Chapter 95

As soon as Panz loosed his fire arrows, Enria quickly cast a holy barrier around her companions.

But the arrows didn’t fall toward Enria’s group—they landed to the left of where the group stood.

It was because Tearen had cast an illusion spell on Panz the moment he located him.

Rahar turned to Tearen with eyes full of admiration.

To think he came up with a way to deceive Panz’s eyes in that split second—no wonder Caldeon trusted him completely and entrusted Enria to him.

Unable to detect Tearen’s illusion at all, Panz grew furious when he saw Enria’s party emerging unscathed. He assumed Enria’s barrier had nullified his attack.

To think that even after absorbing countless human and spirit souls and becoming far stronger than any other spirit, he still couldn’t break a mere human barrier—it filled him with self-loathing.

That shame quickly turned to fury, and Panz began targeting Enria alone, determined to kill her no matter what.

But thanks to Tearen’s illusion he kept missing her true location, and with Roseanne, Rahar, and Undy relentlessly counterattacking, his rage couldn’t reach Enria.

At last, Panz poured all of his remaining power into a wide-range meteor shower.

The range was so vast that even with the illusion clouding his vision, the meteors rained down toward them.

Each meteor was many times stronger than an ordinary fireball. They shattered Enria’s barrier and Belona’s light shield, striking the group across their bodies.

Enria and Belona hurriedly cast new barriers, but they too were struck in the back by the falling meteors and were thrown forward.

Rahar caught Belona, and Undy supported Enria with a stream of water. Then Undy quickly summoned a water basin above their heads.

The meteors that fell on them plunged into the water and vanished.

Panz continued firing lethal attacks at the Enria he thought he saw. But since the real Enria stood slightly to the right, the attacks mostly failed to strike her directly.

“We can hold for maybe two minutes at most. The illusion covering the fire spirit’s sight will disappear soon.”

“What? That fast?”

Rahar asked, startled. Tearen wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

“Did you think casting illusions on a spirit is easy? I’m barely maintaining it right now!”

He explained that illusions cast on humans require little maintenance, but illusions cast on spirits require total, continuous concentration.

Since no one in the group except Tearen knew illusion magic, they had no idea how different illusions on spirits were—and how much effort Tearen was exerting to maintain it.

But even without direct hits, Panz’s meteors were terrifyingly strong. Roseanne realized they couldn’t continue like this.

“Brother! I’ll bind his hands and feet with restraints. You and Undy attack him together!”

It was the only option she had—using her unique binding magic. She couldn’t use offensive spells simultaneously.

At her words, Rahar and Undy nodded and spread out to either side.

Enria cast holy barriers over them, and Belona layered a light shield over that.

Tearen focused harder to maintain the illusion on Panz.

Panz unleashed another wide meteor field.

Some saintesses—who had been fleeing from him and had stopped in relief upon seeing Enria’s group—were struck and fell.

“Tch, this makes the illusion hardly worth the effort.”

Tearen wiped the sweat from his face again with a small click of his tongue.

He could have made them completely invisible, but then Panz would have destroyed everything in sight.

So he had deliberately made them appear slightly off-center instead.

But Panz’s meteors were too wide-ranged for such fine details to matter.

While he desperately tried to maintain the illusion, he racked his brain for a better way to avoid Panz’s massive attacks.

Just then, Undy rushed to Tearen from where he had been fighting alongside Roseanne and Rahar.

“My water wall can absorb Panz’s meteors. But if Panz sees the wall, it’s useless—he’ll switch to the attribute that pierces it.”

Undy then asked whether illusion magic could hide or shift the position of a spirit’s elemental creation.

He had apparently also realized that Tearen’s current illusion wasn’t enough against such wide-range attacks.

“I’ve never tried it, but… it might be possible. But if that fire spirit can break your wall, won’t he also see through the illusion?”

Tearen frowned—Undy’s earlier statement seemed contradictory.

Undy quickly offered a short explanation of spirit attributes.

“I’ll make it short. Spirits have two types of elemental force: one for attacking humans and monsters, and another for attacking other spirits. If Panz sees my water wall, he’ll switch to the spirit-killing attribute immediately.”

“Ah.”

“So if your illusion hides my water wall from him, we could focus entirely on attacking.”

Rahar turned to Tearen. “Can you do it?”

Dodging the incoming meteors while trying to counterattack was extremely taxing.

If Undy’s water wall alone blocked the meteors, they could concentrate on offense.

“I’ll try.”

“If it fails, I won’t be able to use the wall again—Panz will switch attributes as soon as he sees it.”

Tearen nodded once.

Roseanne glanced anxiously at Tearen.

He was already sweating just to maintain the illusion on Panz—could he really cast a second illusion on Undy’s elemental magic?

But contrary to her fears, Tearen flawlessly cast an illusion over Undy’s wall of water.

“…Oh, like that…!”

Rahar exclaimed in admiration.

Ordinarily, one would layer a second illusion over Panz to hide the water wall from him.

Instead, Tearen cast the illusion directly onto the water wall itself, making it invisible solely to Panz.

The flexibility and decisiveness of the solution left Roseanne involuntarily breathless.

With the illusion in place, the water wall devoured Panz’s meteors effortlessly.

To Panz, it looked as though Enria’s barrier was swallowing them, which only made him more desperate to eliminate her quickly.

But Roseanne and Rahar’s rapid attacks forced him on the defensive, and with Undy joining in, even the agile Panz began struggling.

Roseanne’s magic sphere hit his chest.

Rahar’s blade sliced his shoulder.

Undy’s water strikes slammed into his chest and thigh.

Overwhelmed, Panz stumbled backward from Roseanne’s blow.

Undy seized that instant and unleashed dozens of razor-sharp water blades.

Sensing fatal danger, Panz burned his own body and vanished.

“He ran!”

Rahar shouted angrily as Undy and Roseanne stopped their spells.

Thud.

Tearen collapsed to his knees, clutching his chest in pain.

“Lord Tearen!”

Enria called out in alarm, and Roseanne rushed to him, grabbing his arm.

“Tearen! Are you alright?!”

Tearen raised a hand weakly, signaling that he was fine.

“Let’s return to the fortress. You’ve lost all your color.”

“I’m fine—”

“No. Let’s go. The moment he sensed danger, that thing ran. It won’t appear again for a while.”

Rahar cut off Tearen’s protest.

Supported by Roseanne, Tearen stood with an awkward smile toward Rahar.

“Casting illusions on spirit attributes… is more exhausting than I thought.”

“We all know only a genius like you could manage it. You did well.”

Rahar pulled out a teleport stone and threw it to the ground.

Before stepping through the portal to the great fortress, he turned to Enria.

“Enria, you’re not hurt anywhere, right?”

He needed to check her condition first—both out of genuine concern and because of the overly sensitive Caldeon waiting at the fortress.

Enria nodded. “I’m fine. Tearen is the one we should worry about.”

“I just need rest.”

“Then go rest immediately.”

Enria’s worried tone made Tearen smile faintly.

Roseanne supported him toward the portal.

Rahar kept watch from behind, guarding the group, and stepped through last.