Modesty considered herself lucky that she hadn’t run into Wang Yue.
For reasons she couldn’t quite put into words, she felt that person was terrifyingly abnormal. It wasn’t just their strength; it was the way they didn’t seem to belong in the competition at all. They watched everything with a playful, detached gaze—high and mighty, as if they were an outsider looking in on a game.
And yet, that “outsider” was absurdly powerful.
As for the Purple Team, Modesty didn’t care much for them. They were merely the perfect test subjects for her newly acquired relic, Glacier Breaker.
She swung her staff, knocking a White Bird spell out of the air, and immediately leaped off the ground. She narrowly avoided a volley of mid-tier witchcraft launched by the other three members of the Purple Team on a delayed trigger.
While still in mid-air, she unleashed Shooting Star. Countless pseudo-crystal arrowheads tore through the sky, raining down on the Purple Team.
While her opponents were occupied with the barrage, Modesty flipped in the air. Like a bird of prey diving for the kill, she plummeted from the sky and slammed into the earth.
Glacier Breaker!
A cloud of blue-and-white mist, thick with ice crystals and sleet, exploded outward with her at the center.
The wave of frost rolled backward as cracks of ice spread across the ground. Sharp, conical ice spikes erupted from the earth like the fangs of a beast, instantly transforming the area into a jagged forest of frozen needles.
The ice spikes gnashed at the Purple Team from beneath their feet, shattering two or three layers of their protective shields in an instant.
Mavis immediately realized things had taken a turn for the worse. The destructive power of that air-dropped relic far exceeded her imagination. Nothing they had collected so far was in the same league.
“Should we retreat?”
The thought flickered through her mind, but when she tried to lift her feet, she found them rooted to the spot. Her shoes were stuck to the ice.
The eerie crystals released by Glacier Breaker possessed an incredible adhesive force. It was like licking a metal pole in the dead of winter; the moment your tongue touched it, you were stuck.
Modesty tilted her small face upward, her body swaying slightly. She looked intoxicated, completely immersed in an unparalleled sense of dominance.
She slowly extended her wand toward the members of the Purple Team, who were now stuck like flies in glue.
“Reef Breaker!”
A massive ship’s anchor materialized and plummeted through the air, instantly draining the health bar of one of the Purple Team’s regular members.
The two fake Liliths also possessed decent strength; after all, they were top students selected for this event. They activated their runes, providing the final bit of damage needed to finish the job.
Despite it being a three-versus-four fight, the Purple Team was the first to suffer a casualty.
The battle didn’t last long after that. Once they were a member down, the Purple Team’s formation collapsed. Eventually, they all sat on the ground in a state of catatonic defeat.
Mavis sat cross-legged on the floor, fuming. Her cheeks were puffed out in a pout, and her cowlick drooped dejectedly over the bridge of her nose like a wilted leaf.
Modesty circled her a few times, savoring the sight of her defeated rival, before finally leaving with a satisfied air.
A short while later, a referee emerged from the shadows to escort the four members of the Purple Team away.
With the Purple Team eliminated and Moira having been sacrificed earlier, only fifteen participants remained.
***
Wang Yue and Medeili sat in a valley blanketed by fallen leaves, preparing for the “mana replenishment.”
“I’m going to show you a treasure… I don’t usually let people see this.”
“What is it?” Medeili asked, her eyes widening with curiosity.
Wang Yue reached into her clothes and pulled out a soft, slender tail. She usually kept it hidden to avoid people staring at her backside.
“Ha! A demon’s tail!” Medeili cried out in delight.
She reached out with her little hand, grasping it with a hint of trepidation.
The surface of the tail was covered in a layer of fine down. It felt like a silk stocking wrapped around soft silicone—cool and smooth to the touch.
A look of confusion flashed across Medeili’s face. “Is it just my imagination? I can feel mana. Is this the replenishment?”
“That’s right. You can absorb mana from it—my mana,” Wang Yue said, pointing to the small horns on her head. “In through the top, out through the tail.”
It was actually Dorothy who had discovered the tail’s replenishment function. Wang Yue hadn’t even known about it at first.
When Dorothy had mentioned it, her reward had been a sharp flick to the forehead that sent her rolling on the ground in pain. Naturally, she had discovered this by sneakily touching the tail in the middle of the night.
“It—it’s moving! That’s so strange!” Medeili’s expression was one of pure wonder, her eyes going wide.
“Well, obviously. It’s because I’m alive.”
“Oh… right.”
“Just hold it. Don’t start stroking it. I can feel everything, you know.”
“I’m sorry…” Medeili’s face turned bright red.
Wang Yue did a rough calculation. It would take about two or three minutes to top Medeili off. The issue of the Witch’s Ointment was officially solved.
The two of them left the valley of fallen leaves.
The weather suddenly shifted, and a light drizzle began to fall. Their clothes were waterproof, so they didn’t bother looking for cover, but Wang Yue soon noticed something was wrong.
The water droplets clinging to her clothes were crystal clear. When she brushed them with her finger, they felt tacky. She rubbed them between her thumb and forefinger, and a sweet fragrance wafted up.
“Syrup?”
Wang Yue glanced up at the Weather Forecast hovering above. She deduced that the ancient relic had switched from “Normal” mode to “Mischievous” mode. It was like a bratty child’s prank, raining down liquid sugar.
The fine drizzle coated the ground in a layer of thick, transparent maltose. As they walked, their boots stuck to the ground, creating long strings of syrup and making a loud squelch-crack sound with every step.
This wasn’t fun at all. It felt disgusting.
Furthermore, Wang Yue began to hear a strange noise coming from all directions. It sounded like fingernails scratching against cardboard—skritch, skritch, skritch. It was enough to make her skin crawl.
“Stop,” she commanded.
The two of them stood still and listened. The terrifying scratching grew louder, seemingly echoing from beneath the earth.
Suddenly!
The sandy ground around them erupted into dozens of mounds as countless giant ants burst from the soil.
Each ant was as large as a lotus root. Their long, segmented legs seemed to be coated in oil, allowing them to scurry through the sticky syrup without getting stuck. It was a bizarrely fascinating sight.
They didn’t attack Wang Yue or Medeili. Instead, they were preoccupied with licking up the syrup. Their abdomens began to swell, their segments stretching until they were filled with transparent syrup, looking like patterned glass beads.
“Let’s go. They’re just ants.”
Wang Yue and Medeili continued forward. They hadn’t gone more than a few steps when the sand beneath them suddenly gave way, forming a massive, swirling funnel of a sinkhole.
At the very bottom of the pit, a monstrous insect awaited. Its body was covered in bristly, grayish-brown hairs, and two blood-red mandibles snapped greedily at the air.
“An Antlion!” Wang Yue shouted. She lost her balance as the shifting sands dragged her downward.
She quickly fired off a White Bird. She guided the spell mid-flight, making a precise adjustment so that it slammed directly into the Antlion’s head.
However, the creature’s thick, sturdy chitinous shell deflected the mid-tier witchcraft. It remained unscathed. If anything, the attack only enraged it. The blood-red mandibles clipped together rhythmically as it waited for its prey to fall.
“Get ready for close-quarters combat!” Wang Yue yelled.
She stopped struggling against the sand and let the flow take her. She spun several times as the sand dragged her right in front of the Antlion.
Giant insects were perhaps the most terrifying of all oversized creatures. If a flea were the size of a human, it could easily leap across a standard football field.
This Antlion’s head and thorax alone were five or six meters long. Proportionally, its abdomen—currently buried deep underground—must have been gargantuan.
Facing a monster that was likely as tall as a building, Wang Yue raised her wand. A cloud-patterned rune flared at the tip.
Flowing Cloud Strike!
BOOM!
With a massive, muffled explosion, the sand was blasted away by an invisible vortex of air. Centered on the Antlion, a crater a hundred meters wide was cleared of debris.
The Antlion’s entire body was finally exposed.
Compared to its massive, bloated abdomen that filled their vision, the head they had seen earlier was merely the tip of the iceberg.
High-Frequency Particle Blade!
The particle blade vibrated at high speeds, emitting a hallucinogenic aurora that was as beautiful as it was deadly.
After casting several high-tier spells in succession, Wang Yue’s mana was mostly depleted, but her Demon Horns were already working overtime to recharge her. She would be back at full capacity in no time.
Medeili’s wand also ignited with a High-Frequency Particle Blade. Both particle blades sliced downward simultaneously. Using the momentum of their fall, they carved through the Antlion’s head, thorax, and abdomen in one continuous stroke. The shell ruptured, and a torrent of bodily fluids gushed out.
With its sealed shell breached, the creature’s internal hydraulic system failed. The Antlion was left with no power to resist.
