The mage was seized by a woman—more precisely, something wearing the shape of a woman—and dragged away.The direction was toward the dark night sea.
If this continued, it was obvious he would be dragged into the water.
It wasn’t the time for such thoughts, but the mage’s state looked very much like a fish caught on a fishing line.
The difference was that the fishing hook itself had moved and caught the fish (the mage).
Ah, there was one more difference.
That difference was Anagin’s presence.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
At the very moment the mage was being dragged away,
Anagin released Energy(Γι), forming a giant hand that grabbed the mage and saved him.
The transparent thread that had been pulling the mage tightened with even greater force, trying to drag him away, but it had picked the wrong opponent.
When Anagin pulled back with strength, the transparent thread was instead dragged toward him, and then it snapped.
Kiiieeeek!!
A bizarre scream echoed from beyond the darkness.
“Kuhk......!”
Immediately after, the mage, flung down as if tossed by Anagin, let out the sound of air leaving his lungs.
The other mages rushed to ask if he was all right.
However, it was a bit too early for greetings and concern.
Whoosh!
Anagin kicked a burning piece of firewood forward, and as the black night sea was illuminated, fish-men began to raise their heads from beneath the surface, one by one.
'Dozens... no, there must be at least a hundred of them.'
Splsh. Splsh.
Disgusting, water-soaked sounds rang out from all sides as the fish-men crawled onto land.
They were basically similar to the fish-men seen in villages, but there were slight differences.
They were armed with tridents and harpoons, and their builds were a bit larger.
They looked like soldiers who had undergone training.
‘Now then, what should I do.......’
Watching the fish-men closing in, Anagin pondered his next move.
Ah, for the record, he wasn’t afraid.
There were quite a lot of them, but in the end, they were just fish.
One fish, two fish, a hundred fish—fish were still fish.
The only difference was how many times he would have to swing his blade, and Anagin was confident in his stamina.
The problem was whether Anagin should handle them alone or mobilize the mages disguised as merchants into the fight.
First of all, from a common-sense standpoint, it was better to keep the mages’ identities hidden.
Revealing their true nature here, when it wasn’t even necessary, would mean exposing carefully concealed strength for no benefit at all.
It would be like discarding a card that could be used effectively against the Barbaroi Cult.
So, logically, the best course was to send all the mages to the rear and have Anagin deal with the fish-men alone.
Logically speaking, that is.
The reason it was only “logical” was because the situation Anagin was in right now was not logical at all.
As stated repeatedly, Anagin and the mages were not in a relationship of trust.
They had grown a little closer, but only a little.
They were not at the level of entrusting their backs to one another.
This could be a good opportunity to gauge the mages’ true capabilities.
Aside from the fisherman mage’s water manipulation magic, he didn’t know what other spells they could use.
More than that, showing an overly flawless front against the Barbaroi Cult felt uncomfortable.
After all, wouldn’t it be better to show some openings when you get probed once, so the other side can relax?
Anagin weighed the two plans carefully and finally made his decision.
“All right, decision—”
Splash! Splash!
The moment Anagin opened his mouth, the fisherman mage wetted his hands with water from a flask and fired it, piercing straight through the skulls of the approaching fish-men.
Immediately after, the other mages each entered combat readiness.
A mage who transformed into a gigantic feline beast, a mage who pulled out a doll stitched together from living creatures from an Interspatial Bag, a mage who controlled the firewood flames to light the surroundings and form massive fire, and a mage who created barriers to manage the front line.
The mages moved on their own judgment first.
The fisherman mage, acting as their representative, briefly asked Anagin,
"Well, is there a problem?"
“No, not really.”
* * *
The battle itself was not difficult.
Even though the fish-men numbered in the hundreds and were stronger than ordinary humans, to begin with, they were a terrible matchup against Anagin.
Even their thick muscles and hard scales—unthinkable by normal human standards—meant little against the Beast Devourer, as each swing of the blade carved through them in chunks, like slicing cheese.
As long as their heads were still fish, dodging rather than blocking would have been more effective.
But even that was difficult.
Perhaps because they were fish, their movements on land were oddly sluggish, making it nearly impossible for them to evade Anagin’s attacks.
‘Their spear work is crude, too.’
Meaningless defense, sluggish movement, crude weapon skills.
When these three factors came together, the fish-men were no different from scarecrows to Anagin.
Each time he swung the Beast Devourer, they were simply cut down, spraying blood.
As a result, the Beast Devourer, having expended most of its power in the fight with Orpheus, absorbed blood and slowly began to recover.
‘It’s not filling up as well as I thought.’
Anagin thought as he watched the red pig emblem engraved on the blade grow only slightly darker.
It seemed he had used more power in the fight with Orpheus than he realized.
The complete Pigmenes likely wasn’t something that could be summoned easily. Powerful, but with a correspondingly large drain.
It was regrettable, but unavoidable.
This wasn’t a problem Anagin could solve right now.
Rather than worry about things beyond his control, Anagin decided to focus on what he could do at the moment.
Cutting down fish-men and observing the mages’ fighting.
‘Hmm, they’re better than I expected.’
Against hundreds of fish-men, the mages were performing steadily.
First, the fisherman mage fired his specialty—high-speed water jets—boring holes through the skulls of fish-men that looked like commanders.
The command structure collapsed in an instant.
At that moment, the doll mage sent a gigantic doll—made by stitching together various living creatures—charging into the fish-men, throwing their ranks into chaos.
Through the gaps thus created, the transformation mage, who had turned into a feline beast, plunged in and cut off the fish-men’s lifelines.
When the fish-men’s attention was sufficiently drawn, the fire mage hurled massive fireballs, grilling more than a dozen fish-men at once.
In that opening, the doll and transformation mages pulled back, regrouped, and prepared for another charge.
Enraged fish-men tried to pursue them, but each time, the defense mage erected semi-transparent barriers to block their advance.
Then the fire mage sent another fireball, roasting the immobilized fish-men.
After one such sweep, the doll and transformation mages charged again.
Calmly, methodically, they reduced the fish-men’s numbers.
It felt less like a battle and more like work.
“Haha! This is nothing!”
“Yeah. Other than the numbers......! This’ll be over soon.”
The mages shouted in excitement at the easier-than-expected fight.
Up to this point, Anagin agreed.
The fish-men had numbers, but not much else.
But rather than relief, he felt concern.
If the Barbaroi Cult turned out to be weaker than expected and simply fled, that would be a problem in its own way.
Just as he was thinking that—
Ting!
He heard the sound of an attack being blocked and deflected.
The blocked attack was the fisherman mage’s spell.
Slightly surprised, Anagin shifted his gaze toward the direction where it had been stopped.
After all, even Anagin acknowledged that the fisherman mage’s magic was fast and powerful.
A spell that fired thin streams of water at high speed to pierce the enemy.
The one that blocked it was none other than a hermit crab walking on two legs.
“What’s that now?”
Following behind the fish-men, hermit crab-men emerged onto the shore.
With their upper bodies covered by enormous hermit crab shells, they walked forward on barnacle-encrusted crustacean limbs. A truly grotesque gait.
The fire mage fired a mass of flame, trying to sweep the hermit crab-men away.
Boom!
Crimson flames exploded and swept the area, but the hermit crab-men were unharmed.
Just before the fireball hit, they had hidden their entire bodies inside their shells, then extended their limbs again and stood up.
Those shells were extraordinarily tough, or perhaps they had resistance to magic itself.
Whichever it was, the mages whose attacks had been blocked looked quite shaken.
The one saving grace was that, unlike the fish-men, there were only dozens of them, not hundreds.
However, the problem wasn’t limited to hermit crab-men alone.
Thud!
To block the hermit crab-men, the doll mage sent his doll charging in.
Since magic attacks were being blocked, he was trying physical force instead.
But before it even reached them, the doll collapsed flat.
When they looked to see what it had tripped over, something writhed, and then, as its camouflage peeled away, an octopus-man with multiple tentacle limbs wrapped itself around the doll, binding it tightly.
The Barbaroi Cult didn’t consist of fish-men alone.
The mages, who had been pushing forward easily, showed signs of panic once their attacks were blocked, and as they panicked, their magic became visibly unstable.
Was it because magic used Yeom, a mental force?
Anagin, who still needed the mages, moved to support them immediately.
Tadadada—tak!
Ignoring the remaining fish-men, he ran forward.
He started by slicing the octopus-man that had bound the doll mage's doll.
Kiiiiiik—!
The octopus-man let out a shrill scream, convulsed, and then shriveled up.
It would have been troublesome to handle barehanded, but once cut by the Beast Devourer, it died with alarming ease.
“I’ll handle those shells, so you guys deal with the fish heads.”
After freeing the doll, Anagin tossed it back and issued the order.
The one-sided command might have been irritating, but having faced hermit crabs that resisted magic, the mages obeyed without complaint.
As soon as the roles were divided, Anagin withdrew his attention from the fish-men and focused on the hermit crabs approaching him.
Hermit crabs were beasts, too, so with the Beast Devourer—
Clang!
Anagin swung the Beast Devourer, but instead of cleanly bisecting the hermit crab, his strike was blocked.
Were the shells particularly tough, or were shells not considered part of the beast?
Using the opening created by the blocked attack, the hermit crab swung its claw at Anagin.
The attack was huge and slow, so Anagin easily dodged, retreating as he thought.
Should he use Yul (εὐ) with the Beast Devourer to chop those shells apart, or try another method?
His deliberation didn’t last long.
There was no need to reveal his hand.
Anagin put away the Beast Devourer and went barehanded.
The allied mages, and even the enemy hermit crabs tilted their heads, as if wondering what he was doing.
After all, it was common sense that bare hands were weaker than hands holding weapons.
But that wasn’t the case for Anagin.
Bare hands or weapons—it depended on his mood and efficiency at the time.
As if to prove it, Anagin swung his fist at a hermit crab.
Startled by the sheer momentum, the hermit crab hurriedly hid its body inside its shell, trying to block as before.
Seizing that moment, Anagin unclenched his fist, grabbed the shell, and lifted it straight up.
......!
The hermit crab-man struggled at the sudden turn of events, but that was all. It could do nothing more.
Holding it aloft, Anagin swung the hermit crab at another approaching hermit crab.
Crack!
The colliding shells let out a dull sound and shattered.
Between the broken shells, tender flesh was exposed.
Anagin crushed that flesh underfoot, finishing the hermit crab-man.
Bibibibibi—! The hermit crabs let out incomprehensible screams, bubbles frothing from their mouths.
After dispatching two hermit crab-men and just as he was about to finish the rest—
Splaaaaaaash!!!
From the black night sea, a gigantic crab burst upward, spraying water in all directions.
At the appearance of the massive crab, Anagin’s gaze naturally followed it upward.
‘Again, what’s popping out this time—’
Three spearheads came flying toward Anagin’s head.
A trident.
Tak!
Just before his head was pierced, Anagin barely caught the trident and blocked it, but he couldn’t stop it completely.
The force behind it was stronger than expected, pushing Anagin backward.
Chiiiiiiik—!
If he relaxed even slightly, his head would be pierced, or he’d be knocked down, so Anagin braced both legs hard and forcibly halted the attack.
Then he looked at the face of his attacker.
He was fast and strong.
Almost like a horse.
“Huh?”
Anagin let out a dazed sound when he saw the attacker’s face.
Because the attacker’s face was literally that of a horse.
A horse’s head atop a human body made of seawater.
As Anagin was trying to make sense of it, he noticed the horse-headed man staring at someone.
It was looking at the captured subordinate woman.
With utterly desperate eyes.
“Ah... you came to save her? I’ll block you with everything I’ve got.”