The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 207

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 207

Compared to monsters like the Red Queen or Commander, it was a Named with weaker build and unremarkable abilities, but the compatibility and location weren’t favorable.

‘It can stretch and transform its body like rubber or slime at will, making it resistant to bullets, and true to its name, it moves incredibly fast in bizarre poses, so guns hardly hit it in the first place.’

Having to fight such a squishy, soft, and fast creature in a dark forest full of obstacles.

It’s not like she had no way to deal with that thing, but honestly, it would be troublesome. It would drag on and consume a lot of Oaths too.

‘We already lost a lot of time because of the monster horde earlier. Could I shake it off? But if I just shake it off, the covenant…’

As she pondered, Luca suddenly let her down from his back.

“Luca?”

“Sister, we can’t get held up here, right? Gid is over there where the black fire is burning.”

The wolf grinned.

“I’ll hold that thing off, so go ahead first. That way the covenant will be fine too.”

“What?”

“I use my head when I need to, you know.”

The Acrobat was approaching them with undulating movements. Then at some point it disappeared with a whoosh, appearing right in front of Lillieta and extending its arm.

“…!”

Almost simultaneously as she leaned back, sharp claws extending from the side pierced the creature’s elongated arm and drove it into a tree trunk.

The mouthless monster writhed, letting out a soundless scream. The Beast standing on two legs pressed down on it with both arms, baring its teeth as it spoke.

“This thing is just annoying because it’s quick and squishy, but it doesn’t have any special abilities. I can catch it by myself. I’ll catch it quickly and follow you!”

Rita, who had been hesitating for a moment, steeled her resolve at the rumbling sounds that came again. She cast enhancement magic on her legs and spoke to Lucas, who was holding the Acrobat.

“Luca, that thing is still a Named monster. Like the Red Queen, it might have developed abilities that didn’t exist in the Ash-covered Era.”

She had decided to trust Beacon’s youngest, but she couldn’t help worrying. He was the one with the least experience and most frequent mistakes among them. She added once more.

“Never let your guard down. If you get careless, you’ll make mistakes.”

Meanwhile, the Acrobat became squishy and tried to slip away from Lucas’s arms by twisting its body smoothly. Lucas extended his claws and pierced through the creature’s body with force.

And before Rita could warn him, he noticed the monster secretly trying to kick him and preemptively stomped on it with his own foot, speaking in a firm voice.

“You saw that, right?”

“…”

“You taught me. I don’t make mistakes anymore.”

“…Right.”

Rita smiled at the boy who was much larger than her, then turned around and added.

“I’ll wait for you.”

The wolf made a sound like a growling laugh. With that sound behind her, she began to run.

Her legs, which had gained goat-like jumping ability and deer-like sprinting power through magic, kicked off the dirt. The sight of the blue Beast and the dark acrobat entangled together quickly receded behind her.

The lantern swaying at her waist cast chaotic light, making bizarrely shaped trees appear as if lunging at her. Avoiding them with excellent reflexes, she continued running.

At some point, it became bright ahead. Daylight reclaimed its place through gaps created by broken and uprooted trees. Rita leaped into that daylight.

Her vision, which had been trapped in the dark black forest, opened up completely. Then she could clearly see the form of something darker and more massive than the forest.

A dragon covered in black thorns.

‘Gid!’

She called his name only in her mind and covered her mouth. Hiding at the edge of the forest, she first assessed the situation.

Her purple eyes moved quickly, scanning the surroundings before fixing on the empty air that the black dragon was glaring at.

A hooded Mage was floating in the air. His hood, tattered as if scorched by fire, fluttered in the wind, revealing his face.

The same face she had seen in Gid’s memories. But unlike that memory, his hair was still black, not yet white like an old man’s – black hair that suited the name ‘Raven.’

An ordinary impression that would be hard to remember even if you passed him on the street. But far more striking than that impression was one eye that shimmered with five colors.

‘…Pascal.’

He raised his hand. Following that hand, something black as storm clouds rippled beneath the hem of his cloak that was lifted up. From within it, several long things shot out at bullet-like speed toward the dragon.

The crouched black dragon swung its tail. With a sharp sound of cutting through air, what had been shot from Pascal was sliced and split by the sharp tail covered in thorns.

The severed chunks fell to the ground and scattered like smoke. Things like giant slug or sea anemone tentacles. They gave off a disgusting smell as foul as the aura they contained before disappearing.

‘What was that?’

Rita’s eyes widened.

Originally, Mages have no way to directly attack monsters. Due to the nature of magic using mana, when it touches monsters, it gets contaminated and absorbed or loses its power.

Contamination prevention magic only prevents magic from collapsing when it contacts monsters, but cannot inflict any damage on the contaminated mana that constitutes monsters.

Therefore, if Pascal is a Mage, no matter how much of an ‘Archmage’ he is, it should be fundamentally impossible for him to harm monsters with magic.

That’s why, even though he created Named monsters, he couldn’t give them separate commands except for the Commander.

‘Certainly Pascal couldn’t control them perfectly. Not the Kraken, not the Mimic, not the Crawler. But they weren’t completely beyond his control either.’

He made Named monsters appear at desired locations. So she had thought Pascal might have means other than magic.

Just now, that mysterious attack that the black dragon, being a ‘monster,’ couldn’t ignore and had to block wasn’t magic either.

Even Rita, with her sensitive senses, couldn’t feel mana from it. Rather, what she felt from it was…

‘…Contaminated mana. It had an aura like monsters.’

In the very brief time from when the giant tentacle-like thing was cut by the black dragon’s tail and fell until it completely disappeared, Lillieta realized something.

Gid, who had used the ‘Star’ countless times, accumulated contamination and became a monster resembling a black dragon. Then what about Pascal, who had used the ‘Star’ more and longer than Gid?

‘He’s the same as Gid. No, he’s definitely worse.’

Pascal’s means other than magic must be his abilities as a ‘monster.’ What he just showed was probably part of that.

She didn’t know how he could mimic being human, but like Gid, he might be suppressing it with some technique of his own.

‘Anyway… whatever that bastard’s true nature is.’

Rita exhaled quietly and softly, moving her hands silently. Completely suppressing her presence, hidden in the shadows at the edge of the clearing created by the battle between the black dragon and the Archmage, she raised Silvergrass and aimed the muzzle.

The Archmage was too busy flying to avoid the black flames breathed by the black dragon.

She moved her muzzle following his flight and formed a Matan inside the chamber. An electric-attribute paralysis bullet with the fastest velocity.

‘I can’t kill him.’

It was questionable whether she could kill him with just one Matan shot anyway, and that bastard would just regress if he died.

Moreover, if he died near Gid, the regression reference point might change as he wanted. That was presumably Pascal’s goal in the first place.

‘At least while the Star is with him, I can’t kill him. For now, aiming to subdue… wait.’

Suddenly, Pascal’s eyes visible through gaps in his fluttering hood entered her field of vision.

According to what Gid said, both of Pascal’s eyes should be dyed with aurora light like ‘Stars.’ The Pascal of the Ash-covered Era was certainly like that.

But the Pascal she saw now had one black eye, and only one eye shimmered with five colors.

‘Gid said only one of his eyes was like that too. Did the future Pascal use the Star one more time? So both eyes changed?’

Then is the ‘Star’ now inside that dyed eye of his? Or are the eyes just a medium and the Star is stored somewhere else?

In any case, what would happen to Pascal if he lost that aurora-colored eye?

Some intuition flashed through her mind. Following that intuition, she crafted a very small harpoon shape with Oaths at the tip of her muzzle. She imbued the bullet inside the chamber with different properties. And she slightly changed her aim.

She held her breath. The surrounding scenery gradually blurred and disappeared. The sounds of the dragon’s wingbeats and Pascal shooting something gradually became muffled and then inaudible.

In her extremely focused vision, only Pascal remained, and eventually only the eye dyed with five colors remained.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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