Dago cut through everything in his path, not a single movement wasted.
Like a black bolt of destructive lightning, he darted and blinked through the dense enemy ranks, brutally tearing through layer after layer of wind barriers and high-voltage curtains.
On the scorched earth beneath him, Bronte III galloped on all four hooves, looking far more nimble than he was. The ram became a gray blur, moving even faster than him.
These months of living together and fleeing side by side had fostered an extraordinary, wordless understanding between man and ram.
Just as Dago had told Alazan earlier, he might have seemed like a madman immersed in endless slaughter, but his mind was calmer than it had ever been.
He had been using his mental power to deliberately avoid powerful elemental spirits above the third tier well in advance.
When an encounter proved unavoidable, he sought to end it as swiftly and decisively as possible, or broke away without hesitation. He never let himself fall into the certain death of being swarmed by high-tier monsters.
He had no idea how far he had forced his way through this labyrinthine Storm Realm.
But if Bronte III's innate intuition and Alazan's soul guidance were both correct, he should now have been drawing ever closer to the very heart of this forbidden land.
Dago took a deep breath and crossed his swords, unleashing a cross-shaped black slash that forcibly punched through several waves of suicidal attacks from the elemental spirits.
Yet his charge inevitably began to slow.
Within the vast battle he had stirred up, the high-tier elemental spirits above the third tier drawn to him were growing ever more numerous.
The once-sparse encirclement had begun tightening until there was nowhere left to evade.
"Whew-"
Dago drove back two Thunder Beasts attempting a