Chereads / Volition / Chapter 177 - Defense

Chapter 177 - Defense

Soon enough, the house started to shake as the monsters tried to climb onto from every side, this was one of the downsides of floating in the air, they banged against the walls as they tried to force their ways in.

Nilrem stayed careful, the little run in he had with the invisible monster taught him that there would be more craved ones with special power like these.

One squeezed through the small opening in the front door, only to receiev a blade right through its forehead, barely after getting stabbed, his body was already dragged out and the sound of flesh being ripped apart and bones crumbling sounded for a few moments before another one tried to get in.

'That's good to know' remarked the young mage in his mind as he noticed some of them putting their hands or absurdly long tongues through small spaces in the windows.

Running through the house, he chopped off anything that was sticking out, leaving him with lots of dismembered body parts for later uses.

As they seemingly prioritised what they would get their teeth on the easiest, he could throw them some things to play with for a few moments if he needed some breathing room.

He hadn't slept at all ever since this had all begun after all, if he went on like this, he would inevitably end making a deadly mistake due to fatigue.

As such, sometimes using the stock he managed to gather, he microslept for a few moments, a technique gathered through his time in the academy as a student.

Like this, it seemed like he would be able to thin out the number of monsters until none remained.

As of now, none where reaching through the windows at all and the house wasn't even moving in the slighest, despite being able to hear some a few moments ago, all sounds had stopped and despite that, Nilrem felt uncomfortable.

'I hardly believe they would have left' he quietly and slowly approached each window and then the front door to quickly check through the small openings for anything.

It truly seemed like they were all gone, there were a few dead angles, so it might simply be that only stealthy ones were left.

'Still, I managed to do all of this without using much mana at all, I might level up soon too, despite being easy to kill the craving ones give lots of XP...' he thought as he stepped back into the center of the house, where he was the furthest from any openings.

He took the time to focus and meditate a bit and he quickly noticed something a bit weird.

'I didn't use that much mana recently...' he noticed a discrepancy in his mana level and as he searched for the cause of it, it quickly showed itself.

'Of course, even the mana...' obviously, even the ambient mana of this place was trying to eat, he purged the hungry mana from his system and inspected the surrounding mana.

Not all of it was like this but at least half of it seemed to be capable of devouring people's mana, he would need to be careful about this, his body would always absorb mana by itself when using some of it, taking in too much of this voracious mana would be certain to eat away at his mana in an instant.

'Everything is a trap in this plac- What was that?' he suddenly stood up as bared his wand forward.

There was light movement to thee house, it quickly happened again, growing stronger and stronger as well as coming faster and faster as well.

Before he could even start to think about what it could be, something burst through the wall in front of him, reaching him just as he managed to put up a crude barrier, it wasn't enough and Nilrem was sent flying back, crashing his back against the door to the basement.

He raised his head to take good look at his attacker.

There stood something that could only be truly understood by seeing it personally, at a first glance, it only appeared to a large, skinless man but that was far from the truth.

Making up this beast's impressive body was that of many of the monsters, it became apparent as it opened its hands, made from many fused hands, brought together with stitch-like line that were actually maws.

Fingers opened like a grostesque and malformed flower as the beast roared at the young mage, all semblance of thinking seemed now gone.

It's eyes were better mixed together, only a few pupils and irises weren't properly fised together in its puddle-like eyes.

Unlike most of the craving ones, this one only had a single, giant maw, going vertically through its hole chest and opening up like a bear trap.

It spreads its deformed arms and started walking forward.

Nilrem had somehow managed to keep a grasp on his wand as he was bashed away but his basic wind bullet weren't enough to deal with it, it only slapped them away as if they were mere flies in its path.

As he stomped his feet on the ground, Nilrem casted a earth wall, the fused monstrosity quickly destroyed it but the mage was already gone, nothing remained where he had been knocked away.

The monster opened its chest maw and swung its club-like tongue at the place its prey had been but nothing happened.

It started trashing around while loudly roaring, destroyed furnitures and walls in its rage.

The monster was unable to detect him, it tried tasting the air but nothing came up.

It walked out from the where it had bursted through from, nothing was to be seen apart from the floating buildings, all of the craving ones had either been killed or fused into this one creature.

After searching the area for a long time, the creature lost interest and went away to find something to satiate its hunger, multiple creatures have been put together to make it, their strength and hunger as well.

Nilrem hadn't been hiding anywhere around, he had simply opened the door to the basement and went inside.

The old man was nowhere to be seen at the moment.

Nilrem hadn't been certain it would work but the fact that the so-called basement, wasn't visible from the outside despite being right beneath the house, indicated that it either didn't exist or that there was a subspace in this subspace.

He had been expecting an attack still but it seemed like the craving ones couldn't even think of going inside of there.

'Now, where is he?' thought Nilrem as he casted a small ball of light down the stairs to illuminate his way, due to a lack of actual affinity, it quickly vanished after leaving his care.