Chapter 26: 026: the competition can finally start

Melina’s precise and lethal strike had clearly inflicted a considerable amount of damage, for his proud Stone Armor now bore distinct cracks and visible fluctuations.

“Damn you, you little b*tch! I’ll crush you to dust!”

Completely enraged, the Rock Man disregarded the searing pain in his ribs and stomped the ground once more.

As more earth and stone surged upwards, attempting to mend his shattered armor, his sole remaining left arm condensed into an even denser mass of rock, forming a colossal stone hammer that, with renewed, savage might, swung down upon Melina once more!

Having learned his lesson, he now widened his attack radius, effectively cutting off more of Melina’s escape routes.

Melina’s face was ashen, the thorny black纹 (TL Note: a descriptive term for a tattoo or marking, implying a pattern of thorns) on her wrist still pulsing with an ominous red glow.

Waves of excruciating pain crashed against her nerves, causing her sword-wielding hand to tremble almost imperceptibly.

Yet, in the face of this even more ferocious assault, her gaze hardened with resolute determination.

‘Miss, he’s rattled! Repairing his armor has drained a significant amount of his spirit energy. His attack might seem fierce, but it’s actually riddled with even larger openings! His left shoulder—he’s too eager to strike, and the rock layer there is at its thinnest! Prepare!’

Melo’s calm voice resonated through the soul network, simultaneously shouldering a greater portion of her agony, thereby allowing Melina to barely maintain her focus.

Melina drew a deep breath, suppressing the intense pain as her body subtly lowered.

Rather than directly confronting the stone hammer, she instead reactivated her instant resonance just as the massive weapon was about to descend upon her.

A resonant hum filled the air!

The thorny black纹 blazed with an intense red light!

The soul-rending agony caused Melina’s vision to swim, bringing her to the brink of unconsciousness, yet Melo’s formidable battle will forcibly sustained her.

Guided by Melo’s millennia-honed experience, Melina’s body executed an extreme slide to the right, evading the blow by mere millimeters.

The gale force winds whipped up by the stone hammer scraped painfully against her cheek.

The colossal stone hammer slammed down with a deafening crash beside her, sending shattered rocks spraying outwards and leaving a gaping crater in the earth.

And in the very instant the stone hammer struck the ground, Melina’s counterattack was unleashed!

Harnessing the inertia from her slide, her body sprang forth like a coiled spring released, her Golden Knight’s Longsword once again gleaming with a brilliant yet controlled golden light.

Its target: the Rock Man’s left shoulder blade, now slightly exposed as he leaned forward from the force of his attack!

‘*Pchht—!*’

This time, the sword’s penetration met with significantly less resistance, as it precisely pierced through the rock layer, now weakened by unstable energy, and plunged deep into the Rock Man’s shoulder socket!

‘*Aooow—!!!*’

The Rock Man let out an earth-shattering shriek of agony, his massive stone hammer flying from his grasp as he stumbled backward, step after painful step.

The rock armor that had encased his entire body now peeled away in shards, like a shattered eggshell, revealing a face contorted in abject terror beneath.

Blood gushed from his left shoulder, and yellowish spirit energy wildly dissipated, indicating he had utterly lost his combat capability.

He could only clutch his shoulder, collapsing to the ground in a pained, curled heap.

Melina fared no better.

The instant she disengaged from resonance, excruciating pain and overwhelming exhaustion threatened to buckle her knees.

She could only barely prop herself up with her sword, gasping for air as sweat drenched her hairline and dripped onto the ground.

Having repeatedly utilized spirit energy in such rapid succession, the penalty of Thorn’s Kiss appeared to be intensifying with each use.

****

Meanwhile, the battle between Sephylia and the burly bald man had escalated into a fierce, white-hot exchange.

“Little lass! If you’ve got the guts, stop hiding!”

The bald brute roared incessantly, his arms glowing a furious crimson like heated irons, each punch unleashing scorching heatwaves and explosive force.

Though Sephylia’s fighting spirit soared, a head-on clash proved disadvantageous.

Her hammer was repeatedly blocked or parried, leaving her arm numb from the impacts, and her clothes were singed and scorched by the intense heat.

“Hiding? This old lady is being *polite*, afraid of smashing you into a pulpy mess with one swing!”

Sephylia’s words were sharp and unyielding, yet her gaze grew increasingly grave.

Her opponent’s defense and strength far surpassed her expectations, and the scorching heatwaves radiating from him made her incredibly uncomfortable, as though she were forced to stand at an uncomfortably close proximity to a colossal furnace.

It was then that her peripheral vision caught sight of Melina once again severely wounding the Rock Man, and her spirits instantly surged!

“Well done, Melina!”

Sephylia let out a triumphant laugh, her aura suddenly intensifying.

“I can’t be outdone, so now it’s your turn, Fire Lizard!”

Abandoning the pursuit of a single decisive blow, she swiftly altered her tactics.

The massive warhammer now whirled in her hands like a windmill, no longer striking with brute force.

Instead, she leveraged the length of its handle and her own agility to execute a sophisticated hammer technique.

She would sweep low, forcing her opponent to leap and evade; then feign a strike, drawing a block before swiftly redirecting her attack towards his supporting leg.

At other times, she would use the flat side of the hammerhead to parry and deflect force, expertly avoiding the fiercest impact of his searing fists.

Despite its colossal size, the hammer appeared remarkably nimble and light in her hands!

This versatile hammer technique, blending both power and finesse, left the bald brute utterly disoriented.

He possessed immense brute strength but proved incapable of effectively wielding the searing heat generated by his companion spirit weapon.

He was like a muddy eel, entangled and unable to apply his power, constantly led by Sephylia’s relentless attacks.

Though his defenses remained unbroken, the heavy hammer blows sent his internal energy churning, and his movements grew progressively sluggish.

‘Little Radiance! Give me more power!’

Sephylia felt Radiance’s resolute response, and her resonance rate forcibly elevated by another fraction, causing the golden light on her hammerhead to flare with sudden intensity!

“Earthcleaver!”

Seizing upon a momentary flaw in her opponent’s balance, she abruptly hoisted her warhammer high, not to strike downwards, but to slam it violently into the earth!

A deafening *BOOM*!!!

From the hammerhead’s impact point, a ferocious golden shockwave erupted, expanding outwards in a violent, circular ripple!

The very ground undulated violently, like turbulent waves!

Caught completely off guard, the bald brute lost his footing, stumbling violently as the sudden, powerful tremor sent him reeling.

His crimson arms instinctively splayed outwards in a desperate attempt to regain his balance.

“Now!”

A fierce glint flashed in Sephylia’s eyes as her body surged forward like a charging leopard.

Leveraging the recoil from her hammer striking the ground, she unleashed a lethal golden arc, sweeping the massive weapon upwards from below!

Its target: her opponent’s jaw, now exposed by his momentary stumble!

The bald brute’s pupils constricted sharply.

In his haste, he managed only a slight backward lean, while his arms instinctively crossed in a desperate attempt to block.

A resounding *CRACK*!!!

A heavy, sickening thud! The warhammer slammed viciously into his crossed forearms!

The immense force, combined with the treacherous angle, shattered the bald brute’s ability to parry steadily as he had before!

‘*Urgh!*’

He let out a pained grunt as the colossal force lifted him clean off his feet, sending him hurtling backward!

The crimson external armor on his arms slowly dissipated, revealing skin that had cracked and fractured inch by inch, blood oozing forth.

He crashed heavily onto the ground several meters away, unable to rise for a long moment, clearly having sustained severe internal injuries.

****

Wynn’s battle with the lanky man, conversely, was a deadly, silent dance within the shadows, fraught with peril.

Wynn had abandoned any attempt to directly breach the eerie ‘Annihilation Miasma’ shield.

His form flickered in and out of the shadows, moving like a wraith.

His dagger no longer thrust directly; instead, it became a flurry of cunning, chilling gleams, striking at the lanky man from every conceivable, impossible angle.

Each attack was precisely aimed: at the edges of the constantly twisting, seemingly alive grey mist shield, its connecting points, or the critical energy flow nodes that the lanky man maintained while holding his defense.

He was employing high-speed assaults and meticulous probes, systematically searching for the operational patterns and the most vulnerable ‘seams’ within this energy shield.

The lanky man was the most unusual of the three, as he had yet to manifest any signs of external armor.

Consequently, Wynn remained uncertain of his true abilities or how to breach his defenses to inflict any meaningful damage.

Coincidentally, the lanky man was equally in the dark about Wynn’s full capabilities!

“You annoying fly!”

The lanky man was infuriated by Wynn’s tenacious, parasitic fighting style.

Maintaining and controlling the ‘Annihilation Miasma’ demanded intense concentration, and Wynn’s high-speed harassment proved utterly maddening.

He attempted to expand the miasma’s range, creating a corrosive domain to force Wynn to retreat.

Yet, as if possessing precognition, Wynn invariably melted into deeper shadows mere instants before the miasma could fully encircle him, only to launch an attack from an entirely different direction.

He was like the most patient hunter, slowly but surely eroding his prey’s patience and spirit energy.

When the Rock Man’s agonizing shriek and the resounding crash of the bald brute being sent flying echoed in quick succession, the lanky man’s concentration inevitably faltered, a subtle ripple disturbing his focus.

The spirit energy sustaining his shield also exhibited a barely perceptible lag!

‘This is it!’

Wynn, who had been lurking in the shadows like a venomous serpent, instantly seized this fleeting opportunity!

He did not attack the shield itself.

Instead, he condensed all his shadow power at the tip of his dagger, forging it into a nearly solidified thread of inky blackness that, without a sound, plunged towards the lanky man’s shadow on the ground behind him!

‘*Pfft!*’

That supremely condensed shadow-spike, like a red-hot poker plunged into butter, instantly pierced through the shadow clinging to his ankle!

A chilling, bone-piercing surge of shadow energy, imbued with a potent paralyzing effect, instantly flooded into him!

‘*Aaaargh!*’

The lanky man let out a mournful shriek, a searing pain and profound numbness erupting from his ankle, as though it had been instantly frozen solid!

The spirit energy maintaining his shield instantly unraveled, and the grey miasma barrier, after a violent fluctuation, vanished with a soft ‘*pop*’!

He staggered backward, his gaze fixed in horror on the twisted shadow beneath his feet, from which Wynn’s grim reaper-like figure was slowly ascending, a cold dagger pointed directly at his throat!

The battle was irrevocably lost!

Of the three members of the Fire Lizard mercenary group, the Rock Man lay gravely wounded and incapacitated, the bald brute had been sent flying, suffering internal injuries and coughing up blood, and the lanky man was crippled by shadow erosion, stripped of his defensive capabilities.

In mere moments, these three seemingly formidable professional mercenaries had been utterly routed!

They were formidable individuals, boasting a resonance rate of 35%!

How could they possibly have been defeated by a few mere rookies, fresh out of the gate?

“The token! The time!” Melina prompted, her voice strained as she propped up her weakened body.

Sephylia instantly produced the token; the display showed less than a minute remaining.

“Run!” she cried out, already sprinting towards the entrance ahead of them.

Melo instantly materialized, sweeping Melina into his arms in a swift princess carry, and followed closely behind Sephylia, rushing into the entrance.

Wynn held his dagger aloft, not relaxing his guard in the slightest.

In fact, the blade had already drawn a thin line across the lanky man’s throat, a trickle of blood tracing a path downwards without staining the polished steel.

The lanky man raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Mission failed,” he stated, his voice trembling.

“Go on, I have no desire to die here.”

He offered, his voice a desperate plea.

“Wynn, hurry! There’s not much time left!”

Sephylia cried out anxiously, the token now showing less than five seconds remaining!

Once he confirmed his companions had crossed into the entrance, Wynn’s body dissolved into shadow, and he surged forward in an instant!

5

4

3

The entrance was now tantalizingly close, yet only two seconds remained on the clock.

Shadow coalesced into a thin thread, coiling around Sephylia’s slender waist.

Wynn yanked hard, intending to leverage her to pull himself through the entrance, but to his surprise, Sephylia couldn’t brace herself adequately and was nearly pulled back out instead.

2

In that critical, split-second juncture, Melo instantly intervened.

A surge of raw power erupted from him as he seized Sephylia and yanked her backward, pulling both her and Wynn into the entrance at an even greater velocity.

1

0

The countdown concluded!

“Oh… my heavens, did we… did we actually make it?”

Sephylia was still reeling from the heart-stopping, last-second escape.

Wynn, however, was far more composed.

He emerged from the shadows, looked at Melo, and offered a curt nod.

“Thank you,” he stated simply.

Melo responded with a polite, appreciative smile.

Sephylia glanced at the token.

It displayed no words of elimination or disqualification; instead, the original thirty-minute countdown had now reset to ten minutes.

This, she realized, was the countdown until the next safe zone contraction!

They… could finally, officially, begin the competition!