The venom Water Cutter launched by Garangiga tore through the space where Rei and the others had stood moments before. Wherever the scattering venom splashed, the ground melted away.
It was enough to make one wonder whether it was venom at all or some kind of dissolving agent — but Rei had seen this same attack once before, when he and Set lured Garangiga ashore from the lake.
Since it required a brief charge-up, dodging after seeing it was not difficult for Rei's party.
As they were doing now.
"Everyone, attack! Just like we discussed!"
Rei's shout rang out, and those who heard it sprang into action immediately.
Rei, Elena, Vihera, and Reliu sprinted across the ground to close the distance with Garangiga, while Set took to the sky once more to provide aerial support for their assault.
Marina, as before, covered them from the rear with Spirit Magic and her bow.
Byune, the least combat-capable member of the party, kept to long range alongside Ielo, repositioning in small increments as she hurled Long Needles at Garangiga's eyes.
Ielo's scales were extraordinarily tough. It was a blunt way to put it, but Elena had ordered it to serve as Byune's shield in an emergency.
The reason Byune targeted Garangiga's eyeballs with Long Needles was, quite frankly, that it was about the only part of the creature she could actually damage with them.
If Marina was the rear guard, Byune occupied the midguard.
Long Needles inevitably had a shorter effective range than bows, so that limitation was simply unavoidable.
And that was precisely why Elena had ordered Ielo to act as a shield.
The crossbow Byune used to carry back in Exil. She didn't have it anymore by the time she arrived in Gilm, but maybe I should get her a new one.
The thought passed through the back of Rei's mind as he caught a fleeting glimpse of Byune while closing in on Garangiga.
A crossbow was a powerful ranged weapon, but its structural design and, more importantly, Byune's arm strength meant she couldn't fire it in rapid succession.
Its considerable size also made it cumbersome for someone like Byune, who relied on agility above all else.
Those were likely the reasons she had given it up — but even a single shot that could deliver a powerful strike from a distance was a significant asset.
And even if carrying one around was inconvenient, the Crimson Lotus Wings had Rei, who owned the Misty Ring.
In other words, the crossbow could stay stored inside the Misty Ring and only be brought out when truly needed — in situations exactly like this one.
Byune's limited combat power was one reason Rei considered this, but another was that the Crimson Lotus Wings had an unusually high number of members who fought in the vanguard.
...Strictly speaking, they all possessed abilities that could serve in the rear guard if they chose — Rei's magic and skills, Elena's magic, and so on. If they wanted to, they could handle it easily enough.
In fact, the fact that everyone besides Vihera — technically Elena wasn't a party member, but — could serve as rear or midguard meant the Crimson Lotus Wings were an exceptionally well-balanced party.
Though since direct attacks were more effective than supporting from behind, that versatility rarely came into play.
These thoughts quickly faded from Rei's mind. Right now, defeating Garangiga took absolute priority.
"Shaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Scatter!"
Seeing Rei and the others closing in, Garangiga opened the third eye on its forehead.
The instant Rei saw it, he shouted, and Elena, Vihera, and Reliu immediately bolted from where they had been running.
The ground where Vihera's body had been a split second earlier erupted as if it had exploded, sending small stones flying in every direction.
This was the same attack Rei and Set had witnessed before — identical in method to one of Set's own skills, the Magic Eye of Shock.
In terms of raw power, however, it was incomparably stronger than Set's, whose Magic Eye of Shock was only Level 1.
Since the shockwave was released the instant the skill activated, dodging it was ordinarily difficult.
But this particular Garangiga had a tell: its third eye had to open before it could fire. That made the activation detectable.
Despite the ground exploding behind them, Rei and the others maintained their speed without the slightest hesitation, continuing to close the gap.
Whether Garangiga saw them as a genuine threat or simply an annoyance was unclear, but it lunged forward, intending to crush them with its massive body.
Its first target was Rei, who led the charge.
Baring its fangs and gaping its jaws wide as if to swallow him whole, it lunged.
"You think I can't dodge a swing that wide!?"
Rei leaped sideways to evade the bite, activated his Sleipnir boots to kick off the air, and swung Death Scythe in a Triangle Jump pattern.
"Multi Slash!"
Death Scythe came down once.
But three wounds opened across Garangiga's scales.
That skill — producing multiple strikes from a single swing — was still only Level 2, so the total number of slashes was merely three.
Three was not many — but the fact that three slashes from Death Scythe could be unleashed in a single swing meant that one strike carried considerable force.
"Shaaaaaaaa!?"
Its body, wrapped in scales tough enough to shrug off most attacks — its pride — had been sliced through with almost no resistance.
For Garangiga, it was an entirely unexpected agony.
Alright. Compared to the Silver Lion, it really is weaker!
A Death Scythe infused with magic could cut through Garangiga's scale-armored body with ease.
Convinced of this, Rei thought he might bring it down more easily than expected — but the next moment, he stared in disbelief as the wounds he had inflicted became wrapped in green bubbles and healed rapidly.
Not everything had fully recovered, of course.
The flesh beneath the scales was definitely regenerating, but the scales that Death Scythe had sliced through looked noticeably softer than the surrounding ones.
For a brief moment, Rei considered that Garangiga's scales would probably fetch a high price — but he immediately dismissed the thought. Staying alive and killing Garangiga came before profit calculations.
"This Garangiga has strong healing — a Regeneration Ability!"
Rei shouted as he dodged Garangiga's thrashing body.
"But even though its body heals, the scales protecting it can't fully regenerate! Multi Slash!"
He unleashed Multi Slash once more against Garangiga's body as it bore down on him again.
As befitting a Boss Monster — one on par with an A-Rank Monster — a single strike from Death Scythe could wound it, but not enough to sever its torso.
That spoke to just how extraordinarily tough the scales covering Garangiga's body really were.
"Ha! Tough as you are —!"
Garangiga twisted its body sharply from the recoil of its attack on Rei.
As it swung toward Reliu, who had closed in from that direction, Reliu brought his longsword around in a swift arc.
It wasn't as flashy a strike as Rei's, but it sliced through Garangiga's scales with ease, severed the spikes beneath, and bit into flesh.
"Defense is meaningless against me!"
Vihera pressed her hand lightly against the scales and unleashed Magic Impact Palm, driving a shockwave of magical energy directly into the creature's body.
True to her words, Magic Impact Palm made thick armor irrelevant — let alone scales designed to deflect attacks.
"Jaaaaaaaah!"
It was the most guttural scream Rei had heard from Garangiga yet.
The shockwave delivered into its body had clearly caused pain beyond anything it could have imagined.
"Alright, it's working! Let's press the—"
Rei started to shout, intent on pressing the advantage — but in that instant, Garangiga's scales all bristled upright.
Its scales standing on end — something that should have been impossible.
The moment they saw it, everyone engaging Garangiga in close combat pulled back simultaneously.
It was a semi-instinctive reaction, but having heard Marina's intel on Garangiga made all the difference here.
Yes — sharp spikes shot out from the gaps between the raised scales.
Some of those spikes exceeded a meter in length, while others were barely half that.
The uneven lengths made the attack extremely troublesome for anyone trying to dodge, as it threw off their sense of timing.
Fortunately, everyone had already put significant distance between themselves and Garangiga, so the worst-case scenario never materialized.
"Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
With a deafening shriek, Garangiga began thrashing wildly where it stood.
It wasn't writhing in pain — it was attacking anything and everything around it.
Had anyone been close, they would have taken severe damage from both Garangiga's enormous body and the spikes jutting from it.
But everyone who had been in range — including Rei — had already pulled back.
"Gurururururururururururururu!"
As Garangiga thrashed on the ground, Set loosed a stream of Fire Breath from above.
Water Ball, Ice Arrow, and the somewhat unorthodox Bubble Breath — Set actually had a fair number of water and Ice-system attacks at his disposal. But he couldn't imagine those being effective against a creature that made the underground lake its home, so he chose Fire Breath instead.
The blast caught Garangiga squarely as it writhed on the ground.
True, a thrashing target was a moving target — but Set, while breathing fire, was naturally able to reposition by beating his wings.
The result was that Garangiga took considerable damage.
Extending spikes from beneath its scales was fine for offense, but by bristling those scales — which normally protected its body — the creature had left itself clearly more vulnerable.
Through the gaps between the raised scales, Set's Fire Breath burned into Garangiga's flesh.
Garangiga seemed to understand the source of its pain. Rather than thrashing to attack as it had before, it now writhed on the ground in genuine agony, retracting the spikes it had extended from between its scales.
"Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
Bellowing in rage and pain, Garangiga fired a venom Water Cutter at the source of its torment — Set, circling in the sky.
If it were simply a matter of targeting whoever had caused it pain, there was no shortage of candidates on the ground, including Rei. And Marina, too, was repeatedly hammering it from the rear with Spirit Magic and arrows.
But so far, nothing had caused Garangiga more pain than Set's Fire Breath raining down from above.
It was precisely because the scales had been bristled upright that it had taken the full brunt of a wide-area attack.
That was why — unable to forgive Set — it attempted to counterattack with the most powerful weapon in its arsenal.
The venom Water Cutter was powerful enough to slice cleanly through solid rock on contact.
Rei's first thought upon seeing it was that it looked like a laser weapon — not anything from the real world, of course, but the kind from anime and manga.
An attack that left even such an impression meant that a direct hit would leave even Set badly wounded.
...Of course, that was assuming it actually connected.
"Gururururururu!"
Set cut off his Fire Breath, twisted away from the venom Water Cutter, and let out a loud cry.
At the same time, his body shrank visibly.
What had been a creature over three meters long suddenly compressed to seventy centimeters.
"Eh?"
A stunned sound slipped from Reliu, who was seeing Set's Size Change skill for the first time.
It was completely understandable. Skills like Fire Breath or Wind Arrow were exactly what one expected from a skill — obvious and unmistakable at a glance.
But a creature suddenly shrinking to a fraction of its size? That was clearly abnormal even by the standards of skills.
While Reliu reeled in bewilderment, the battle pressed on.
Several venom Water Cutters fired in quick succession, all aimed at the now-tiny Set.
"Terrain Manipulation!"
Seeing Garangiga fixated on Set, Rei plunged the pommel of Death Scythe into the ground and activated the skill.
The earth beneath Garangiga heaved upward by one meter, while the ground on the side sank by one.
Caught on uneven ground, twisting its body inevitably threw Garangiga off balance.
A two-meter height difference.
For Garangiga, the fall was by no means fatal — but it was more than enough to make it tear its gaze away from Set.
"Gurururururu!"
And in that one instant when its eyes left Set... Set's body snapped back to full size. Combining the Bracelet of Herculean Strength, the velocity of his dive, and the Power Crush skill into a single devastating strike, he connected — and Garangiga's head shattered.