Even against six formidable adult beasts, the supreme-rank members neither faltered nor tired.
“From the right: belly, back of neck, mouth, elbow, pelvis, top of foot,” Rita recited.
With the strength of each supreme-rank and Rita’s precise information, there was no reason to stop until the beasts were dead.
“We’ll handle the bodies separately,” Valery sighed after the slaughter.
Bailey silently sorted through the remains, but there were no intact corpses.
Without identification tags like dog tags, they couldn’t even consider taking them.
In the end, all they could do was cremate the remains to prevent further desecration by the beasts.
As Rita stared at the rising smoke, she turned and extended her palm.
“Dream-Wrought Creation.”
A sparrow-sized summon flapped its wings and appeared.
With a light gesture, the bird soared into the sky.
“Scouting? Won’t a mana summon stand out too much?” Blena asked, concerned.
She was right.
In a forest potentially teeming with lizards, using a summon for reconnaissance was risky.
But Rita felt an urgent need to find and burn the hatchery.
Her companions shared the sentiment.
Having read their resolve, Rita had sent the bird up.
Closing her eyes to share its vision, she frowned.
The view was shaky and unstable, the images murky and hard to discern—a drawback of compressing the summon’s size to avoid detection.
‘What’s that…?’
Then, within a one-kilometer radius, she spotted a rocky area blanketed in white.
At first, she mistook it for snow-covered rocks, but something felt unnatural.
It wasn’t shed skins either, as she’d initially thought when zooming in.
“Eggs,” Rita announced, informing her group.
Without hesitation, the team grabbed their weapons and ran toward the direction she indicated.
“That’s a lot,” Valery remarked, glancing sideways as he sprinted.
Rapid footsteps echoed from nearby trees.
As Blena had feared, the small scouting bird had caught the lizards’ attention.
The beasts, sensing human mana, closed in on Rita’s group in moments.
“If we stop to deal with them, we’ll be surrounded in no time,” Sercia warned with a glance.
Rita stopped, raising her staff.
“Enduring Flame!”
Flames roared up between the dead trees, spreading swiftly along the trunks to form a barrier.
Fearless lizards that charged in were engulfed and repelled.
Rita turned and followed her group, unconcerned—the flames would burn as long as her mana held.
“There,” she said.
They reached a barren terrain littered with small rocks like gravel.
Traces of a dried-up watercourse were visible.
The rocks were covered with smooth, small white eggs clustered tightly together.
“Bird eggs? They seem a bit different from Baal’s,” Seth said, frowning as he knocked one off and crushed it underfoot.
The shell, slightly tougher than Baal’s insect-filled eggs, cracked like an eggshell.
A faint, shrill screech echoed as a partially grown hatchling emerged.
The eggs on the rocks stirred, twitching in response.
The unsettling sight made some shudder.
“Crimson Tempest!”
Rita, grimacing, acted swiftly.
A fiery whirlwind scorched the area, leaving only charred traces.
The mages followed suit, using fire magic to destroy Satan’s eggs.
Soon, the hatchery reeked of ash.
Charred remains of unborn hatchlings twitched occasionally on the blackened ground.
Loen, the priest lacking offensive magic, diligently stomped on the remnants.
Rita turned and dispelled the flame barrier.
The lizards, previously blocked by the fire, lunged forward, but they posed no threat to her.
After annihilating the pursuing adults and eggs, Rita summoned another bird to scout the skies for the next hatchery.
A fleeting thought crossed Loen’s mind—what if this provoked Satan’s wrath?
But she kept silent.
Satan had already trampled human lands; this was just retribution.
The group shared her conviction.
***
Over the next two days, Rita’s group destroyed several hatcheries and suspected habitats.
The hatcheries, often clustered nearby, were easy to find.
But the extensive travel wore down the mages, unaccustomed to such marches.
Rita, of course, was an exception.
“You okay?” Seth asked Blena and Alois, who had fallen behind.
Blena waved a hand weakly, head bowed, while Alois, drenched in sweat, forced a smile.
Seeing Alois limp, Seth let out a heavy sigh.
“It’s the third day. Everyone’s exhausted. Shouldn’t we head back to the main camp? I think we’ve done enough,” Sercia suggested from the front.
One by one, the group nodded, though Valery scanned the area reluctantly.
To the veteran’s eyes, a trail of shed skins seemed to lead to another hatchery.
Having destroyed four hatcheries and five minor habitats, returning would be a proud achievement, but Valery’s energy was still boundless.
“Great Mage, what do you think?” he asked, hoping for Rita’s support.
All eyes turned to her.
Reluctantly, Rita summoned a small bird.
After checking its vision, she nodded.
“There’s another likely hatchery forty minutes away, but…”
“No way,” Eugene interjected, his face serious.
“Not everyone’s as spry as you, old man. Two days of forced marches, barely eating or resting, just killing eggs and beasts.”
Eugene fiddled with the mercenary’s necklace in his pocket.
Killing hated beasts was important, but so was informing his comrades’ families.
Valery, frowning, turned to the mage trio.
Blena and Alois averted their eyes under his intense gaze.
Seth, however, met it unflinchingly.
The old Seth might’ve insisted they were fine, but…
“We should return. Everyone’s exhausted,” he said firmly, thinking of Alois’s condition.
Valery let out a regretful sigh but didn’t argue further.
With consensus reached, the group stopped and gathered in the center.
Alois, his face briefly brightening at the news of returning, limped forward.
“I’ll prepare right away,” he said.
Since Alois’s teleportation magic was known, the group decided to rely on him instead of using teleportation stones, conserving valuable supplies.
“You must be tired, but please bear with it a bit longer, Sir Gradius,” Sercia encouraged.
Alois’s hands moved faster, drawing the teleportation circle.
“Let’s redraw the map once we’re back. From what we’ve seen, the northeast polar region seems to be Satan’s domain,” Sercia said.
“The two points assigned to Talos and Karina are in the central area. Since we’ve disrupted the western habitats today, if they can quickly clear the eastern ones…”
Rita’s eyes gleamed with hope, suggesting they could encircle Satan.
But then, a heavy pressure gripped the group.
“It’s him,” Seth said, trembling as he felt Satan’s dark mana.
Everyone turned, eyes sharp.
The ground shook, a deafening roar erupted, and a gust of wind tore through the dry trees, snapping them.
Satan, in its lizard form, emerged, parting the trees with its arms.
Its murky tongue flicked like a snake’s, and its red eyes scanned the area menacingly.
The moment it seemed to smirk, its black maw opened wide.
“Unyielding Barrier!”
There was no time to warn.
Rita poured her maximum mana into a defensive shield.
She hadn’t used more than half her mana since becoming supreme-rank, but this desperate moment demanded over half for the barrier.
“Rita!”
“Stay put!”
Confirming her group’s safety, Rita focused on maintaining the shield.
Satan’s flames roared across the ground, melting and regenerating the ice barrier in a precarious cycle.
Blena, Seth, and Alois spread out to assist, countering Satan’s relentless assault.
The flames subsided after a long struggle.
Satan, pausing to assess, assumed the surprise attack had burned or crippled them.
But as the heat cleared, a shimmering blue barrier stood firm, radiating cold.
Satan’s face twitched in irritation.
“What? They’re fine?”
Its body shrank into black smoke, reverting to human form.
Narrowing its eyes, Satan charged, kicking the ground to shatter the ice barrier.
Smirking, it reached inside, fingers groping.
But no humans were caught.
“Damn…”
Instead, a chilling ice spear from Rita struck its hand.
Flinching at the cold, Satan retreated.
As the distance widened, Rita stepped through the shattered barrier, twirling her ice spear.
“Your handiwork, I presume?” she said, her demeanor haughty in Satan’s eyes.
It bristled at the fact that she’d blocked its breath.
“I’ve felt it before, but you’re really an irritating one,” Satan growled, glaring at her unflinching golden eyes.
That calm gaze, almost as if it saw through it, was what Satan hated most.
“Haven’t we met somewhere else before?” it asked, its voice thick with displeasure.
Eugene answered instead.
“What, trying to flirt with our Great Mage? A lizard like you?”
His taunt was meant to provoke, but his voice faltered with fear.
Rita, giving him a pitying look, waved him off.
“He’ll stay rational until he tastes blood. Stay inside until I say otherwise.”
Grumbling, Eugene retreated.
The supreme-ranks lined up beside Rita, while non-supreme-ranks—Felix, Bailey, Blena, Seth, Alois, Loen, Eugene, and Yan—stayed behind the ice debris, as protocol demanded when facing Satan.
It was a blow to their pride, but unavoidable.
This was an absolute order.
Satan, predictably, complained.
“What’s this? Hiding my favorite toys? On purpose?”
Its eyes fixed on a red-haired, white-cloaked mage—Seth, whom it remembered ruining.
Meeting its gaze, Seth shivered involuntarily.
Noticing his reaction, Satan grinned wickedly.
“I’ll drag you out soon enough.”