Theion gets back up and tries to chase after Gri by forming an ice pillar beneath his feet. And hey, he actually comes pretty close to saving Clare—but his ice clearly wasn’t rated for “high-altitude acrobatics,” so it crumbles beneath him. He goes crashing down while Gri escapes with Clare. Even for Theion, a fall like that could’ve been fatal, so Lloyd quickly tells Silica to whip up an air cushion to save him. Thanks to Lloyd’s quick thinking, Theion lands safely instead of becoming street pizza.
But Gri still has Clare, and Theion is desperate to go after them again. Lloyd stops him, reminding him that the airship is already at cruising altitude, so there’s no way Theion could catch up now. Naturally, Theion is offended—how dare Lloyd suggest he’d do a better job at saving Clare than him? That’s when the others chime in, pointing out that he literally just tried and failed, so statistically speaking, anyone else is likely to get a better result. Plus, if not for Lloyd’s instructions, he’d be a pancake right now, so maybe trust the guy a little.
Reluctantly, Theion admits he doesn’t have many options and agrees to put his faith in Lloyd, as long as Lloyd doesn’t hold him back. Lloyd thanks him and says he already has the perfect plan to rescue Clare—but it’s going to require a whole lot of Theion’s power.
Meanwhile, on the airship, Gri is busy complimenting the Count for building such a spectacular flying fortress. He wonders why the Count didn’t just use it to attack from above during the invasion of Ishtar. The Count replies that this is just a prototype and today’s maiden voyage. That makes Gri a little nervous, but the Count reassures him that there’s zero risk of sudden engine failure because he’s got the perfect power source: a fragment of the body of the former Demon Lord.
Gri is floored. The Count proudly explains that even though the Demon Lord’s body was destroyed, he managed to snag a fragment that still held magical power. By analyzing its life force, he can now draw out nearly infinite magic. Gri is horrified, realizing the Count is basically siphoning energy from the Demon Lord’s soul. And the guy looks way too smug about it, bragging that he wants to see many terrifyingly powerful monsters under his control. The excitement alone practically has him bricked up.
At this point, Gri looks at the Count like, “Wow, this guy’s even crazier than me.” Before the Count can spout more unhinged nonsense, an alarm blares. They check the monitors and see Lloyd and the gang approaching. Turns out, they reached the airship using Theion’s ice along with some brand-new anti-gravity magic Lloyd learned. The spell is still a little buggy, but hey, it worked.
The crew boards the ship and immediately demands Clare’s release. Gri races to the top deck, impressed by how annoyingly persistent they are, but he’s not about to hand Clare over. Instead, he charges straight at them, ready for a fight.
In a split second, Lloyd casts enhancement magic on everyone at once, letting them all dodge Gri’s “void strike.” But when Theion tries to counterattack, his ice sword shatters instantly. Turns out, Gri’s mana armor is just as sturdy in the sky as it was on the ground.
Luckily, Lloyd has a plan. While Gri is distracted, Lloyd sneaks in a small spell on him, then signals everyone to go full WWE and jump Gri. They all attack like crazy, forcing Gri to keep spamming his mana armor, but they’re barely scratching him. Eventually, Theion gets slammed against a wall, and Gri bursts out laughing at how weak their attacks are.
But Theion smirks and says they never expected those puny attacks to break his shield anyway. Gri is confused, but instead of thinking too hard about it (classic villain move), he just charges up a condensed mana punch to finish Theion off. Before he can land it, Dagas jumps in front and blocks the attack.
Then something bizarre happens—Gri’s arm freezes solid and shatters into pieces! He’s completely stunned since none of Theion’s attacks ever connected. That’s when Theion explains: it wasn’t a direct attack, it was frostbite. Earlier, Lloyd used magic to block Gri’s sense of pain, so he couldn’t even feel his body freezing. And while the fight had been raging, Theion was quietly streaming cold energy at Gri the whole time. Normally, Gri’s mana armor would’ve blocked it, but since he was busy fending off their barrage, he never noticed. Exactly as Lloyd planned.
Now, with one arm down, Gri doesn’t stand a chance. Lloyd demands that he return Clare, and Gri starts to panic. Desperate, he bolts for the lower deck and tells the Count to release all the caged monsters. The Count is shocked—he literally warned Gri earlier that those monsters are terrifying and not fully under control. But Gri is already fiddling with the locks like a madman.
The others chase after him, and as soon as Theion spots Clare, he demands her release. Instead, Gri throws open the cages, releasing every monster. He orders them to attack Lloyd’s group… but instead, one of the snakes immediately lunges at him. (Oops.) Turns out, the Count wasn’t kidding—the control system isn’t finished, so the monsters won’t listen to anyone.
Thankfully, the Count has a backup plan. He pulls out a prototype control device hidden in the floorboards and activates a magic crystal, sending out soundwaves to hijack the monsters’ minds. The beasts freeze momentarily, and Theion seizes the chance to smash open Clare’s cage by freezing the lock. He rescues her just in time—because the Count starts ordering the monsters to attack Lloyd’s group.
It looks like they’ll have to fight their way out, but before the brawl begins, Clare stops them. She doesn’t want innocent monsters getting hurt, no matter what.
She tells them she can handle it herself, so she starts singing to soothe the monsters with her ancient magic. And sure enough, the monsters all freeze in their tracks as soon as they hear her song. Clare’s song takes a good 30 seconds to take effect. The Count could have tried something to stop her, but he was way too busy fanboying over seeing ancient magic up close—the only thing on his mind was, “Quick, someone get the recording crystal!”
However, while Clare was singing, the Demon Lord Fragment began to react. Moments later, the entire ship started veering off course. The Count panicked, trying to figure out what went wrong because at this rate, the ship might crash. At first, he wondered if the monsters that Clare took control of were the cause, but that wasn’t it. Earlier, when the ship started shaking, Gri stumbled and accidentally touched the compartment holding the fragment. Whatever happened next, his mind just… went blank.
The Count quickly realized that Clare’s ancient magic must have stirred up the Demon Lord’s life force, making it unstable. If nothing was done, the fragment could blow up and take out the entire ship. Thinking fast (for once), he yanked it out of the engine, which stopped the explosion threat. But there was a small problem—it also killed the ship’s power. With the fragment gone, the entire vessel started nose-diving out of the sky.
Thanks to Lloyd’s gravity magic, everyone managed to stay glued to the floor, even as the ship tilted downward. But bigger problems showed up when Gri suddenly writhed in pain. After a few moments, he stood up with blank eyes and started demanding the Demon Lord Fragment. The Count, being the crazy scientist he is, thought, “Well, this looks fun,” and tossed the fragment straight at Gri’s head.
Immediately, a sphere of dark energy engulfed Gri, pulling in all the nearby monsters and absorbing their life force. Inside that sphere, the Demon Lord Fry began awakening within Gri’s body. Clare fell to her knees in despair as she heard the screams of dozens of monsters being drained. A few seconds later, the sphere vanished in a flash of light, revealing a grotesque abomination born from Gri and all the absorbed monsters.
Lloyd recognized it instantly as a Chimera, a monster with multiple lives inside one body—something he had only ever read about in Merlin’s books. Clare was heartbroken to see innocent monsters reduced to such a twisted form. But the Count? Oh, he was practically giddy—this nightmare creation was even better than anything he had imagined.
However, he got a little too close, and the monster slashed his body in half with a single swing. Even on the verge of death, the only thing on the Count’s mind was how fascinating this creature was. He died a moment later—smiling, no less—and Lloyd and the others were baffled that anyone could check out of life looking that cheerful.
But they couldn’t dwell on that for long; they had a monster to deal with. Unless they came up with a solid plan, they’d end up just like the Count.
Meanwhile, over in the capital, Merlin and Loen were walking through the halls. Loen asked if she planned to stay the night, but Merlin grumbled that since there was no alcohol here, she’d get depressed without her nightly drink and was planning to head to a local pub. (Priorities, right?) Just then, they both noticed someone by the entrance. Loen lit up, since she hadn’t seen him in ages, but immediately wondered how he got past the guards. Will brushed it off, saying that was the least of their worries—he had something important to discuss. Merlin could tell this was serious, so she asked Loen if they could head back to her room to talk privately.
Back on the airship, the group was about to face the Chimera. Dagis stepped forward to protect everyone, with Lloyd boosting his defense. When the Chimera attacked, Dagis somehow managed to block it and keep himself in one piece. But he clearly wouldn’t last long at this pace.
To make things worse, the ship was still nose-diving, so a crash landing was inevitable. While everyone else was panicking, Lloyd looked oddly calm—like he’d already accepted the role of “reluctant flight attendant.” Cross suggested they abandon ship, but Clare refused to leave the creatures behind, insisting they’d been forced into becoming part of the Chimera. Theion snapped that it was already too late to save them.
As they rushed for the exit, the Chimera blocked their path, trapping them inside. Losing patience, Theion conjured an ice sword, ready to slice the beast apart, but Clare stopped him. She just couldn’t stand the thought of harming the innocent monsters trapped within. Everyone understood her compassion, but come on, Clare—this was literally life or death!
Yui and Cross unleashed their strongest attacks, but nothing worked. With the ground rushing up fast, their chances weren’t looking good at all.
