The weakened green wind projectile hurtled straight toward the group.
"Haah!"
Noelle, standing at the front, let out a sharp cry. Gripping her Favonius Greatsword with both hands, she brought it down onto the wind blast!
The projectile clashed violently with her blade, like the roar of a raging storm.
The impact was powerful enough to try and blow Noelle away!
But thanks to her Breastplate and her extraordinary strength, she was only pushed back a little.
The heel of her knee-high armored boots carved a deep trench into the sandy ground.
But in the end, she managed to block it.
"My turn now!"
Bennett's elemental energy surged as he leapt into the air and slammed down, unleashing his Elemental Burst.
The Fantastic Voyage field enveloped everyone in its radiant glow.
Each of them could feel a surge of energy flowing through their bodies, a tangible boost in strength.
Unfortunately, the gap between Bennett's power and Nolan's was far too great—
To Nolan, these buffs were barely noticeable, making little to no difference.
After activating his Burst, Bennett raised his fire-infused sword again and leapt high, aiming a slash straight at the Eye of the Storm!
The mutated creature clearly hadn't expected such a small, weak human to attack it.
Almost dismissively, it rotated its hardened shell with a faint hum, and before Bennett's blade could even make contact—
A mere gust from its spin sent him flying back like a rag doll.
"Ugh—!"
Bennett tumbled out of control through the air.
As expected, it was still too much for him.
Nolan quickly used his mental power to catch him midair, preventing him from crashing into the ground.
"Whew! That was close!"
Bennett exhaled in relief as he safely landed on his feet.
"Are you hurt? Let me heal you just in case."
Barbara immediately cast Melody Loop to start healing him.
"I'm fine, just a few scrapes—"
Before he could finish his sentence, the corrupted Eye of the Storm began gathering wind energy again, forming a massive hand of gale-force winds overhead. It came crashing down toward the group!
Even before the hand reached them, the air pressure was already unbearable—
It felt like standing directly in the path of a typhoon.
Noelle and Barbara's skirts were thrown wildly in the wind, and even the sheer black tights clinging to Noelle's legs and Barbara's patterned white stockings were faintly exposed in the gusts.
Rosaria, on the other hand, stood with arms crossed, utterly unmoved—like a mountain rooted in place.
Nolan could tell that aside from Rosaria, no one else could possibly endure that attack.
So, without hesitation, he acted.
With a thought, the ground beneath him rippled like ink spreading on parchment, forming what looked like a painted forest.
Towering trees, each hundreds of meters tall, erupted from the earth, their canopies reaching toward the endless azure sky.
These massive trees pierced through the wind-formed giant hand, blocking the rampaging storm.
The crushing air pressure that had just moments ago felt like the wrath of heaven and earth—vanished in an instant.
And with it, the portal beneath the Eye of the Storm disappeared, along with the small island, the surrounding storm wall, and even the distant ocean.
What replaced it was a forest filled with colossal, sky-piercing trees.
This was no ordinary illusion.
It was a complete change of reality—an inner world that reflected the will of its master: Starsea Manifestation.
In this world shaped by his mind, the Eye of the Storm could no longer stir up a tempest.
Its wide-range wind-element abilities were restricted by the towering trees.
It was now shackled, unable to unleash its full power!
What's more, within Nolan's heartscape, the Eye of the Storm's strength was being actively suppressed by his power.
Despite still displaying a level of 72 in terms of life force, its combat capability had dropped to around level 60.
And that was with Nolan holding back.
If he truly wanted to, and unleashed the full might of his Starsea Manifestation,
he could crush the Eye of the Storm flat—into a wind-element cookie.
Paimon might even enjoy eating that.
She was known to snack on elemental creatures like slimes all the time anyway.
"Nolan… Did you do all this? Isn't it a bit too over the top...?"
Bennett, still holding his one-handed sword, looked around in complete shock at the transformed world.
Noelle and Barbara were also left speechless—
They had never seen such a reality-defying display.
Even Rosaria, who usually acted indifferent toward everything, couldn't help but cast him a surprised glance.
Was this something a human could really do?
Still, her mature and composed nature kept her astonishment hidden behind a calm expression.
"Heh, just a little trick. I only did this to weaken the Eye of the Storm and give you guys a worthy opponent to train against.
"It shouldn't be much stronger than you all now.
If you work together, you should be able to defeat it without much trouble."
Nolan smiled as he addressed the slightly bewildered Eye of the Storm.
The Eye of the Storm, which never had much intelligence to begin with, became slightly disoriented in the suddenly shifting environment after being corrupted.
But once it recovered, its wind-element shell trembled, and a deep, dark green wind vortex formed in front of its body.
The vortex slowly began to spin, trying to absorb elemental energy from the surroundings to prepare for some kind of attack.
However, after spinning for a while, nothing happened. The vortex remained as it was—unchanged. As if unwilling to give up, the Eye of the Storm continued to manipulate it, forcing the vortex to spin faster.
It even increased its energy output, causing the dark miasma surrounding it to dim significantly.
Although they didn't understand what was happening, Bennett and Noelle didn't miss the opportunity. They each infused their blades with elemental power.
Noelle even activated her Elemental BurstSweeping Time!
Golden jade-like light enveloped her greatsword, increasing its size. With a light step, she leapt into the air and brought the massive blade down on the Eye of the Storm!
The Eye of the Strorm instinctively moved the unstable vortex in front of itself as a shield.
The geo-infused greatsword struck the vortex head-on.
The already unstable vortex immediately became even more turbulent from the blow.
Then Bennett followed up with a precise thrust.
Boom!
The green vortex exploded. Both Bennett and Noelle were blasted back, but the Eye of the Storm was also sent flying, crashing hard into one of the towering trees nearby!
Leaves rained down as its impact left a deep crater in the tree trunk.
"Huh? What just happened to it?"
Barbara's fair face showed a puzzled expression. She didn't understand why the Eye of the Storm had just sat there and taken the attacks.
"It's because this space doesn't contain elemental energy," Nolan explained calmly.
"The Eye of the Storm can only rely on its internal elemental reserves to fight. It can't draw on the ambient energy like it usually does. That's why it hesitated."
"So that means if we just keep holding out, it'll eventually run out of power and lose, right?"
Barbara clenched her soft, pale fists in excitement.
Elemental lifeforms are different from other creatures—they rely heavily on absorbing the elemental energy around them to survive.
If they're placed in a space without any elemental energy, they can manage for a while, but once their reserves run low and they can't replenish them...
It doesn't take long before their strength nosedives and they become completely exhausted.
"Yeah, unless something unexpected happens, that's pretty much how it'll go," Nolan nodded as he continued observing the battle between Bennett, Noelle, and the Eye of the Storm.
Whenever he noticed that one of them was in real danger and couldn't dodge in time, he would intervene and help them block the attack.
After all, this was just a training opportunity—there was no need for anyone to get hurt.
During the battle, Nolan also noticed that the dark miasma surrounding the Eye of the Storm was steadily fading.
Most likely, like its wind-element energy, it couldn't be replenished in this world either.
Could it be that the corruption source was outside?
That being dragged into his heartscape severed the source of the corruption, causing it to slowly return to its original state?
Nolan pondered this with a thoughtful look.
If there was something unusual outside, the only real anomaly was the Spiral Abyss portal—
And the Eye of the Storm had been hovering directly above that portal the entire time.
Could that dark miasma be coming from inside the portal?
As he considered this possibility, the Eye of the Storm's condition continued to deteriorate.
It could no longer even form proper wind-element counterattacks.
All it could do was rely on its tough shell to block Noelle and Bennett's relentless assault.
Seeing this, Nolan decided there was no point in continuing the training session.
It was time to end the fight.
This had to be done by him personally—
The Eye of the Storm's outer shell was incredibly durable. Even if it couldn't counterattack due to exhaustion, its defense alone was more than enough to shrug off Noelle and Bennett's attacks.
They could wail on it all day and barely leave a scratch.
So Nolan summoned several translucent psychic threads and launched a flurry of blows directly at the Eye of the Storm.
Under the dual pressure of spiritual and physical damage, it couldn't hold out for long.
Soon, it broke apart, dispersing into wind-element particles that vanished into the air.
[Defeated A Powerful Enemy. Obtained 6,092 Adventure EXP.]
A notification popped up on his character panel.
Over 6,000 Adventure EXP—not bad at all.
Suddenly, everything in the heartscape began to rapidly retract, as if time itself were reversing.
Space warped once more, and they returned to the small island in Musk Reef, right at the portal to the Spiral Abyss.
Because the Eye of the Storm had been eliminated, the hurricane that had surrounded the island began to gradually dissipate due to the loss of the power sustaining it.
However, once wind currents are set in motion, even without a primary energy source, inertia keeps them going. Dispelling it entirely wouldn't happen instantly.
At the current pace, it would take at least half a day for the storm to fully clear.
During that time, anyone waiting outside to venture into the "Spiral Abyss" would still be unable to enter.
"Phew, it's finally over!"
Even though Rosaria and Nolan had been standing guard the whole time, Barbara had been anxious for quite a while.
Now that things were settled, Noelle, Bennett, and the Honorary Knight had successfully defeated the terrifying Eye of the Storm!
[Barbara Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 260 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.5 (160/500)]
Just then, Noelle and Bennett returned. Bennett, in particular, was visibly excited:
"Awesome! We completed the commission!"
Sure enough, as long as he went adventuring with Nolan, no matter how unlucky he was, things always turned out fine.
Only when he was with Nolan did his commissions go so smoothly—without a single mishap!
Nolan smiled and said, "You both did great out there!"
"Hehe," Bennett scratched the back of his head, grinning.
Noelle sheathed her Favonius Greatsword. Being acknowledged by the experienced adventurer made her genuinely happy.
It was her first time facing such a powerful enemy, so she cared deeply about how well she had done.
"Thank you! You worked hard too, Mr. Adventurer!"
Hearing that her performance was solid, a bright and joyful smile lit up Noelle's cute face.
[Noelle Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 220 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.7 (200/700)]
Seeing the two affection notifications pop up, Nolan smiled gently and said:
"Alright then, since the guild commission is complete, let's head into the Spiral Abyss and see if we can find any treasure!"
"Yeah, but let's take a quick break first. That fight wore me out," Bennett said with a tired sigh after nodding in agreement.
"Good idea. It's around noon anyway. Let's eat something and rest, then we'll head into the Spiral Abyss this afternoon."
Nolan naturally agreed with Bennett's suggestion.
"Hey, you didn't mention anything about going into the Spiral Abyss earlier!"
Rosaria's pale but no-nonsense face showed clear dissatisfaction.
An expedition into the Spiral Abyss wasn't something you could wrap up in just a day or two.
Was she not supposed to return to work?
And if Barbara stayed away too long, the nuns at the cathedral would definitely get worried—and guess who would take the blame?
"We're just going in to investigate briefly, to see if the Eye of the Storm's corruption has any connection to what's inside.
"How about this—let's be out of there and back to Mondstadt to submit the commission by tonight?"
Nolan thought aloud.
After all, he could leave a clone of the "Sword God" inside to keep farming Adventure EXP.
There really was no need for him to stay there himself for long.
"That works. What do you think, Miss Rosaria?"
Barbara nodded, her soft, pale golden twin tails swaying slightly as she looked hopefully at Rosaria.
Truth be told, she was a bit curious about what the Spiral Abyss looked like inside, too.
"…Fine."
Rosaria sighed, exasperated, but since Nolan had the decency not to drag Barbara off on some reckless escapade, she reluctantly agreed.
[Rosaria Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 260 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.4 (10/400)]
"Alright, let's take a break first," Nolan said, loosening his shoulders and neck.
Afternoon, Musk Reef.
By now, part of the hurricane surrounding the island had already faded.
Nolan and the others had eaten a simple meal and were getting ready to explore the Spiral Abyss.
During this time, they saw a few other adventuring parties exiting from within and took the opportunity to ask them about the situation inside.
They learned that something had gone wrong with the ley lines inside, making many of the monsters unusually aggressive.
As a result, those adventurers had no choice but to retreat for now.
(End of Chapter)
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