Otherworld Adventure

Cecil's eyes immediately snapped wide open and he jumped up.

"!"

He immediately turned his attention to his surroundings and noticed the sounds of fighting and students yelling.

"What?"

Cecil found himself back in the clearing of the last Extra Trial. He was standing right in the middle of the clearing with the other students forming a large encirclement around him. To his surprise the monsters that they were facing were actually the Fallen that the World Tree showed him.

The Academy students including his friends were having a hard time dealing with them. This surprised Cecil. Even Lucia was having a hard time. The two girls who had awoken their Weapon Intents were also struggling to fight back the monsters.

'No way!'

Just as Cecil was about to pounce forward, he finally noticed that he was holding onto something.

When he lowered his eyes to the thing he was holding, it turned out to be another wooden sword, identical to his Perseverance and Corruption.

[You have witnessed the future that the World Tree predicted. The Final Trial has ended. Clear the wave of Fallen and proceed towards the Last Plaza, the Plaza of Rest.

Reward: The World Tree's 12th Thorn, Providence.]

The wooden sword had a dull gray color with the same golden runes engraved on the blade. The sword's shape was the same as the other Thorns and only the grooves on it were different.

Cecil noticed the gray colored mana surrounding the sword. When his attention was turned to it, the mana began to circulate and rush into his body's Mana Circuits. The pain first started from his hand and it slowly moved up his arm.

"N-no! Not yet!"

Cecil tried everything he could to prevent the mana from coming into his body. Even though it was a blessing, the pain that accompanied it was too much. Not to mention that his mana would be entirely devoured and it would render him useless in combat.

He had to first help his friends before he could receive the sword's blessing. The only way he could think of stopping the gray mana was to block it with his own mana. He circulated his mana and tried to create a wall in the Mana Circuits in his arms.

The wall worked perfectly, but Cecil couldn't help but notice that the gray mana was eating away at it slowly.

"This should give me a couple of minutes...or seconds..."

Cecil activated Mana Burst and rushed straight into the fight and quickly cut down one of the Fallen that was assaulting Lucia and Eli.

"Cecil?!"

"Cel!"

"Use your auras and cut their heads off then smash apart their brains! That's the only way to kill them!"

He briefly informed them about how to kill the monsters. Simply cutting the heads off wouldn't suffice to kill it. The core of the monster was located in its brain and as long as it was still functioning, the Fallen could keep on regenerating.

The problem was that the head of the Fallen were pretty sturdy despite looking only like flesh and bones. Another problem was their resistance. The mana resistance that these creatures had was absurdly large.

Mid-tier and low ranked high-tiered spells couldn't even put a dent on their bodies. So obliterating their heads using magic spells wasn't doable.

Except for Ainz however...he quickly noticed that his mid-tiered spells didn't work so he began rapidly casting high-tiered spells. The other mages followed suit, but they were quickly exhausted of their mana.

Only a select few were still able to keep on chanting and casting high-tiered spells.

Cecil rushed forwards and flashed in between each Fallen and brandished the World Tree's Thorn, Providence, to hack apart their heads.

Thankfully for him his Mana Bolts were still able to damage the monsters when he injected more mana to power the blasts.

He also went around the battle field and quickly informed the others of the monsters' weakness, but his constant use of mana had weakened the barrier he formed in his arm and the gray mana from Providence quickly rushed into his body.

"Guhh...damn..."

Cecil cursed and quickly flashed behind the encirclement of students. The mana exhausted and injured students were protected inside and Cecil directly collapsed next to them.

"What?!"

"H-hey!"

"Is this guy okay?!"

They all saw Cecil collapse and groan in pain. A gray aura was also beginning to surround his small body and Lucia couldn't help but grow worried when she saw this.

The students alongside their battle pets were putting up a struggle as they pushed back and slowly killed the Fallen.

The only problem was that the Fallen had many more numbers than them! This was true even when all of their battle pets were summoned. The pets were also put in a disadvantage. Some of them were too weak to fight or block the Fallen and they were fatally wounded not long after.

Some of the battle pets had even died before their owners could dismiss them back into the pet plane. The situation was turning hopeless and it was then that Fina remembered something.

"Th-that's right! Lulu, tell Cecil to summon Silver! Hurry!" Fina frantically yelled.

"O-okay!"

During his academy's training in the Accelerated Time Formation, Cecil was able to learn the summoning and dismissing spell that the non-combatant class students had used to summon and dismiss their battle pets.

Of course, Cecil still couldn't use any sort of magic spell, but he did find a way to substitute his lack of ability to use spells. Instead, he learned how to draw the spell formations that would appear when someone casted a magic spell.

The spell formations were normally very, very complex for mid to high-tiered magic spells, so they were rarely used when crafting a quick-cast, but thankfully for him, the Battle Pet Summoning and Dismissing Spells were only low-ranked magic spells despite them using the principles of spatial magic.

The way for him to use a spell was to use his non-elemental mana as a medium and draw a spell formation onto the air or on the ground. After he quickly finished drawing it, Cecil would then inject as much mana as he could into the formation until it started to activate.

It was totally different from the quick-casts that Lucia used to inscribe using monster materials and quality magic materials. Since he was using his mana for the inscription, he had to pour in even more mana for the spell to activate successfully. If he didn't then the inscribed magic formation would slowly dissipate not long after.

This new form of magic casting was actually ground breaking since it was another way for mages to cast magic without the need of incantations. Normally, original spells were the only spells that didn't require any incantations, but they were generally weaker than the normal spells.

However, Cecil had kept this form of spell casting to himself. He didn't want others to find out about his inability to cast any sort of magic spells.

Cecil had totally forgotten about the Battle Pet Summoning ever since he arrived at the trial. The trials were putting him to the test all the time so he didn't have any spare time to even think about it. So right now, Silver was still waiting patiently in the private pet plane that Cecil had created and sealed him into.

Lucia quickly dashed next to Cecil and shook him awake.

"Cel! Cel!! If you can hear me, please summon Silvy! W-we're trying our hardest, but there are too many of them!" Lucia said in a panic.

Although his consciousness was about to fly because of the racking pain he was feeling, Cecil was still able to hear Lucia. A small golden orb of mana formed on the index finger of his left and he struggled to quickly draw a spell formation on the ground.

Lucia saw this and quickly dashed back to support her friends. It took Cecil 30 seconds to finish the inscription and another 30 seconds to channel just enough mana into the formation so that it could activate.

Thankfully, the formation didn't dissipate too quickly even though it took him a long time to activate it.

When the formation activated, the small golden magic formation quickly expanded in size as it shone brightly. In the next instant a towering, majestic figure materialized on top of it. It was a 5 meter large, handsome white furred wolf.

Its clear blue eyes looked around the battle field and shone with delight. After a long, long time, his master finally summoned him and it was in the midst of an intense battle!

Silver looked around the battlefield and saw his master's friends, but he couldn't locate Cecil anywhere. It was then he heard a groan from under him. He lowered his head and finally found his master.

Cecil was twitching and groaning in pain with a grayish aura permeating around him. Silver roared at him, trying to get his attention.

Cecil struggled to open his eyes and mouth.

"S-Silv...monsters...fight, head...crush...g-go...urk—and protect...friends..."

Cecil struggled for the last time and finally fainted from the pain.

Silver received the command and roared. His powerful roar was infused with his mana and it caused a shockwave to emanate from his open mouth.

The shockwave pushed back the Fallen, but it also caused everyone present to stumble and cover their ears in pain.

The battle was pulled into a lull and Silver dashed forwards to meet with the Fallen. Round two was starting and once again the Academy students didn't have Cecil's help, but many of them started to feel hopeful once more when they saw the battle pet that he had summoned.

The leader's quickly shouted and readjusted their battle formations.

"Come on! Don't give up! We can do this!!!"

"We're not going to die! Defensive Formations! Grind them down! Let's go! Let's go!"

The leaders tried to boost everyone's morale and the Fallen once more charged back at them. Magic spells were casted and bombarded the Fallen. The warriors grouped up together and held their grounds. Soon enough their weapons collided with the Fallen.

Probably due to the desperate situation, everyone was able to cooperate and coordinate fairly well with one another, regardless of their species.

With Cecil informing them about the Fallen's weakness, everyone began to aim at the monsters' heads. Some fell, but more quickly took their place. The injuries and casualties on the students' side slowly began to pile up.

This time, there wasn't any teleportation glow that sent the fatally wounded or injured outside of the trial. Most of them died on the spot or fell from their injuries not long after.