Tailspike Rat—undisputedly the most insidious and treacherous of the king-class beasts.
Whenever it appeared, it always lurked beneath the raging onslaught of a Ridgeback Turtle, waiting for the perfect opening to unleash a sudden, vicious strike.
If its tail-spike pierced a colossus, in mere fractions of a second, a lethal neurotoxin would be injected straight into the vital spinal cockpits.
This toxin was designed to disrupt the pilots' consciousness link.
The result was paralysis—numb limbs, faltering agility, and in severe cases, total incapacitation.
At that moment, the Ridgeback Turtle, the designated heavy hitter, would seize its chance. With those hammer-like forelimbs, it could pulverize a colossus into rubble.
Even the mighty Pangu Colossus had fallen to this very tactic, overwhelmed and torn apart by three Ridgeback Turtles working in concert with three Tailspike Rats.
Nuwa knew she could not afford even the slightest carelessness against such an ambush.
She snapped a whip backward, lashing toward her own spine.
If the tail-spike did not change course, it would be struck by the lash first before it could ever impale her.
The Tailspike Rat might be venomous and cruel, but it also feared injury above all else.
Thus, the strategy of "trading wound for wound" usually forced it to withdraw.
But the hiss of its strike behind her did not falter for even an instant.
This one—shockingly—was abandoning its own safety, driving its tail-spike forward in a reckless, suicidal thrust!
Like it had lost its mind!
Nuwa's face blanched. In a panic, she whipped her other lash around as well, both light-whips curling defensively toward her back.
At the same time, she curled her massive frame as tightly as she could, praying to minimize the impact zone, to dull the damage of the impalement.
But the Ridgeback Turtle, whose earlier grapple had missed, lunged once more.
Its trunk-like arms slapped the sea surface with explosive force, generating enough recoil to launch its colossal body straight toward Nuwa.
It twisted mid-charge, revealing the massive carapace lined with jagged, diamond-shaped ridges. The shell became a grotesque battering ram, driving down at Nuwa with devastating momentum.
That was why it was named the Ridgeback Turtle, not the Arm-Fist Turtle: its shell was deadlier than its arms.
Not only could it smash through nearly anything, it could also release electromagnetic shockwaves—disturbing the pilots' mental link and inducing momentary paralysis.
This combination of charge and impact was lethal beyond measure.
Yet the deeper the peril, the calmer Nuwa became. She knew better than anyone the killing power of these two king-class beasts.
At the very instant the tail-spike brushed her skin, she seized that infinitesimal contact to adjust her descent—slowing her fall for the briefest heartbeat.
In that heartbeat, her whips shifted from strikes into coils, wrapping tight around the spike like twin ropes.
Then, with a fierce pull, she swung herself like a pendulum, using the tail-spike as an anchor to hurl her body aside, narrowly evading the Ridgeback Turtle's crushing blow.
She soared more than ten meters before stabilizing, sliding through the air. With a flick of her left arm, one whip transformed into a massive bow.
Drawing it taut, she nocked her other whip as the arrow—then loosed.
The radiant shaft shot true, slamming directly into the Tailspike Rat's stinger.
The impact erupted in a blast of light, shattering the eighty-meter spike into a storm of fragments that scattered wildly through the sea.
A devastating hit against a king-class foe—yet Nuwa felt no joy.
Because this was a Tailspike Rat. Normally, even the slightest wound would send it fleeing in terror.
But this time, it did not flee. Instead, it loosed a shrill, deranged screech, brimming with madness, and lunged forward.
With its grotesquely wide jaws—normally useless in combat—it snapped at Nuwa with suicidal ferocity, charging faster even than the Ridgeback Turtle!
It was as if it had gone insane.
And in that instant, Nuwa realized the truth: the real reason Hera City had collapsed so suddenly, without warning.
The monsters… had gone mad.
She had no time to think. Flipping backward, she landed lightly on the sea's surface.
Her hands pulled, and a blade of light formed between them.
Instead of retreating, she surged forward, slashing across the Tailspike Rat's gaping maw.
In direct combat, she did not fear them.
The blade sliced effortlessly through the beast's enormous head, cleaving it in two—instant death.
She followed with an upward slash, intercepting the Ridgeback Turtle's hammering fist.
Then she let herself sink, sliding into the sea to dissipate the impact and slip out of its combo range.
Like a fish darting through currents, she arced beneath the waters, circling to the blind spot behind the Ridgeback Turtle's back.
The light-blade shortened, splitting into twin spears. She drove them hard into the monster's exposed flanks, aiming for the soft flesh beneath its armor.
But she never anticipated what happened next.
These two kings… were nothing more than bait.
From the depths below, a streak of icy-blue lightning shot upward, silent and swift.
Agony seized Nuwa's spine—numbness spread across her body before she could even react.
Her twin spears had already pierced the Ridgeback Turtle's ribs, stabbing through its heart.
But in the same breath, the beast's arm swept back, seizing her paralyzed form.
It dragged her close—and with a crushing fist, smashed the back of her neck.
That cockpit could never withstand such force. Violent tremors rippled through, and the pilot inside was reduced to a broken mass of blood.
Nuwa felt her neck clench. Her mind nearly snapped out of synchronization.
Though her link with the other eleven pilots remained, her control of the Nuwa Colossus plummeted sharply.
The paralysis from the Thunder Beast's ambush began to fade, but her giant's agility could not recover.
Suddenly, her body lightened—she was hurled skyward by the Ridgeback Turtle, flung helplessly into the open air.
Dread swallowed her whole.
She forced her stiffened head to turn, looking down.
There, in the dark water, four blazing blue spheres of light flickered to life.
Four Thunder Beasts.
All locked onto her, all preparing to unleash their maximum-power laser strikes.
It was over.
Nuwa understood at last: from the very beginning, the monsters' target had been her—and Pangeae City.
She cast a desperate glance toward the city. There, the Fuxi Colossus had already leapt from the mountain peak, surging to her aid.
"No! Don't waste your lives on me! Abandon Pangeae City—join the other refuges—make a final stand together!"
She tried to shout, but her words were drowned as the torrent of laser fire consumed her whole.
And in that final instant, just before oblivion, Nuwa thought she saw it—
the dark, oppressive sky torn open by a blaze of pure, radiant blue.
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