CHAPTER 394: FALL OF AN ALPHA? [12]

As Lillian teleported over its body and cleaved through its flesh with immense speed and efficiency, Millis constructed several earth spikes that obstructed its path of movement.

The Alpha swiped its arms through the air, trying to swat Lillian before having to break apart the spikes before it reached its exposed flesh.

After breaking through one, along the surface of its body, the ever-growing warts erupted once more—painting it with scalding hot water that sank into its exposed wounds.

Millis then swiped her hand and caused the earth beneath the Alpha to crack apart and trap its lower half inside it, completely restraining the monster’s movements for the time being.

And once this happened, Millis rushed in and began carving apart its body as well.

This continued on for a minute.

The countless injuries piled on its body grew more and more. The poison from Lillian’s blade had begun to spread throughout its flesh. It was almost the same sensation it had felt just a few minutes earlier.

And it was right to think so.

For all the way near the start of the battle, when Viesta had first joined the fight, Lillian had subtly dropped something into its mouth right before she was eaten.

It was another vial of poison, a deadly but slow-acting one.

And currently, it was running rampant within its stomach.

Before Lillian could carve out its eyes, the Alpha broke apart the ground and freed its lower half. Then, with unexpected haste, it slammed the back of its hand into the left side of Lillian’s body.

BAM!

As soon as Lillian’s body was struck, she felt the bones in her arm crack and fracture, as well as her mind flicker between consciousness and unconsciousness.

However, unlike before, this attack wasn’t enough to knock her out anymore; for as quick as the bones in Lillian’s left arm broke, they soon repaired under the effects of her [Parasitic Lines].

Lillian’s eyes flashed with a dark glint as she gripped the Black Maw with both hands.

She was going to deliver back the pain tenfold!

As her body continued to stick to the surface of the Alpha’s hand, she managed to fall over the side and leap off of it.

She landed on the side of a wall and bent her knees before shooting back like a spring.

The Alpha, completely focused on Millis now, hadn’t realised Lillian shooting towards it like lightning.

The Crimson Nocturne was the Roselle Family’s combat style forged and refined over generations. And it has eight total techniques, each representing one of the eight petals belonging to a mythical rose of the Assassin family.

The Noctus Rosarum, a rose that signified both beauty and death.

And with each ascending Petal/Technique, the physical stats needed to go through with them increase exponentially. The failure to comply with this requirement would cause the user’s muscles to rip apart.

However, in Lillian’s case...

Lillian’s body blurred as she roared, "[6th Petal of the Crimson Nocturne: Bloodblossom Mirage]!"

She was exempt through the help of her healing factor.

In the span of half a second, Lillian’s body seemingly phased through the scarred back of the Alpha.

And once she reappeared shortly after, the world seemingly stopped as the monster’s entire body was suddenly inflicted with several long, deep slash marks; each 3-4 metres long.

And not only that... But had also lost all of its whiskers...

It was as though the very air itself had torn apart its body, causing its blood to spray outwards and form the illusions of blossoming roses...

In any normal scenario, Lillian wouldn’t have been able to complete such a move with just her physical stats alone, even with 100% control over her muscles.

But by cutting corners with her boots’ teleportation enchantment, she managed to achieve this level of speed—even if it was a fraudulent way.

However... That didn’t exclude the overwhelming amount of pain that had fallen upon Lillian’s body.

"PUAK!" Lillian coughed and spat out blood as she felt the inside of her body cramp up, her limbs lock in place, and her muscles go numb.

Lillian’s body crashed into the ground, rolling. But just a split second after she landed, her muscles had already repaired themselves.

Pushing herself back up to a crouch, Lillian sweated profusely as her mind reeled from the pain.

It was fortunate she was quite tolerant already.

As Lillian took in several deep breaths, the Alpha had collapsed on the knees of its hind legs as it struggled to breathe. It had lost too much blood, and the poison had begun to shut down most of the important muscles in its body.

And yet, with sheer determination and dying vitality, it pushed itself towards Lillian, who—although mentally fatigued—gave it a mocking grin.

"Oi, Millis! Hurry it up!"

"Don’t rush meh!"

Millis, who was kneeling on the ground far behind Lillian with her eyes closed, shot them wide open as she stood up and took a step forward.

Coming out from the ground behind her, a featureless upper body of a humanoid being appeared—entirely made of stone. And in its right hand, it wielded a long stone spear.

Millis spun around, which was copied by the stone construct, before swinging her arm forward.

The stone humanoid spun around before throwing its stone spear with destructive force.

The javelin shot forward and—

SWOOSH-PSHT!

—pierced through the Alpha’s lower abdomen.

Its body folded over the spear as it was dragged along by the spear’s momentum and pinned against the stone wall behind it with a blood splat.

Large and medium-sized stones broke off from the wall it was pinned to and crumbled over its limp body as blood sprayed out from the fatal wound dealt to its body by the spear.

Lillian let out a sigh of relief, watching as the stones cascaded and buried the Alpha. It was finally dead...

She stood up to her feet and raised her open hand to the Heroine, who had made their way over to her.

"Good work out there..."

Millis grinned and high-fived the girl.

Clap.

"Back to ya as well, girl~! Ya was getting deadly on the thing."

As they conversed with one another, they didn’t notice as the rubble burying the Alpha trembled slightly.

Lillian, who was still unaware of this, asked Millis:

"I didn’t get the kill confirm, did you?"

"... Huh? Eh..." Millis tapped at her chin, "I don’t think I remembered hearing or seeing one. Ya sure ya didn’t get the kill—?"

DUM!

The two held their arms over their head as the Alpha’s burial suddenly exploded open.

Lillian and Millis widened their eyes as they watched the monster break the stone spear stuck through its lower abdomen in two.

Lillian scowled silently as Millis yelled in disbelief, "That thing ain’t dead yet!?"

The Alpha looked at the two as dust cascaded over its body.

Its eyes had darkened, and its face had gone pale. It knew it wouldn’t win against the two. Then, with the last bit of mana it had inside its body, it severed the connection of the [Parasitic Lines].

This would not only cause the liquids’ warts on its face to cease in their growth and numbers, but also stop any future rupturing of them.

It then weakly turned its eyes up and looked towards Veista, who flinched at its gaze. Its eyes shone with a flickering and burning yellow glow as it resorted to one last decision.

If it couldn’t take down all of its killers, it should at least be able to take down one of them!

With a flick of its tail down and a leap, it jumped towards the walls and began to climb upwards.

And as it did it, its back was barraged with a variety of attacks formed from both water and stone. However, with this last-ditch effort, the Alpha had now abandoned all sorts of action to defend itself.

Viesta aimed down the Sound Blaster and shot out another powerful soundwave, which, besides pausing the Alpha for a split second due to its push, was proven useless.

Without its whiskers, which connected directly to its brain, such a devastating sound would no longer work!

Viesta widened her eyes and watched as the Alpha was now only 10 metres away from her, a distance it could make with just a single leap towards her!

And...

The Alpha knew this as well.

It was going to do that.

However... Just a moment later...

BOOM.

—An attack from Lillian blew off its entire right arm, causing it to lose support and a momentary loss of balance.

It watched grimly as its severed arm hung beside it, still stuck in the wall. But it didn’t need this leap; it could still succeed with just one of its arms.

It continued to climb higher and higher, and right as it was about to make its leap, it came face-to-face with a hole it had made earlier in the wall.

Viesta, who didn’t have many options of escape, watched as the Alpha paused as it stared inside the hole.

If one were to look closer, they would find that the Alpha was staring at a middle-aged man’s battered and bloodied body, standing right before its eyes at the edge of the hole.

Zeke stood with foggy eyes as his body was leaning slightly to the side, giving off an impression that he was in an extreme amount of pain.

And in his hands... Were two items that he slowly leaned towards each other.