The battles in the Ever-White Desert were constantly taking unpredictable turns.
On one specific front, the very geography of the place had already become significantly different from a desert.
Beneath the white sand, a vast chain of cavernous tunnels had been created.
Jets of magma and flames appeared randomly along the walls.
Trees and vines pierced through the ground, twisting through the earth like serpents.
Floods ran rampant through the tunnels, dragging everything in their path.
In the middle of that chaos, Gaia, the Spirit capable of freely controlling and shaping the earth, was trying to crush her target in a sea of rocks.
A yellowish-brown aura outlined her body while the earth around her moved in response to her will.
The tunnel before her closed more and more, and the walls rapidly narrowed.
If that continued for a few more seconds, the target would be crushed, buried, and isolated in a prison of stone.
But Gaia got too close.
A sinister voice sounded in her mind.
"Curse of Drought."
A dark energy emerged from far away, at the end of the tunnel, and simply appeared inside her.
The curse appeared behind her eyes, and the yellowish-brown aura around Gaia wavered. Her expression hardened, and then her face began to visibly dry out.
The earthen skin cracked, and the luminous marks running across her body grew dull. The movement of the rocks around her lost strength.
And, meanwhile, an enormous Troll emerged from the other side of the tunnel.
"HAGAAAAAATH!"
The creature broke through the walls with its own shoulders, forcing the earth apart.
It was a gigantic Troll, with dark green skin, long arms, and large teeth. It advanced toward Gaia to crush her.
The Spirit, weakened by the curse, was unable to resist.
He raised both fists above his head.
Gaia tried to retreat, but her body did not respond in time.
But, when the Troll was about to crush her, a breath of magma and fire erupted from the middle of the wall.
A tremendous explosion accompanied the flaming jet.
The entire tunnel was filled with red and orange light. The wall opened with an incandescent glow, vomiting lava and fire directly onto the Troll.
The creature agonized, its skin darkened and cracked, and its flesh began to melt.
The roar turned into a horrible scream as the flames swallowed its body completely.
Ifreet had finally reached Gaia.
The Fire Spirit emerged from the middle of the lava, his body incandescent and his eyes glowing like lanterns. He looked briefly at his companion, assessing her condition.
Gaia was still standing, but she was clearly weakened.
Ifreet did not dare advance in the same way.
He turned his face toward the tunnel ahead.
The temperature around him began to rise.
The rocks near his feet turned red. His chest began to swell again, shining with an incandescent light beneath the flaming surface of his body.
The dark energy was running down the corridor again.
Aiming at them.
Ifreet released his breath, and the fire swept through the entire cavernous space like an eruption.
Magma and flames crossed the whole tunnel, destroying everything in their path. The explosion was so destructive that the desert sky appeared above them once again, revealed by the massive opening the attack had torn out of the underground.
White sand fell from the edges of the newly formed crater.
The desert wind entered the tunnel, mixing with the heat of the lava.
Running clumsily across the rocks melted by magma, Ifreet recognized his target.
An old red-skinned Troll sorcerer.
His body showed several wounds and burns. Part of his left arm was charred. His shoulder had a deep cut, and his red skin was cracked in several places. One of his horns had been broken.
But, like a cockroach, the White Wizard Kärtanak refused to die regardless of the severity of his wounds.
He limped and dragged his staff along the ground, but he remained alive.
Around him, several other Trolls ran and tried to save themselves from the lava and destruction.
Some thrashed with their bodies on fire. Others climbed the walls, trying to get out of the crater. Others simply crushed one another in their attempts to flee.
Beside Gaia, then, appeared an elf with blond hair.
Verdia.
She looked at the fleeing sorcerer with a frown.
Before Gaia could say anything, another spirit appeared.
This one shone with a soft yellow light.
"Lumiel," Gaia said quickly, her voice dry.
The Spirit made of light smiled gently before placing a hand on the Earth Spirit's shoulder.
A warm light spread through Gaia's cracked body.
The dark marks of the curse began to recede. The dried skin recovered part of its glow. The yellowish-brown aura stabilized.
Ifreet glanced briefly backward before asking:
"My lady, I am having trouble finishing this enemy. If I get too close, I am affected by his curses. If I stay too far away, he can avoid my large-scale attacks."
Verdia observed the entire destroyed terrain and began channeling mana into her magic bow.
"I know, Ifreet. He is a troublesome opponent."
Her eyes remained fixed on Kärtanak.
"But do not worry about truly finishing him. Just keep him pressured."
As the elf spoke, her other spirits gradually arrived.
Aerion, the Spirit capable of manipulating winds and storms, appeared together with a strong gale.
Soon after, vines intertwined from underground.
They climbed up the stones, coiled around one another, and took human form. A woman with prominent horns and skin made of wood slowly opened her eyes.
Sylva, the Spirit of the Forests.
Nixie was not there. The Water Spirit had already been destroyed by the White Wizard.
Even though she was capable of controlling rivers and seas, a single sequence of curses had been enough to collapse one of Verdia's Spirits.
That alerted all the others.
Getting too close to the White Wizard meant defeat.
Verdia was only managing to fight that monster because Lumiel, the Spirit of Light, possessed healing and divine capabilities able to repel even the magic of the Curse Wizard.
Verdia took a deep breath.
"Focus on eliminating all the Trolls still around him. No matter how dangerous Kärtanak is, he clearly does not possess any relevant martial abilities. If it is only him, he will be easy to kill."
Saying that, the blond-haired elf was the first to leap across the melted rubble.
The mana she had been accumulating since before proved effective when lightning began to emerge in the shape of an arrow.
The purple energy crackled, compressing itself on the bowstring.
Leaping high from a stone, she fired, and her bow revealed its mystical properties.
An enormous and powerful purple bolt of lightning was launched toward the Trolls.
The lightning snaked across the battlefield, leaving a trail of destruction as it crossed the air.
It struck the first Troll in the chest, pierced through the creature's body, jumped to another, then to a third, and then exploded against a wall, covering the surroundings with a violent flash.
At the same time as their mistress, the spirits advanced with their respective abilities.
Vines grew from the ground.
They wrapped around the Trolls' legs, pulling them down or binding their arms before they could attack.
Blades of wind cut across the battlefield.
Aerion released compressed gusts that tore off heads, cut through bodies, and pushed monsters into zones of lava.
Ifreet opened his mouth again.
Flaming breaths swept through the side passages, preventing the Trolls from regrouping around Kärtanak.
And then, suddenly emerging from underground, a humanoid being shouted:
"GAAAAAAAAH!"
An unlucky Troll nearby was cut in half by the new combatant's glaive.
Gretta, the Titan Demon King.
Her skin was necrotic in many places. Black spots covered her arms, neck, and part of her face. Dark blood still flowed from her eyes, ears, and mouth.
She had been another victim of the White Wizard's curses.
But she had survived due to Verdia's aid and, above all, her special constitution as a demonic race.
Even so, she was no longer at full capacity.
But Gretta was furious.
"DISGUSTING MONSTER!" she roared. "I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU VOMIT YOUR GUTS, DAMN YOU!"
She advanced toward the Trolls.
All of them were S-Rank mutant monsters, but Gretta treated them as though she could not even see them, cutting them into pieces.
The remaining shocks from her blows disfigured the battlefield even further.
She shoved her hand into a monster's mouth, grabbed its lower jaw, and pulled until she tore it off.
Troll heads rolled before the crushing force of the Titan Demon King.
Verdia smiled when she saw that, but at the same time, she remained worried. She was very experienced, and she knew this fight was not in her favor.
Despite appearing to be only a mage, and despite showing little to no martial dexterity, that old and scrawny Troll was strangely resistant.
It was as though he truly possessed enormous physical potential, but had never actually put it to use.
His way of fighting was based on striking with his staff or crushing with his hands. But his constitution was abnormal.
Kärtanak was capable of enduring lava, impacts, and violent cuts that normally would have been enough to cause instant death.
And there was something else.
Using her Spiritual Eye, Verdia could see several sinister spirits surrounding the White Wizard.
Verdia did not know whether Kärtanak was aware of their presence. But one thing was clear: he was favored by those spirits.
The elf analyzed the battlefield in her mind.
Before her fight had gone this far, she had seen Aisha enter into conflict with Rudeus and Atoferatofe, interrupting the confrontation by force.
After that, she saw nothing else except Aisha flying through the skies toward the distant pillar of light.
The place where Verdia assumed her greatest problem was.
Saint Milis.
Verdia shuddered just remembering the vision she had seen of the terrible divine warrior.
The way Nina, Ghislaine, and Kilian had been killed in her vision was still far too vivid. She could only count on Aisha's presence being able to change the final result.
She quickly returned her focus to the present.
The Trolls around them were almost eliminated. But her spirits were also running out of mana.
Gretta was also running out of energy.
Her fury still kept her advancing, but her body was beginning to fail. Gradually, she began to be beaten by the several remaining Trolls.
And, meanwhile, Kärtanak was throwing curses around like candy. One after another.
Lumiel was forced to work twice as hard to keep the fight balanced.
Everything was going relatively well.
Until Kärtanak suddenly shouted:
"Avarak Tustaneave!"
A bad feeling struck Verdia, but she did not react fast enough.
The ground in front of Lumiel opened, or rather, the shadow beneath her grew.
A Troll suddenly emerged over the Spirit of Light, as if it had come out of the shadows.
Verdia instantly recognized this mutant, because she had already fought it.
A Shadow Ambusher Troll.
She quickly commanded Lumiel to flee.
But Kärtanak had saved that card very well, for the exact moment.
Lumiel only had time to look at her mistress.
Then she was brutally crushed by the enormous black Troll's fists.
The impact sent fragments of yellow light flying in every direction.
"Gwahhahajauehau!"
A distorted laugh sounded from Kärtanak.
And then he began casting curses even more wildly.
"Curse of Necrosis!"
"Curse of Sepsis!"
"Curse of Blindness!"
"Curse of Drought!"
The Spirits were struck one by one, and Verdia saw the situation turn against them in a matter of seconds.
Without Lumiel, the curses were impossible to remove without extremely high-level Healing Magic.
The only option would be to retreat until she could summon Lumiel again, or receive help from Aisha.
Verdia clenched her teeth.
She was about to order a retreat.
Kärtanak slowly advanced.
He swung his staff as he walked, and the sinister black energy spread around him like an uncontrollable plague.
Then, suddenly, a hum sounded.
As if everything were in slow motion, a ray of light passed.
There was no time to react.
In the next instant, the ground cracked around the White Wizard.
Behind Kärtanak stood Jaly.
His sword was extended.
His face was serious.
The red Troll, the White Wizard Kärtanak, master of curses, was cut diagonally in half.
An immense fissure formed from the strike, arriving a moment late because of the extreme speed.
For a few moments, Kärtanak did not understand what had happened.
His body remained standing.
Then the two halves began to separate.
The black energy around him wavered.
Jaly looked threateningly at the Trolls around him.
Then he briefly looked at the monster that had killed him once before.
Aisha had managed to revive him in time with the Resurrection Stone... but Baron had not been saved before the Labyrinth was destroyed.
Jaly's gaze grew colder, and he spat.
Then he spoke:
"It was worth waiting... In the end, you were just another stupid, arrogant monster."
One of the Trolls finally understood the situation, and roared as it attacked the new enemy.
Jaly smiled threateningly and once again disappeared across the battlefield, leaving only a trail of destruction behind.
The Troll's body split open soon after.
Verdia breathed in relief when she saw that. Although she had questions, she knew this was not exactly the best moment.
The fight was not over yet.
But the center of the nightmare had fallen. With Kärtanak dead, the field lost its most dangerous pressure.
Gretta roared and advanced again, crushing the remaining Trolls with renewed fury.
Ifreet recovered control of his flames and incinerated the monsters trying to flee through the tunnels.
Gaia raised stone walls to block escape routes.
Aerion cut down those trying to climb to the surface.
Sylva bound legs, arms, and necks with dry vines, still strong enough to delay them.
And Jaly, Verdia, Gretta, and the Spirits exterminated the last remnants of the Ever-White Labyrinth.
The devouring Labyrinth.
Meanwhile, the fight against the strongest human had only begun to grow in scale.
And it showed no sign of slowing down for even a single moment, taking on greater and greater proportions.
----
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