"Now then, my oversized friend. How exactly should I cook you?"
Venting my thoughts while shifting my physical trajectory mid-air to comfortably dodge the titan's downward punch, I began planning my counter-offensive.
Now that the strict mana limitations were officially lifted, I could flood my biological chassis with as much energy as I wanted to maximize my physical reinforcement. Granted, my control was still incredibly messy, meaning a massive portion of the surplus energy constantly leaked out of my feathers as raw friction. While the titan was still absorbing the surrounding miasma, any stray energy I released would have been plundered as premium fuel, making me far too terrified to use my skills. But now that it was a fully stabilized, independent entity, I was clear to spam my ordnance to my heart's content.
While I couldn't mathematically calculate the exact multiplier of my current physical enhancement, the leap in raw combat capability was undeniable. Man, you really can't survive in this world without a healthy dose of cheat-tier specs, can you? Thanks to the heightened processing power of my reinforced brain, I could instantly manifest whatever movement I visualized in my mind with absolute structural fidelity. Ordinarily, achieving this level of performance would plunge a person into a deep state of intoxicating omnipotence... but having lived alongside the apex monsters of the Highlands, this tier of power wasn't nearly enough to make me act smug. In fact, back home, this was the baseline required just to stay alive.
(So, against an opponent of this caliber...)
The colossal fist struck the soil with a deafening crash, effortlessly pulverizing the exact patch of earth I had occupied a microsecond prior. However, my body was already floating gracefully through the upper airspace.
Honestly, what even was this undead anomaly? Visually, it was nothing more than a towering, grotesque heap of rotten meat, yet it stubbornly maintained a loosely humanoid frame. That said, it wasn't a clean human silhouette by any stretch; its proportions were incredibly stout and blocky—reminding me vividly of a crude clay doll sculpted by a toddler. It was, for all practical intents and purposes, a flesh golem. Its eyes and mouth were nothing more than shallow, hollow depressions sunk into its face.
Alright, decided! From this second onward, your official name is "Carrion Golem"! You smell absolutely terrible, so let's hurry up and dispose of you!
"Which means I'll be taking one of your arms as an opening down payment. ...Hup!"
Targeting the massive limb that was currently overextended against the pulverized soil, I launched a high-velocity diving kick straight out of the sky.
Utilizing my raw mana, I hadn't just reinforced my baseline muscular strength; I had heavily augmented the physical density of my talons. At my current developmental tier, my "reinforcement" was nothing more than a crude brute-force method—forcibly shoving massive volumes of energy into an object to make it unbreakable—but against this opponent, crude violence was more than enough. My foot, swung with the full kinetic momentum of my descent, struck the colossal arm without encountering a fraction of resistance, cleanly severing the limb. It wasn't even a clean cut; the sheer lateral force of the impact had violently wrenched and twisted the flesh until the shoulder joint structurally detonated.
"Now I'll just tear off the remaining limbs to ensure you can't throw any more tantrums, and then I'll use a Mana Cannon to vaporize—wait, what?"
Intending to use a low-output mana burst to reset my aerial trajectory, I paused as I caught sight of the severed stump. The ragged tissue was violently writhing.
Flooding a micro-dose of mana into my optic nerves to track the energy flow, I confirmed an immense concentration of magical power rushing straight toward the wound. Before the realization could fully settle, the arm I had just violently detonated was fully restored in the blink of an eye. From a structural standpoint, it appeared to be burning its internal mana reserves to manifest fresh, corrupt flesh out of absolute nothingness. And that internal energy was being continuously converted from the massive pool of negative karmic malice anchoring its core. It was operating as quite the formidable mana battery.
Great, it's a dedicated regenerator. I used to square off against this exact breed of monster all the time back in the Highlands, and without fail, they were a massive pain to deal with.
"And when a monster behaves like this, usually... Yep, figures. The severed arm is still moving."
Glancing down toward the arm I had previously sheared off, its massive fingers were currently digging deep into the soil to kill its momentum. The exact microsecond it stabilized, it would undoubtedly come barreling straight back toward me at full speed.
Note taken: cutting this thing into pieces simply increases the number of active hazards on the field.
"In that case, I'll just change my approach... Whoa! Close one!"
Before I could adjust my offensive strategy, the titan's entire body violently erupted with massive, localized bulges, launching an immense swarm of elongated, whip-like flesh tentacles straight toward my position. The sheer volume easily cleared the triple digits. I immediately engaged my rear vents to vault higher into the atmosphere, but to my profound irritation, every single strand was being manually steered, twisting through the air to pursue my signature. Worse still, the main body was already cooking up a secondary batch; an additional wall of meat whips was currently screaming into the sky.
(Even if they look thin compared to its massive twenty-meter frame, each of those individual whips is at least thirty centimeters thick!)
To make matters infinitely more annoying, the tentacles began branching out mid-flight, splitting into multi-pronged arrays. Wrenching my leg back, I delivered a maximum-power kick to shatter a cluster that had managed to close the distance, but the moment the tips exploded into paste, a fresh set of multiple whips sprouted instantly from the remaining stumps. To top it off, while the initial batch possessed rounded tips, these new variants were explicitly jagged and pointed. It was structurally repulsive, it smelled like a landfill, and the sheer volume was multiplying by the second. This was officially the worst.
"Ah, enough! You are incredibly annoying! Die!"
If the opponent wanted to overwhelm me through sheer numbers, I would simply match its volume with my own.
Unleashing a massive, sustained blast from the soles of my feet, I cleanly incinerated the entire vanguard of incoming tentacles. Instantly shifting my consciousness back to my internal core, I segmented my massive reservoir into twenty distinct, independent clusters. Even as I burned the energy, my anomalous biological systems instantly replenished the deficit—a terrifying anomaly I chose not to overthink—as I molded the twenty clusters into perfect, hovering spheres. This was the preparation matrix for my multi-line Mana Cannon.
My objective was simple: burn through the remaining tentacles, inflict maximum structural trauma on the main body, and cleanly erase that severed arm currently marching back into the sector.
"FIRE!"
The entire horizon was instantly bleached into pure, blinding white.
The flashing brilliance erupted from the twenty spheres, instantly vaporizing the carrion whips into microscopic dust before screaming forward to melt the very roots anchoring them to the titan's body. The rogue arm was swallowed by the light a microsecond later. The sheer intensity of the multi-cannon discharge completely obscured my vision, but the initial kinetic payload had explicitly pierced the designated coordinates. While I couldn't verify the exact damage metrics through the glare, it had undoubtedly shaved off a massive chunk of its health bar.
Then again, can we talk about how hard I've been working? Just a short while ago, executing a simultaneous multi-line volley of this scale was an absolute impossibility for me. My absolute limit used to be four lines—one from each limb. Pushing myself past the breaking point yielded eight lines at best; that was the absolute ceiling I brought to the table during my battle against the Beast King.
But look at me now! My fine-tuned mana manipulation had improved so much that I could comfortably manage twenty-four lines—triple my previous record! Granted, Amelia-san had explicitly nagged me until her ears turned red to 'keep the operational volume strictly around twenty units to eliminate the risk of accidental misfires.'
(The one time I accidentally lost control of the compression parameters and tossed the sphere into the upper atmosphere, it literally manufactured a microscopic, artificial sun over the plains...)
You know that classic trope in anime where a massive explosion occurs and the entire background just turns into a blank white void before fading away? It was exactly like that. Fortunately, nobody was positioned within the blast radius, so we emerged with zero casualties... but looking back, my track record with magical experimentation is honestly a complete disaster. Let's not forget the time I botched a basic fireball creation exercise and accidentally converted a massive sector of regional land into an uninhibitable wasteland for a few days. For some reason, my baseline logic is still deeply institutionalized by the laws of the Highlands. Over there, apocalyptic localized strikes were an everyday occurrence, and through some unexplained environmental anomaly, the topography always reset itself by the next morning. Because of that, my brain keeps slipping into the mindset of: 'Eh, it'll probably fix itself by tomorrow...'
"If I keep acting careless, I'm going to end up accidentally vaporizing an ally or a civilian. I need to exercise strict self-restraint."
As I chided myself, the blinding glare finally began to dissipate.
Alright, let's see the damage report.
Scanning the field, the highly irritating swarm of flesh tentacles had been thoroughly neutralized. As for the severed arm that had been attempting to rejoin the main body, the exact patch of soil it had occupied was currently glowing red-hot, its top layer completely melted into a smooth, glassy sheet. The limb itself was gone without a trace. Excellent.
However...
"The target remains operational. Figures as much."
I had undeniably inflicted severe structural trauma on the Carrion Golem's primary mass. Its towering frame was visibly riddled with massive, gaping holes bored out by my Mana Cannons. Yet, an immense volume of dark energy was violently coursing through its flesh, and the regeneration protocols were already initializing. This was one of those classic textbook scenarios: either I had to completely erase every single cell of its mass in a single frame, or I had to sit tight and play the long game until its internal battery completely ran out of juice.
"Whoa, the reconstruction is already finished? And that signature is... a concentration of mana?"
Even as the thought crossed my mind, the golem's physical restoration concluded. However, it hadn't reset into the basic mound of meat from before; its outer hide was currently erupting with sharp, hollow protrusions—no, those were explicit launch ports. Its internal energy was pooling directly into those chambers... It appeared this specific undead possessed a highly adaptive learning matrix, capable of analyzing external threats and evolving its own combat specifications to counter them in real-time.
The structural framework of my Mana Cannon was nothing more than a direct plagiarization of the technique developed by the Beast King. And the core foundation of that technique operated on an incredibly primitive mechanical principle. While my manipulation metrics had seen a minor upgrade, my overall magical education was still firmly in the preschool tier. The technique was simple enough for a beginner like me to wield: collect mana into a single coordinate, compress it, and let it rip.
Which meant: replicating or copying the methodology was laughably simple. Though, granted, the output it manufactured would naturally be a heavily degraded imitation of the original.
(The legendary Beast King achieved his devastating output through unmatched, high-level mana manipulation. I achieve my devastating output through an astronomical internal volume and natural biological compression. Looking at the target's signatures, its internal pool isn't small by conventional standards, but it's hardly operating on my level of absolute absurdity. Whatever projectile it spits out shouldn't be too terrifying.)
Even so, standing around like an idiot just to let the enemy get a free shot off was incredibly unappealing. I had initially held back my maximum output to gather some actual live-fire combat experience, but the second the opponent decides to transition into high-range artillery warfare, the rules of the engagement change completely.
While we had established a reasonable distance, my children were still positioned within the broader sector, alongside Matilde, Amelia-san, and the conventional infantry... not to mention the Tactician. If my casual hand-wringing resulted in an ally getting caught in the crossfire, I would never forgive myself.
It was time to close the book on this encounter immediately.
"There are no flammable civilian structures in the immediate vicinity, and the nearest civilized town is leagues away... Let's give it a spin."
Muttering under my breath, I began concentrating my internal energy.
According to standard textbooks, negative entities classified as undead possessed two primary, absolute elemental weaknesses: the Fire attribute and the Holy attribute. The latter was completely outside my biological capability, but the former was an art I could reasonably manifest. After all, I hadn't just memorized the formalized incantations; I possessed actual live-fire experience utilizing the element. While my structural manipulation remained highly volatile—earning me a strict operational ban from my "Master"—one cannot accumulate actual refinement without practical deployment. If I never used it, mastering the art would remain a distant dream.
Besides, it has been an absolute law since ancient times: all filth must be thoroughly sanitized.
"『Fireball (Fireball)』."
Raising a single wing, I quietly articulated the activation Key. The exact microsecond the syllable left my beak, an immense volume of internal mana vanished from my reservoir, constructing a microscopic, glowing crimson speck deep in the upper atmosphere high above my head.
And then, fueled by the highly dense, pre-compressed energy anchoring my core, it underwent an explosive expansion. In the blink of an eye, the tiny ember swelled into a colossal, roaring sphere of pure crimson flame—a brilliant, blinding sun that completely dwarfed my own physical frame. The sheer, radiating thermal output was so intense that even with my high environmental resistances, my outer feathers should have flash-melted on the spot. In fact, my chassis was actively melting away from the edges, but because my internal systems were continuously flooding the deficit with fresh mana to trigger instant regeneration, I remained functionally unmarked.
"Let's try to minimize the environmental collateral damage slightly. What was the phrase again...? Oh right, 『Earth Wall (Earth Wall)』."
The moment the incantation was delivered, an even more absurd volume of mana plundered my internal systems. The spell itself executed successfully, but it appeared my biological matrix possessed absolute zero affinity for the Earth element... resulting in the system charging me an astronomical premium to process the command. Yet, through our signature "glitch," my internal battery immediately rushed to fill the void, allowing the arcana to construct itself with absolute structural precision.
Targeting the area directly surrounding the Carrion Golem—which had been glaring straight up into the heavens, trying to calculate a counter to my artificial sun—an immense, circular wall of solid stone erupted from the earth, completely sealing it inside a massive arena.
I couldn't calculate the exact mathematical thickness of the barrier, but the stone barricade enclosing the titan looked significantly more robust than any castle wall I had encountered across the kingdoms. The height perfectly scaled to match the golem's towering frame. With this layout, the barrier would act as a perfect thermal shield, ensuring the apocalyptic heat wouldn't cause any unnecessary discomfort to my friends stationed at the rear.
"Alright, down you go."
With a casual flick of my wing, I brought the miniature sun tracking downward.
Descending gracefully through the atmosphere, the massive sphere of destruction was flawlessly sucked into the circular arena crafted by my stone walls. The undead titan appeared to be frantically executing various defensive measures within its cage, but every single action was instantly swallowed by the primordial inferno. Tentacles, plagiary mana cannons, and whatever desperate counters its adaptive mind could cook up were completely rendered meaningless before the absolute supremacy of overwhelming thermal output. I suppose elemental advantages really are no joke.
It was a harsh reality beaten into my skull during my time in the Highlands: in this world, elemental matchups dictate the parameters of survival. An opponent you stand zero chance against under conventional metrics can be comfortably dismantled if you secure an absolute elemental advantage. Granted, the Highlands was packed with freaks who would casually ignore elemental logic entirely, which is precisely why that place was a literal nightmare.
(Man, the more I look back on that backyard, the more I realize it was pure, unadulterated hell.)
The fireball completed its descent, achieving absolute direct contact.
A brief, distorted shriek of agony rippled through the air, but the sound was instantly consumed by the roaring flames, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake.
Target neutralized. Clean sweep.
◇◆◇◆◇
"Whoa, okay! The stone wall managed to hold its structural integrity, but the center is still actively cooking. I need to put this out right away."
Scanning the sector through my mana perception, the energetic signature of the undead golem had been completely erased down to the absolute cell. Not a single trace remained; total incineration was verified. However, the residual fire from my fireball showed zero signs of slowing down. It was still roaring with immense intensity. In fact, was the earth itself actively melting? The thermal output of the strike had been so absurdly tuned that the interior face of my stone barrier had turned black, its top layer completely vitrifying into a smooth, pristine sheet of glass... I appear to have casually manufactured a localized pocket of literal hell. I am genuinely terrifying.
"First step is obviously water. Let's see... 『Water Ball (Water Ball)』."
Intending to douse the flames, I deployed the standard template to manifest an equivalent sphere of water above my head... only for the system to violently plunder my internal reservoir on a scale that completely dwarfed the previous spell. Let's put it into perspective: creating that massive fireball had consumed the structural equivalent of roughly one entire Demon King battery pack. This water sphere? I had ordered an identical volume to match the size of the previous sun, and the system instantly vaporized four entire Demon Kings right out of my core. The sudden, violent drainage was so severe I almost lost my flight stabilization arrays mid-air.
I mean, I was explicitly warned that casting an element outside your natural biological affinity would demand an astronomical premium, but this is bordering on absolute robbery. The single remaining Demon King left inside my core is literally curled up in a corner, weeping from the trauma. Well, fortunately, my biological systems immediately glitched out, restoring the deficit while arbitrarily multiplying the cap... Oh, look at that. My internal count just climbed to six Demon Kings. I went from losing my batteries to acquiring an entire secondary vanguard of internal entities. Welcome to the chassis, boys. If things ever look dicey, I will instantly dissolve you back into raw mana without a single microsecond of hesitation, so make sure you behave yourselves.
"Given how much energy was plundered when I made that stone barrier too... it's safe to assume my biological matrix possesses absolute zero affinity for those elements."
Since I had barely even scratched the surface of my formal elemental training, I had zero data regarding my compatibility with other categories. But based on today's live-fire data, the only element my body naturally cooperative with was Fire. Earth was barely manageable, but Water was a complete, unmitigated disaster for my talent metrics. I suppose individual magical compatibility varies wildly across sentient beings, so it can't be helped... but four entire Demon Kings for a single water balloon is still an absolute scam.
Then again, when your body possesses a permanent, active bug that constantly replenishes and expands your mana pool anyway, efficiency metrics don't really matter. We have infinite ammo!
"And drop."
Mirroring my previous movement, I tilted my wing to drop the massive sphere of water directly into the roaring furnace. Yielding to gravity, the colossal payload plummeted straight into the circular stone arena, triggering a deafening, explosive hiss as it violently snuffed out the primordial flames.
"Huh... I accidentally built a massive swimming pool. ...Wait, should I wash the children in here?"
Scanning the structural layout, it looked a bit too hazardous for family time. The interior basin had been completely vitrified into smooth glass, and the sudden, violent thermal shock of the water hitting the superheated stone had caused the barrier to warp, fracturing into dozens of incredibly sharp, jagged spires. While our biological hides were far too durable to suffer a scratch from mere stone splinters, taking a casual bath inside a literal fortress of spikes felt a bit counter-productive. Furthermore, the sheer height of the walls made entry and exit a massive chore; I had successfully manufactured an incredibly inconvenient architectural anomaly. The surface area was massive, but who on earth is going to utilize a swimming pool that clocks in at a depth of nearly twenty meters? If anyone falls in there, they are going to straight-up drown.
"Seriously, what am I supposed to do with this thing...? Wait, could we potentially market this as a local tourist landmark?"
Musing over future economic development projects, I zipped across the airspace to return to the children's base camp. Even from a distance, the view was deeply heartwarming: every single chick was maintaining a perfect, disciplined seated position, enthusiastically waving their wings toward my incoming silhouette. Oh look, there's a particularly coordinated one who was managing to hop up and down without ever breaking its seated posture. Talk about a magnificent waste of extreme physical specs.
Yes, yes~. You don't have to flap your wings so hard, Mama can see every single one of your beautiful faces. Verifying the count across the camp... excellent, every single soul was accounted for. Total babysitting success!
"Mama's home, everyone! You all did such an amazing job waiting patiently like good children!"
"Mama!"
"We were good?"
"So good!"
"Dele was the best!"
"MAMAMAMAMA!"
"That was amazing!"
Ah, is that so, is that so? Thank you all so much~. Yes, yes, you were all absolute angels for staying put. And you were all watching Mama fight from over here, right? It looked amazing? Hehe, yup, Mama's hard work paid off beautifully!
"One more time! One more time!"
...W-One more time? Whoa, whoa, let's definitely hold off on an encore, okay? The previous strike was barely acceptable because there was an active existential threat on the field, but if I start spamming artificial suns across a completely empty plain, your mother is going to be officially classified as a wandering lunatic...
"Eeeh—!"
"Disappointing~."
"Stingy Mama!"
"Ahaha, sorry, sorry... Wait, who just called me stingy?"
""""""Hmm—?""""""
You little rascals. The entire three-hundred-strong flock simultaneously tilted their heads in perfect, synchronized ignorance. Seriously, who was it? Who taught them that specific vocabulary? Your mother has never uttered that word once in her life! Could someone please point out the culprit so Mama can comfortably reduce them to cinders? Come on, step forward and take accountability. Your brains just got a massive developmental upgrade, so I know you remember! The one who just called me stingy! Let's see some wings in the air!
""""""Haaay!""""""
"...I explicitly asked for the culprit to raise their wing, not the entire assembly. Oh well, if you've already forgotten, let's keep it permanently buried in your memory banks. Alright, the hunt is officially closed! We're moving out to regroup with the conventional forces. This time, instead of following Dele, you are going to march strictly behind me. Let me hear your confirmation!"
""""""YEAH!""""""
〇 Regarding Magical Element Affinities
While specific demographics like the Elves possess a high baseline racial affinity for particular elements as a collective trait, across the wider continental population, individual compatibility is rarely dictated strictly by species. The occurrence of specialized racial affinities is a trait predominantly observed among Monsters—a biological reality that historically made the Elves a target for intense systemic discrimination across human societies (a dynamic that has been thoroughly dismantled in the modern era).
The Ostrich flock operates under identical biological laws; a vast majority of the chicks do not share the specialized Fire affinity possessed by Wraith.
Furthermore, while it remains structurally possible for an entity to force the activation of an element outside their biological affinity, the mechanical process demands an astronomical, prohibitive volume of raw mana. Consequently, short of possessing an absolute, god-tier energy reservoir that defies the laws of physics or an automated self-replenishment matrix, no conventional caster would ever attempt to cross-cast. To put Wraith's internal metrics into perspective: processing the template for the Water Ball demanded an energy volume roughly fifty times greater than the requirement for her Fireball.