Chapter 241 - The New Apocalypse

When Cecil cleaved down on the Night Plague's head with Corruption, an ominous aura wrapped around the World Tree's Thorn as it moved down.

As the blade made contact with the Night Plague's horrifying head, the struck area melted away and Cecil easily sliced through.

"Eh?"

The unexpected ease caused him to respond stupidly. It was also at that moment Cecil felt a pulsating on his body, but now wasn't the time to be absent minded. The monstrous head continued on its way and the Night Plague swallowed him.

The head of the Night Plague was huge, so despite Cecil melting away a part of it, the area covered by the Corruption was only but a 'scratch' on its large head.

"NO!"

"CEL!!!"

Serilla and Lucia panicked when they saw Cecil being devoured whole by the Night Plague. The Night Plague only screeched in victory and moved its legs to slash away at the two incoming pests.

The two girls immediately moved to avoid the attacks. In her rage, Lucia immediately let loose her Elemental Burst and immediately began chanting the verse to Apocalypse.

"L-Lucia?!" Serilla panicked when she heard that ominous, but extremely familiar incantation.

"Heaven and Earth shall fall—"

Serilla immediately moved ahead to cover for Lucia who was already in the middle of her chant. Lucia still remembered Cecil's words regarding the Night Plague's high resistance to mana and spells, but she didn't care.

No matter how high a monster's resistance was...she just had to break through it with one powerful spell and the Apocalypse was the one for the job.

"Lay waste to the World and—"

"Yuna, Silvy, if you can hear me! Help! I can't—urk—hold on for much longer!" Serilla yelled out towards the forest.

Serilla continued to flit around and block the Night Plague's attacks that were aiming at her and Lucia, but she was having a hard time since she needed to protect Lucia from the attacks. The girl was vulnerable since she was chanting.

A Misty Gate appeared not far from the girls' location and out popped Silver, roaring in all his glory. As the wolf began running towards the girls, his body began shining and it slowly enlarged.

By the time Silver arrived right in front of the large Night Plague, his body size was already big enough to rival the monster. Silver slammed his powerful body onto the Night Plague and successfully slammed it backwards a couple of meters.

Silver roared in anger and fired off multiple wind blades from his tail and rushed forward to bite at the monster's body. Serilla heaved a sigh of relief and dashed forwards to support Silver.

She took one last look at Lucia before rushing forward and couldn't help but be surprised at how long the girl was taking to finish the spell. It seemed much longer than the previous time she used it at the Dueling Tournament.

This was indeed true. At the time, Lucia had only used a downgraded version of her Apocalypse spell. The true power from the spell wasn't unleashed since she didn't want to burn down the entire stadium and potentially hurt innocents with her spell and most importantly, she still didn't have full control over her spell back then. Even the downgraded version at the time was still hard for her to control.

But not now, Lucia had gained full control over her spell and knowing that there won't be innocents by her spell, she was going to use it unreservedly.

The sight of Cecil being swallowed by the Night Plague had also enraged Lucia. Of course, she didn't believe that Cecil had died just like that. There was no way that boy was going to go down without a fight.

He was probably fighting as they were speaking and hacking away at the innards of the monster. However, Lucia was still enraged nonetheless. She was putting her full power behind this Apocalypse and she was determined to burn the damned monster into ashes.

While Serilla was attacking the Night Plague alongside Silver, she couldn't help but feel the large change happening to the atmospheric mana. Even she, as a person who wasn't all that adept with magic spells, could strongly feel the gravitating sensation.

"All that mana...it's gathering around Lulu!"

When she turned her head back to look at her friend, her eyes widened at the awe-inspiring scene. Multiple large-scale magic formations were surrounding Lucia and as she continued her incantation, more magic formations slowly formed in the area around her.

In the deep of night, Lucia had somehow become a dazzling sun that shone with a bright light. Even the adventurers in the forest that were engaging the Night Plague spiderlings noticed the strong light being emitted by the girl.

"Is this...Apocalypse?" Yuna mumbled in shock. This was the first time that her master was using her mana to such a degree and fully displaying the powerful might of her ultimate original spell.

"W-what is this?!"

"This frightening pressure...is it that boy's doing?!" Sak'arh exclaimed in shock.

Yuna gave him a sidelong glance and scoffed, "Cecil isn't capable of performing a spell that generates this much pressure and gathers this much mana."

"So...who is it?"

Yuna didn't feel the need to answer his question so she just continued firing her spells at the surrounding spiderlings. "We have our own battle to focus on. Don't get distracted by something irrelevant!"

With her words, the other shocked adventurers immediately refocused themselves on the current battle. Their duty at the moment was to prevent any of the spiderlings from breaking through their perimeter.

Back where Lucia and the others were combating the Night Plague, the monster itself was beginning to rampage around when it felt the dangerous aura emitting from Lucia's nearly complete spell.

It was trying to run away, but Serilla and Silver had been hindering and locking it down in one place. The Night Plague wasn't that fast when moving around and was only agile when it was attacking, so the two had it easy just locking it down.

"Destruction of all life—" Just before she finished the final incantation, she sent a message through her mind to Yuna who was in the forest.

'Yuna, please teleport Seri and Silvy out of here!'

Yuna quickly got the message through their pact connection and hurriedly opened up a Misty Gate.

When she stepped over to the other side, she immediately called out to Serilla and Silver who were still engaged in battle.

"Serilla! Silver! This way! Lucia's done with the spell!"

When Silver heard this, he immediately shrunk while buffing his body with wind elemental mana before grabbing onto Serilla with his tail and making a break towards the Misty Gate.

Once the Night Plague was freed from the two, it hastily tried to run away, however once all 3 of Lucia's comrades made it through the gate, she immediately pointed her kodachi at the fleeing spider and finished her spell.

"APOCALYPSE!"

With that final chant, the multiple magic formations surrounding Lucia blinked out of existence before suddenly appearing around the distant Night Plague.

"Have a taste of my upgraded Apocalypse, you stinking bug!"

Lucia had added a new aspect to her Apocalypse spell, and that was the current magic barrier forming around the Night Plague and the mana channeling attribute that she added to further empower her spell by allowing her to pump in more of her mana into the spell.

The monster tried to strike down the barrier, but all its attacks only bounced off of it and caused no damage whatsoever. The monster panicked when it saw its attacks completely ineffective against the barrier and began to thrash about.

"It's useless you disgusting bug...time to die!"

Lucia released her tails' cores one by one and continued to channel all her mana into the spell causing it to grow larger and more powerful.

Just before Lucia pumped the last of her mana inside the spell, she immediately stopped and the inside of the barrier where the Night Plague was trapped in immediately blossomed into a purgatory of hellfire and abyssal ice.

The purple hell of her unique Lunaris Ice and Solaris Fire bombarded the Night Plague and it could only screech in despair. The monster could feel its body slowly disintegrating into nothing, so it began rampaging around desperately trying to break the barrier that was trapping it.

"It's...useless..." Lucia gritted her teeth in pain. The mana channeling attribute was a double edged sword. It let her strengthen her spell, but it also established a link between her and the spell. Since she was 'linked' to her spell, the rampaging the monster was doing while striking the barrier was also hurting her.

The earth continued to shake as the Night Plague rampaged about, but it didn't take long until its final struggle ended.

When Lucia felt it stop moving, she immediately cut off her link and mana from the spell. She didn't want to thoroughly disintegrate the monster since she might harm Cecil in the process.

Once the light from her spell slowly died down and the flames and ice of Apocalypse subsided, Lucia immediately rushed forwards, paying no heed to any of her injuries.

When Yuna noticed that the light from Apocalypse had died down, she immediately opened another Misty Gate and rushed through it with Serilla and Silver. When they saw Lucia rushing towards the Night Plague's unmoving body—at least what's left of it, they quickly followed her.

When Lucia arrived next to the large body of the monster that had now lost all 12 of its appendages, half of its right and left abdomens and the entirety of its head, yet she couldn't help but notice that the thing...was actually still alive.

"W-what kind of vitality does this thing have?!" Lucia exclaimed in shock.

"L-Lulu!"

"Master!"

Serilla and Yuna quickly arrived by Lucia's side. They checked up and bandaged her injuries before turning their attention to the Night Plague's large body.

"I can still feel its life force... how is this thing still alive?!" Yuna exclaimed in shock.

Taking on Lucia's Apocalypse spell yet still being able to maintain its life, if the monster still had its appendages then there was no doubt that the thing would have made a last ditch struggle to escape from its terrifying hunters.

"Even without its head...it can still live?" Serilla said in disgust. She looked around the area and couldn't find Cecil.

"W-where's darling?! Don't tell me...he's still inside that thing?!"

"H-he probably is...I just hope he wasn't affected by my spell..."

"Let's look for him!"

"Yeah, let's start gouging out the insides of this disgusting monster and pull Cel out of there!"

The two girls were just about to start dissecting the monster, but suddenly a large tower of dark green blood rose in the air from the middle of the spider's thorax and Cecil immediately jumped out.

"Ugh...disgusting...tsk, I didn't think the heart was located in a different spot...if I knew that I—"

"Cel!"

Cecil turned towards Lucia who had just called out to him and waved his hand. "Hey, thanks for the save! I felt your Apocalypse spell earlier."

"A-are you okay?!"

"Yeah, I'm alright, but could you please cast a cleanse spell on me? I feel disgusting."

"..."

"D-darling...you scared us earlier..."

Cecil looked at the two girls and felt a little apologetic. He didn't want to be swallowed by the monster, but at the time he was shocked to see the change on Corruption as well as the change to his body and mind at that time.

He had finally figured out what caused his mind to be affected by the World Tree's Thorns, but he paid the price of being swallowed by the Night Plague whole.