“An attack like this is already useless against me!”
Jaden raised his knightly lance.
His D-grade combat technique, Rose Bud, was instantly unleashed.
A red phantom seeped from the lance, transforming into a flower bud that enveloped Jaden, holding fast against the battering of the Acid Wave.
Amidst heavy impacts and sizzling corrosion, Jaden withstood the wave's attack and acidity.
The earth corroded as the wave surged in all directions.
Yet within that pool of acid, Jaden, enveloped in the giant flower bud, remained completely unscathed.
Next, he raised his lance, and his body vanished from where he stood.
Swish!
An afterimage reappeared right in front of Zoe, the lance thrusting straight through the chests of both Zoe and Flora.
“The Sacred Circle descends, in the name of judgment!”
Having watched all of this unfold, Evelyn gripped her longsword tightly, her entire body turning golden as she flashed toward Jaden.
A ten-meter-long sword light slashed down like a golden stream of light.
Jaden pulled out his blood-stained lance, a crimson glow wrapping around it as he met Evelyn's slash.
“How does it feel to watch your friends die right before your eyes? All of this is because of you.
“If you hadn't come to hunt down the Headhunter Cult, if not for your selfishness and boring game of justice...
“Why would they have died? It's all because of you, Sacred Circle Knight Evelyn!”
Jaden parried Evelyn's slash, the sharp air current blowing off her golden mask.
“What a beautiful face. After chasing the Headhunter Cult for so long, sacrificing such a beautiful face to the evil god...
“...will surely satisfy the evil god enough to bestow immense power upon me.”
Jaden licked his lips as he gazed at Evelyn's breathtaking beauty.
He was not a follower of the Headhunter Cult. Setting up the Headhunter Cult in Hera City was merely to facilitate his own ambitions and goals.
The Headhunter Cult was merely his tool, a stepping stone on his path to the throne.
And the same went for the evil god.
“The only one who should die is you.”
Beneath her murderous intent and anger, Evelyn's innermost mind remained calm.
Perhaps I should have been alone from the very beginning.
She would not question her belief in carrying out her inner justice and eradicating evil, despicable individuals.
But she questioned her decision to drag others into this situation because of her beliefs.
No, they had agreed with her beliefs and stood by her side to fight with full resolve.
Evelyn's internal conflict lasted for only an instant.
At this moment, her open right pupil turned golden.
The golden pupil expanded continuously, completely overtaking the iris of her right eye.
Her entire right eye transformed into a flawless, pure flowing gold.
Evelyn had activated a Golden Eye belonging to the Golden Race.
“The Golden Eye of the Golden Race!”
Before Jaden's words could even land, Evelyn had already charged forward with her sword.
Just as Jaden was about to retaliate, he suddenly felt his lance stiffen.
That was the Golden Eye's ability to manipulate metal!
An independent Seventh Force that manipulated metal, separate from the four elements of wind, fire, water, and earth, as well as the light and dark attributes!
Forces like lightning, metal, and ice, which existed outside the four elements and two attributes, were collectively known as the Seventh Force.
The Seventh Force was extremely difficult to master and counter, making it an exceptionally rare power.
The slight pause of his lance slowed Jaden's defense, and the sharp slash was already upon him.
“I am a High-tier Rose Knight!”
Jaden roared, throwing his free hand forward as Rose Petals condensed in his palm to form another illusory Rose Knight lance, meeting Evelyn's attack.
Evelyn shifted her sword path, blocking the sudden lance.
The powerful dynamic vision granted by the Golden Eye allowed her to bridge the gap in tiers and track Jaden's movements.
However, the disparity in their strength still knocked Evelyn backward.
Jaden quickly pursued, thrusting his lance at a speed that overwhelmed Evelyn.
Evelyn used her Golden Eye to capture Jaden's trajectory, sliding her sword along the lance to deflect the force and dodging to the side.
At a swift pace nearly imperceptible to the naked eye, the two clashed close-range for several exchanges.
Jaden was completely unscathed, while the wounds on Evelyn's body continued to accumulate.
The Golden Eye could allow Evelyn to bridge the tier gap and capture Jaden's movements, but her exhausted and sluggish body could not keep up with what her Golden Eye saw.
Pant, pant.
Zoe collapsed onto the ground, struggling to watch the battle on the other side. A High-tier Rose Knight was already capable of seeing through an enemy's weaknesses.
Even though Zoe had tried his best to shift his slime core the moment he was attacked, his slime core was still shattered.
At this moment, he could only struggle to pull the pieces of his slime core back together, barely clinging to life.
Flora, however, had her heart pierced, and her body was growing colder and colder.
Damn it!
With great effort, Zoe precisely controlled his slime, extending it into Flora's wound to piece together and bind her ruptured heart, manipulating his slime to keep it beating and barely preserving her remaining life force.
As she hovered on the brink of death, Flora weakly opened her eyes and looked at the slime before her.
“Little brother...”
Flora's consciousness was clearly blurred; she had even mistaken a slime for her little brother.
Zoe looked over at Evelyn, who was steadily losing ground on the other side, and felt his own life slipping away due to his shattered core.
“Zoe!”
He saw Vera rushing down from the sky.
At this moment, even Vera realized the severity of the situation. She wanted to take Zoe away!
She wanted to help Zoe escape!
Even if she had to abandon everyone else and all of her subordinates, she had to escape.
Even though her draconic instinct, sensing danger, urged her to turn around and flee alone, she still fought against it, wanting only to escape with Zoe.
However, Zoe did not head toward Vera, who was calling out to him.
Under the watch of Evelyn's Golden Eye, he lunged toward the fighting Jaden, resolutely activating the Withered State.
In an instant, all of Zoe's life potential seemed to lose control, violently burning away as it converted into pure strength and mana, flooding his entire body.
His Experience points were also rapidly filled.
[Experience is full. Your level has increased to Lv.26]
[Strength +2, Free Stat Point +2]
[Strength +10, Agility +10, Constitution +10, Intelligence +10]
Zoe's deep-purple body turned entirely red, inside and out.
With a twelvefold increase in mana, over 51,000 points of mana flooded his entire body.
His shattered slime core, which had barely been pieced together, dissolved into countless microscopic core particles, scattering throughout his entire body.
A massive aura of mana surged into the sky.
In Zoe's vision, everything became exceptionally clear.
It was as if a shroud of fog had been lifted from his brain; all his thoughts collided tens of thousands of times in an instant, and inspirations for thought and battle continuously gushed from his mind.
His talent was boosted to the absolute limit of what this body could achieve.
Problems he previously could not comprehend melted away like butter.
[Proficiency has met the requirements. You have mastered the basic skill Dragon Body Fusion Lv.1 (B-grade)]
“What on earth is going on with this slime?!”
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