Chapter 185

    It wasn’t long before the rest of the monster horde still noticed their presence. The stone-controlling ants paid no heed to them – they continued swarming the wall, where the defenders desperately tried to fight them off. The nearest Vinebears proved to be the most immediate threat. Several of them broken off from the wall entirely, and whirled towards the group with hungry expressions.

    Allira started singing of a lost city, and of rocks that fell from the sky as an army ruined everything bright and happy in the world. The air around them rippled, and buildings and corpses started to appear in the midst of the battlefield. Children and adults huddled in broken buildings, as Sigmusi Mages rained death upon the town from outside the walls.

    The vinebears seemed stunned by the disappearance of the natural plant life in the area – and much to Alice’s surprise, some of the started to retreat. This wasn’t behavior that she was used to. Most monsters simply charged until they were dead.

    For a moment, Alice was relieved. If the monsters started fleeing from this battlefield, it would be a good enough outcome. The city would be saved, and the group would be free to continue on their journey. However, it only took a few moments for her to realize she had been too optimistic.

    The Vinebears were fleeing from the battlefield. They were just regrouping. The Vinebears had clearly realized that Allira’s illusion nullified their strongest weapon, so they were trying to find a way to get their advantage back. A moment later, the first Vinebear awkwardly clambered over to one of the non-illusory ruined houses.

    Then, as if it were an Olympic champion winding up, it grabbed one of the rocks and awkwardly threw it at the group. A moment later, one of Ethan’s shrapnel pieces ripped through its throat, killing it instantly.

    Alice resisted the urge to swear.

    The damn creatures hadn’t even used a Perk, but they had somehow figured out a way to counter Allira’s illusions.

    Luckily, it meant almost nothing to the group. The moment the rock was close enough, Alice reached out with a magic tendril and stopped the rock. It was surprisingly difficult – while bears didn’t have thumbs, making their grip on the stones awkward, their limbs had an awful lot of power behind them. That meant she needed to sink a lot of mana into the rock to stop its motion again. Alice also noticed a small cluster of moss on the side of the rock that felt oddly... sticky.

    It must have been how the bear-liked monster had managed to throw it in the first place.

    Alice grimaced as she thought of how much smarter and more dangerous monsters were getting. It was all because they were so intelligent now.

    Intelligent... Alice blinked, and then took a closer look at the Vinebears. Were the vinebears themselves intelligent, or were the alpha monsters the only ones that were more intelligent than usual? If it was the Vinebear alpha that was more intelligent, perhaps there was something she could do about this...

    A few weeks ago, she had watched a monstrous glimmerspren evolve from a regular monster into a monster alpha. During that time, it looked almost as if the monster had formed a sort of... paired enchantment between the monster alpha and all nearby glimmerspren.

    Alice had also spent several hours on Allira’s conjured ships, analyzing the ‘strings’ of mana that seemed to connect monsters to other monsters.

    How had she... never connected the dots before? They didn’t quite look the same, sure... but at the end of the day, both types of mana connection were fundamentally ‘connections’ formed by mana. They might not be exactly the same, but Alice would be shocked if there was no similarity at all in how both types of connection were constructed. In fact, it was obvious that she should have been analyzing the similarities and differences between both types of connection.

    Alice grinned as she realized she might have a much better way to contribute to this fight. If monsters were more dangerous because the alpha was intelligent, the solution was simple. Cut off the connection between the monsters and the alphas.

    Alice used {Dimensional Camouflage} in tandem with three of her magic tendrils, to maximize the range and coverage she could manage with her anti-magic mana. Each portal was positioned right next to the vinebears, but thanks to {Dimensional Camouflage}, she didn’t need to worry about getting counterattacked through the portals. Then, Alice stuck her mana tendrils through the portals she had opened. Once the tips of her mana tendrils were as far away from her portals as she could get them, she started flooding the battlefield with anti-magic mana.

    The vinebears near her targeted area lost any semblance of cohesion and intelligence. They seemed almost like they had gone crazy – they started desperately running in different directions, trying and failing to use their magic on Allira’s illusory city, and a few of them simply charged the group again. They had a strange appearance – as if they were truly desperate to escape the area.

    Alice remembered that monsters usually suffocated in minutes if they were cut off from mana. It was similar to an army suddenly lost contact with their commander, and at the same time they started suffocating. Panic was natural.

    This tactic... was surprisingly effective.

    Some of the Vinebears pounced towards the group, trying to rend their flesh from their bones, and Ethan killed them all with a spray of shrapnel. Many of the other panicking Vinebears were drawn over to the area, and Ethan quickly finished them off. Now that their commander wasn’t feeding them hints and commands, the creatures were like headless flies. They were still dangerous, but nowhere near as threatening as before.

    Alice was somewhat satisfied with the result, but she quickly noticed another problem. This tactic required flooding an area with anti-magic mana, and Alice didn’t have that much anti-magic mana to spare. With 171 Magic stat, 192% Stat effectiveness, and 40% mana conversion ratio, she had about 131 Mariums of anti-magic mana available to her. Not a terrible amount, but not enough that she could just flood the battlefield like this and hope for the best. Just to break down the intelligence and strength of about fifty vinebears, she had spent nearly thirty Mariums. At this rate, she would run out of mana long before she made a noticeable impact on the battlefield. Not to mention, Ethan was a terror on the battlefield already – most of the things Alice had done so far, Ethan could have managed on his own anyway.

    Alice glanced towards the front of the group, where Ethan and Jonathan had blocked off a different group of vinebears and swiftly eradicated them.

    Also, Alice noticed that Jonathan was surprisingly effective in combat, despite how much he had downplayed his combat abilities when they first met. He had none of the grace of a proper [Swordsman], but he had sheer [Strength] and [Endurance]. Alice suspected that the man would seriously struggle against some types of enemies – fast, nimble opponents could probably dance circles around him. People with ranged attacks probably wouldn’t have a hard time dealing with him either, as long as they stayed out of range and whittled him down. However, when it came to these Vinebears, after Allira had stripped away their most direct combat magic?

    The man could almost ignore the scratches and bites of the monsters, and each wild haymaker punch was enough to shatter Vinebear bones like they were brittle glass. Even if his aim could use some work, he still killed a good number of vinebears within two or three punches, and each punch left vinebears reeling.

    With three Immortals, the vinebears had almost no chance to turn the battle around. The ones still under the command of their alpha retreated, while the ones who got caught by the group were eradicated in seconds.

    She could understand that... but she wasn’t happy about it. The idea of leaving the city to die if the defenders failed didn’t sit right with her. She wanted the people of this city to survive while she searched for a final solution to this world’s problems.

    She turned back towards the approaching army of monsters. Above them, ice birds soared through the skies like kites in the wind, preparing to unleash frozen hell upon the group. Vinebears tramped through the illusory city of Allira’s creation, their vine control magic weakened but their massive forms still providing cover for their allies. Stone-manipulating ants strolled towards the group like death on six legs.

    And then Alice seized upon a new idea. Something that might actually let her help. She wasn’t sure if it would work or not... but it was her best idea.

    Anti-magic mana was useful, but it chewed through her mana reserves too quickly. But a big part of her anti-magic mana was wasted. After all, she was flooding an area with anti-magic mana – that meant that a lot of the anti-magic mana just ended up floating around in midair, not hitting anything important.

    There were far too many monsters for Alice to target each individual monster with anti-magic mana and sever their connection to their alpha. That was totally unrealistic.

    But what Alice did have was Communication mana. Mana that, when used in the System, was capable of making other types of mana ‘share information’ with each other. And pure mana, which seemed like it was capable of manipulating other types of mana, at least to some extent.

    Maybe... it was possible to make her anti-magic mana itself find the targets she wanted to hit?

    Alice closed her eyes, and tried to push the invading monsters out of her thoughts. Ethan could keep her safe for a few seconds, or even a few minutes. She couldn’t just stand around with her eyes closed forever, but she had time to concentrate, at least.

    Then, she put three magic tendrils in front of her face, and started to experiment. What she wanted was simple – she wanted to use communication mana and pure mana to create a sort of ‘monster-seeking’ missile. This missile would be composed of anti-magic mana, and would hopefully only target the connection between monster alphas and their subordinates. If she succeeded, she would have a way to seriously weaken most of the approaching monsters, and with any luck, they might start fighting each other instead of the group. After all, monsters working together was a very new thing, and only happened with monster alphas were controlling their subordinates. Alice suspected that cooperation would fall apart the moment the alphas lost control of their minions.

    She activated {Speed Experimentation}, since this was one of the few scenarios where it was incredibly useful. Instantly, Alice felt time start to pass more quickly for her compared to her surroundings. She paid all of the mana out of her half-build System seed – she had a mana conversion ratio of 182% for that seed. It was far more mana than she needed right now.

    Then, she started rapidly assembling and disassembling different types of ‘anti-magic homing bullets.’

    At first, the anti-magic mana simply outright deleted the pure mana during her attempts to make everything work. It was as if the communication mana were an unwelcome visitor being kicked out by security.

    But Alice kept trying. After a few failed experiments, she started creating ‘communication-disrupting projectiles’ that had multiple layers to them. One layer of mana was made of anti-magic mana, and the other was made of communication mana and pure mana. The pure mana ‘commanded’ the entire projectile, sort of like a homing device, while the communication mana relayed information between the pure mana and anti-magic mana. It wasn’t perfect – the anti-magic mana still ate through the communication mana, so each projectile would break down after about five seconds.

    Alice tossed in some math mana, and tossed in a few more specific ‘targeting’ specifications. It wasn’t perfect, since she wasn’t as familiar with math mana as she wished she were – but it was at least good enough to clearly define targets. Alice quickly ‘programmed’ in roughly what a monster core looked like. It was a bit of a mess – but it was good enough.

    Alice held her breath, and then released her monster-core seeking anti-magic bullet.

    The little speck of mana lazily sailed away from her face, before it locked onto the nearest vinebear. In a flash, it sped towards the creature, and then burst into a small cloud of anti-magic mana a few meters in front of its face.

    Alice winced.

    The projectile hadn’t quite made it before it imploded.

    However, she was on the right path.

    Alice spent the next few minutes refining her idea, trying to make the whole mess more stable, while the three Immortals and the others kept the monsters off of her. Until, finally, on her sixteenth try, another communication-sealing bullet flew out of her hands and hit a Vinebear.

    This time, the missile worked as intended. Right after the anti-magic mana reached the creature, it found the little part of the monster core that resembled a dual-enchantment, and then it simply... sealed it off.

    The vinebear froze, as if it had been struck by lightning. It raised its eyes towards a nearby stone ant, its expression still radiating confusion... and then it sank its teeth into its fellow monster.

    The stone ant reeled back in shock, before it ripped a cobblestone out of the ground with its stone manipulation magic and then crushed the vinebears skull. It didn’t seem to think much about the odd incident, perhaps because it had realized Alice had done something to the vinebear first.

    But even though it didn’t cause a sudden collapse of the monster alliance, Alice still grinned.

    It had worked.