*¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤*

Since most of the fog cleared out, and all the remaining titan-class monsters were engaged in a fight with the Sloth soldiers, it was really easy to locate the next target without any need for looking at the map.

This was very convenient because the said map was beginning to slowly fade away - just as if the user of the skill was slowly losing consciousness...

...but that in and of itself was very concerning for the brown-haired girl blowing her body apart just so she could get to the next monster just a bit faster.

Although Mary didn't have any knowledge about the -Final frontier- quest, it wasn't that hard for her to figure out that what she needed, was a proper army and not just a few strong characters.

This wasn't the last wave - the final one was still ahead of them but the number of Sloth soldiers was constantly dropping.

If they were unlucky to engage a defense-oriented titan-class, their weapons and skills often proved to be insufficient to kill it on the first or second try which allowed the beasts to counter-attack.

Similarly with the speed-oriented ones - even though those could die from a well-aimed volley, they often had enough momentum that their lifeless body would end up crushing some of the soldiers in their path.

Funnily enough, the strength-oriented ones were the easiest to deal with... as long as they didn't have a ranged attack skill to their advantage...

All in all, Mary knew that she had to do something to make the possess on their side be minimal.

*SHING*

"Mend!"

*SHING* *SHING*

"Mend! Mend!"

*SHING* *SHING* *SHING*

"Mend! Mend! Mend!"

*SHING* *SHING* *SHING* *SHING* *SHING* *SHING* *SHING* *SHING* *SHING* *SHING*

"Mend! Mend! Mend! Mend! Mend! Mend! Mend! Mend! Mend! Mend!"

As if she was a windup toy, Mary unleashed a full power of the storm talon skill that she was borrowing from her griffin and tore through every limb of a cockroach-like titan-class with a humanoid face and sharp spike-like claws covering its whole carapace.

Even though each ranged strike should be invisible as it cut through the air, the ones shot out by Mary were all faintly red from the blood - with each consecutive use, Mary's hands would simply blow apart in the geyser of blood and then returned to their normal state with her using her healing skill just to be blown apart again until she was satisfied with the result.

...the result being the fall of the monster, which allowed the struggling Sloth soldiers to swarm it from all sides and finish it off without another casualty.

*¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤*

---

"..."

Shanks couldn't even keep his head up by himself. The only reason he was able to keep aiming at the monsters ahead of him, was that the amount of blood that he vomited made sliding the large rifle around basically effortless.

The rat-faced man was no longer looking like a living being, his body was dried up almost to the bare bones and only the pale blue light in his eyes would allow anyone to notice that he isn't just some ancient corpse.

"...not enough... need to defeat more... can't allow more of my soldiers to die..."

Shanks's voice wasn't even audible, it was just a pained sigh created by the barely functioning lungs.

The time lost any meaning for him, it could be that only five minutes have passed since the two girls rushed at the monsters, or it could have been a thousand years...

That didn't matter.

Even though he could feel his body dying off as the seconds passed, he didn't stop surpassing every humanly possible limit of endurance.

*¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤*

The brittle finger pulled the trigger and unleashed another beam that finished off a titan-class monster without fail.

Anyone from the Sloth family could use the charge cannon once per fifteen minutes, but still, they would lose consciousness if they used it over ten times in a single day.

Using it twice within the same minute would make the user vomit blood.

Using it six times consecutively in the span of twenty minutes was a confirmed death sentence.

Only the avatar of sloth was known to have a much higher limit than that.

And then there was Shanks...

Not the strongest modified human cultivated within the Sloth territory, but certainly the one with the strongest will.

Originally he was raised to be the next avatar of sloth, but that strong will of his was determined to be an obstacle to inheriting the position, and hence he was redesigned as the next general of the army...

...and his older brother became the next avatar in his place...

...that had broken the young boy and made him turn into a deserter and traverse the entire sea of mist and escape the territory.

He should be killed off, but instead, the new avatar of sloth decided to seal off his powers and let him roam the kingdom free from the burden of his past.

Even though Shanks knew better, he couldn't help but think about that as his older brother's farewell gift.

...but look at him now...

Out of the over seventy titan-class monsters that got past the first defense line, he killed nineteen himself while Mary and Mika had killed six and all the Sloth soldiers got rid of twelve.

Altogether, the defenders managed to finish off over half of the monsters.

Thirty-seven, such a high number of the titan-class monsters defeated without the support of the artillery was unheard of thorough the Sloth territory's history.

...sadly, that didn't change the fact that there were at least thirty-three more beasts fighting their way through the second line of defense - and the defenders weren't getting stronger fast enough to keep up with the insane amount of stamina that the titan-class monsters possessed.

...to put it simply, time certainly wasn't on their side...

*RUMBLE*

"»¿¡¤|•£¥÷± •±€¤"

As if to prove that point, the earth shook and a piercing inhuman roar let even the barely alive Shanks know that the humongous cyclops has finally recovered enough to get back up and resume their sage.

Shanks couldn't turn enough to face the gargantuan beast, he honestly didn't even want to in the first place.

He knew it was over for him.

"...I hope that Uresha, Rotte, and Lairs will somehow make it out alive... sorry... I love you all..."

Shank's sighed as his dried-up hand fell limply to the side right next to his rifle.

"...ah... the tower of sloth..."

With the fog completely gone, the main city of the Sloth territory was perfectly visible on the horizon - mainly due to the singular building that was reaching towards the sky.

A pure white tower with an enormous see-through sphere on top of it.

The very place from where the avatar of sloth supplied the energy necessary for the artillery, as well as controlled the sea of mist's movement and was keeping an eye on the whole territory altogether.

*THUMP*

*THUMP*

The cyclops' footsteps made Shanks's incapacitated body jump, and the next one was very likely to crush him...

"...big brother... if I may be selfish one last time... if even a tiny bit of your soul is still alive there... please... protect those idiots that chose to be my family..."

The dried-up rat-faced man closed his eyes and smiled.

...

*¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤*

*¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤*

*¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤*

*¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤* *¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤*

That's why he missed the whole tower of sloth lighting up with intense pale blue light as well as thirty-four beams of light shooting out from the sphere at the very top.

Each beam of light cut through and rained death on each and every titan-class monster still alive...

The humongous cyclops was no exception, the beam of light shot right through its chest that was indented from Mika's punch, and send the monstrosity down on its knees.