THUD!
At that mont, her dazed mind slipped up, and she took a direct hit. Though the wound wasn’t grievous, it proved to be the last straw that broke the cal's back.
Her body stumbling off-balance, she could already sense that in a matter of seconds, a flurry of devastating strikes would tear her apart.
“So this is where it ends......”
She closed her eyes, ready to surrender to despair.
BOOM——!
A deafening commotion erupted suddenly from behind the horde of magical beasts.
“Lady Farna! Are you there?!”
Terrag’s voice cut through the chaos, jolting Farna’s flagging spirit back to life in an instant.
She forced every last ounce of her ntal strength to bear, weaving Mana Circuits through her body at breakneck speed.
BOOM——!
A Fla Shockwave exploded outward from her position, sending all the surrounding magical beasts flying.
She had bought herself a temporary reprieve.
anwhile, a ferocious Sword Aura tore through the narrow corridor, slicing scores of magical beasts to shreds in its wake.
Terrag seized the opening and fought his way toward her.
Back-to-back, the two of them ford a defensive formation, leaning against each other for support.
“Lady Farna—how are you holding up?”
Terrag glanced at Farna from the corner of his eye. Her condition was nothing short of wretched.
Her once-gorgeous mage’s robe was gone, reduced to tattered scraps that clung to her fra. Only the undergarnts beneath remained, and even they were torn to shreds, stained heavily with blood.
Farna pulled a vial of Healing Potion from her pack and downed it in one gulp.
“Pah! Still tastes like sewage!”
She hurled the empty bottle to the ground, gritting her teeth as the potion lent her a burst of renewed energy. “Absolutely miserable! If you’d been even a few seconds later, I’d be a corpse right now!”
“Then it seems I arrived just in the nick of ti.”
“Never mind that—what are you doing here?”
“The answer should be obvious, Lady Farna—”
Terrag’s gaze darkened as he stared at the tide of magical beasts closing in once more.
“Anyone with half a brain would know the exam’s long gone to hell with all these anomalies.”
“I see. Then I owe you my thanks for your good sense. It’s the only reason I’m still breathing.”
“Saving your thanks for later. We can celebrate once we’re both out of this dungeon alive.”
“Ha! Cold, hard reality at its finest~!”
“Ready to fight?”
“Always have been.”
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RUMBLE......
After a brief lull, an even more brutal battle erupted once again within the dungeon’s depths.
......
The innermost chamber of the Karimal Sealed Dungeon.
Having dispatched the Chira, Hulim Heyerar stepped into the room—and her expression turned grim at the sight before her.
There stood a wall, similar in design to the ones in the other seal chambers—but far grander in scale. The Seal Orb embedded in its center was equally massive, dwarfing the ones she’d seen earlier.
CRACK.
A fragnt of stone broke off the wall and clattered to the floor.
The cracks snaking across the surface widened just a fraction more.
“This situation...... is far worse than I feared.”
The wall was shattered, crisscrossed with countless fissures. The crystal orb at its heart was clouded with white cracks, its glow dimd to a flicker of what it once was.
“Is there even a way to repair this?”
Hulim stepped forward, closed her eyes, and placed her hand on the orb, focusing her senses to probe its inner workings.
Just as she fell into her ditative state—
THUD!
A heavy footstep echoed suddenly from the entrance she’d just co through.
Hulim’s eyes snapped open, and she turned sharply to face the sound.
There, standing in the doorway, was the Chira—the one that should have been dead.
“ROAR!”
The Chira let out a thunderous roar at her, then tensed its muscles, assuming a predatory stance.
“......”
Hulim showed no reaction to the display.
She simply fixed the resurrected beast with a cold, unblinking stare.
After a long, tense silence, she spoke slowly, her voice cutting through the air.
“Who—are you?”
“!”
The Chira froze mid-lunge. To Hulim’s surprise, the lion’s head blinked—and its eyes flashed with a distinctly human glint of surprise.
It narrowed its gaze, studying Hulim intently.
Then its jaws moved, and a hoarse, gravelly voice erged—not the beast’s roar, but words.
“Human...... I did not expect you to see through the ruse.”
“So things,” Hulim replied flatly,
“are obvious even without seeing them.”
“That Chira was dead. Beyond dead. There is no way it could have revived itself. You—”
“You’ve possessed its corpse, haven’t you?”
The Chira stiffened. Then it threw back its head and laughed—a harsh, guttural sound that echoed through the chamber.
“Hahaha! Interesting! Truly interesting! And bold, too!”
The laughter died abruptly, and the beast’s eyes blazed with bloodlust.
“Human, you dare trespass into my domain? Have you co up with a fitting way to die?”
“......”
Hulim fell silent for a mont, then spoke.
“I see now. You are the great demon sealed within this dungeon. Karimal, is it not?”
“Hm?”
The Chira stared at her in genuine surprise.
Then a cruel, vicious grin spread across its lion’s maw.
“Heh heh. Correct!”
It reared its head high, its voice swelling with arrogant pride.
“I am Karimal, wielder of the Flas of Destruction! The noble demon who once incinerated countless weaklings like you! Tremble at the sound of my na, human—I grant you permission to grovel before !”
“Is that so?”
Hulim uttered the two words in a calm, indifferent tone.
“Hm?”
Karimal’s grin faltered. Then it bared its fangs, enraged by her lack of fear.
“Insolent worm! I ought to roast you alive where you stand—”
The beast cut itself off, then let out a low, sinister chuckle.
“—but I suppose I should thank you first~.”
The Chira’s body shifted, contorted into a posture that oozed malice as Karimal’s voice dripped with cunning.
“It was your hand that gave this temporary vessel to move freely. Now I can shatter that accursed seal and walk free ahead of schedule! Hahaha!”
“......”
Hulim watched the laughing demon in silence, her expression cold as ice.
“Now then~,” Karimal’s voice turned sharp again, its gaze locking onto Hulim like a predator eyeing its prey,
“it’s ti to send you to your grave——”
WHOOSH!
A violent gust of wind exploded outward.
Without a single warning,
the Chira—or rather, Karimal—vanished from the doorway in a blur, reappearing in front of Hulim in the blink of an eye.
Its claws, wreathed in Black Flas, were raised high, then slamd downward with blinding speed.
CLANG——!
The sound of tal ringing against tal echoed throughout the Core Seal Chamber.
“Oh......”
Karimal’s voice rumbled as it stared down at the figure before it.
“You managed to block that?”
“You have so skill, human. But this was rely a warm-up! The real attack starts now! You will be the first victim of my rebirth—die!”
BOOM!
Pitch-black flas erupted from the Chira’s body, engulfing it entirely.
It raised its claws once more, then brought them crashing down in a flurry of strikes.
Dozens of Black Fla Claws tore through the air, sealing off every single escape route Hulim could possibly take.
SWISH!
In the blink of an eye,
a flash of swordlight streaked across the chamber.
In the next instant, every single one of the Black Fla Claws shattered into tiny embers, dissolving into the air without a trace.
“What?!”
Karimal stared in shock at the scattered flas.
Even trapped in this borrowed body, robbed of his true power, his eyesight remained as sharp as ever.
He had seen it—Hulim had moved with inhuman speed, swinging her sword countless tis in the span of a heartbeat, slicing through every last one of his attacks with pinpoint precision.
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