Chapter 117: The Severance 2

Chapter 117: Chapter 117: The Severance 2

"Lio!" Felix shouted.

His healing mana reached out like invisible hands. Before Liora’s boots even touched the asphalt, the deep gash across her ribs was already closed, leaving only torn fabric.

She landed lightly, patting her side. "I’m okay!"

"Good!"

WHAM!

The drake’s heavy spiked tail whipped around like a steel girder, catching Felix square in the chest.

The blunt force launched him clean through the air, sending him smashing through a concrete pillar and into the brick wall of a shop.

"Felix!" Seraphina screamed, her composure shattering for a split second.

The dust hung thick in the air.

Then, steady footsteps crunching over broken brick broke the silence.

Felix walked out of the rubble, shaking dust out of his dark hair. His shirt was ripped to shreds, and blood dripped from his temple, but the emerald light was already wiping the bruises away. He rolled his neck with a loud crack.

"Not bad," Felix muttered, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the pavement. "Hits a little harder than Darius."

The drake wheeled around, roaring in fury as it charged again.

This time, Felix didn’t just block. He charged straight at it, compressing his emerald blades until they were so dense they looked like solid green crystals.

SHING!

He ducked under its snapping jaws and drove his blade deep into its front knee joint. He twisted the energy blade, severing the thick tendons.

The colossal beast shrieked, its front leg collapsing beneath its own massive weight.

Seraphina surged forward into the opening.

A swirling whip of pressurized water wrapped around the wounded leg, and she detonated a bolt of lightning straight through it.

KABOOM!

The beast fell sideways with a deafening crash.

"NOW!" Felix yelled.

"Got it!"

Liora plunged her hands into the asphalt. A sea of pitch-black darkness rippled outward under the fallen beast, and dozens of thick, jagged spikes shot up through the road.

THUD-THUD-THUD!

Pinning the thrashing drake to the ground.

The impact launched the dark elf tumbling across the road, skidding to a halt thirty meters away.

Liora turned her head, her pink eyes locking onto the elf.

Felix saw the opening instantly. "Go get him, Lio! Take his head!"

"What about the drake?" she asked, hesitating.

"Sera and I will handle it!" Felix shouted, parrying a thrashing claw.

Liora nodded firmly. "Be careful, Felix."

SWOOSH.

Liora melted into the shadows, vanishing toward the elf.

Across the road, the dark elf scrambled to his feet. Seeing the pink-haired girl hunting him down, he let out a dark chuckle.

?"Ghra’kresh va’throk tor-kahl, mor’kael grosh?"

[You think you can face me alone, little girl?]

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a second black pill, and shoved it into his own mouth.

Felix saw it from fifty yards away. "Damn it! He’s boosting himself!"

The elf swallowed the pill.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

A shockwave of foul, corrupted mana exploded from the elf’s body. His skin turned an ashen purple, black veins bulged along his neck and jaw, and his pupils dissolved into pure blood-red fire.

His aura didn’t just jump. It went from A-rank to high S-rank, then spiked directly into peak S-rank.

The elf bared his blackened teeth, shaking with violent, manic power.

"?Krol!" [Now], the elf hissed, drawing two curved daggers that crackled with dark red lightning.

?"Drak’mor tor-vash, krol’kresh z?l."

[Let’s see which of us dies first.]

"Yes," Liora said flatly.

She appeared right in front of him.

The elf slashed downward with both daggers.

CLANG!

Liora caught the blades bare-handed, her fists coated in thick, blue-laced darkness. The sheer force of the collision shattered the road beneath their feet in a spiderweb of cracks.

?"Tor-kresh val’poro, drak’mor human-kai."

[You’re strong for a human]

The elf grunted, veins pulsing wildly on his forehead.

"You talk too much," Liora replied coldly.

Dark mana exploded from her palms, shoving his blades back. She threw a lightning-fast combination: a punch to his liver, an elbow to his jaw, a sweeping kick to his knee.

The elf was ridiculously fast, parrying her strikes with wild, boosted strength. But Liora was impossible to pin down. Every time he swung his daggers, she teleported through the shadows, striking from his blind spots.

As they traded blows at blinding speed, Liora kept her focus sharp.

She wasn’t just trying to hurt him. She was studying him.

She could feel the mana humming inside his chest. Her severance serum let her see it clearly: his natural, pale mana was flowing through his normal channels, while a thick, toxic black energy was wrapped around his heart like an invasive weed.

Foreign mana isn’t part of the body, Felix’s voice echoed in her mind. It doesn’t belong in the circuits. Isolate it, and rip it out.

Liora saw her chance.

The elf lunged forward with a reckless, high-speed stab aimed at her throat.

Instead of dodging away, Liora stepped straight into his guard. The dagger sliced across her cheek, drawing a line of blood, but she didn’t even flinch.

She slammed her open palm flat against the center of his chest.

THUMP.

She didn’t blast him backward. Instead, she poured her blue-threaded darkness straight through his ribs, flooding his mana network.

The elf’s eyes went wide with pure terror.

?"Ghra... ghra-kresh val’drok?!"

[What... what did you do?!]

His body instantly locked up.

Liora’s darkness coiled around the foreign black energy inside his core. Because of the severance serum, her mana acted like a surgical scalpel. She grabbed the parasite energy and forcefully yanked it away from his natural heart valves.

CRACK.

A sound like snapping glass echoed from inside his chest.

The foreign energy collapsed. The violet glow vanished from his skin. The terrifying peak S-rank aura violently drained out of him, crashing all the way back down to standard A-rank.

The elf dropped to his knees, coughing up a mouthful of black, curdled blood. He stared up at her in horror, his body trembling from the violent mana crash.

?"Ghra... ghra’tor val-drak mor-kahl..."

[You... you stripped my power...]

He wheezed.

Liora looked down at him, her pale pink eyes cold and merciless.

"You’re just an A-rank now," she said softly.

Her right hand pulled back, darkness condensing around her fist until it was as hard as diamond.

"Goodbye."

BOOM!

Her fist drove straight through his skull. The dark elf went limp, collapsing face-first into the ruined street.

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