A Legion Grows From My Smartphone

Chapter 80

"Ugh... Haah!"

Inside the narrow storage room of a dim underground laboratory. There was a person struggling, drenched in cold sweat.

Reina, filled with a steel-like will and rage, rubbed her face against her arm relentlessly. After being confined for so long, she finally succeeded in removing the gag that had been forced into her mouth.

"Rozes... Orne!"

She spat out the names of the Vice Leader of the Academy and the Head of the Research Lab, who had committed heinous acts and even attacked her.

She had no idea what had happened to her or how she had been caught off guard.

Panting heavily, she squirmed her body, which was hanging like a chunk of flesh. Her hands were cuffed and raised, tied to the wall.

There was only one way out of this predicament.

Reina straightened her posture with difficulty, grabbed the chains, and performed an aerial flip, anchoring her feet on the ceiling and wedging the chains between her knees.

In that precarious position, she clung on with trembling arms and began biting and twisting the bolts of the cuffs.

The rusty bolts of the poorly maintained cuffs soon rattled and loosened.

"Ack!"

As the cuffs came undone, Reina lost her strength and crashed onto the stone floor with a loud thud.

Groaning, she managed to lift her aching body. The Flow of Mana, which had been blocked by the Magic Sealing Handcuffs, began to circulate again.

She extended her hand and shot a Fireball Projectile, breaking the locked storage door and stepping outside.

'What on earth happened?'

Her eyes quivered. She couldn't sense any movement.

She knew something had occurred.

The faint screams and loud noises she had heard from the surface right after regaining consciousness from the electric shock were proof of that.

But she couldn't make any sense of it.

Who would dare to raid the mansion of the Head of the Research Lab? Bandits? Or perhaps a group defying the Mage Academy?

"Haha..."

However, as Reina staggered to the surface, she dismissed all those possibilities.

Neither bandits nor rebel groups could have caused the chaotic scene before her eyes.

She collapsed weakly onto the ground.

Bright sunlight illuminated the first floor of the mansion, which had been turned into a complete wreck.

Considering that this mansion originally had three floors, it was clear that the ones who could cause such catastrophic ruins were very limited.

"This is...!"

At that moment, a massive wave of mana brushed against her body like a faint breeze.

She shot up and quickly looked around.

Then, she climbed over the shattered roof shards.

'Mage's Eye... And such a large scale!'

Something appeared in the distant sky.

Four Mage's Eyes, glowing blue, were scanning the surroundings, rolling their pupils.

She was familiar with that magic. To cast something on such a scale would require nothing short of an army.

'What on earth is going on?'

With a pale face, she hurriedly descended to the ground and gulped down the rainwater that had pooled nearby.

She had no idea that the world had turned upside down during the two days she was ambushed, knocked out, and imprisoned.

"Let's go."

Slapping her own cheeks, she began to walk. She had already decided where to go.

If the mansion of the Head of the Research Lab had been attacked, there was no way the nearby city of Rihelem would remain unscathed.

She didn't know what had happened, but her instincts told her to head toward the direction of the Mage's Eyes, which now served as her guidepost.

"Communication Sphere...!"

As she tried to leave the mansion, she picked up a cracked Crystal Sphere.

But she soon hung her head low. She had tried contacting everyone she knew using the identification numbers of the Crystal Spheres, but none of them responded.

Reina trudged onward, her steps heavy.

*

"They're now..."

"A new group has appeared from the northeast direction!"

"Keep monitoring them. Can't we deploy more Mage's Eyes?"

In the middle of an encampment, at the same time Reina was making her way toward the Mage's Eyes, hurriedly gathered troops of 10,000 were in turmoil.

Despite their grand assembly, they couldn't boldly advance to crush the enemy's base.

"There are too many of them. We should split the army and focus on defending each region!"

The reason was the enemies' seemingly calculated moves, spreading out and digging deeper inland as if they knew the army's weaknesses.

Most of the 10,000 troops had ties to this region. Following the central command's orders to march into the enemy camp while leaving their hometowns and homes vulnerable was difficult.

"Damn it. But we don't know their objective, their numbers, or their true identity. Delaying any longer could lead to something catastrophic!"

The Supreme Commander, dispatched by the Continental Assembly, was a mage adorned in a robe lined with gold.

Though the Mage Academies had sent mages according to the agreement to dispatch reinforcements during crises, these academies, which had been gradually growing in power, did not readily submit to the directives of a commander from the Assembly.

"What's there to debate? We already have all their movements mapped out. Just send out communications to prepare defenses and crush them one by one!"

Among them, the one who was particularly fervent was Rozes Leblanc, the Vice Leader of Blakel Academy.

The same Rozes who had knocked Reina unconscious and left the Head of the Research Lab's mansion that night had miraculously escaped the attack.

After hearing about the raid from a nearby village, he had initially tried to flee in panic but was forced to join the gathered army under orders from the upper ranks.

'What is this? Black Monsters? Demons of Destruction? Weren't the Demons of Destruction supposed to be extinct?'

Still engulfed in confusion, Rozes furrowed his brows.

In truth, he had a suspicion. It was the desperate Request for Rescue from a boy he had mercilessly trampled on.

If the monsters currently wreaking havoc on the world had emerged from the labyrinth after slaughtering the Moonlight Fairies...

'This must be kept hidden. Well, they said there were no survivors in Rihelem anyway.'

He swallowed hard. To him, concerns about a guild branch being wiped out or the world being in peril were trivial compared to his own safety.

"Quickly calculate and report. Which areas are most critical and whether their defense is truly impossible!"

The Supreme Commander ultimately accepted some of the opinions from the Mage Academies.

He issued orders to split part of the army and send them to regions where defense seemed most challenging.

"We can track all their movements and numbers. We can also communicate in real time. If we act systematically, it’s entirely possible. Meanwhile, the main unit will strike the nest of those bug-like creatures."

"T-Then I'll lead the detached force!"

Rozes immediately raised his hand to volunteer. Those unaware of his intentions were impressed, thinking it was far more dangerous to operate separately from the main unit.

"Very well. Rozes Leblanc of Blakel, you will head to the designated area, block the enemies, and rescue the citizens."

The Supreme Commander handed him a Crystal Sphere with a direct connection and assigned him 2,000 troops.

Attempting to catch two rabbits at once, a strategy that could backfire if mishandled, the human side had made their move.

Their confidence lay in their seemingly superior system of information gathering and communication.

They believed they could observe the enemies' movements in real time and respond accordingly.

[It's a bit disappointing. Although the separation happened as intended, the split between 2,000 and 8,000 isn’t as significant.]

"It doesn’t matter."

However, there was one critical fact they had overlooked.

Eve, sitting on the throne she had set up in the nest, glimmered with sharp eyes.

The Legion was fully aware of their movements. Scouts scattered by the Legion—be it leisurely flying birds or crawling insects—were just as effective as the Mage's Eyes.

And even if both sides had full visibility of each other, no communication device in this world could match the Legion's Collective Consciousness.

"Oh... This is insane."

"Wh-Why are you suddenly acting like this, Thompson!?"

"W-What am I even looking at?"

The main unit, oblivious to the fact that they were being watched, pressed on with their march.

Naturally, the Mage's Eyes, serving as lookout towers, continued their surveillance.

However, Thompson, one of the mages maintaining the Mage's Eyes and whose optic nerves were linked to them, was horrified by what he saw.

"A horrific... horrific nest."

"W-We already received reports about it! A strange and grotesque nest that seems to be their stronghold..."

"It's beyond that!"

"Ugh, aaah!"

"What is that?!"

With Thompson's exclamation, other mages maintaining the Mage's Eyes also screamed or recoiled in shock.

What appeared before them after some progress was no longer just a Base Nest.

A massive and vast nest, consuming and blackening the lush mountains and vegetation.

Sticky secretion pools where omnipotent cells were endlessly cultivated, and decayed, grotesque trees growing to sizes befitting the majesty of the World Tree silenced everyone.