I dashed through the outsides of the streets and straight toward the center. A lot of people had already disappeared while a lot more were on their way away.
As I dashed through.
[Tree Coffin]
"IFFY!"
Roots rose from below the ground and came crawling up to my feet. My intent ki slashed them all away in a single go as I continued running onward. In the next moment, a flash of blinding light spread in the skies.
"ZZZ!!"
An aggressive snore!
Like the rage of the heavens, a pillar of lighting came crashing down on my back.
I swerved to the right and kicked. The lighting pillar burst, then the air broke apart, and lastly, my feet crashed into the armor of Zachariah Arke.
"Pooooof!"
He squealed.
A crash resounded through the skies as he flew away.
My gaze turned back.
Tens. Hundreds.
Tens of thousands of spells came rushing my way.
"We got more gold-ranked mages now!"
"Shut up! I am handling half of this."
Oh? Iffy was taking on half of the spells that were floating in the sky. Instead of a relief, it was just worse news.
Iffy's selling point was her unpredictability. Adding a spell into another was something I learned from her.
"Come."
I smiled and charged.
"[Honeycomb Defense: Hexagonal Shields]x 4096"
The shields all manifested.
"[PERFECT DEFENSE]"
The spells came crashing in all directions as I soared into the skies. The shield under my feet rose and the catacombs of hexagons formed a sphere all around me.
No holes, no breakages, no damage.
The attacks came striking in from all directions but not a single one of those as much as touched me. Iffy had shown her colors by making sneak attacks from all directions, but it was all useless.
My senses spread.
Just bringing them out using normal techniques wasn't going to be good. And I couldn't use the ancient pressure since it would take down a bunch of civilians.
What to do…
I decided to hop off the shields and take to the skies. The shields followed as I charged straight into the clouds and then focused my eyesight.
All the adventurers and only the adventurers. I tried to look for all of them.
Throughout the city, wherever their presence, their breath struck.
And then.
I concentrated all my magic.
***
A black cloud loomed over the Deep Down Town.
The sun that was shining dimly just moments back was now hidden away.
In the skies, beyond the clouds was the silhouette of a single person—
"Aine, do you see this?"
The little fairy tapped Albert's cheeks and nodded.
"Insane. Just insane."
—And the sight of a hundred balls of black flames.
"Did he get stronger again?" Luka asked as every single student in the caravan stepped out and stared at the sky.
It was then, that one of the knights of the city opened his mouth.
"This is… the nightbringer."
Night had come over Deep Down Town.
And in the next moment.
It fell.
***
A small bulge seemed to have swollen on the top of my head as I sat in the pub of the Deep Down Town adventurer guild. I was not currently being treated as a student so I had no obligations to stick with them.
"We're supposed to be going out with the students to the east and you went ahead and injured all of them."
"They deserved it…"
The receptionist of the Deep Down Town branch was sitting in front of me, a mug of ale on both our tables. I was slightly afraid of the spirits taking me away, but if the receptionist wanted me to drink then I wouldn't say no.
"Still…"
"Well, you hit me so it's even."
The receptionist sighed and pointed to her side.
"Take a look, does it really look fine?"
Splayed all over the floor were the idiots that were all hit by my spells.
My eyes narrowed. "Seems like it wasn't, I should hit them more."
"Stand right there bastard!"
"Manager, call the manager!"
"No can do, he heard Dusk is coming and went on a business trip."
Aw.
"Manager isn't around?"
The receptionist shook her head.
That sucked. I was hoping to finally cut his brain open this time, I even had Albert along so things would have been easier.
"Well, anyway. I'll be tagging along with you. Tell me who you want who assigned to whom."
A smile spread on my lips at her words.
I had already informed her with the magic device she had handed me that we'll be coming, and I had asked her to let me manipulate things a bit.
Not long after, the door opened and in stepped Albert, Luka and Hoya.
"Let's talk elsewhere."
"Sure."
None of the adventurers minded it. In fact, they wanted me gone. As the receptionist led us away, I kicked them all for good measure.
This was truly my home.
I still remembered how I wanted to buy a house here. Once all this was done, it would be a good idea to buy a place here. I could ask the receptionist, she would help me with it.
It sucked that Lethe had to stay out of this. Though there was little distinction between the school years, she was still in administration and not in combat focused classes since she was decided as the heir before her brother became normal again.
How nostalgic, so many years had passed since all of us beat the fuck out of Balam.
The receptionist opened the door the manager's room and showed us inside. The small group stepped in, I let her take Manager's seat and sat on the couches instead.
"Thinking about it again, wasn't that one lady manager from the empire around here? Can we snag her up?"
"You'll manage to get all three of those managers," said the receptionist. "Since they heard its a favor for you, even Tempo and Swamp are coming."
I crossed my legs and leaned back.
The other three with me sat across me.
"So, mind telling me what this is about?"
It was Albert who spoke.
"You do know that dungeons are not something created by any human, demon or god, right?"
"Most naturally," the receptionist nodded. "I have always wondered what brings it to the world."
The information that in the second year, the outer gods attack from the Elysium Tower in the human realm, the Sanctuary in heaven, and the Pandemonium in Hell.
This was enough to prove that the outer gods came in from the dungeons, and was what we were ready to face in the academy.
"We don't know about what brings it to the world, but there's some clues that we can find." Luka continued.
"I think I know what we can look for to discover this—"
The receptionist turned to me.
"Outer god thing you told me?"
The other three all looked
"What? I told her."
There was no hiding stuff from the receptionist either.
She strapped her leather tightfit to her neck and loosened her choker. Her eyes turned toward me.
"You don't need to tell all this to others yet, I trust you because its you, but this is something very wild."
"Yup, of course." I crossed my legs and spoke.
"So you are hoping to find anything that leads to them, right?"
"You see, instead of waiting for someone to come out."
Be it adventurers or outer gods.
"I prefer attacking myself."