Cold-blooded

As Li Yue activated her magic, countless missiles followed their trajectories backward, as if a rewind button had been pressed on their flight paths.

Li Yue took a small step forward, brushing past all the magic that could have harmed her. A few attacks grazed the hem of her skirt, leaving small scorch marks.

“Such weak attacks, yet the angles are so tricky... The attackers want to kill me. They want me dead... Interesting.” Li Yue drew her twin guns and fired several bullets along the reverse trajectories.

In the next instant, her figure returned to her position from a few seconds ago, and the wound on her shoulder vanished. Silence fell over the forest once more, as if nothing had ever happened.

“Is it over? No, that doesn’t seem right...” She watched the birds and beasts beginning to flee, instinctively sensing a hint of crisis. However, this sense of danger was weak; her instincts didn’t seem to be giving her much of a warning.

There might be danger, but it couldn’t truly threaten her. That was what her instincts told her. But she wasn't that demigod right now; she had just sealed away a significant portion of her power. If a Great Mage truly attacked her, she would be a bit worried.

She wasn't afraid of being injured; she was afraid that if her divinity took control, she would slaughter everyone without hesitation and perhaps even charge into the Church—the place where people might have had designs on her—and leave a trail of blood.

A massive scarlet magic circle appeared beneath her feet, covering an incredibly wide area—even the surrounding hundreds of square meters of forest were contained within it.

“Death... no, it feels a bit like an aura of destruction... Is this magic circle going to explode...?” Li Yue put away her twin guns, feeling an inexplicable sense of speechlessness and suffocation.

“Flying into a rage? I’m getting a bit annoyed too...”

“This range is wider than my Cycle magic... If I were to interfere, I’d have to use a mana pool equivalent to draining a Mage-level magic user.”

“Let’s escape first...” Li Yue stepped onto a tree trunk and fired several shots rapidly toward the ground. Using the recoil and the powerful thrust provided by wind magic, her body soared into the air.

She looked down at the magic circle on the ground. Its color seemed to grow even more crimson. The sounds of magic being released echoed through the forest, and sirens wailed in the distance, but it all seemed to be too late.

For a moment, Li Yue wanted to release blood crystals to encase herself, but she suppressed the thought. She couldn't guarantee that the effects of her seal would remain after releasing death magic even once.

“Being blown to bits or releasing magic both lead to more or less the same result. Let’s gamble...” She continued to fire, increasing her flight altitude while constantly observing the completion progress of the red magic circle below.

“But the intensity is still rising. Is the caster still strengthening the circle...?”

“A caster won't stray too far from their own magic circle. The culprit must be nearby.” Li Yue sensed the large area of woodland around her, but it seemed empty, just like an ordinary forest.

“Since my instincts are so strong... then I’ll relax the suppression just a little bit...” Li Yue’s arm trembled, and a slight error appeared in her shooting direction. She gritted her teeth, seemingly fighting against something within her.

“The scent of life... how sweet... I can smell it...” Li Yue raised Death and loaded a blood crystal bullet she had crafted into the cylinder. Although she didn't plan to use magic on this blood crystal now, the immense mana contained within it was far beyond what ice crystals or ordinary minerals could compare to.

“Die.” Li Yue pulled the trigger. The immense force gave her a violent push toward the sky. A blood-red bullet pierced through the air, hurtling toward the ground with a piercing sonic boom. “Cycle, mark now.”

BOOM!!! A powerful explosion resounded as blood-red light erupted, sending shredded flesh flying in all directions. Seeing this, Li Yue felt an inexplicable sense of satisfaction. She suppressed the slight upward curve of her lips and manifested an ice shield in front of her.

Then, the magic circle beneath her also emitted a blinding light. The intense searing power carbonized the surrounding trees.

One of the prices of her great power was her incredible endurance. Even when hit by a powerful attack, unless it was a fatal wound, she wouldn't simply faint like before from a pierced heart, an injection, or a heavy blow to the head. She had to watch with wide eyes as the flames enveloped her arms, searing them beyond recognition.

“It hurts...” Li Yue let out a soft groan. “The power of destruction is so familiar. It’s making my blood boil again...”

“Cycle... return to the marking I just set...” Li Yue gritted her teeth as the agony of her burned arms struck her once more. After a few minutes, her arms returned to their original state. Because the injury had been so severe, she had almost overdrawn the mana she could currently use, and the process of the Cycle was significantly prolonged, causing the pain of her arms being seared to stretch out for several minutes.

“It hurts... it hurts like hell...” Li Yue’s arms were still trembling. The magic circle of the Cycle manifested on her arms, seemingly about to return to the marked node.

“Setting a marking can reduce mana consumption. The downside is that if you haven't returned to the origin, you have to endure everything you experienced all over again, though the spent mana is returned.” Li Yue thought briefly. “Is this like paying for one's injuries with mana...? If I die, can I Cycle? Or can I set nodes and infinitely reload saves...?”

Li Yue shook her hands, confirming there were no abnormalities. If she were her former self, this level of power would have only barely injured her, perhaps not even breaking through her protective magic.

She walked unsteadily toward the figure collapsed in the flames. The figure in the black robe seemed to have half of its body shattered, lying on the ground and struggling feebly.

“I don't have time for your last words.” Li Yue raised her hand and fired a finishing shot into his head. Ice crystals would melt on their own, but blood crystals were different. Before the Mages arrived to help, she used her magic slightly to retrieve all the blood crystal fragments into her palm.

She wanted to interrogate him about his goal, but the priority now was to clean up the scene. Since she had fired that blood crystal bullet, the man she hit definitely knew about her connection to things like Death and evil gods.

She was somewhat surprised to find that before her finishing shot, this mangled body had already triggered death magic. His life had already begun to end as she approached.

“I just put him out of his misery?” Li Yue frowned, feeling that the storm was far from over.

She searched the corpse thoroughly but found nothing except for a token engraved with a skull and a few bottles of potions with unknown properties.

It looked like a cult organization. Why would someone like this come to assassinate her...?

She walked through the flames, using Cycle magic to heal her burns while returning to the downstream water source at top speed.

Wearing her burned and tattered trainee cloak, she was found by the rescue and firefighting personnel, covered in injuries. She was then taken away to receive emergency treatment.