Sarah moved.
Her speed was unreasonably fast.
The translucent, thread-like tentacles on her body left greasy afterimages in the air.
In almost the blink of an eye, she closed the distance and reached Bloodsong's side.
“Damn it!”
Bloodsong cursed under his breath.
He hurriedly pulled the black iron repeating crossbow from his coat.
But there was no time to aim.
At this critical moment,
Elias reacted instantly.
Or rather, this was the exact moment he had been waiting for.
Taking advantage of the opening while Sarah's back was turned to deal with Bloodsong, Elias raised his Thorn Cutlass.
He summoned the 【Moonlight Barrier】 to surround himself,
twisted his waist,
and tensed his arm muscles.
The cutlass carved a cold arc through the air, slashing down toward Sarah's head with all his might.
He held nothing back in this strike.
However, the woman was prepared.
Dozens of translucent tentacles abruptly shot upward,
rapidly intertwining in midair.
Layer upon layer,
they actually formed a highly elastic cushion of flesh.
Though they were soft tentacles, they managed to block the blade firmly in midair.
“Heh.”
Elias smirked.
He wasn't surprised at all.
After all, Elias was long accustomed to preparing a backup plan in combat.
Pinning all one's hopes on a single attack was a mistake only novices made.
In the exact same instant his right hand holding the blade was blocked,
Elias's left hand slipped out from the other side.
A cold gun barrel pressed against Sarah's waist.
Zero distance.
Elias pulled the trigger without a second thought.
Bang!
The muffled gunshot exploded inside the cramped tower.
The bullet fired wasn't an ordinary one.
It was a freezing bullet that had been stored in the Gluttonous Stomach, nourished by pure spirituality.
The moment the bullet left the barrel, the surrounding temperature plummeted.
Thick frost spread wildly from the muzzle.
Pfft.
The bullet buried itself deep into her body.
Extreme cold spiritual energy erupted in that instant.
“Ah—!”
Sarah shrieked in pain.
The high-pitched, piercing sound shook the dust from the ceiling of the tower.
The freezing power locked up the tissue in her waist, forcing her to abandon her suppression of Bloodsong.
Her bizarre legs sprang off the ground, opening up some distance between her and Bloodsong.
“Get her!”
Elias immediately urged Bloodsong through the mental channel.
Only then did the Dvorin bartender fully recover from his brain freeze.
His eyes turned cold.
Pursing his lips, the spirituality within his body surged.
An ominous infernal flame suddenly coalesced in the palm of his right hand.
From the shadows of the lighthouse, the heavy clatter of clashing chains suddenly echoed.
Soon, several glowing red chains shot out from the surrounding shadows.
Like living fire pythons, they tore through the air and bound Sarah.
The scorching chains bit into her tentacle-covered body,
sending up plumes of white smoke.
“Ah!”
Sarah let out a heart-wrenching scream.
The intense, burning pain caused her body to twitch violently.
However,
something even more bizarre happened.
Soon, her face, twisted from being bound by the chains, completely changed.
Her twitching muscles gradually smoothed out.
A creepy, sinister laugh returned to her mucus-covered face.
Tilting her head, she spoke to Bloodsong in a creepy, cloying tone:
“Little man...”
“Not bad.”
“Binding big sister with such thick chains, what kind of bad things are you planning to do to me?”
Hearing this, Bloodsong frowned.
He ignored her.
The spell in his hand was not yet fully cast.
He raised his left hand, his slender fingers rapidly drawing in the empty air.
A trace of dark red light flowed from his fingertips,
drawing an abstract red symbol in the air.
At the same time,
his vertical pupils, unique to infernal beings, emerged.
A faint dark red glow burned within them.
Once the red symbol fully manifested in the air,
it seemed to trigger a bizarre symmetry.
An identical symbol appeared on Sarah's forehead not far away.
The blood-red mark glowed slightly on her skin, as if branded on by a hot iron.
“Oh? That's the 【Brand of Pain】!”
Old Ed's raspy voice, tinged with a hint of surprise, suddenly spoke in Elias's mind.
At this moment,
Elias was already raising his cutlass and taking large strides forward to finish her off.
He had no habit of listening to enemies ramble.
He intended to put an end to Sarah once and for all.
Hearing the old man's words, Elias teased in his mind:
“You even know about this?”
“Did you meet Dvorins before?”
“Uh-huh.”
Old Ed gave a very smug reply in his mind.
“You should know that even before I died, I lived much longer than you, kid.”
The old man summarized succinctly:
“This spell brands the enemy.”
“Any movement or spellcasting will trigger a burning pain.”
“It's quite a torturous spell.”
Elias understood.
In that case, strike while the iron is hot.
Just as Elias rushed close, intending to run Sarah through with a single stab,
Sarah's body suddenly softened.
She was as if she had instantly lost all her bones.
Her entire body turned into a puddle of greasy fluid.
Her boneless form actually slipped out from the chains binding her.
The chains clanged against each other in the air, hitting nothing but emptiness.
“Pah!”
Re-forming her human shape a few meters away, Sarah spat fiercely on the ground.
Her face was filled with rage.
“You untrustworthy man!”
She glared at Elias, screaming repeatedly:
“Just like those smelly men in the city!”
“Full of lies!”
“I will definitely kill you!”
Before her voice even faded,
Sarah used the powerful elasticity of the thread-like tentacles on her head to leap violently upward.
She slithered into the shadows overhead.
She moved so fast she was nothing but a blur.
“Do you think I'm easily frightened?”
Elias reacted extremely fast.
Following her movement, he raised his gun and fired.
Beside him, Bloodsong had finally adjusted his rhythm.
He raised his repeating crossbow and pulled the trigger repeatedly.
One tracer round after another was fired.
These specially enchanted radiance bullets drew dazzling streaks in the darkness.
Every time they hit an obstacle, a violent white light burst forth.
This made the entire space flash repeatedly.
“Hiss—!”
From the darkness overhead, Sarah's painful gasps echoed.
During her movement,
not only was the freezing bullet in her body continuing to take effect, ravaging her internal organs,
but the 【Brand of Pain】 on her forehead was also continuously active.
Every time she used her tentacles to move, the brand would erupt in a searing, burning pain.
Yet even with the pain reaching this level, the woman's mouth refused to stay shut.
While slithering among the beams, she didn't forget to say:
“Little man...”
“You make big sister hurt so much...”
Bloodsong's face darkened even further upon hearing this.
His handsome face looked cold enough to scrape frost from.
In all his life, he had never been teased like this by a monster.
A flash of brutality flickered in the Dvorin's eyes.
The infernal flame manifested in his hand once more.
This time, the flame directly attached itself to the body of the repeating crossbow.
Gritting his teeth, Bloodsong pulled the trigger again.
More tracer rounds shot out from the repeating crossbow.
However, this time,
a miraculous sight occurred.
The outer layer of the tracer rounds, which originally emitted a cool white light, was actually enveloped in a layer of violent infernal fire.
The interwoven red and white light trailed a highly bizarre plume in midair.
“You can even do that?!”
Elias, who was about to fire again from below, clicked his tongue in wonder at the sight.
A layer of infernal fire wrapped around a radiance spell.
This was like seeing a freeze spell with a layer of fire wrapped around it in a game.
It was neither scientific nor magical.
“What exactly are you so surprised about?”
Old Ed's voice of complaint rang in his mind.
“In essence, this is the mechanism of containment objects.”
The old man explained:
“As long as your spiritual circuits can handle it, energy attributes are not absolutely opposed.”
“If you want, you can do it too.”
“If you think it fits, you can completely coat a blade with several different layers of elemental damage.”
Old Ed's words were like a sudden clap of thunder.
Elias's mind opened up.
“Holy crap, you're right.”
His eyes lit up.
The spiritual circuits in his body instantly ran at full capacity.
Cool spirituality surged toward the weapon in his right hand like a tide.
He immediately channeled 【Frostbite】 onto the Thorn Cutlass.
Frost covered the blade, emitting wisps of cold air.
Immediately after, he applied 【Moonlight Enchantment】 to the cutlass once more.
At this moment, the entire sword looked as flashy as a pay-to-win weapon in a video game.
But just then,
Sarah overhead seemed finally unable to endure the continuous torture and decided to risk everything.
“Die!”
Accompanied by a sharp roar,
Sarah's thread-like tentacles swept down toward the two of them like a covering blanket.
Dozens of thumb-thick, translucent flesh-worms tore through the air, sealing off almost every blind spot below.
“Bring it on!”
Elias charged forward instead of retreating.
He let out a low shout, and the two-toned cutlass in his hand drew a dazzling arc in the air.
Elias immediately slashed, severing the tentacles.
Aided by Moonlight Vision, his movements were as fast as lightning.
Wherever the cutlass passed, the translucent tentacles snapped.
Furthermore,
he perfectly utilized the freezing power of 【Frostbite】 to freeze the cross-sections of the tentacles the instant they severed.
Not even a single drop of the bizarre mucus could leak out.
Beside him, Bloodsong also held his repeating crossbow, unleashing a frantic barrage.
However,
the opponent's tentacles were simply too numerous.
Dense and overwhelming,
they were practically impossible to completely defend against in this cramped, dimly lit lighthouse tower.
Even though Elias and Bloodsong dodged left and right, countering and blocking most of the attacks,
there was bound to be a slip-up eventually.
During several minutes of intense, high-strength clashes,
the two were inevitably pricked by the tentacles.
Even though Elias's 【Moonlight Barrier】 blocked almost all the attacks,
a stray tentacle still managed to jab him in the shoulder.
Bloodsong's back was also lightly slashed, leaving a small cut.
At that moment,
Elias clearly felt his body go numb.
An unknown toxin was trying to invade his nervous system through the wound.
Bloodsong beside him had obviously been hit too.
The youth's body shuddered slightly,
and his movements faltered for a moment.
Seeing this,
the torrent of tentacles that had been attacking wildly from above finally began to subside.
From the shadows, wet footsteps echoed.
Sarah stepped gracefully out of the darkness.
She walked back down to the ground with her bizarre, swaying gait.
Looking at the two stiffened men,
the expression on her face was smug beyond measure.
In her eyes, these two humans had already fallen into her trap.
Even though
her own condition was quite miserable.
The mark left by Elias's freezing bullet still lingered on her abdomen,
with large patches of white frost continuously ravaging her tissue.
Her body was also riddled with several holes shot by Bloodsong's repeating crossbow.
But the final victor was clearly her.
“Now, you should obediently...”
Sarah looked down at the two motionless men, a cruel and excited curve tugging at the corner of her lips.
However,
before she could finish her sentence,
the two men in front of her raised their weapons once more after a brief moment of paralysis.
Bloodsong pulled his repeating crossbow again, sending violent bolts whistling through the air.
Elias also instantly raised his gun, spiritual light converging frantically at the muzzle.
Boom!
It was a frantic bombardment at point-blank range.
Sarah didn't even have time to react.
While trying to dodge, her body was instantly scorched with a massive hole by the tracer rounds.
Scorching fire burned wildly upon her wound.
Before she could even break free from the intense pain,
she was immediately struck by another of Elias's spiritual bullets.
This shot directly shattered her right shoulder, sending countless severed thread-like tentacles flying through the air.
“Ah—!”
Sarah let out the most piercing shriek of the night.
Her face contorted in agony.
Her body rolled miserably on the ground a few times as she clutched her wounds tightly.
She raised her head,
staring at the two men in utter disbelief and shock:
“How are you two completely fine?!”
Elias and Bloodsong exchanged a glance.
“Why is she so triggered?”
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