[Rosalin’s POV]

’Calyra...’

Softly entranced by the sight, Rosalin could not move her eyes away from Calyra. Her bright eyes held deep admiration, together with a tender warmth slowly growing inside her.

Watching that radiant figure reign above the storm of haze, Rosalin felt as though she was beholding the true form of divine war-angel.

Since the days when she was young, Calyra had always been her idol. The reason she was able to become the person she was now, the distant light that gave her courage to continue forward, no matter how hard the journey became.

Now, for the first time, she will finally see the true power of the one she admired the most. Just thinking about it made her heart shake with extreme excitement.

How terrifyingly strong was the so-called prodigy mage of Velthia Academy? Was her strength overwhelming enough to face a dreadful Malice-Voidspawn alone?

Can she truly win?

So many questions stormed inside her mind like thunder, but Rosalin knew the answer would soon reveal itself before her very eyes.

Then, she saw, from the corner of her eyes, Ruvian stepped closer to her side before lowering his voice until it was barely more than a breath beside her ear.

"Do you still remember what we talked about in the carriage on our way here?"

Rosalin turned slightly toward him, her expression showing faint surprise at the sudden return of that topic.

"Yes...? What about it?"

Then, a small, knowing smile appeared on his face.

"I told you before that there is someone better for you to look up to than me, didn’t I?"

Rosalin blinked softly as the memory surfaced within her mind. She gave him a small nod, quietly recalling the conversation they once shared.

Ruvian then shifted his gaze forward... forward towards the figure standing within the haze.

"There," he said gently.

"That is the person you should look up to."

Rosalin followed the direction of his eyes, her sight settling once more upon Calyra’s radiant figure.

"So... from now until the end, watch her fight closely."

Then, Ruvian added quietly to himself.

’And remember again why you set your heart on chasing after her...’

*****

[Calyra’s POV]

With a thunderous crack that reverberated through the cavern like the breaking of a frozen mountain, the prison of ice shattered.

Shards exploded outward in a storm of crystalline fragments, scattering across the stone floor and ringing against the cavern walls.

Calyra did not move yet from her spot.

Her breath came slow, white vapor curling from her lips as the chill of her own magic still saturated the air.

From the wreckage of fractured ice, a shape slowly emerged.

A colossal arachnid abdomen came from the ruin of the ice. Veins of dull crimson pulsed beneath the armored shell, as though the creature’s very blood glowed in the darkness.

For the fleeting moment, the creature’s human-form gaze drifted toward Calyra.

But in the next instant....

It vanished.

In a blink of an eye, the creature’s huge body disappeared from sight, leaving only empty air where it had stood.

Calyra sighed.

Her eyes narrowed instantly. At the same time her senses flared outward, searching desperately for the creature.

Yet she couldn’t sense it or see it.

Not the scrape of chitin across stone.

And not even the subtle disturbance of mana that should have accompanied such an immense creature moving through the space around her.

’Now where did it go?’

Somehow, that impossibility sent a cold ripple of alarm sliding through her spine.

Previously, even at its unnatural speed, she had still been able to follow its movements with her eyes, tracking the blur of its limbs and the shifting mass of its body across the cavern floor.

But this time was different entirely.

It had not merely moved faster.

It had disappeared beyond the threshold of her perception altogether!

A flicker of confusion crossed her mind, sharp and fleeting.

How...?

How could its speed have increased so tremendously within the span of a single moment?

Her thoughts raced violently. Then a possibility surfaced within her mind like a sudden flash of an idea.

’No...’

Her expression hardened.

’If it can create invisible strings...’

Then there was no reason to assume that invisibility was limited to its webs alone. The creature itself might very well possess the ability to vanish from her sight entirely!

’It went invisible...’

A chill of realization tightened around her heart.

If that were the case, then standing still, even for a single moment longer, would be an act of pure suicide.

Without thinking much, Calyra cast [Blink].

Before the unseen predator could take advantage of her stationary position, she blinked away from her previous location in an instant, refusing to remain even a second longer in a place where the creature might already be ready to attack.

Since it had come to this, there were no other choices.

Calyra decided to continuously activate [Heightened Sense] and cast another spell.

[Mistwatch Eyes].

And deactivated [Cryostatic Field].

Soon, a thin veil of frost-laced mist slowly spread outward from her, creeping along the stone floor and curling through the vast chamber until the entire space around her was gently shrouded in a pale, drifting haze.

With the combination of these two spells, it became the most reliable counter against an enemy capable of turning invisible.

Then, Calyra suddenly turned her head to the right, her eyes narrowing as she sensed something disturbing the flow of her mist — something rushing toward her with furious speed.

’I was right, it went invisible.’

Then, she chose to put the spider’s speed and resilience to the test.

Coldly, Calyra raised her hand toward the faint movement lurking inside the mist and invoked [Frost Spear Barrage].

A terrifying amount of cold mana gathered around her raised palm — so heavy and so dense that even the air started to tremble and distort.

The temperature dropped sharply, and thin layers of frost spread wildly, climbing the stone walls like ice forming on glass.

Ten slender spears of ice formed before her outstretched hand — long, needle-thin, and honed to a vicious edge. Their surfaces gleamed with a biting, almost blinding sheen.

Soon, another ten formed.

Then twenty more.

Then, thirty.

Forty.

Fifty.

The number kept increasing again and again without limit!

The mana in the surroundings was savagely dragged toward her, compacted to an unbelievable level until the space in front of her was filled with an enormous legion of crystalline spears.

Dozens multiplied into hundreds.

And hundreds kept multiplying even more, drowning the air like endless hail of blades.

Then, the cavern began to shudder lightly, as the fabric of the cavern was unable to bear the ridiculous amount of mana being forced into shape.

A vast formation of ice spears loomed before her, grand and terrifying.

Then, moving purely on instinct with an icy calm expression, Calyra flicked her finger downward.

At that instant, the countless spears shot forth in a single instant.

──────── ✦ ────────

[Chapter 109: The Deepmarch Dungeon (14)]