Chapter 118: The Severance 3

Chapter 118: Chapter 118: The Severance 3

Liora didn’t waste a second celebrating. She spun on her heel and looked back toward the intersection.

The mutated drake was still fighting like a rabid beast.

Even pinned, its sheer physical size and corrupted SS-rank output were terrifying. It thrashed its massive head, snapping its jaws and whipping its tail.

Felix was right in front of it, covered in grime and blood. Every time the beast’s claws tore through his flesh, the emerald field stitched him back together, but the strain was showing.

His breath was coming in heavy, ragged gasps.

Seraphina was bombarding it from the flank, her water blades carving into its hide, but the beast’s boosted regeneration kept closing the wounds.

"Felix!" Seraphina called out, her voice strained.

"Its armor is too thick!"

"I’ve got it!" Felix shouted back, planting his feet.

The drake lunged forward, snapping its jaws down on Felix.

Felix caught its upper and lower fangs with his bare hands, his boots sliding back three feet through the tarmac. His arm muscles bulged, veins popping along his neck as he held the monster’s mouth open through sheer force.

"You heavy bastard," Felix growled through clenched teeth.

Deep in the back of the beast’s throat, a blinding ball of corrupted violet fire began to charge.

"Felix, get out of there!" Seraphina yelled, panic lacing her voice. "It’s charging a breath attack!"

"Stay back, Sera!" Felix roared. "I’m not letting go!"

He released his left hand, compressed his emerald-blue mana into a solid, glowing drill, and punched straight down into the charging ball of fire.

KABOOOOOOOM!

The breath attack detonated inside the drake’s mouth.

A massive explosion of purple fire and black smoke swallowed both Felix and the monster’s head whole, blowing out the surrounding pavement in a ten-meter crater.

"FELIX!" Seraphina screamed, surging forward with water blades drawn.

"Don’t move, Sera!"

Felix’s rough voice cut through the billowing smoke.

The black fumes cleared.

Felix was still standing right in the center of the crater. His jacket was completely burned away, leaving his bare chest covered in third-degree burns and blood.

But the emerald-blue light was blazing furiously around his skin, the charred flesh peeling away and regrowing into clean tissue right before their eyes.

Seraphina stopped in her tracks, staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. "You are completely out of your mind."

Felix spat a clump of soot onto the ground, flashing a lopsided, bloody grin. "You’ve known that for months, Sera."

FWIP.

Liora dropped down beside them, wiping dark blood from her knuckles. "The elf is dead."

"Good work, Lio," Felix said, cracking his knuckles. "Now let’s butcher this overgrown lizard."

"I’ll pin its head," Seraphina said, her eyes turning deadly sharp.

"I’ll hold its core down," Liora added, darkness pooling around her boots.

"And I’ll cut the booster out of its heart," Felix said, forming twin turquoise blades along his forearms. "Hit it together!"

The three of them moved as one.

Seraphina unleashed everything she had left.

WHOOOOOSH!

A massive tidal wave of pressurized water erupted around the fallen drake. Thousands of sapphire blades formed in the water, plunging down simultaneously like a guillotine.

SHRED-SHRED-SHRED!

Pinning the beast’s thrashing neck flat against the asphalt.

Liora vanished, reappearing right beneath the creature’s chest. She thrust both hands upward, sending thick chains of blue-sparking darkness boring straight into its ribcage, locking down its mana circulation.

"Now, Felix!" Liora cried out, her teeth gritted against the strain.

Felix sprinted forward, vaulting off a chunk of shattered concrete. He compressed his emerald-blue blades until they were barely an inch thick: hyper-dense, humming with terrifying severance energy.

SHING!

Felix plunged both arms elbow-deep into the open wound on the drake’s chest.

The moment his fingers touched its beating heart, the foreign black mana reacted with violent fury. Corrupted purple lightning erupted from the wound, shocking Felix’s arms and burning his skin to the bone.

"Come out of there, you piece of garbage!" Felix roared through the agony.

He dug his hands deeper, his mana flaring brightly. With the severance serum active, he could clearly feel the artificial booster pill’s energy: it was a jagged, foreign lump of compressed energy wrapped around the beast’s main mana valve.

Felix grabbed the foreign energy with his mana.

The beast shrieked in pure agony, thrashing with enough force to crack Seraphina’s water restraints.

"Hold it down!" Felix shouted.

"We have it!" Seraphina gritted out, pouring raw lightning through her water blades to stun the beast’s brain.

Liora shoved her hands deeper, her darkness wrapping around the foreign energy to help Felix pull. "Rip it out, Felix!"

"Sever!" Felix yelled, channeling every drop of his Ultra-tier mana into a slicing motion.

SNAP!

A sound like a steel cable snapping reverberated through the street.

The black, corrupted energy tore clean away from the drake’s heart.

FZZZZZZT.

Instantly, the violent violet glow in the beast’s veins flickered and died. The terrifying SS-rank mana pressure abruptly collapsed, dropping like a stone back down to ordinary S-rank.

The spikes protruding from its scales softened, and its muscles shrank back to normal size.

Felix ripped his bloody arms out of its chest, panting heavily.

"It’s just an S-rank now!" Felix yelled. "Kill it!"

Seraphina moved first.

SHING!

A massive, six-meter-long spear of condensed water formed above her hands, humming with blinding blue lightning.

Liora flickered into the sky right beside the spear, coating the entire frozen weapon in thick, impenetrable darkness.

Felix stepped in from below, merging both of his forearm blades into one massive, glowing greatsword.

"DIE!" the three of them roared together.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The dark lightning spear plunged straight through the drake’s chest, shattering its heart into pieces. In the exact same microsecond, Felix’s emerald greatsword swept across its throat, severing its massive head clean from its shoulders.

The colossal body twitched once.

Then, it hit the pavement with an earth-shattering explosion.

THUD.

Black blood poured into the gutters. The drake was dead.

Silence fell over their half of the street.

The deafening roar of battle was replaced by the soft hiss of evaporating steam and the crackle of burning rubble.

Felix let his mana blades fade. He stood there in the center of the carnage, his chest heaving as he pulled in long, ragged breaths. Blood coated his face, his arms, and his bare torso.

Footsteps crunched against the gravel.

Seraphina walked up to his right side, completely drained. Without saying a word, she let her head rest gently against his right shoulder, closing her eyes.

A second later, Liora walked up to his left side. She leaned her shoulder against his left arm, burying her face into his side with a quiet sigh of relief.

Felix blinked, looking down at Seraphina, then down at Liora.

"You two holding up alright?" Felix asked, his voice rough and tired.

"Exhausted," Seraphina whispered against his skin. "I used too much lightning."

"My mana feels completely empty," Liora murmured softly, her fingers lightly gripping the fabric of his torn belt.

Felix chuckled weakly. "You both took way too many hits today."

Seraphina cracked one eye open, glaring playfully up at his bloodstained chin. "Look who’s talking. You took a breath attack point-blank to the chest, Doctor."

"And you healed us the entire time," Liora added quietly, her voice full of soft warmth. "Every time I got cut, the pain just disappeared."

"That’s my job," Felix said gently. "I keep you two breathing."

Neither of them argued.

Felix closed his eyes and let a warm, gentle wave of emerald mana spread over the three of them. The small cuts on Seraphina’s arms sealed smooth. The bruising along Liora’s ribs faded away. The burning exhaustion in Felix’s own muscles slowly eased.

For a few precious seconds, the ruined city street felt completely peaceful. Just the three of them, leaning on each other, catching their breath.

BOOOOOOOOOM!

A violent explosion shattered the quiet, rattling the glass in the skyscrapers behind them.

Felix’s eyes snapped open.

He looked across the street toward the other side of the battlefield.

Aria’s squad was in trouble.

The second mutated drake was running rampant. Kael’s flames were painting the sky in frantic bursts, but the beast was plowing through them.

Darius’s earth walls were shattering like glass under the creature’s claws. Ryan’s heavy shield had three massive cracks running down the center, and he was being pushed back foot by foot.

Orion and Mira were darting in and out, opening rifts and throwing lightning to distract it, while Lena’s wind blades barely scratched its boosted hide. Aria was standing on the front line, her spear dancing with frost, but she was slowly being backed into a corner.

The second drake threw its head back and roared, violet lightning crackling around its horns.

Felix took a deep, steady breath and straightened his back.

"Alright," Felix said, his voice turning firm and resolute. "Break time is over."

Seraphina lifted her head from his shoulder, her eyes cold and focused once more.

Liora stepped back, cracking her knuckles as blue-tinted darkness pooled around her boots.

Felix looked at both of them. "Ready to save the others?"

"Always," Seraphina said, a fresh water scythe materializing in her hand.

Liora gave a small, confident smirk. "Let’s go."

"Let’s move!"

CRACK!

The asphalt cratered beneath their boots as all three launched forward at maximum speed.

Seraphina shot across the road like a streak of silver and blue lightning. Liora vanished into the shadows, skimming along the ground like a phantom.

And right between them, Felix charged forward, emerald-blue mana blazing around his fists like twin suns.

Felix bared his teeth, locking his sights onto the second SS-rank abomination.

"Hold on, Aria!" Felix’s voice roared across the ruined street. "We’re here!"

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