EXTERMINATION

"So, we crushing some bugs…?" Ivan's question was met with hesitant nods. He sighed before returning to the edge of the cliff to stare back into the abyss of roaches.

"Thankfully most of our members are physically adept. Everyone aside from Yue will climb the trunk of the tree using adjacent branches. Yue herself will be latching on to me whilst casting spells."

He turned back from the group noticing their discontent stares, he smiled wryly before continuing. "She's a powerful asset, as long as she has easy access to my blood she'll be able to fire at the horde without restraint."

Ivan grabbed her hand and allowed her to shimmy up onto his shoulders.

"Even with her tough body, as a mage, her physical abilities are lacking compared to the rest of us. Sorry but think of this as training, not every enemy will sit still and allow us to cast magical attacks from afar."

Though as someone who wasn't exactly a caster his words didn't hold much weight.

"Casting while moving, while dodging, and while under pressure, keep your focus no matter the situation and have faith that we're here to protect each other."

Ivan smiled satisfied as this time he was met with confident nods. If he had to guess, the surface of this trial was another hack and slash.

Of course, that was only on the surface. This dungeon has been the worst so far. He didn't think after all this the liberator would lazily throw on another hack and slash trial.

'There was the trent, that was just mindless killing while having the limitation of losing some of our greatest fighters. The dream was an independent matter and the slime was to test bonds after having our minds taken over with lust.'

"If this liberator was just going to throw mindless enemies at us, why roaches? Was it cause they were easy to produce? Or perhaps because of how simple-minded they are? Hell, I don't even think roaches are inherently hostile~ In any case, exercise caution at all times, Shea I want you to push that future sight of yours until we figure out this trial's true intention."

"Aye aye, Captain!" Shea sarcastically saluted before her ears perked up to their absolute peak, despite how careless she seemed she was going to take the dungeon veteran's advice seriously.

"But… where do we begin?" Claire had a good point, they could just start blasting but that seemed a bit unwise when they had the opportunity to strike first.

"We'll advance to the top first, from there we strike down once we're barely within eyesight. That is if our ascendance doesn't piss the horde off…"

Ideally what Ivan wanted was the high ground, for now, the roaches were not hostile but there was a good chance they just haven't seen them as threats yet.

Sure roaches in his old world were generally cowards but this was another world, until now he hadn't seen roaches at all.

That got him questioning how the liberator managed to make identical copies of a 'monster' present in his world but that could wait until later. Maybe they even had a journal explaining everything at the end like some of the other liberators.

'Could it just be a coincidence…?'

Ivan's presence eliminating skill only worked on himself, the same went for Yue's stealth spell. So the best option would be for the two to go on ahead and watch the back of the others as they ascended.

And that's exactly what they did.

Ivan and Yue sat atop a branch after deftly maneuvering through the tree, Yue held her arm out and charged a spell while Ivan aimed both of his gauntlets down at the pit of roaches.

'Alright, Claire and Shea head on up here, next will be Canis and Ari, then finally Tio and Felis.' Ivan transmitted his thoughts through telepathy, receiving affirmations as he watched them slowly climb.

The order was important, pairing the weaker members with stronger members of the group in case of shit hit the fan.

Things proceeded smoothly, it seemed that unless they engaged first the roaches weren't going to bother chasing.

"Seeing as that's how things are, let's go ahead and investigate the area. While I doubt we'd be able to walk out of here without fighting, maybe there's a clue somewhere."

Everyone nodded before the group shimmied up the tree together, taking care not to split too far apart in case finding a possible exit or hint triggered the horde.

And after two hours they came up with nothing, even as they reached the peak of the tree's insides they were met with a dead end.

"Shall we attempt to blast through the ceiling…? Master, I do believe that we have no other choice than to try. Either way, we'll have to deal with the horde if it so happens we can not break out of here."

Ivan sighed while thinking about Tio's words, as she said even if blasting attracted the horde there at least they would find out whether breaking out was possible. Even if it seemed unlikely the result would be the same if they couldn't.

"Alright, we'll try multiple attacks at the same time. Tio will incinerate while Yue casts her space magic in hopes of cutting the space and removing the wood blocking our path. For added measure, I'll go to a different location of the ceiling and attempt to destroy it with my Arm of Destruction…"

The group each got into their places, everyone not a part of the attempt to break through the ceiling had the job of watching the bottom of the tree for the incoming horde.

"Um… Father, which one do I press again…?" Felis held a detonator in one hand and a satchel full of explosives in the other.

'W-Why the hell did I trust her with the explosives again…?' It was supposed to be a simple plan, if the horde started approaching then all she had to do was throw down the bag and wait until it landed on them, from there it was simply using the detonator to blow up the contents.

BANG!

"Uguh!" Felis leaned forward in her crossed leg position before rubbing the back of her head with tears welling in her eyes. She glared at the perpetrator angrily before puffing up her cheeks and crossing her arms.

"You idiot… are you trying to kill us?" Canis took the items before affirming that everything was properly in place. Now that she self-assigned this role after stealing it from her sister the last thing she wanted to do was mess up as well.

'Well, it doesn't matter. It's not like the satchel will do much anyways.'

Ivan sighed before turning his direction back at the wooded ceiling.

Inside the satchels were cryogenic grenades which you could guess, freeze up the competition. Of course, there were a couple of electrical grenades to hopefully create a huge chained effect but it would mostly depend on the biology of those roach-like creatures if they worked as intended.

'Ready? 3… 2… 1… GO!' Ivan telepathizes out before outputting his charged-up mana into the tattoo on his right arm.

BZZZZT!

Red electricity flared into the air, threatening to pierce and destroy the wood placed in Ivan's hands into bits of dust.

Father from Ivan was another light show, flames and rumbling lined the wooden ceiling with great intensity.

This endeavor continued for several minutes before the fact that nothing of what they did made an impact became apparent, rather than waste more mana on an indestructible object they turned their attention to the rumbling beneath them.

RUMBLE RUMBLE!

"Here they come! Canis, do it!" Ivan yelled out loud seriously before pointing both of his forearms to the pit below him.

Hundreds of silver beams shot down into the abyss before lights illuminated the pool of brown critters that writhed and climbed atop each other to reach their elevation.

BANG BANG BANG!

Everyone who specialized in a melee just tossed things down from above that Ivan had provided them beforehand. Now that they could see the critters attack it was easy to tell that there were more of them than they initially guessed

But alas that didn't make the remission any more different. If they failed the critters would force them up against the indestructible wooden ceiling so at this point they had no other option than to fight.

"What the hell are they doing…?" Shea muttered aloud, turning to Ivan to report what she had seen with her future sight.

"T-They're forming magic circles?!" Ivan yelled out before enhancing his to observe the condition of the critters in finer detail.

Shea's report had been true, instead of a disorganized horde or wave of roaches they lined themselves up to only hug the walls of the tree trunk, leaving the middle open for hundreds of roaches to form circles in the sky.

From each of these magic circles shot a beam of brown light. Fortunately, their power didn't compare at all to the strength of what could be considered the two greatest mages of the century.

Tio and Yue fired back with great precision, not allowing a single opportunity for the brown beams to hit them.

And in return, they inevitably destroyed the critters forming the circles, at least that was before new ones took their place.

"We're whittling them but this division of forces they have going on is diverting our focus. Yue, Tio, leave the magic circles to me! Focus on defending us from the roaches crawling up the walls of the tree."

"Mn… alright."

"Yes, Master!"

The two put all their faith into Ivan before turning their attention to the hordes approaching them.

"Eat lead murderers!" Though not exactly lead, the silver needles shot into the abyss and illuminated the carapaces of thousands of roaches.

Seconds turned to minutes, then minutes to hours, and finally, it had been four hours of constant battle. Ivan's reserves were at about half and several of his mana refilling potions and mana capacity accessories had been either consumed or emptied.

And in that time frame, another event happened. Once the number of roaches had dwindled to the tens of thousands the remaining roaches had taken the shape form humanoid-like monsters.

It was an odd juxtaposition, seeing humanoid-like angles that were supposed to provide a holy feeling, and yet the only thing a person would feel is disgust when examining what these angels were formed of.

In total there were 10, Ivan decided to face two alone, Yue and Tio dealt with four, Canis and Felis handled two as well, and finally, Claire, Ari, and Shea handled the remaining two.

The fight was a lot smoother compared to the hectic battle that commenced upon starting this trial. Having them composed into easy-to-hit targets made it easier than ever to make progress.

Just like the slime, its biggest mistake was making itself more compact.

Aside from a few melee moves, these roach angels were nothing they were easily incinerated or blown up from afar. Sure they shot those beams but they were as easy to deal with as they had been when they were formed by hundreds of roaches already.

Eventually, there weren't enough roaches to sustain the forms anymore, and as time went the number of angles had significantly dwindled.

Ivan was the first to deal with his pair as modern weaponry made evaporating the critters into ash an easy feat. After that, he assisted Tio and Yue, which with the three of them made it quite overkill.

From there with each angel defeated it became easier to help the next person that needed help.

And finally— every angel had been eliminated. Or it was more appropriate to say every roach had faced extermination.

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