Chapter 69: He fled first

“No… I can’t die yet…”

Muttering like a man possessed, Talos made a foolish decision.

“Retreat!”

With that command, Talos turned and fled.

With the Mage Tower Master running first, the rest of the unit fell into chaos.

The forest echoed with anguished screams for a time.

“Lord Talos! Can’t we use fire magic to create a defensive line?” a knight, closely following, suggested while fleeing.

But Talos ignored him, as did Torgo, running alongside.

The knight, assuming the Mage Tower Master had a plan, followed silently despite thinking the tactic had merit.

But he couldn’t keep running. A snake-like adult beast, darting like a bee, bit his leg, toppling him.

“Argh!”

The scream came not from the fallen knight but from Torgo, who feared the knight might grab his ankle.

Panicked, Torgo veered right to avoid the knight’s desperate reach.

But it wasn’t just one beast pursuing.

“Talos…!”

A hungry snake, red eyes glaring, tore at Torgo’s white cloak.

Stumbling, Torgo clung desperately to Talos’s hem.

Forced to stop, Talos met Torgo’s terrified gaze.

“S-Save me…”

The other unit members were several steps ahead. Behind Torgo, swift adult beasts bared their fangs, closing in.

Talos glanced back at a disciple being devoured by a snake, trembling.

“Let go!” he shouted.

Their bond, though shallow, spanned over fifty years.

But it meant nothing in the face of survival.

Talos shook off Torgo’s grasp as if repelled by something horrific.

Losing his anchor, Torgo’s face paled as the snake dragged him away.

Even as Torgo was coiled in the snake’s tail, Talos only trembled, coldly turning away.

Torgo became prey, slowing the snakes’ pursuit.

“Aaagh!”

The pained scream made those ahead turn back.

They stared at Talos in shock, and he feigned surprise, as if just noticing.

“Too late!” he cried.

An innocent disciple grabbed Talos’s wrist.

Reluctantly, Talos followed, running again.

“We’ve lost half our numbers! If we keep fleeing, they’ll pick us off one by one! We need to fight back, even briefly, to create distance! Only then can we use teleportation magic or stones!” suggested Mailo, a perceptive junior mage.

His proposal was sound, but Talos couldn’t muster the courage.

‘One bite, and you swell up and die. How do you fight that?’

Though regaining some rationality, he didn’t voice this.

The Mage Tower mages, however, were exhausted, their stamina depleted.

“We might as well…” a brave disciple stopped, declaring he’d rather fight.

“Mailo! What are you doing alone?” an older mage shouted as Mailo unleashed magic.

Others stopped too, and Talos had no choice but to halt.

The battle began but quickly led to near annihilation.

Starting with the priests and soldiers sent as support, the remaining mages were bitten one by one.

With no way to neutralize the venom, the number of survivors dwindled.

Only Talos and a young mage remained.

“Save… me…” the poisoned disciple pleaded.

As Talos’s mind went blank, surrounded by snakes, a miracle appeared—Rita.

***

[Origin: Lucifel]  

[Name: None]  

[Rank: Adult: Second-rank]  

[Attribute: Earth]  

Snake.

Identifying the creatures’ forms and details, Rita froze in shock.

‘Not a single one seen until now, and they suddenly appear in Bamil forest?’

Having spotted Asmodeus’s goat-like offspring earlier, Rita expected to encounter them first.

But the beasts swarming before her were the offspring of the Fragment *Lucifel*.

Startled by their unexpected appearance, she scanned the surroundings.

Talos’s voice rang out.

“R-Rita! Save me!”

The sudden plea for rescue brought a brief silence.

Seeing Talos’s terrified face for the first time, Rita was overwhelmed by indescribable emotions.

Satisfaction at his weak, begging state.

Contempt for his ugly nature, prioritizing his life over his disciples.

Self-loathing for dedicating her past life’s youth to such a man.

Her face twisted under the flood of emotions.

A scream snapped her out of it.

She quickly regained focus—first, she had to handle this situation.

“Crimson Storm.”

Rita unleashed flames at the densest cluster of beasts.

Smaller snakes fell away, revealing a human body collapsing.

Rita sighed softly.

The person had been caught long ago, ravaged by the snakes’ feeding frenzy. About to close her eyes in mourning, she froze.

“Mailo…?”

Blena, recognizing the face, covered her mouth with both hands.

It was someone she knew.

Seeing Blena’s tearful reaction, Rita sighed deeply.

“Right side: fire, earth, earth, wind, water, wind. The weak points are…”

Scanning quickly, Rita called out the beasts’ attributes.

She started to specify their weak points but grimaced.

The snakes’ long bodies made it unclear which part to target.

Fortunately, the adults’ weak points were generally around the upper body, near their arms.

“The area’s vague, so aim for the upper body,” she instructed.

As Blena and Alois nodded, Yan, now more perceptive, charged forward.

Meanwhile, Michael hurriedly searched for survivors.

Using sword energy to fend off beasts, he secured the injured.

As Rita prepared magic, Yan tore into the snakes’ bodies.

“Dynamic Flow. Shattering Blade.”

If she could locate Lucifel, a single attribute might suffice, but no trace of the Fragment was visible.

For now, she had to target the attributes she could see.

Thankfully, Blena and Alois followed her instructions diligently.

“They’re… that strong?” Talos muttered, panting beside Michael.

Rita’s prowess was expected, but Blena and Alois’s performance was shocking.

In his mind, they were second-rank mages.

Blena was talented in the Mage Tower but limited by her rank in combat. Yet now, she seemed formidable.

Alois, who joined through family influence, was far from the weak figure Talos knew.

Regaining his senses in the now-safer situation, Talos was speechless at their prowess.

Though their second-rank power wasn’t impressive, their practical experience, creativity, and focus rivaled first-rank mages.

Likely thanks to following Rita. Linking their growth to her, Talos’s pride stirred.

‘At this rate, they’re not my disciples but Rita’s.’

The realization hit him hard.

He also recalled begging Rita for his life in panic—a humiliating mistake.

Unable to bear the shame, he glanced around to assess who’d witnessed it.

Michael, Blena, Alois, his surviving disciple, and Rita’s foreign companion.

The foreigner was foolish, so no concern there. Rita already saw through him, so she didn’t matter.

Michael, Blena, and Alois, always with Rita, had limited contact with others and weren’t prone to gossip.

The problem was Idrick, a mage from Talos’s unit.

Like Mailo, who died honorably after sound advice, Idrick was a junior who’d seen too much—Talos’s panic from the moment the snakes appeared.

Talos eyed Idrick nervously, knowing his talkative nature.

Fortunately, Idrick was dying.

“Saint… please… save me…” Idrick coughed up black blood.

“Hold on!” Michael poured holy power, but the venom resisted purification.

Seeing no improvement, Michael looked to Rita in despair.

Rita shook her head.

There was a way to neutralize the adult’s venom, but Idrick was past the time limit.

“Saint…”

Idrick’s body swelled, convulsing in pain as he gasped.

Soon, his movements ceased.

Michael bowed his head in sorrow, while Talos quietly sighed in relief.

“Lady Rita! A sub-adult is…” Alois shouted urgently, frustrated by his mistake.

Unlike him, Rita remained unfazed.

“Piercing Roar.”

The snake targeting her was caught by a gust of wind, its head shattering as it collapsed.

“Hmm…”

Scanning the surroundings, Rita nodded. The chaotic situation was nearly resolved.

Most beasts were killed by Yan, with significant contributions from Blena and Alois.

As adults and sub-adults fell, hatchlings hesitated, instinctively recognizing their disadvantage.

“We can’t let them escape!” Rita shouted, driving the beasts to extinction.

The crisis was resolved as soon as Rita arrived.

“What happened here?” she demanded, glaring at Talos, the sole survivor of Bamil’s conquest unit.

Donning his mask again, Talos crafted a hollow, sorrowful expression.

“After spotting a baby snake, those things appeared out of nowhere.”

“They’re a new type of beast. Why didn’t you report it?”

“We thought they were lizards at first. There are legless ones in the south.”

Rita’s eyes narrowed at his embarrassed excuse, which sounded foolish to her.

“And what happened to Torgo?”

Talos’s eyes flickered briefly before masking with grief, but Rita caught it.

“He tried to save me… and ended up like that.”

His gaze shifted to the pile of beast corpses, implying Torgo’s body was among them.

The same for the other unit members, likely devoured.

Blena and Alois were shocked, but Michael, Blena, and Alois seemed to partly believe Talos’s pained expression. Rita did not.

‘With everyone who was with him dead, there’s no way to verify…’

Unless he fled first.

Rita, who knew Talos better than anyone, stared coldly, unconvinced by his act.