Chapter 298: The Second Wave of Attack.

After unleashing a barrage of spells, Shu Li and the others gathered around the campfire to meditate and replenish their depleted magical power.

Water elements were abundant in the snowy mountains, while the other natural elements were relatively scarce. Wood elements were especially difficult to find.

Water mages could easily draw water elements from the surrounding air, but mages of other elements had to rely, to varying degrees, on the magical power stored within their bodies.

As Shu Li would put it, magical power was basically the mana bar in a video game. Every time a mage cast a spell, it consumed mana. The more powerful the spell, the more mana it drained.

After throwing so many high-ranking spells around without holding anything back, they had burned through half their mana.

To prepare for the hunting party's next assault, the mages needed to sit down and meditate as quickly as possible, absorbing natural elements from the air and converting them into the corresponding magical power.

Meanwhile, the hundred-member adventuring party had survived its ordeal relatively unscathed.

Taking advantage of the first wave of hunters' retreat, Nasak swallowed his pride and personally approached Moresy, asking him to build a circular ice-walled campsite for his party as well.

Moresy didn't answer. Instead, he looked toward Shu Li.

Nasak frowned slightly.

He had assumed the Dark Elf was the leader of this rookie adventuring party. Who would have thought he needed to consult a low-ranking mage?

Still, Nasak knew when to swallow his pride. He would never have become the leader of a moderately famous hundred-member adventuring party otherwise.

He took out the five hundred gold coins he had prepared in advance and addressed the young mage as patiently as he could.

"Please, we need your help."

Shu Li caught the resentment lurking in his eyes and smiled pleasantly.

"We can certainly help, but the fee will have to be doubled."

Nasak's brows drew together sharply.

Was this brat taking advantage of the situation to extort him?

Why should everyone else pay five hundred gold coins while he had to pay a thousand?

Unperturbed by his displeasure, Shu Li explained at a leisurely pace, "Your party has more people, so your campsite needs to cover a much larger area. That means twice the work for us. Naturally, the fee doubles."

Nasak considered this.

Well, that was true enough.

He stopped arguing, took out another pouch containing five hundred gold coins, and handed it to Shu Li.

After accepting the thousand gold coins, Shu Li called over Budno, Amanda, and Moresy. Together, they constructed a circular campsite surrounded by ten layers of ice walls for the hundred-member party as quickly as possible.

The adventurers promptly abandoned the cave and moved into their new campsite.

They had barely settled inside when the hunting party's next assault began.

This time, the attacking force numbered three hundred, with members of all sorts of races. Their overall strength was a full two levels above that of the first vanguard.

The necromancer Borut let out a sinister chuckle when he saw the six circular campsites surrounded by ice walls.

"Shak, are these the magically fortified ice walls you told me about?"

"Y-yes, my lord."

Shak, the vanguard commander, stood behind the necromancer in a thoroughly disheveled state and answered respectfully.

After escaping, he had endured a merciless round of ridicule from the other hunters. He had been so humiliated that he wished the ground would swallow him.

Fortunately, the boss hadn't blamed him. Instead, he had invited the necromancer Borut to join him, along with three hundred powerful subordinates, to launch the first full-scale assault against those reckless adventuring parties.

"They're just ice walls. How impressive can they possibly be?" Hoin, the burly leader of the hunting party, asked contemptuously.

The hundred-odd men in the vanguard had been recruited that year and weren't even official members of the hunting party.

He had sent them ahead tonight mainly to test the adventurers' strength.

But those useless fools had proved utterly incompetent.

In less than half an hour, the entire vanguard had been wiped out, with Shak the sole survivor.

For this first proper assault, Hoin had brought three hundred elite fighters and Borut, a necromancer of Saint Mage rank.

He refused to believe they couldn't annihilate this bunch of adventurers.

Borut narrowed his eyes as he examined the ice walls ahead.

"These are indeed the work of a Grand Mage. They're capable of withstanding attacks from a Saint Mage."

Hoin looked startled.

"Seriously?"

Even Borut acknowledged the enemy's strength?

"Can you break through them?" he asked grimly.

If even Borut couldn't destroy the walls, wouldn't they have to go home empty-handed tonight?

Half the necromancer's face was concealed beneath a fur-lined hood. A wicked chuckle escaped him.

"It's been a long time since I last collected any high-ranking magical materials."

Over the years, most of the mages who ventured into the Land of Snow had been below Grand Mage rank. The materials they carried were hardly worth mentioning, and very few were suitable for someone of his Saint Mage rank.

When Borut heard that a Grand Mage was among today's adventurers, his interest had been piqued. He had come along to see whether the report was true.

Now, faced with ice walls reinforced by high-ranking defensive formations, he was delighted.

"The walls may be sturdy, but they won't stop a high-ranking necromancer."

Borut raised his skull-shaped magic staff and pointed it toward the Light Squad's campsite. In a hoarse voice, he began chanting.

As the incantation ended, a mass of black energy shot from the tip of his staff. Lightning crackled within it as it slammed violently into the ice wall.

Crack! Crackle!

The defensive magical formation covering the wall was forcibly suppressed and instantly ceased functioning.

Cracks spread across the ice.

Shak's eyes widened in astonishment.

Earlier, his entire vanguard had attacked this very wall without making it budge. Yet Lord Borut had shattered it with a single effortless strike!

He was just about to shower the necromancer with praise when the wall, on the verge of breaking apart, suddenly erupted with blinding light.

In the blink of an eye, it restored itself completely.

"W-what?"

Shak's mouth fell open in disbelief.

Hoin scowled.

"It failed?"

Borut lowered his staff and studied the newly restored wall.

"Interesting. There are seven different magical formations inscribed on it."

Wind, fire, water, earth, wood, light, and darkness.

All seven elements were represented.

That meant there was a dark-element mage among the adventurers—and one of Grand Mage rank, no less.

Humans had always regarded dark-element magic as taboo. Anyone who lost control of it risked becoming a dark mage.

Dark mages, however, were not the same as necromancers.

Necromancers had no moral boundaries. They commanded skeletons and souls at will, and for sufficient profit, they would readily become ruthless executioners.

Dark mages were different. They had not yet surrendered their souls entirely to the Dark God. Most were unconcerned with worldly conventions, obsessive researchers who immersed themselves in the study of magic.

Borut was intensely interested in the dark mage among the adventurers.

If possible, he wanted to recruit that mage into the hunting party and turn him into a true necromancer.

He raised his magic staff once more and began reciting a lengthy incantation.

"Great Dark God Miroga Hodehe, I, Borut Marion, your faithful servant, beseech you to grant me your mightiest power of darkness and shatter this wall of ice that obstructs my path—"

Even a necromancer of Saint Mage rank had to recite the complete incantation to unleash a spell at its greatest possible strength.

As the dense black energy gathered into a whirlwind, hundreds of skeletons began clawing their way out of the ground.

Every one of them had once been an adventurer who died in the snowy mountains.

After murdering and robbing their victims, the hunting party hadn't even spared the corpses. They had handed every last one over to the necromancer to turn into puppets.

The ice walls could block attacks from outside, but they couldn't stop skeletons from emerging beneath the ground.

Horrifying skeletons erupted inside every adventuring party's campsite.

Clad in tattered clothing, with rotting flesh still clinging to their bones, they had two flames of black fire burning deep within their hollow eye sockets.

Under the necromancer's control, they raised their weapons.

"Well, that's what happens when you overlook one tiny detail!"

Shu Li muttered as he dodged a skeleton's attack.

They had fortified the front, back, sides, and even the space overhead, but they had completely forgotten about the ground.

The necromancer had found the one gap in their defenses.

Fortunately, relatively few skeletons had emerged inside their campsite. The Light Squad had already been prepared for battle, and by joining forces, they wiped out the skeletal army in no time.

From the other campsites came a constant stream of curses and the sounds of fierce fighting.

Nasak, leader of the hundred-member party, was particularly frustrated.

He had only just spent a thousand gold coins on an ice-walled campsite, and before the walls could even prove their worth, his men were attacked by skeletons from below.

If the walls couldn't protect them from every direction, why had he wasted all that money?

Outside, Hoin heard the fighting and eagerly flexed his hands. The elite fighters behind him were equally impatient to join the slaughter.

"Borut, hurry up and get rid of these damn walls! My boys and I want to have some fun killing!"

He brandished his broad sword, a bloodthirsty expression spreading across his fleshy face.

"Patience. Let me unravel these defensive formations first."

Borut tried attacking the ice walls with various spells, only to discover something astonishing.

The seven elemental formations supported one another. Whenever one was disabled, another immediately took over, denying him even the slightest opportunity to shatter the walls.

Hoin and his elite subordinates were practically itching to charge forward, but none dared act without permission while Borut was studying the formations.

After all, the hunting party owed its growth and thousand-year survival to Borut.

Necromancers endured; leaders came and went.

Hoin was merely the hunting party's fifth leader. In Borut's presence, he had little authority to speak of.

Inside their ice-walled campsite, the Light Squad finished clearing away the skeletons and gathered to discuss their next move.

"That necromancer outside won't be easy to deal with," Moresy remarked, stroking his smooth chin.

"Did you encounter him on your previous trips into the snowy mountains?" Shu Li asked.

Moresy shook his head.

"Not on either of my last two visits. Apparently, the reason he works with the hunting party is to obtain a steady supply of fresh corpses."

Hector suddenly understood.

"So that's why we haven't seen any bodies along the way!"

All those dead adventurers had been turned into the necromancer's puppets.

"Who cares if he's a necromancer?" Dixio said. "There are so many mages on our side. Are you telling me we can't take down one guy?"

He glanced at the calm, composed Seriu.

Seriu was the magical Sword of Carlos, after all!

Once he transformed, even a nightmare demon that had lived for ten thousand years wouldn't stand a chance against him!

"It may be worth a try," Seriu said gravely, gripping the sword hanging at his waist.

"We should still be cautious," Seidler warned, his expression solemn. "At the rate he's attacking, the ice walls will only hold for another half hour."

Once that half hour passed, every wall would collapse, leaving them to face the hunting party directly.

Shu Li hesitated for a moment, then reached out and snatched Falm into his hands.

"Then we'll finish this quickly!"

Falm struggled indignantly.

"Wait, Sperien! Isn't it a little beneath my dignity to make an appearance this early?"

Surely it should wait until the very end before unleashing its ultimate move!

Shu Li flashed it a toothy grin.

"If we want a good night's sleep, I'm afraid you'll have to put in a little effort!"

Right on cue, Budno opened his mouth in an enormous yawn.

"I'm sooo sleepy~~~"

Siti and Nasha rubbed their cheeks.

"We haven't been getting enough sleep lately. My skin's getting worse."

"Tell me about it! I'm even breaking out!"

Angel poked the little magical beast's round belly with one finger and smiled adorably.

"Please, Falm!"

Amanda took a sea fish about fifteen centimeters long from his storage pouch.

"You can have this as a midnight snack."

Falm immediately stopped struggling. Its eyes locked onto the fish, and saliva began dripping from its mouth.

"One isn't enough! I want at least ten!"

If they wanted it to work, they would have to offer something substantial in return.

"No problem!"

Amanda pulled out the storage ring hanging from his necklace and produced an enormous sea beast four meters long.

Falm's eyes lit up.

Normally, Amanda only shared sea fish less than a meter long. Yet today, he had actually brought out a four-meter-long, high-ranking underwater magical beast!

"Hissss..."

Drool poured from Falm's mouth.

Everyone else stared at the fresh carcass lying on the ground and instinctively took two steps backward.

Moresy and Seidler exchanged a glance.

There was no way humans could successfully hunt a high-ranking sea beast like this.

Unless...

Only merfolk or dragons could hunt freely in the depths of the ocean.

Could Amanda belong to one of those two races?

Shu Li gave Falm a little shake.

"Happy now?"

Falm chuckled gleefully.

"Very happy! Very happy!"

When the necromancer's magic finally shattered the first layer of ice walls, Falm spread its wings and soared into the sky.

Under the stunned gazes of Seidler and Moresy, its body abruptly swelled, transforming into an enormous magical beast more than ten meters long.

Its entire body was crimson, with horns protruding from its head, batlike wings spreading from its back, four sets of razor-sharp claws, and a long, thick tail.

It resembled a fire dragon lizard, but its appearance was far more majestic and ferocious.

Adventurers and hunters alike stared in utter shock as a high-ranking magical beast that should have been living in the desert suddenly appeared above the snowy mountains.

Falm was immensely pleased with the dramatic effect of its grand entrance.

It opened its enormous jaws.

"ROOOOAR—!"

When the Fire God's mount roared, even the snowy mountains trembled!