“ROAR—!”

  The monster obviously couldn't tolerate an “ant” toying with it. It charged out of the dense red fog again, its target Pandora!

  However, the instant its deformed body rushed from the red fog, filled with frenzied energy, into the area around Pandora that had been repeatedly emptied by the System—the absolutely “clean” zone—its movements faltered for a brief, almost imperceptible moment!

  It was like a creature used to swimming in syrup had suddenly hit open air.

  And for Pandora, this was the moment she’d been waiting for!

  She didn't retreat. She stepped forward.

  The sword of Elsa in her hands swept upwards at an extremely precise angle!

  CLANG!

  This time, it wasn't a heavy, blunt impact. It was a crisp, clean sound of metal striking metal!

  The bde precisely struck the bone joint of the monster’s deformed arm.

  The monster, in pain, had its attack trajectory deflected again, but it no longer had time to unch a second attack.

  Pandora’s figure, like a shadow clinging to its bones, pressed close to its body. The sword light, like a ceaseless, bloody storm, left one deep wound after another on its body.

  The monster attacked again and again, rushing from the red fog into the fogless area, only to be repelled each time, its powerful attacks nding squarely on the bde of the sword of Elsa.

  And fortunately, the sword of Elsa was no ordinary object, but a product condensed from the System and Elsa’s soul. After enduring such repeated, frenzied attacks, it didn't show a single sign of damage.

  On the contrary, it absorbed the blood of this monster, whose life force was clearly extraordinary, and the red light on the bde grew deeper, its aura more powerful!

  That power, through the hilt, was fed back to Pandora in a continuous stream.

  She even felt that her broken ribs, under the nourishment of Elsa’s power, were beginning to slowly “heal.”

  Of course, “healing” was just an illusion, an improvement in the state of the injury. Elsa herself didn't have the ability to mend wounds.

  But that didn't stop her—the more she fought, the stronger she became!

  Her current pn was a war of attrition. She could feel that the zombie monster clearly didn't have the stamina for this kind of high-intensity combat. Its already withered, pus-oozing lower body had become even more atrophied and rotten in the short few minutes of their exchange.

  And she? Let alone at her peak, as long as this pace continued, she had absolutely no problem holding out until the monster was exhausted and colpsed.

  Pandora felt that this monster didn't seem to be as powerful as the legends cimed.

  What she didn't know was that what she was facing was likely the final trump card of this entire Warden Base, a Live Iron Golem that had truly reached the level of a “second-rank demon hunter”!

  A creation of this level was in no way comparable to the mass-produced first-rank Live Iron Golems. Any ordinary first-rank demon-hunting apprentice, if they encountered it alone, would have only one outcome: to be unreasonably… crushed!

  And as this scene of her single-handedly holding her own against a second-rank Live Iron Golem fell into the eyes of the half-dead Warden, “Dulles,” in the second-floor monitoring room—his eyes, already growing hazy from blood loss, instantly… widened.

  He simply could not comprehend how the scene before him was happening.

  From the fact that the Corpse-Red Mist could no longer be absorbed, he could guess that Pandora was strong, on the level of Lady Ophelia, the top-tier genius he knew of among the apprentices.

  However, he had still underestimated her. He had underestimated this girl, underestimated the potential of this “Fruit”!

  Still in the Orchard, not even having stepped through the doors of the Demon Hunter Academy, knowing nothing of its ways, she was single-handedly holding her own against a second-rank Live Iron Golem, even gaining a slight upper hand…

  What the hell… kind of monster was this?!

  Dulles was numb. His mouth was bitter, a sense of despair and powerlessness, like a maggot burrowing into his bones, gnawed at his st shred of reason.

  For the sake of advancement, for the sake of survival, he had schemed, betting everything. He thought his pn was fwless, he thought he was the chessmaster, in control of everything.

  But in the end, he discovered that from beginning to end, he was just a… joke.

  A pathetic, overreaching clown, trying to stop a war chariot before a true “Chosen One.”

  To encounter such a monster was both a misfortune… and in a way, his… “honor”…

  The st light in Dulles’s eyes went out completely.

  Putting aside Dulles’s bitterness and despair, Pandora’s battle took on a new, heart-pounding change.

  This was the first time since the fight began that she had taken the initiative to attack this special zombie monster—

  This wasn't because she felt she had the advantage and was getting carried away and showing off. It was because she had keenly sensed that the monster was clearly preparing to enter its… next phase.

  No way! Is this thing a Dark Souls boss? How does it have a second phase?! I’m not the chosen one here!!

  Pandora cursed wildly in her heart, but her body didn't stop for a second. She retreated, putting distance between them, while staring fixedly at her opponent.

  The second-rank Agile Live Iron Golem did not pursue. Using its deformed, swollen arms, it clung to the wall again with a strange, efficient motion. This height put it out of Pandora’s attack range.

  Then, its twisted human mouth gaped open, like an invisible, massive whirlpool, and it began to frantically, unreservedly, absorb the dense, scarlet fog that Dulles had released into the air!

  Pandora temporarily named this fog—“Frenzy Mist.”

  As the zombie monster absorbed a rge amount of the Frenzy Mist, even though it remained still, clinging to the wall, Pandora felt an unprecedented, mountain-like pressure.

  She could clearly sense that a single unit of “Frenzy Mist,” in the System's judgment, was roughly equivalent to half of an ordinary zombie monster, the kind she could kill in one ssh.

  And in these short few minutes, how much Frenzy Mist had the opponent absorbed?

  Pandora could tell just from the visibly fading color of the red fog in the air around her—it must be a lot! A very, very rge amount!

  Keep in mind, up to this point, she had absorbed the equivalent of about thirty zombies, and hadn't undergone such an obvious change.

  God knew how much zombie-equivalent mist this monster had absorbed! Even if the conversion rate was low, Pandora felt that if the monster were to refine all the power in its body into Alchemical Elements right now, the total sum would probably break a hundred!

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