“Don’t think you can run!”
Kars let out a sharp cry.
In that instant, she didn’t even have time to care about her legs, which were still weak from the Demon King’s Blessing.
She gripped her sword spear and plunged headfirst into the shadow where the assassin had just disappeared.
However, the moment she crossed that boundary, the clear world suddenly transformed.
It wasn’t that the light in the arena vanished.
Instead, a viscous white fog, thick as glue, filled the entire space without warning.
“Cough, cough, cough… What the hell is this?”
Kars instinctively tried to wave away the white mist, only to find her fingertips touching a cold, damp substance—a physical manifestation of mana that even carried a cloying sweetness.
Not only that, but her pride as a Calamity Pillar—her perception—was like a radar whose signal had been forcibly cut off.
In this white world, she could only detect things within a two-meter radius!
“Tch, damn it. I let my guard down.”
The girl clicked her tongue in frustration.
That assassin reproduced by the Square Water Mirror wasn’t trying to escape at all—it was trying to lure her away from Gray!
whoosh
An extremely faint breath sounded from close range.
Kars’ pupils contracted sharply.
She tilted her head to the right.
That pitch-black dagger grazed her pale neck, severing a few strands of golden hair.
Though she narrowly avoided a fatal blow, the wind pressure from the blade still scraped her cheek, stinging painfully.
And by the fleeting gleam of cold light, she finally caught a glimpse of her attacker’s true appearance.
It was a petite woman with a gray face devoid of any expression, her jewel-like eyes reflecting no light at all.
The strange part was that her lips were slightly parted—not to breathe, but to continuously spew that perception-blocking mana fog from her mouth.
“Using smoke grenades? You think this is Counter-Strike or something?!”
Kars gritted her teeth.
Relying on instinct, she swung her sword spear in a backhand motion, attempting to parry the second strike that followed closely from within the fog.
clang!
The sound of metal colliding was crisp and piercing.
She had definitely blocked it—angle, force, and timing.
Kars was certain this parry was flawless.
But in the instant their weapons met, a strange sense of dissonance slammed into her brain.
It was like a bookshelf in her mind, containing the experience of “how to deal with this assassin,” had been violently yanked out of place.
‘Huh?’
‘Who am I?’
‘Where am I?’
‘What technique was I about to use to counter… who, again?’
That feeling of a completely blank mind caused a fatal rigidity in her movements.
Then—
slash!
The black dagger cut across the outside of her thigh.
“Ow, ow, ow!”
Blood splattered.
Kars bit her lip and rolled backward to create distance.
Looking down, she saw that her modified nun’s habit skirt was torn, and the white stockings that had been snug around her plump thighs were now stained red with blood, revealing a kind of tragic yet seductive crimson.
“That dagger…”
It was definitely not an ordinary enchanted weapon.
Kars stared intently at the figure that had once again vanished into the mist.
Through contact with the weapon, it had “excised” part of her short-term combat memory?
Was this also an Authority?!
“This isn’t another one of that Dawn Blade’s people, is it… Is this entire squad full of monsters?”
Kars held her hand to the wound on her thigh as cold sweat trickled down her forehead.
It wasn’t just because of the pain—the burning sensation inside her body was growing even more intense under the stimulation of the pain.
Sweat slid along her collarbone into her deep cleavage.
Her soaked clothes clung tightly to her skin.
There was no way she could fight a delicate battle of wits in this terrible state!
If this continued, she would be slowly whittled down by this emotionless killing machine into a mindless idiot like in those doujinshi, and then die here!
“Since you like playing dirty, I’ll play along to the end.”
Kars drew a deep breath, her blue vertical pupils narrowing.
She stopped trying to engage in half-baked close combat.
Instead, she pricked her finger on the tip of her spear.
After blocking another surprise attack, the sweet-tasting blood flowed out.
She swiftly drew a twisted, bizarre symbol on the floor with her foot.
The Demon Language for “stand firm.”
Kars’ thinking was simple: this assassin’s power wasn’t enough to inflict a fatal wound on her.
So she just needed to use her speed advantage to dodge.
The girl simply thrust her sword spear into the ground, preparing to maximize her speed.
She wasn’t being overconfident.
She was waiting—waiting for the mana fog around her to grow thicker, thick enough that even that warrior outside, with his beast-like intuition, could no longer sense what was happening inside.
***
Another explosive fireball detonated on the ground, and the resulting shockwave forced Gray back several steps.
Gray Lobelia hovered in midair, waving her magic wand elegantly like a conductor of an orchestra.
Each wave was accompanied by a devastating explosion.
“Oh my, what’s wrong, Gray? Keep staring into the fog?”
The replica let out a piercing laugh.
She seemed to be thoroughly enjoying this cat-and-mouse game.
“Worried about that cute little Saint? It’s useless, you know. That’s Xiao Ye’s magic. You know what happens to enemies trapped in that mist.”
“Your little lover might already have her limbs cut off by now, her soul riddled with holes, just a breath of life left, waiting to see you one last time~”
“Shut up.”
Gray casually swung his blade to slice apart a flying fireball.
His iron-gray eyes showed not a trace of panic.
“The Square Water Mirror’s energy conservation law is absolute.”
While calculating the mana consumption from the beginning, he lowered his center of gravity, weaving through the explosions as he gradually closed the distance to the replica in the air.
“You’re using at least 80% of your main body’s energy just to maintain this scale of magical bombardment.”
“So that replica in the mist doesn’t even have one-tenth of the original’s strength.”
Gray was all too familiar with the strength of his former teammate.
If it really was a complete version of that “Killing Star Blade,” Ye Yin Liang, little Kars probably wouldn’t last three seconds.
But if it was just a defective product with only a tenth of the power…
Gray recalled the strength and speed Kars had displayed along the way—enough to even withstand Tomb Beasts.
A curve of trust tugged at his lips.
“I’ve seen enough of her combat instincts over the past few days. She’ll definitely buy enough time. So—the one who should really be worried about their situation… is you!”
The moment the words fell, Gray seized on a tiny opening in “Lobelia.”
Just a second ago, for some reason, the replica’s movements had suddenly stiffened.
A trace of highly human-like shock flickered through its eyes.
As if it had sensed some unbelievable existence, causing a momentary break in its mana flow.
Perfect timing!
Gray’s figure vanished from the spot in an instant, leaving only a azure afterimage of Lightning Light.
“Thunderclap!”
As Gray’s fastest battle technique, this slash was the epitome of speed—no flashy movements, just pure speed and power.
By the time the replica reacted and opened its magic shield, the longsword wreathed in Lightning Light had already cut through the hastily condensed mana barrier.
crunch!
The exquisite magic wand was sliced cleanly in two.
The immense impact force slammed the replica from the air, smashing it heavily into the ground.
“Impossible… That fluctuation just now was…”
The gray Lobelia struggled to get up.
Having lost its wand, it didn’t even bother to first pay attention to Gray descending from above.
Instead, it looked incredulously into the depths of the thick fog.
Why had the sensation of the other replica suddenly vanished without a trace?
***
Ten seconds earlier, within the mist.
Visibility had dropped to the point where one couldn’t see their own hand in front of their face.
The mana was so thick that Kars felt like she was back in the Demon Realm.
“If it’s this dense, that idiot Gray definitely can’t detect anything in here.”
The girl straightened up, lifting her shirt with her fingers to reveal her smooth stomach and the complex, seductive pattern below her navel.
“Transformation.”
A suffocatingly terrifying pressure suddenly exploded from her small frame.
The apex predator at the top of the food chain had finally torn off its prey’s disguise.
In the mist, the assassin replica that was preparing for its next strike came to a dead halt.
As a pure amalgamation of battle instincts, it sensed something far beyond the concept of “danger.”
“Had enough fun yet, little sister?”
Kars cracked her neck, producing a series of crisp pops.
Her golden hair danced without wind.
Her originally azure pupils had completely transformed into deep, eerie blue-purple vertical slits.
She raised her hand and made a grasping motion toward the assassin’s direction in the air.
“Pretty fun slicing up my memories just now, huh? Felt good cutting my stockings, didn’t it?”
“Get in here!!”
The spatial rules around them were instantly rewritten.
The pure white mist vanished without a trace.
[Authority of Calamity Pillar Zoktiluka: Eternal Vision]
The assassin wielding the dagger didn’t even have a chance to resist.
An invisible giant hand seized it, forcibly dragging it into a distorted, otherworldly space.
In this world woven only from black and green, the girl floated with an air of superiority.
Behind her, a massive dark purple heavy armor materialized.
“Welcome to my home turf. No idiot Gray here, no other audience. Just you and me.”
The Calamity Pillar girl smiled.
Then, the heavy armor behind her opened from the center, completely enveloping her.
“Now… it’s my turn to attack.”
As Noktiluka’s deep voice rumbled, the assassin’s replica—though it had no emotions—saw something flicker through its gem-like eyes for the first time.
An emotion called “regret.”
crunch!
Can we call a truce?