The sound of something crashing into the ground echoed through the forest, startling Selena, Eos, and Shopia and filling them with confusion.
Curious, they cautiously moved toward the trees lining the road. The three of them walked slightly hunched over, as though afraid their enemy might notice them. But after only a few steps into the dense forest, they encountered the figure of a small girl wearing a black cloak with a hood.
Meanwhile, the fallen bat-like monster slammed into the ground and let out an angry growl. It raised the strange staff in its hand.
The monster pointed the weapon in a certain direction. Electric sparks crackled between the claws at its tip, followed by a white beam of light about a foot long that shot toward the indicated direction like a laser.
And—
BOOM!
An explosion tore into the ground, leaving a crater in the earth.
It seemed the bat-like monster had discovered another way to use its strange staff as a weapon.
"Ha ha ha! I'll kill you, you little creature! You're nothing but an ant that's grown tired of living!"
The monster shouted and laughed. When it spotted a blue silhouette moving among the trees, it immediately fired its weapon.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
One explosion after another echoed through the forest. Several areas were already reduced to wreckage.
But the mysterious girl remained unharmed. None of the lasers managed to hit their target.
The monster became increasingly furious. It felt as though it was being toyed with. It wanted to take to the sky and fight its opponent from above, but unfortunately, its wings were badly injured and could no longer be used for flight.
Consumed by rage, the monster began hurling insults and shouting, trying to provoke the girl into confronting it directly.
Again and again, it fired its weapon at every shadow that crossed its field of vision.
Until—
Suddenly, an object came whistling toward it.
The enraged bat-like monster turned toward the incoming object and instinctively swung its staff, knocking away the small spherical object.
And—
POP!
A small explosion occurred. The sphere burst open and released thick black smoke, obscuring the monster's vision within a radius of approximately thirty feet. The bat-like monster was startled by the sudden cloud of black smoke.
Before it could recover, the silhouette of a girl leaped directly in front of it, swinging a staff with a sickle-shaped blade at its tip toward the monster's neck.
The monster instinctively blocked the attack with its own staff. The two weapons collided with a sharp metallic clang.
Although the monster managed to deflect the attack, the blade in the girl's other hand struck the left side of its head.
The portion of the monster's head that wasn't protected by armor was deeply cut, causing blood to gush from the wound. The monster roared in pain. It immediately turned toward the direction from which the girl had attacked and fired a beam of energy from its staff.
BOOM!
Unfortunately, the blast struck nothing but empty space. The girl had already disappeared.
From behind came the sound of something sharp slicing through the air. Before the monster could react, the blade slashed across its head, leaving several deep wounds.
The blade moved in an unusual manner.
Within the blink of an eye, it had inflicted several cuts, as though the weapon had struck back and forth three or four times in rapid succession. The monster could no longer see its opponent clearly. It fired its weapon wildly toward the direction of the attacks.
But its target had already vanished.
Frustrated, the monster continued firing in every direction. But none of its attacks hit anything.
The girl was simply too fast. And the thick black smoke severely impaired its vision. It couldn't see clearly enough to track her movements.
High above them, on a tree branch, the mysterious girl stood lightly on a slender branch barely as thick as two fingers. Yet the branch didn't bend beneath her weight at all. It was as though her body had no weight whatsoever.
Her eyes glowed with an eerie violet light, while her irises were dark red. Despite her beautiful face, there was something terrifying about her appearance, especially those unnatural eyes.
"I'll end this," the girl murmured to herself.
Then she drifted downward like a piece of cotton carried by the wind, heading toward the area covered by black smoke. Only a few inches from the edge of the smoke cloud, she suddenly shot forward like an arrow.
The frustrated bat-like monster suddenly froze.
A sickle-shaped blade had wrapped itself around the staff in its hand. The weapon was being pulled by someone standing only a few steps away.
It was the mysterious girl with frightening violet eyes.
For the first time in a very long while, the bat-like monster experienced a strange combination of emotions.
Anger, despair, and fear.
It desperately tried to hold on to its staff as the girl pulled it.
The monster spread its legs wide to strengthen its stance.
For a moment, it couldn't understand what was happening. The girl was small. She was nowhere near as large as the monster's massive body.
She wasn't even six feet tall. So how could she possess such incredible strength? Her physical power seemed to exceed that of several of its larger subordinates.
Before the monster could finish processing the thought, the girl suddenly gave the chain a powerful yank.
And—
The girl shot toward it, the blade aimed directly at its neck.
The bat-like monster had no time to react. The attack was simply too fast.
In an instant, the girl was already above its shoulder. She planted one foot against the monster's body as a springboard, then launched herself away from its back. She landed lightly on the ground.
In the blink of an eye, the monster was standing there without its head.
Blood sprayed from its neck. A few moments later, its massive body collapsed onto the ground.
Silence returned to the forest.
The girl turned around and slowly approached the lifeless body of the bat-like monster.
The black smoke she had released earlier to restrict her enemy's vision was beginning to dissipate.
The surroundings gradually became brighter.
"Fatheema! You did it!" The voice of a little girl came from several steps behind her.
"Yeah. That evil creature deserved to die. What was it doing all the way out here? And what should we do with its ugly corpse?" Fatheema walked toward a stone about the size of a chair and sat down on it.
The mysterious girl was none other than Fatheema. She and Luna had been traveling toward Mount Kalavajra.
They had heard the commotion coming from Asterion and discovered the three girls being toyed with by the bat-like monster.
Luna and the three girls approached Fatheema.
"Fatty, I recognize these three. They are Princess Selena, Princess Eos, and their attendant, Shopia. They're members of the former royal family that was attacked by the ifrit King Leomorth. They're now wanted fugitives of the ifrit king."
"Warrior girl, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Eos, and this is my older sister, Selena. Thank you for saving us. We almost died at the hands of one of that evil ifrit Leomorth's minions," Eos said with a smile before bowing respectfully to the girl still sitting on the stone.
"Don't mention it. I'm also a victim of that evil ifrit king" Fatheema replied with a smile.
"Fatty, I'll collect this creature's equipment. It looks like he was the leader of a squad. Why did he come all the way here alone? Where are the rest of his troops?"
Luna stripped the monster of all its equipment, including its armor, tracking device, and dimensional storage bracelet.
She then froze when she picked up the weapon—a strange staff with claw-like prongs at its tip and a glowing sphere embedded in its handle.
"This is a wicked weapon developed and perfected by the ifrit," Luna said quietly.
Her voice caught in her throat, and her body trembled as she struggled to contain her anger.
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