Chương 464: Chapter 463 – The Next Guardian

The S Rank and SS Rank mages moved on to the fifty-third floor while the A Rankers continued the cleanup effort. Once spatial artifacts were filled Damion and the other A Rank mages sat around waiting for the runner to arrive with more spatial artifacts. The runner turned out to be one of Mage Fletcher's family, Victor Fletcher, a B Rank Spatial mage, who was making use of the magic absorbing artifacts Damion had commissioned to allow passage through mana dense areas.

For each full spatial artifact given to the Spatial mage he passed an empty out. Damion could see more than a few envious faces among the A Rank mages, but given that Victor had an aunt that was S Rank, none of them truly entertained thoughts of robbing the man. Once the fifty-second floor was free of Demonic Beast carcasses the A Rankers began to split up.

Some headed to entrance to fifty-three to rest and wait for word to come down, others headed back to fifty-one, hoping the smaller crowd there would make training a bit easier. Damion decided to move up to fifty-three. He wanted to know if fifty-two was the midpoint, or if they still had a hard job ahead of them. The fifty-third floor turned out to be different than he imagined.

Fifty-one and fifty-two had followed the same landscape of the S Rank floors, forty-one through fifty, a giant forest or plain, where everything was larger, accommodating the larger size of S Rank Demonic Beasts. Fifty-three, however, returned everything to a normal size ratio, though from what Damion could tell from his auto-mapper the overall size of the floor was considerable. In every direction from the entrance the auto-mapper could not reach the edge of the floor.

Given that his auto-mapper was at A Rank and could map an area of 100 kilometers in every direction, not seeing the edge of the floor was quite the surprise. The auto-mapper did locate the core to the floor and what Damion guessed was the guardian, but aside from their locations, which were roughly sixty kilometers away, he was not able to discern much. On his tablet display Damion was able to see the S Rankers. They were moving roughly in a straight-line out from the entrance to the floor.

Most of the time that was the correct direction to head in to find the passageway to the next floor, though not always. This floor did not offer any surprises in that area though, as the S Rankers were already halfway to the guardian and making short work of any Demonic Beast that got in their way. Damion decided to follow after them. If the last floor was the midpoint the magic power of this floor's guardian should be below the previous guardian.

However, True Sight would only be able to inform him of the Demonic Beast's magic power if it was still alive when he took a look at it. Summoning his Ice Sword, Damion flew at top speed following the same path the S Ranks had gone. As he flew he saw numerous Demonic Beast carcasses and could not help but feel the S Rankers were a bit excessive in their force. Seldom did he see a carcass that was not cut into at least six pieces.

When Damion finally caught up to the S Rank mages they did not seem surprised to see him. Though a few did look a bit annoyed.

"A Rankers should stay in the safe area until the threats of this floor have been properly assessed," Mage Forlani said as Damion approached.

"Mage Wells is quite capable of handling himself. Besides, I think his services will be needed before too much longer," Mage Veers stepped in.

"Damion, why have you come out to us?" asked Mage Teft. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"The core and guardian are some distance ahead on this trajectory, but I thought it would be helpful if I could give you a more precise magic power for the guardian than just a guess of if it is stronger than the last one or not."

"A prudent thought, but we are unleashing high level spells to handle the S Rank Demonic Beasts we are encountering. I would hate for you to be injured by the excess mana," said Mage Forlani.

"I think I'll be alright," Damion said.

"I fought an S Rank Alfar, who was very much trying to kill me, handling a bit of excess ambient mana shouldn't be an issue." Several of the S Ranks looked at Damion and wanted to doubt his claims but given the number of outlandish things he had accomplished so far they thought he very well could be telling the truth.

"You'll have to look after yourself while we head towards the guardian," Mage Harris told Damion.

"Once we get close, you can take myself and Mage Veers to check on its strength like you did on the previous floor." Damion nodded and flew his Ice Sword over to join the rear of the formation. As the group continued to travel through the fifty-third floor he began to get a better understanding of how each of the S Ranks fought. Some, like Mage Teft and Mage Spurlock fought with precision. Using just enough power with well-placed spells to quickly kill or severely wound Demonic Beasts.

Any they could not take down with just two or three spells were left for the other S Ranks. Mages like Gregory Forlani, Stone affinity, and Dominic Strand, Wood affinity, were blunter in their assaults. Their spells crashed through the defenses of a Demonic Beast. Often pulverizing them, destroying them with brute force instead of precision. Then there was Mage Veers, who Damion had seen cast spells a few times now. Each time the Void mage cast a spell, entire swaths of Demonic Beasts ceased to exist.

The bits and pieces of remains pointed to the use of brute force instead of precision. However, Damion realized the Void mage did not so much overwhelm the Demonic Beasts' defenses as completely bypass them. It was truly a terrifying sight. While they traveled, Damion reviewed his notifications from the Magic System. A number of spells had advanced from the recent battle, and he was eagerly calculating his gains.

Ice Armor, Summon Ice, Frost Over, Ice Sword, Ice Familiar, Shadow Familiar, Ice Shard, Ice Shield and Ice Breath had all risen a rank. What was truly a surprise was his Familiar Space passive had jumped up two Ranks. Several of his other passive spells had climbed in Rank as well. Mostly his various resistance spells, which he had not been actively training, but with the number of spells and the chaotic nature of a large-scale battle, he was not surprised they had finally increased.

In addition to his spells rising in power. He had progressed on his A Rank and S Rank kill quests from the Magic System. Overall, he gained 1, 800 experience points for the Magic System and 8, 600 credits for the shop, not to mention his increase in combat power with his go to spells like Ice Sword and Ice Shard having reached S Rank. Still, despite his rise in abilities, Damion knew anyone of the mages he was with could crush him in an instant.

After several hours of fighting, the group came to a stop about a kilometer away from the guardian. Despite the distance, everyone could see the Demonic Beast from where they were. It looked like a giant sunflower. Golden petals surrounding a yellow and brown flower head where ordinarily the seeds of the flower would grow. Instead of seeds, the guardian had what appeared to be tendrils surrounding a central maw.

From the stem grew a number of leaves, however, each one had edges that, when the leaves rustled in the wind, would gleam as if they were swords catching the sun's rays. There were also several axillary buds spouting from the stem that appeared to be smaller and more mobile versions of sunflower head with smaller, yet still menacing looking, maws of their own that contained seed looking teeth.

"Well, doesn't that thing look cheerful," Mage Morelli said.

"What is it?"

"I've never seen one on this scale, but I'd say it is a Demon Sunflower," Mage Levine answered.

"Plant and Metal affinities. It can grow the stems the leaves are one quickly, letting it use its leaves, which are coated with mithril as swords and shields."

"I'm more concerned with those maws than with its leaves," Mage Strand replied.

"Yes, well, this one is probably a hundred times larger than any I've ever seen. Normally those maws would spit metal seeds at you or could bite you."

"Now it looks like we have to avoid being eaten," Mage Veers jumped in.

"Alright, Mage Wells, looks like you are up. Time to see exactly how strong it is."