He tried to guide the newly activated, furious monster toward its true target.

  But a second-rank Agile Live Iron Golem? What incredible speed.

  In the time it took him to speak, it had already, without hesitation, torn off one of his arms, and then, opening its maw, bitten off one of his legs!

  “Aaaaaah—!!!”

  A heart-rending scream echoed throughout the room.

  After Dulles let out his scream and finished his sentence, the second-rank Agile Live Iron Golem froze for a brief moment. Its hollow, gss-bead-like eyes flickered, then it released the mangled, bloody form of Dulles.

  Its gaze turned toward the shattered, open window.

  Dulles clutched the bleeding stump of his arm, watching it in terror, but… in the end, he had succeeded.

  The second-rank Live Iron Golem… was activated!

  “Hahahaha… hahahahaha!!”

  A wild, hoarse ugh tore from his throat, his voice strained. His eyes, filled with malice, widened, growing hazy from blood loss as he stared at the agile figure pouncing toward the window—no matter what, the girl who had ruined all his pns was definitely finished!

  ………………

  “Hahahaha… hahahahaha!!”

  A frantic, hoarse ugh drifted down from the shattered window on the second floor, echoing in the cultivation room, thick with the smell of blood and red fog, grating on the ears.

  Pandora listened to the completely unfamiliar voice and couldn’t help but frown.

  Even now, she still couldn’t figure out why this unseen, hidden enemy was so determined, so absolute, in trying to kill her.

  But…

  “It doesn't matter anymore,” she whispered in her heart.

  Now, the situation had changed. It wasn't about him trying to kill her; it was about her going to kill him.

  However, the immediate problem was… how was she supposed to get up there?

  The ceiling of the cultivation room was high, nearly eight meters up, almost the height of two floors in a normal building.

  Jump up? Even though her physical fitness had been enhanced by the “Corpse-Red Mist” to a superhuman level, she wasn't at the point where she could ignore gravity and leap eight meters like a superhero.

  Unless… she piled up the corpses on the ground, to make a makeshift ramp?

  The moment the thought surfaced, Pandora dismissed it herself. Too slow, and too unstable.

  Just then—

  【My Lady, be careful!】

  Elsa’s urgent, emotionless yet highest-priority warning, like a bolt of lightning, exploded in her mind!

  Almost at the exact same moment Elsa’s voice sounded, Pandora’s bestial combat instincts, honed from countless brushes with death, also issued their strongest alert!

  She didn’t even have time to think. Her body moved on pure instinct, leaping backward violently!

  “Whoosh—!”

  A sharp gust of wind, carrying a foul stench, swept right past her nose!

  Pandora leaped back several steps, nding steadily on the ground, instantly assuming a defensive stance. She looked at the spot where she had just been standing. It was empty, but she knew her reaction couldn't have been wrong.

  Just now, something had swept through there at a speed her naked eyes could barely capture!

  Her gaze shot around like lightning, memories of cssic “jump scare” scenes from horror movies giving her a great deal of help at this moment. She jerked her head up!

  Just as she’d thought!

  There, on the ceiling nearly eight meters above, in the corner where the smooth wall met the ceiling, a monster was clinging to the wall like a gecko, prone and “looking down” on her from on high!

  It was an unprecedented, grotesquely twisted zombie monster.

  It had a face that vaguely resembled a human’s, but was completely contorted by pain and hatred. Its two lower canines were enrged and protruded, like a boar’s tusks, jutting out from the corner of its drooling mouth.

  Its upper body barely maintained an upright posture, but its arms were bizarrely, abnormally swollen to nearly the length of its torso, brimming with explosive power.

  Its lower body, in stark, nauseating contrast, was withered and rotten. Its two legs had almost degenerated into useless appendages, dragging on the ground. With every breath, it dripped a foul-smelling, yellow-green pus.

  This special zombie monster seemed to be in a state of constant, intense pain. It was this pain that had forged its exceptionally twisted visage.

  That sense of fatal caution arose in Pandora’s heart once more. She subconsciously brought the sword of Elsa up, holding it horizontally before her.

  The next second—

  CRASH!!

  A heavy, impossibly fast force smashed violently against her bde!

  “Ugh!”

  Pandora felt an irresistible, immense force rush up the bde, through her arm, and into her entire body! Her whole body, as if struck head-on by a battering ram, was knocked off her feet, sent flying backward!

  THUD!

  She smmed heavily into a row of cultivation tanks, cracking the sturdy gss covers with a spiderweb of fractures before colpsing to the ground.

  If the sword of Elsa hadn’t taken the bulk of the impact, she would have been seriously injured by that blow. And if the opponent’s terrifying power had nded directly on her, broken bones would have been the least of her worries.

  After being sent flying by the attack, Pandora didn't pause for a second upon hitting the ground. In a single, fluid motion, she kipped up, instantly righting herself, her gaze locked on the figure on the ceiling that had struck once and then retreated back into the red fog.

  Her brain was working at top speed.

  Against an enemy this fast, with such a bizarre attack pattern, Elsa’s warnings were almost too te. It wasn’t that Elsa’s reaction was slow, but the time it took for Elsa to issue the warning, for Pandora to receive it, for her brain to process it, and to command her body to react… the whole process couldn't keep up with the attack rhythm of this ridiculously fast zombie monster.

  In this situation, Pandora discovered she could only rely on one thing. Something she hadn’t trusted much in the past, but which had been honed sharper and sharper through one life-and-death battle after another.

  It was, her own combat instincts.

  These past few days, she had indeed accumuted some experience. But most of that experience was against slow-moving zombie monsters with simple attack patterns. And the strength of ordinary zombie monsters, as everyone knew, was basically a one-ssh kill after her physical fitness had been boosted by the “Corpse-Red Mist.”

  In a situation with such little difficulty, how much her combat experience was actually worth… was, honestly, hard to say…

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