the soldiers all concentrated in one place and focused on striking Sigal’s elbow joints. Then, a scream of pain echoed, and the monster’s arm barely fell off, and the soldier held in its hand plummeted to the ground along with the severed arm.
Even with just one arm falling, the ground caved in and dust rose. The soldier struggled to escape from Sigal’s hand that was constricting him, but even though the nerves were severed, the joints of the rock-hard fingers were contracting more and more, making him feel like his body was being crushed even further.
“Ugh, huff―!”
“Morgan!”
“Everyone, help me!”
Trapped in a painful sensation as if his ribs were bending, the soldier gasped for breath. Other comrades tried to help him escape, but Sigal’s body rapidly hardened like stone once detached from the main body, making it difficult to even bend the curled fingers.
While they were struggling, another Sigal approached them.
As a huge shadow loomed over their heads once again, the soldiers cautiously raised their heads with tense eyes. At that moment, Sigal, who had been looking down at its prey, quickly reached out its hand towards the clustered humans.
The soldiers around him rushed in to replace their comrade who couldn’t avoid it, but with agile movements that didn’t match its huge size, it knocked them all away in mid-air.
The moment the soldiers who were directly hit by the swinging arm flew towards the rock wall, Marlene and Leonardo simultaneously spread out to both sides of the valley and deployed barriers. Thanks to this, the soldiers who were about to collide with the rugged rocks narrowly avoided injury.
Meanwhile, Leonardo lightly caught a soldier flying towards him with both arms.
“Gather around me!”
After confirming that the soldiers were safe, Marlene approached the soldier trapped in Sigal’s hand, quickly blocking the front and preparing for battle. At her shout, the scattered soldiers quickly gathered around the battalion commander and formed a formation together.
In the meantime, Dellua’s golem was hit by Sigal and shattered again, and sharp fragments of rock flew around the soldiers. Seeing this, Marlene swung her sword once, and the sword energy that flew from her sword pushed away the fragments and grazed Sigal’s arm behind them.
The sword energy seemed to penetrate the hide with great force, but the fact that the arm was still dangling instead of being completely severed only provoked the monster’s temper.
Following Sigal’s fierce roar, the other enraged creatures roared menacingly in succession, as if resonating. Because of this, a strong gust of wind blew through the valley, momentarily staggering them.
Even so, the soldiers only swallowed hard and steeled their resolve, firmly holding their ground in front of their trapped comrade without scattering.
Watching them, Leonardo thought it was time for him to step in.