小嫂子的味道

Even though defeating all the goblins was impossible, unlike Spene, Xara wasn\'t displeased at all. If anything, she was even happier. Though that doesn\'t mean she was not worried, she was, but for a different reason.

"Come at me, you motherfuckers!!!" she shouted as she smacked the ground with her staff.

Most of the goblins were attracted to her—primarily the new goblins since they didn\'t know how much of a threat she was. The horde got closer and surrounded her, but she didn\'t flinch at all.

The goblins got all over her, drowned in anger, and the knives painted with bloodlust reached for her.

An explosion rang across the entire floor. Heat, fire, light, blood, corpses, ash, and a girl covered in flame.

The goblins were thrown back—some even died, and taken back by the sudden change of events. The explosion had emerged from Xara\'s body, and it was not a spell, but a result of the extra mana she\'d poured into the morphation.

The reason she was worried was that her mana was eventually going to dry out, and she was aware of that fact. She didn\'t have much left of it anyway, so this was her last bit of effort. The plan was to use up all the mana, increase the output of the morphation, and clear out as many goblins as she could before fainting.

This would lessen the pressure on Spene, and he could take care of the rest, if not then find a way to escape. The worst case scenario will be that both of them die, and the least one would be where she dies.

After all, she wasn\'t expecting to survive when she went into the morphation, her goal was to take revenge on the goblins, and she was doing that. Favian was dead, therefore she didn\'t see any other reason to continue with this life, hence making sure that Spene survives at least was not bad as a final plan.

Her hair floated upward in the air as it burned in crimson, flames surrounded her whole body, yet she was not burned by them. Her vision was red but for some reason, she was able to see clearly where her targets were—maybe it was because of the intense hatred she had for them or her instincts, there was no clear reason for it.

Lifting her staff straight, she pointed it at the goblins, who were regrouping and preparing for a counterattack. A burst of flames was hurled toward the goblins like a horizontal tornado, cutting through everything it hit its mark, and the resulting explosion took out several hundred goblins with it and set the ground on fire.

Xara took a moment and turned to Spene. He was still struggling with the goblins, trying desperately to stay alive. It was almost as if his body had given out, but his mind didn\'t…he was not going to give up, it seems.

She smiled a bit, then turned back. Taking a deep breath as she closed her eyes, she poured all her mana into the morphation while saving some just enough to keep her from passing out instantly.

The surrounding flames raged further, it was now like she was a flame. Her eyes were swollen and lit with a red blaze, but there were also tears in them. The flames behind her back settled her hair on their place while they glittered and cried for revenge.

Finally, the staff she\'d been holding onto for many years now, was charred by the flames and turned into nothing. She had done it intentionally, after all, with all this mana flowing inside her, she did not need it; with the morphation running at its fullest she directly controlled the fire produced by it.

Both her hands went up, she furrowed and stared at the goblins, a severe expression covering her face.

—The third floor of the labyrinth lay in silence. It was only for a short moment, but during that period everything went quiet. It was as if time itself had slowed down, except for the young maiden who wore a cardigan of fire.

—Then the silence was broken, and as they say, the light comes first, and later comes the sound.

A gust of wind—or an explosion of wind would be the right prose for it, was felt by Spene as well as every monster present there. The palms of her hands created balls of fire and heat, they spun on their axis at an intense speed before a huge, broad beam emerged from them and slung forward.

The sound hit afterward, and it was loud enough to tear the ears of a healthy man. The firestorm she produced tore the air and met with the goblins, living up to the name of the morphation and incinerating them.

But she did not stop here, she couldn\'t. Be that as it may, she had to clear out the maximum of them before she ran out of time and turned limp. Thus, she slowly moved her feet, hands, and entire body.

She moved in a circular motion, shifting the beam that was continuously raging from her palms to the right, clearing the goblins in that direction too.

The goblins ran—or tried to, but the heat was so high that they were being burned even at a hand\'s distance from the actual fire. The beam even melted the ground and cracked the rocks. Screams left the goblins\' throats but vanished before they could be heard.

Xara turned and slowly cast the disaster in all directions except on Spene\'s side, or maybe she had other plans for taking care of the goblins on his side, but the beam dimmed and vanished before she could think of anything, and so did her morphation. The fire enveloping her faded, and she felt weakness taking over her body; all of a sudden her body was cumbersome.

Her eyes trailed off as she fell to the ground, but in that small timespan, she caught sight of something. Something that didn\'t make any sense to her, to the point that for a second she thought that she was hallucinating…which she was not.

Far away at the end walls of the third floor, back in the same direction where Spene was, stood Zero. But that alone did not make it questionable, the thing which did was that he was standing inside one of the tunnel-like passageways—from where the goblins came.

He had a straight and cold look on his face; devoid of any expression. He did not seem like the same person she knew anymore. After he made sure of something—and she didn\'t know what it was, he turned around and wandered off inside the dark passageway along with Challes, and soon both of them vanished into the darkness.

Xara\'s consciousness was about to give out and her vision was turning black as she lay limp on the ground. But she was not satisfied, a part of it was because she\'d seen something which she didn\'t understand, but because she was not able to clear out as many goblins as she expected to.

Unfortunately, as soon as the goblins noticed the beam was devastating their numbers, they backed off and maxed out the distance from Xara.

And now that she\'d stopped and was not a threat, they were regrouping, surrounding Spene and her. But despite all this, at least the worst-case scenario wasn\'t going to come true; even if she hadn\'t been able to kill as many goblins as she wanted she\'d still cleared out a fair amount of them.

With this, Spene will be able to escape if stayed rigid for a little longer and doesn\'t let go of the fighting spirit he had been holding onto for all this time; after all, no matter how you look at it, he was the one struggling the most after Favian.

No matter how much things went south, he won\'t die if he doesn\'t want to die.

Convinced by this thought Xara finally fell into the deep well of unconsciousness as she dropped her eyelids down like how the curtain falls upon the stage when the play is over.

"Xara! Hey! You...…don\'t lay there like that!" Spene screamed and warned her about the upcoming danger, but she wasn\'t in the condition to respond. Hence his screams resounded on the floor accompanied by the roars and cries of the monsters.

***

I stopped to confirm the situation for the final time, the ground was a mess of blood, fire, and molten rocks. Xara\'s spell that she\'d been using to enhance her power was now over and without it she was pretty much useless and a dead weight.

Spene on the other hand was fighting an already lost battle; no matter how hard he tried to win, he will lose in the end. That was a given fact.

He can\'t escape either since the gates to leave the third floor of the labyrinth were closed off and the only other way to leave this section, the passageways from where the goblins came, were also going to get shut off soon since the second and last wave of the monsters had already passed and now they will close automatically.

\'Yep, there\'s no way for them to survive.\'

With that set in stone, I turned around, pulled Challes from his chain, and walked inside the passageway.

As I walked a few steps forward I heard a rumbling sound coming from behind, the ground shook and dust fell from the ceiling. There was no need to look back, this was the gates of the passageways closing off.

When they were completely shut, the tunnel turned pitch black. Yet, there was a sense of comfort about it.