After passing through a series of tunnels and following the faint sounds below, the two soon emerged into a massive underground chamber. Ahead stretched a broken stone bridge that once connected to the central platform of the ruin's fault. Beneath the shattered bridge yawned a vast pit—nearly a hundred meters deep—and from within came the faint, unsettling squelch of something writhing. Whatever lay below was obvious enough that no one would ever dare to descend and find out.
The bridge had collapsed at its center, leaving a gap of roughly ten meters. For Bell and Ais, that was hardly an obstacle.
Ten meters could be crossed in a single leap.
The real problem lay not in the distance, but in what waited beyond—the monstrous creature twisting violently against the stone walls of the platform ahead. Even separated by nearly a kilometer, Ais could still feel the overwhelming, suffocating pressure of its aura.
"!?"
Having once faced Udaeus alone, Ais instantly recognized that the monster before her was even more dangerous. The sense of peril was far greater than during that battle.
'Around Lv.8… As expected of a beast that's absorbed divine power. If it keeps devouring Artemis's divinity, once it's done, its strength will probably reach Lv.9.'
Bell understood the creature's limits better than anyone.
Perhaps it was because his own power had risen enough to comprehend what truly separated the strong from the stronger. Having seen a Lv.7 "King," he could now grasp where the boundaries of Lv.8 and Lv.9 lay.
For him at his current stage, those heights were unreachable—but not untouchable. Even if he couldn't yet raise himself to the level of a Lv.8 or Lv.9, that didn't mean he couldn't drag such an existence down to his playing field.
Take the monster before them. After consuming a portion of divine energy, its strength had indeed reached Lv.8. But the moment it was poisoned, it lost the ability to wield that power fully. Its true limit was no higher than Lv.7.
For Bell, Lv.7 was a realm he could engage. For Ais, however, it was still a step too high. She had only recently reached Lv.6, hadn't yet trained long in this new tier, and her Status growth remained incomplete.
Which meant that in this situation, two actions had to happen simultaneously—lower the enemy's power while raising her own.
That made things much simpler.
Bell reached into four-dimensional space and retrieved a special Rune Stone, tossing it to Ais.
She caught it effortlessly.
"A Rune Stone?"
"It'll help bridge the gap in raw ability between you and that creature. Even weakened by my poison, it's still a beast that's absorbed divine power—its base strength far exceeds yours."
Then Bell added in a calm tone,
"This Rune Stone is my own creation. It'll push your Status to its highest limit for five minutes. But once those five minutes are over, your stamina and mana will be completely drained. You'll stay in that state for an hour."
Ais immediately understood—this wasn't an ordinary enhancement stone. It was one made purely to decide victory or defeat.
Five minutes of overwhelming strength, in exchange for an hour of total exhaustion.
If she failed to end the fight within that window, her depleted body would make her easy prey.
'Test its strength first… then use the Rune Stone's boost to finish it.'
Her battle plan formed in an instant.
Simple, but effective—precisely the kind of plan that worked in a fight like this.
She reached into her pouch and drew her sword.
But before she could move, Bell caught the blade of her "Desperate."
"Wait. To make sure your attacks can pierce the divine barrier coating the monster's body, your sword needs to be linked with Artemis's bow."
From the four-dimensional space, Artemis's bow appeared, glowing faintly with divine radiance—the light of a true divine artifact.
Bell snapped his fingers, and a luminous thread extended from the bow's glowing arrow, weaving itself around the blade of "Desperate," linking the two weapons together.
"Hmm. This will ensure your attacks can completely pierce through the outer layer of divine power defense. And don't worry about harming the goddess Artemis—she's already awakened from her confinement. She'll understand our intent, so give it everything you've got."
"Understood!"
In that instant, Ais felt a rare sense of freedom—the bliss of fighting without distraction. With someone handling everything outside of combat, all she had to do was focus on battle alone. It was almost dangerous how easily such comfort could turn her into someone who lived only for the fight.
She shifted her focus back to the monster before her.
"Tempest!"
A violent gale surged around her, cloaking her body in a storm of wind that magnified her speed severalfold. In the blink of an eye, she leapt across the broken bridge and entered the deepest chamber of the ruins—the core where the beast awaited.
The storm drove her forward like a missile.
"ROAR!!!!"
Sensing Ais's approach, Antares endured the pain wracking its entire body and bellowed in fury, moving to counterattack.
It tried to lunge forward, but its legs had lost strength. All it could do was swing one massive pincer in a sweeping arc toward her.
Ais darted forward, then suddenly pulled her legs up, her body gliding low across the ground.
Her lowered form slid just beneath the incoming strike, skimming the floor by inches.
Then she spread her limbs wide to create drag, the wind gathering beneath her feet the instant she regained balance—launching her forward again at even greater speed.
A deafening crack followed as Antares's claw slammed into the stone floor.
BOOM!
The platform trembled violently, the ground warping as if struck by an earthquake.
But it didn't stop there. The creature's two remaining tail stingers plunged down together in a coordinated strike.
BOOM!BOOM!
The impacts were even more destructive, splintering the platform and leaving it on the verge of collapse—though it somehow held.
Through the rising dust and smoke, a powerful whirlwind burst forth.
Ais shot out of it, unscathed but far more disheveled than before.
Her speed now rivaled that of a low-flying fighter jet. With wind swirling around her blade in a lethal spiral, she aimed straight for Antares's tail.
"Sching!"
The razor-edged strike cut clean through the beast's impossibly tough armor, slicing off one of its tail stingers in a single blow.
...