Chapter 784: v4c154 The Devourer's Teeth
Haruz widened his eyes. He finally saw that the person covering his mouth was his teacher, the Count of Tonigal, who instinctively stopped him from speaking. And this time Brendel also saw the others who fell- the second and third who rolled down were Firas and Laurenna, then another figure slid down to sit on them, landing on top of Firas. It was the scholar lady holding the thick diary, who rolled down from the female knight and plunged headfirst into the snow and let out a shout of pain. The last was a tall guy who was a bit unlucky. He fell directly head-on into the ice. Brendel watched this one crawl up with a red forehead before recognizing that the other was none other than Prince Lenarette.
"Mr. Brendel!"
"Lord Count!" Firas and Shido immediately shouted out in surprise when they saw Brendel clearly. Brendel looked at these two people with a bit of hatred, but he didn't bother to tell them to be silent, because the sound of the iron plow plowing through the ice outside was pouring back from afar and it was too late to say anything now. They had to run immediately.
He hesitated for a moment, calculating how much chance he had, but finally said, "Miss Korfa, I'll leave this side to you, please open a passage immediately, I'll block it for a moment."
"No problem, Mr. Human." Korfa immediately nodded and prepared to cast a spell.
The little prince seemed to finally realize that he was in trouble and looked at Brendel with a somewhat pale face. Brendel looked back at his frazzled student and sighed, he had never been a teacher to anyone in his life and cherished this only student, not to mention the other was the crown prince of Aouine, the future king. He patted Haruz's shoulder, signalling him to not worry. The young prince had matured a lot after the dream, and the previous situation was not all his fault, as anyone in that situation would react just like that.
Haruz, however, looked very excited as he took a deep breath and said, "Teacher, I'll stay with you."
"Don't be ridiculous, remember your identity clearly, act like a mature man okay? I won't tell Her Highness those childish words you just said." Although fighting side by side with the future royal students sounded very tempting, especially in a battle of life and death, it was believed that it would leave a deep impression on Haruz. But Brendel did not want to dig his own grave, he estimated the script and concluded that he had some chance against the Frost Devourer alone, that was if he didn't have someone around who would mess it up.
Not to mention he didn't really need the influence of Haruz.
Upon hearing his sister's name, Haruz didn't dare to speak another word. That was how afraid he was of his sister.
Brendel looked back, trying to find a reliable person to protect Haruz. He first looked at Firas and Laurenna, then shook his head, they were too unreliable. But Shido was incapable too, Miss Scholar herself was a 'princess' who needed to rely on others for everything, not to mention that she also had little ability to protect someone else. Finally his gaze fell on Prince Lenarette. He hesitated and spoke, "Your Imperial Highness, I now formally entrust my country's future crown prince to your protection. I believe in the credibility of the Kirrlutz royal family, and I'm sure you won't let me down, right?"
Lenarette was slightly stunned, he glanced at Haruz who was standing beside Brendel and nodded his head. Brendel let out a sigh of relief. Although the nobles on the continent of Vaunte often fought with each other, the relationship between the royal families was relatively good, after all, they had several common enemies. First, it was the divided lords, the second was the powerful religious forces. And finally, coupled with the fact that the various royal families often intermarried with each other, there would actually be more or less kinship. However, the fact that the eldest son of the Kirrlutzians dared to take the Kirrlutz royal family's reputation as a guarantee had changed Brendel's impression of them. Now at least it proved that he was worthy of being proud of himself. As the heir to a huge empire, he was not a weakling who didn't dare to take responsibility.
Brendel then thought that Lenarette might be planning to pull some strings with Aouine, after all, he had been very close to Haruz from the beginning.
But this had nothing to do with him. He then looked to Arreck, "Lord Duke, you stay with me."
Arreck didn't even raise his gaze to look at Brendel and didn't retort, he probably understood that Brendel didn't trust him and couldn't let him stay with the young prince, in that case, he didn't bother to talk more.
In just a moment, outside the ice tunnel, the King of the devouring giant worm's purplish-red fat body was squirming as it advanced. Through the ice layer, its huge muzzle could be seen trailing at the front. After Brendel gave reminders to everyone, he walked to the entrance and sliced the body of the gigantic worm without saying a word. He was surprised that the black and heavy blade of the Halran Gaia could easily cut into the body of the Frost Devourer, but it felt as if it had cut into a layer of fat skin. Its thick skin was so tough that it didn't cut through but almost made the blade bounce back.
Brendel was dumbfounded. The Halran Gaia was a holy sword at least, and the person using the sword was Elemental Activated. With all might, not even a mark was left? A mark? Not even a dent was seen! As soon as the sword blade bounced off, the skin was restored as before.
What kind of sick defense is this?
Not only Brendel, even Korfa wasn't ready to cast the spell yet. Everyone hiding in the side tunnel saw the scene and was left in shock. Even if they didn't know about the sword in Brendel's hand, he was the continent's most outstanding genius in the past thousand years. He was twenty years old but with the strength of Elemental Activation, and at the same time the Sword Saint candidate of Aouine. And with all his might, he couldn't break a fat worm's skin?!
"Lord Count," Shido's face went white and she apologized quickly, "I'm sorry, it's all our fault." She thought it was the noise of their fall that attracted the worm. Well, this guess was actually not far from the truth, except that the real culprit was not her, but the little prince beside Brendel. Brendel waved his hand at her, indicating that it's okay. He took a step back, the white light on the sword gathered, and then he slashed down again.
This time Brendel used the piercing strike technique. The defence-breaking property finally took effect, and the sword pulled a long, bloody gash on the King of the Frost Devourer - of course, it was long to them, and to this BOSS, it was just like being cut by a needle. Still, the severe pain made the Devourer's Teeth jump violently, and it let out a howl of pain as that ring of its body jumped up from the ice. It crashed into the ceiling once, twice, and Brendel felt as if it was an earthquake. Broken ice ends rustled straight down overhead.
"Done, Mr. Human!" At this time Korfa suddenly shouted happily. She finally finished casting that mysterious spell, and the ice wall disappeared in layers before her like a magic trick. The young girl walked forward and immediately eroded a long tunnel under the glacier.
"You guys continue, I'll distract it for a while," Brendel said to the others while stabilizing himself with one hand on the shaking cave wall. The Frost Devourer was no longer retreating after being in pain, but directly turned its head and lunged at them. Being on ice was like being underwater to it, nothing could stop it in the slightest, it opened its muzzle as it advanced, and thousands of teeth inside its big mouth did their job and punctured a big hole under the ice.
The sound of ice cracking in front of him gave Brendel goosebumps. He glanced at the side- Haruz went into the pit first, followed by Shiduo, Laurenna and Firas, and finally the eldest son of the Kirrlutz, seeing this scene made Brendel feel at ease. <i> He's quite reliable even in the face of danger. </i> Brendel thought about it- Lenarette was someone who had his name written in history, and the most famous emperor of the Kirrlutzes in the following decades, so naturally he wouldn't just be an ordinary person.
After everyone entered the pit, only Brendel and Arreck were left. But Brendel couldn't enter the pit. Korfa's speed of digging in with magic was definitely not as fast as the Frost Devourer's, and if he went in, it would be the end of everyone. He must stay to distract the monster for a while, and then find a way to slip away from that pit.
But soon Brendel felt that he was trying too hard to be heroic. In front of him, the ice was cracking layer by layer, and it looked like a snow-white rose was blooming beneath the blue ice, but the two people present understood that it was not a rose, but more and more cracks beneath the ice.
Eventually, layers of cracks appeared on the surface of the ice. The ice protruded and exploded, it shattered and flew forward. Brendel only saw a flash before his eyes, and countless teeth that grew out of the ice wall were in front of him, rotating and lunging towards him. All the ice was swallowed into those teeth, and then a writhing mouthpiece was revealed. A pungent stench hit Brendel, and he knew that he was face-to-face with the King of the Frost Devourer.
"Arreck, don't play small tricks if you want to live!"
At this point, Brendel had no other choice. With all his courage, he yelled and pierced his sword into the roof of the monster's mouth. The wriggling mouth was like a round plate packed with teeth from the outer layer to the inner layer. The part that Brendel pierced was the upper part of the circular mouth, he had first tried out the approximate defense of this thing and with no hesitation, he pierced its upper roof right away. With the blade facing upwards, almost the entire sword was pierced through. Pus and blood rushed out from above, showering Brendel's face.
This move cost Brendel all his courage. It was almost as if he was standing in the mouth of the monster, which had closed its mouth due to the excruciating pain. Tomorrow, there would be no more Count Trentheim in Vaunte, only the excrement of the Frost Devourer. Fortunately, the monster's excrement was similar to some substance like ice crystals that were colourless and tasteless, so it wasn't too disgusting.
But it was too early to say if Brendel had made the right move or not. He held the sword hilt tightly with one hand and pressed the upper jaw of the monster covered with sharp teeth with the other. Good that he wore the blessing of Bahamut his hand wasn't pierced into a sieve. At the same time, he used his foot to step on the lower jaw of the monster, not letting it close its mouth. Unfortunately, the Blood Flesh Armor had been completely ruined in the battle of Ampere Seale, so he only had a pair of ordinary military boots on now. In order to prevent slippage, he had yet to add a metal sole to this pair of boots.
He could feel that the entire sole of his foot was pierced, the pain was so unbearable that he was twitching. But the good thing was the monster wasn't in any better condition, its upper jaw was pierced by the Halran Gaia and it was in so much pain that it wanted to roll around on the ice floor. It desperately wanted to swallow that little thing stuck in its mouth, but Brendel had activated his Berserk Skill. With double power amplitude, the Frost Devourer was helpless.
Brendel knew very well that the Frost Devourer was strong in defense, so players needed to use the magic crossbow to deal with it. Its attack level was the level of the general BOSS at this stage, or even weaker, otherwise the battle would be impossible to fight, and the players would have to complain to the game company. And here it was the same, Brendel felt that this monster's attack might be only slightly stronger than in the game, but also limited. A tank without Elemental Activation could handle this BOSS at this stage of the game, so there was no reason for him, who was Elemental Activated and had activated the Berserk Skill, to not be able to deal with this monster and save himself some time.
But in the game, there was a complete backup team behind the tank which he didn't have. He knew very well that he couldn't fight a prolonged battle with this thing, or it would definitely be over with him.
"Arreck, what're you waiting for?"
Arreck, of course, wasn't waiting for anything. It's just that even someone like him was also dumbfounded at the scene, the mouth that was densely packed with teeth reminded him of his underground torture chamber that was covered with barbed winches. The giant mouth had now become a flattened oval, with Brendel stuck in it. He certainly knew that Count Trentheim was waiting for him to make a move, but he paused and his facial expressions changed.
He was clear that all he needed to do was strike from behind, and it'd be the end for Brendel. But the problem was that if Brendel died, it would be his turn next. This worm wouldn't know that 'an enemy's enemy is a friend', obviously. If some sort of teleportation spells could be used, well of course he could leave Brendel behind and run away. But since entering the Promenade of Meditation, almost the entire Spiral Hall's area was completely under the constant Dimensional Anchor, so any teleportation spell would be nothing more than just imagination here.
He sighed. Brendel obviously would've thought of this as he dared to backface Arreck. Unless he risked his life and died together with Brendel, otherwise he wouldn't dare to lay a finger on Brendel right now.
After he made up his mind, Arreck asked, "How do you want me to help?"
"Do you have any spells to jam this guy's mouth?" Brendel asked, covered in blood.
"There is, but it's hard to say how effective it will be." Arreck replied, "You know very well that it's difficult for you, who is Elemental Activated, to take this guy down. I'm not sure if my spell will work."
It didn't surprise Brendel when Arreck said so. In fact, Brendel would've expected everything that went through Arreck's mind, which was to escape and ditch him or die together with him. Even in the worst case, if Arreck was willing to give up his life and die with Brendel, it would only be a delusion. He still had the Elapsed Pointer in his hand and could revive a life with it anytime. With a ten-time acceleration of the passage of time, the whole world was basically standstill to him. And it was because of this that he dared to stay and buy some time.
"Then use an ice wall spell to jam his mouth," Brendel said.
"Ice wall spell?" Arreck was stunned, that thing could be used to block the goblins, but this thing?"
"That's right, release it." Brendel roared.
The Duke grunted in displeasure, but his hands didn't waste any seconds. He gestured with his cane and a thin glass-like ice surface appeared in front of Brendel, just right in place to seal the mouth of the Frost Devourer. But Arreck felt that this spell was not very reliable at all, because only a few moments later, there were obvious cracks in the ice wall.
But the next moment, he suddenly saw a purple mist gushing out from the giant worm's throat. The mist just happened to be blocked behind the ice wall, and Arreck, having seen a lot of things, immediately recognized what it was, "Petrified Spit?!
"Count on you to have some knowledge." Brendel replied, "Now your task is to continuously strengthen this ice wall. We will hold for half an hour, then we can retreat."
Arreck looked at Brendel with great suspicion and became more and more convinced that this guy was the successor of the Darkness Dragon. A normal Front Devourer worm would not have any spitting ability. How could he predict the ability of this mutant magic creature so accurately? However, after thinking, he asked, "How are we going to retreat?"