Without another word, the swordsman gritted his teeth and lunged forward, thrusting his longsword toward Francis's exposed throat.
But Francis had no intention of surrendering so easily.
Once again, he invoked his gravity magic, attempting to pin the swordsman to the ground with crushing force.
Yet just as he activated the spell, two thick vines suddenly burst out from beneath the earth. That grotesque little goblin had sohow circled behind him and was now launching a sneak attack with a sick grin on his face.
At the sa ti, the tal-elent mage sprang into action. With a swift gesture, he summoned three razor-sharp tallic tridents, which streaked through the air toward Francis like silver bolts of death.
Caught in a pincer assault from all sides, Francis had no choice. Gripping the enchanted apple tightly in his hand, he pushed his body's gravitational state past the threshold of human tolerance—into extre lightness.
Whoosh!
The three tridents sliced through the air… and struck nothing.
Francis's body had beco so light that the gust of wind generated by the tridents' velocity carried him with it, lifting him like a feather and whisking him out of danger.
The tal-elent mage was montarily stunned. This kind of gravity manipulation was sothing he hadn't anticipated at all.
He quickly tried to retract the tridents to prepare for a second attack.
But to his growing alarm, it was as if Francis had sohow latched onto the tridents themselves. No matter how he twisted or redirected them, Francis remained stuck close, like an annoying piece of chewing gum.
"Enough ssing around! Just toss the damn things!" the swordsman snapped impatiently, frowning as he watched his comrade fumble.
But the tal-elent mage hesitated, an obvious look of reluctance on his face.
It seed the tridents weren't just weapons—they were his staff, imbued with his personal mana and irreplaceable.
"Too late!" Francis shouted.
Then, like a cot, he launched himself directly above the tal-elent mage.
With one final command, he triggered a gravity inversion spell.
In an instant, his feather-light body transford into a living teorite—plumting downward with bone-crushing force.
Still attached to the three tridents at his feet, Francis beca a projectile of death, crashing toward the mage like a falling star.
The tal-elent mage scrambled to muster a defense, but what ordinary man could stand against the force of planetary gravity?
CLANG!
The impact rang out like a hamr striking steel. Sparks erupted in the air as Francis's boot collided with the mage's head.
"ARGHHH!!" the tal-elent mage shrieked, clutching his eyes as blood gushed from the sockets. The brilliant flash of impact was followed by a brutal fall—his body slamming into the ground below with a sickening crunch.
Francis had fought alongside Fort, a companion who also wielded a sharp-edged tal-elent physique, many tis before. He knew exactly where their weaknesses lay.
Now that he'd finally broken through the encirclent, Francis wasn't about to stop.
He discarded the tridents still stuck to his feet and instead linked his gravity field to the now-blinded tal mage.
The combined pull of that shared gravitational bond and the residual montum from his earlier spell turned Francis into a living star hurtling back toward the mage's collapsed body.
If that blow landed, the mage would be lucky to survive.
Seeing this, the swordsman finally panicked.
He poured his mana into his weapon, extending its blade to impossible lengths. Before his body even moved, his sword reached out, arcing toward Francis's path of descent.
Francis's eyes narrowed.
He knew it imdiately: if he let gravity continue to pull him down toward the tal mage, the elongated blade would skewer him before he even reached the ground.
The sword's path perfectly intersected his trajectory.
In the nick of ti, Francis reversed the gravity field around his body again, initiating an ergency midair brake.
Seeing his target halt midair, the swordsman roared and charged in close. He leapt into the air and delivered a flying kick directly to Francis's ribs.
Fortunately, Francis had just switched from heavy to ultra-light gravity. The kick dealt no real damage—but it launched him into the air like a ragdoll, flinging him backward uncontrollably.
Behind him, the underbrush quivered.
A mass of twisting vines and tendrils surged up, stretching and coiling like the jaws of a man-eating plant. They had clearly been lying in wait for this exact mont—ready to ensnare any prey that stumbled into their trap.
This was the goblin's doing. The number of vines now was overwhelming.
Francis knew—if he fell into that net, the outco would be nothing short of horrific.
And worst of all—he had no more mana left.
The extre shifts between light and heavy gravity had completely drained him. He couldn't even increase his weight by a single kilogram now.
He was helpless.
But just as he prepared for the worst—
A beam of soft golden light erupted in the distance, shooting up from the edge of the rainforest and piercing the sky.
Francis turned toward it in confusion.
The light seed to be moving… rapidly… toward him.
Inside the golden column, a faint silhouette began to erge.
And before he could process what was happening, the beam of light appeared at his back, as if teleporting across space.
It caught him midair.
Cradled gently by the golden radiance, Francis was lowered back to the ground in one piece.
He landed safely. Dumbfounded.
Just a mont ago, he had been staring death in the face. But now—rescued by this golden phenonon—the impossible had sohow turned into salvation.
He stood there, stunned, his mind reeling from the emotional whiplash.
And then the silhouette within the beam took shape.
"Are you alright?"
The voice was calm. Familiar.
Alan.
Francis blinked, then let out a weak, incredulous chuckle.
"You took your sweet ti, didn't you? What are you, a snail?"
Alan offered a crooked smile. "Sorry. Ran into a few idiots on the way. Took a little longer than expected."
Without another word, he reached out.
The beam of light reford into the Lun Sancta, his sword-staff, and Alan gripped it tightly.
Turning his back on Francis, he plunged the glowing blade straight into the vine field behind them.
From the depths of the jungle, a blood-curdling scream echoed.
All the flailing vines froze in place—then drooped like lifeless threads. Their color dulled into a dead grey, spreading rapidly across their surfaces like a creeping decay.
The two remaining attackers exchanged anxious glances.
The swordsman narrowed his one good eye, frowning as he pulled down his hood.
That eye patch—Alan recognized it instantly.
This man… was the sa one-eyed warrior who had stood beneath the cliffside, muttering about Alan after the Mist Witch had fallen.
The tal-elent mage, still staggering and barely able to stand, stumbled toward his ally.
"Brother… I can't see… Brother, where are you?!" he whimpered.
The one-eyed man pulled him close, wrapping an arm around him protectively. His teeth clenched. His hands trembled.
Eyes filled with hatred, he tightened his grip on his sword.
In that mont, he swore—even if it cost him his life, he would take Alan and Francis down with him.
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