Chapter 65 : Battle Stance

Chapter 65: Battle Stance

Dragon’s Magical Armor.

The reason it bore the name ‘Dragon’ was because the Mana Heart embedded at its core had been forged from a Dragon Heart.

The Dragon Heart, or Dragon’s Heart.

In my era, dragons were nothing more than fossilized remnants of a fantastical species.

However, during the Age of Magic, there remained clear traces from which one could infer their ecology. In fact, it was said that, though rare, encounters with living dragons were not uncommon.

That was how I came to realize that dragons were not mere ‘beasts’ with castle-sized bodies.

Rather, they possessed intelligence that far surpassed that of humans, and even transcendent abilities.

And the root of that very ‘ability’ was none other than the Dragon Heart.

Lorraine was said to have discovered this Dragon Heart in the land of glaciers.

The white snowfield that gradually sloped downward.

At its center bubbled a lone hot spring.

Driven by curiosity, she investigated and, in the end, unearthed a dark crimson Dragon Heart.

This Dragon Heart, which was supposedly Lorraine’s once-in-a-lifetime stroke of fortune, for some reason, had been filled with immense rage.

No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was gripped by sheer terror.

[No! No! Die! Please! Dieeeeee!]

Every time the dragon’s thought-flare convulsed, the mana inside the Dragon Heart erupted outward as if it were exploding.

At times, it even transformed into Aura.

Though it began as mana, the more violently the thought-flare raged, the denser it became until it transmuted into Aura.

And then—

‘The Magical Armor transforms mana into Aura.’

The Aura spewing from the Dragon Heart was crude and feeble like primordial Aura, but once it coursed through the Magical Armor, it was converted into a powerful Aura rivaling even the Banroa royal family’s secret Aura cultivation method—Iron Heart.

That was precisely why the secret vault had been thrown into chaos.

Kuwa-kwang!

The roof was blown away by storms born of Aura, and the rampaging force smashed against the walls, bang! bang!, boring holes straight through them.

And I was—

[Die! Die! Die!]

—Was barely hanging on, wrestling against the invasive thought-flare piercing into my mind.

“Ggyaaaaaaaaah!”

The dragon’s thought-flare slashed through my head like blades, tearing away my control over my own body.

My mouth gaped on its own, drooling as I screamed, while my body trembled violently as if seized by convulsions.

The Aura generated by the Magical Armor and the Iron Heart Aura I wielded collided everywhere, wrecking my entire body.

Yet—

‘I have to subdue the thought-flare first!’

That instinctive judgment.

Not the Aura. The thought-flare must be suppressed first…!

I steeled my will to suppress the dragon’s thought-flare that had burrowed into my head.

Arrogant thing.

Not even a living dragon.

Just the lingering thought of a dead one!

[Shut up!!! Die!!!]

Kku-goong!

The dragon’s Aura clashed against mine within my body.

Excruciating pain.

An uncontrollable body.

“Ggyaaaah!”

I had known it wouldn’t be easy—

But from the very start, it was a vicious battle.

*         *         *

“What the hell? Just what is going on…?”

Lorraine was flustered.

Ransen had told her to assume battle stance, and so she had.

She understood now that something terrifying was coming.

Even that monstrously powerful Ransen had admitted he had no chance of victory without the Dragon’s Magical Armor. That alone told her how absurd this opponent must be.

And yet, she still couldn’t make sense of it.

‘Why would something like that suddenly appear in a ruin from fifty thousand years ago?! Isn’t this a mistake? Why lie dormant for fifty millennia, only to awaken now…?’

She didn’t voice the thought aloud. Too many researchers were around; she couldn’t risk delivering them the wrong message.

Still, the fundamental doubt gnawed at her.

‘Tch… Fine. Just in case, I should trust Ransen and prepare….’

Just as she tried to settle her thoughts—

“Lorraine.”

Cask called her, his face pale.

“Hm? What is it?”

“Run…”

“Huh?”

“They said… it was a monster called an Apostle.”

“Apostle?”

“Yeah. The angel called it that… That thing… that thing is wrong.”

An angel? What now…

Lorraine furrowed her brows, but Cask wasn’t in any condition to explain himself coherently.

“Either way, don’t fight it! Lorraine, don’t listen to Ransen. You have to run!”

Those words…

That fear etched across his expression…

Ironically, they chilled Lorraine’s head into clarity.

‘It’s real.’

Something truly immense was coming.

If that was the case—

She had to prepare.

To protect the research facility.

Lorraine raised her voice.

“What are you all staring at?! Didn’t you see the battle alarm I triggered earlier?! To your stations, now!”

“T-To our stations!”

The researchers, who had been clustered in confusion, scattered in a flurry.

Lorraine also turned to head for the central seminar room, which doubled as the command-and-control center during emergencies…

Grab!

Cask seized her wrist.

“Don’t go. No! Let’s run away… Yeah! The lab is too slow anyway. Forget it—come with me. If we combine the Acceleration spell with the Flight spell, maybe we can—!”

Tak!

Lorraine smacked his hand away.

“If you want to flee, do it alone, Cask.”

Then she turned her head to address the other mercenaries as well.

“The same goes for you all. With this last expedition, your contracts are over. As long as you return the video-recording artifacts and the Magical Armors, you may leave here immediately.”

Even in this chaos, Lorraine’s tendency to take care of what needed taking care of shone through.

But the mercenaries shook their heads.

“Please take us with you. Unlike the Captain, we don’t know how to use spells, and we’ve no confidence in fleeing on just our legs.”

It was the truth.

The mercenary who had spoken—Defuan—had legs trembling so violently it was obvious.

“Director.”

At that moment, Master Eodran stepped forward.

He grasped Lorraine’s shoulder and shook his head.

“You must get to safety first. I’ll guard this place.”

Lorraine’s brows twisted into a sharp arch.

“Even you, Eodran?!”

“But this is far too ominous…”

“This is my research facility! The work of my entire life! And knowing that full well, you’d tell me to abandon it and flee? Eodran, how could you say that?”

At those words, Eodran’s hands fell limp at his sides.

Without hesitation, Lorraine turned her back and swept her gaze over everyone.

“Let’s go! [Acceleration]!”

Tak!

As she snapped her fingers, the pocket watch inside her white coat glowed with a deep green light.

Those who remained realized their movements had suddenly become many times faster than usual.

“To the central seminar room!”

Uru-ru-ru-

Everyone who had been left in front of the ruin rushed toward the research facility.

*         *         *

Lorraine’s mobile research facility lived up to its name.

It crushed the earth beneath colossal Infinite Tracks, crossing mountains, plains, and at times even rivers, wandering the wilderness in search of ruins from the Mythic Era.

Because of this, attacks from gigantic demonic beasts or flying monsters were far from rare.

The central seminar room.

That place was the very brain of the facility.

Normally, it served to share research results across the institute and brainstorm new ideas. But in times of crisis, it transformed into a command-and-control center.

Whisper whisper—

Now, the central seminar room was in complete turmoil.

“What’s with the sudden battle alarm?”

“You didn’t feel it earlier? That strange energy…”

“Energy…? I didn’t feel anything… All I know is I don’t have any energy left in me.”

“No way…! Don’t tell me this is just another field training exercise? If it is, I swear I’m quitting this time!”

“Hey, you said that after the last drill too.”

“This time I mean it!”

Few of them actually grasped the gravity of the situation.

In fact, quite a number hadn’t even sensed the ominous signs earlier.

They had all been buried in research assignments, doubling down their focus while running on a lack of sleep.

That was why, the moment Lorraine kicked open the seminar room doors, she had to shout them down.

“What are you all doing, standing around?! Do you think this is the time for idle chatter?! Driving crew! Emergency full power—move us from our current position! Quickly, now!”

“Y-Yes, ma’am!”

Kru-ru-ru-

As the driving-crew researchers poured mana into the consoles and worked the controls, the research facility—large enough to be called a moving village—lurched into motion.

The colossal Infinite Tracks rolled on endlessly, carrying them farther and farther from the ruin, away from the mountain.

Lorraine did not pause.

She strode quickly to the loading mechanism of the main gun—the Mana Cannon of the 10-Refim class.

“What have you been doing without even loading the first shell yet?!”

“S-Sorry!”

At her scolding, the researchers assigned as loaders scrambled forward in a panic.

All of them were magicians. They lined up along the Converged-Law Magic Circle.

From there, they funneled all manner of spells into a single ‘mana shell.’ Once fired, the shell would sequentially discharge the spells imbued within, unleashing them as a single blast of mana.

Each ‘mana shell’ consumed an absurd amount of costly magical materials, yet the cannon burned them all away in a single shot.

It was, in every sense, a money-devouring dragon.

But in return, its destructive power alone surpassed even a dragon’s breath.

Lorraine immediately joined the convergence process, her voice sharp.

The usual soft smiles were long gone—her true nature had long since surfaced.

“What?! Why are there so few loaders here?!”

But no answer came. Everyone only sweated and cast nervous glances.

Lorraine could converse with ease even while casting spells, but for other magicians, such multitasking was impossible.

At last, a researcher in charge of firing explained on their behalf.

“Only about twenty percent of the personnel are battle-ready. It’s been barely two minutes since the alarm was raised, and… the situation is so unusual. It’s the first time the entire staff has been mobilized during research…”

In the end, it was unavoidable.

The researchers of Lorraine’s facility weren’t without combat experience, but ultimately, they were researchers, not soldiers.

It was inevitable their responses in live combat would be sluggish.

Only about twenty percent—those who happened to be nearby—had managed to get into position immediately. The rest were still scattered outside.

Some were frantically trying to relocate research data to safe locations, or rushing to fetch and distribute combat supplies, but the procedures were delayed, leaving them flustered and disorganized.

“Tch.”

Noticing this, Lorraine clicked her tongue once, drawing up even more mana—

Uru-ru-ru-

The ground trembled.

So violently that people toppled to the floor, unable to keep their balance.

“L-Look over there!”

One researcher pointed to the wall where a scrying spell projected the outside.

“T-The mountain…!”

The mountain where the ruin from the Mythic Era had been buried—

It collapsed inward as a whole.

As though something underground were sucking the mountain down into itself.

Dust clouds surged up, soaring into the sky.

Through the gray clouds, a colossal being rose to its full height.

“M-My god… What is that…?”

A snake? A dragon? Or just a long, grotesque lump of flesh?

Its body was smooth, its skin ashen. At its end was a massive maw, but there were no eye sockets to be seen.

One, two, three… A total of seven of those long forms burst out through the collapsing mountain.

“H-How… How big is it…?”

Just watching those seven enormous heads made one feel as though their sense of perspective had broken.

The necks stretched endlessly upward.

At last, the seven heads towered far higher than the mountain itself, looming over the world.

『Kiiiiirrrrrrr-!!!』

The greatest of the seven heads was the one in the center.

It boasted two and a half times the thickness of the others, and it roared skyward, shaking its entire body.

As it did, a dust-like gray powder crumbled off its form, spilling over everything and covering the world.

The sky quickly darkened, and the researchers who heard its roar lost all strength in their legs, collapsing on the spot.

Even with the hardened minds of magicians, the terror was too much to overcome. Their bodies trembled violently.

The one who moved, yet again, was Lorraine.

“Firing crew! What are you waiting for?! Aim and fire!”

She didn’t just shout.

Finishing the convergence process at lightning speed, she rushed over to the firing crew herself, smacking the researchers’ backs and lending her own hands to aim.

“D-Detected distortion in surrounding space! Trajectory calculation is—”

“Stand by!”

Lorraine immediately clutched her head, beginning mental calculations.

With only the data at hand, she deduced the curvature distribution of the warped space and computed the single path through which the shot would reach the enemy.

Time taken: just ten seconds.

What would have taken five capable researchers two full minutes to wring out, she completed alone in ten seconds.

“T-Targeting complete!”

She ignored the astonished stares of the researchers and barked her order.

“Fire!”

The target: the central, largest of the seven heads.

The largest building at the research facility’s center—the Academic Hall—shook violently.

The massive cannon mounted atop the Academic Hall creaked as it swiveled its head.

Guoooooong—

The spells packed into the shell ignited, and a gigantic vortex of mana unfurled.

Kwa-uuu—!

A pale wave of mana split the air, scorched the earth, and pierced through everything in a single stroke. Mountains, fields, and the very wind itself screamed in agony.

Lorraine’s pride and joy—the Mana Cannon of the 10-Refim class.

If a strike capable of toppling mountains could land, then perhaps even that absurd monster could be brought down. For a fleeting moment, everyone clutched onto that single thread of hope.

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