"Up!"
Lu Chongwei barked, and the muscles in his arms bulged instantly, veins coiling like dragons.
The next second.
As Gray watched in horror.
Lu Chongwei lifted the several-ton behemoth out of the pit with one hand!
"Holy crap! Is this for real?!"
Gray clutched his head with both hands, feeling as though his whole worldview was crumbling.
That thing weighed several tons!
Even with reinforcement magic, lifting it so easily seemed impossible. Had this guy grown up eating strength pills?
But that wasn't all.
Grabbing it by the wing, Lu Chongwei began spinning in place.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—"
The centrifugal force whipped up a gale, forcing Gray to squint.
Gidoken's massive body became a flail, swinging in a circle as Lu Chongwei whirled it around.
"Bam!"
A deafening crash.
Gidoken's head slammed into the wall beside them, sending chunks of stone flying.
"Bam!"
Another crash.
This time, its tail swept through the railing and snapped it clean off.
Lu Chongwei treated the poor beast like a rag doll, dragging it around the rooftop as he "demolished" everything in sight.
"Crash! Crash! Crash!"
The impacts rang out one after another, and the entire clock tower groaned.
Gildarts watched, the muscles at the corners of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.
"That kid..."
Gildarts rubbed the stubble on his chin, his expression odd.
"The way he fights makes him seem less like a Mage and more like some kind of humanoid beast."
It was brutal, but you had to admit...
It was damn satisfying!
A moment later.
Lu Chongwei seemed to have gotten dizzy, or perhaps he'd had enough.
He let go.
"Off you go!"
The bloodied, dazed Gidoken flew out like a cannonball.
It traced an arc through the air before crashing onto a street hundreds of meters away. It skidded for dozens of meters before finally coming to a stop.
"Eek..."
Gidoken staggered to its feet.
One of its wings was broken, and wounds covered its body. Terror filled its compound eyes.
It looked up at the two terrifying humans on the clock tower—especially the lunatic who had just spun it around—and its instinct to survive instantly overpowered its hunger.
With a shrill wail, it desperately flapped its one good wing and fled crookedly toward the outskirts of the city.
"Hey! It's getting away!"
Gray panicked when he saw it.
Pointing in the direction Gidoken was fleeing, he shouted:
"Lu Chongwei! What are you doing? Why'd you throw it away? Hurry up and chase it! Don't let it get away!"
This was the target of a 400,000-Jewel mission!
And if they let the thing escape, it would definitely come back for revenge someday!
Lu Chongwei brushed the dust off his hands and smiled meaningfully.
"Why the rush?"
Lu Chongwei said unhurriedly.
"It's just a foot soldier that came out to hunt. If we don't let it go back, how are we supposed to find its lair?"
Gray froze.
"Its lair?"
"Exactly." Lu Chongwei watched the distant shadow, his gaze cold. "The mayor said more than a hundred people had gone missing. If they've been kept as emergency rations, they're probably still in the lair."
"Only by following it can we find them and wipe out the whole nest of pests."
A note of approval flashed in Gildarts's eyes.
"Careful, calm, and decisive."
Gildarts smiled and patted Gray on the shoulder.
"Take notes, Gray. This is how you're supposed to handle a mission. Brute force alone won't cut it."
Gray blushed and lowered his head in shame.
He'd only been thinking about killing the monster and hadn't considered that at all.
"Let's go. Stay close."
Lu Chongwei vanished in a flash and took off after Gidoken.
Gildarts and Gray followed close behind.
The three tracked it through the city and across the woods, eventually reaching a desolate stretch of mountains in the outskirts.
The wounded Gidoken was clearly at its limit. It plunged headfirst into a huge cave.
The cave was hidden among a jumble of rocks. White bones littered the area around its entrance, and a suffocating stench hung in the air.
"This is it."
Lu Chongwei stopped and looked at the pitch-black entrance, his brow furrowing slightly.
"Let's hope we're in time."
He was worried about the people who'd been taken.
Holding their breath, the three slipped silently into the cave.
The sight inside made Gray suck in a sharp breath. His stomach churned.
The cavern held not only the Gidoken that had just fled back, but also two other adult Gidoken, both even larger!
It was a family of three!
More than fifty white cocoons hung densely from the cavern ceiling, each like a giant silkworm cocoon.
Some of them were wriggling slightly. The people inside were clearly still alive.
But beneath the three beasts, shattered cocoons littered the ground, smeared with blood and strewn with severed limbs.
Many people had clearly already met their end.
"Damn beasts!"
Gray gritted his teeth, his eyes instantly bloodshot.
The scene was pure hell!
Gildarts's expression also turned grave.
"Three..."
He spoke in a low voice.
"And judging by their size, those two big ones are probably close to the peak of the A-Class. The terrain's narrow, and we also have to protect the hostages..."
Gildarts looked at Lu Chongwei.
"Kid, this is beyond the mission's scope. It's practically an S-Class Mission. Want me to step in?"
He was here to babysit, but in a situation like this, he didn't mind stretching his muscles if it meant keeping the hostages safe.
However, Lu Chongwei shook his head.
He slowly drew Ryujin Jakka from his waist. The blade scraped against its scabbard with a grating sound.
"No need."
Lu Chongwei's voice was frighteningly calm, but beneath that calm lay fury like a volcano about to erupt.
"Gildarts, Gray, you're responsible for rescuing the people."
"As for these three beasts..."
Lu Chongwei lifted his head, killing intent surging in his eyes.
"Leave them to me."
Before he'd even finished speaking—
"Whoosh!"
Lu Chongwei vanished from where he stood.
Only an afterimage remained, along with a whisper echoing through the air.
"Flash Step."
In the blink of an eye.
Lu Chongwei had crossed dozens of meters and appeared right in front of the three Gidoken.
No wasted words.
"Nadeshiko!"
Ryujin Jakka swept out.
Though it still hadn't been released with Shikai, its concentrated spiritual pressure became a tangible storm.
"Boom!"
The air split open, triggering a violent explosion.
The wounded Gidoken took the brunt of the blow. The force of the sword pressure sent it flying into the rock wall, where it let out a shriek.
The sudden attack completely enraged the two adult Gidoken.
"ROAR—!!!"
The monsters' roars echoed through the cave, their waves of sound shaking the stalactites overhead loose.
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