With a single terrifying attack, Lucy covered a massive area of 50 meters with a destructive 360° spell from which no one could escape. Within this area, space shattered as deadly spatial cracks swept across nearly every inch of the region.
When confronted with the devastating spatial cracks that could cut through anything, Elementium was simply a joke. No Apprentice-level Personal Protection spell would provide any defense against the destruction caused by the spatial cracks. Without any unique life-saving abilities, even if ten Pseudo-Mages attempted to resist Lucy's attack together, they would all likely perish.
At this moment, Leon felt a bit of pity for the Worm Controller, as he was right in the center of that area and was probably killed. Moreover, Leon would have to run immediately to save his own life if the Worm Controller was dead.
Just as Leon was about to give up on the Worm Controller, his eyes suddenly spotted something near the battlefield.
The dirt was being pushed up in that spot, revealing a large hole underneath. A swarm of black scorpions burst forth, quickly forming into the Worm Controller.
Fortunately, the Worm Controller was still alive!
But just as wild joy began to rise in Leon's mind, he was forced to discard it.
Something was not right. It seemed the Worm Controller had truly suffered from that destructive spatial spell.
At this moment, the Worm Controller had lost all the arrogance and high spirits he had shown at the beginning of the fight. The army of thousands of horrific scorpions had shrunk to a mere hundred, which was barely enough to form his body. The newly formed body was smaller than before, and his Evil Aura of Elementium could be felt, clearly showing that he had lost a great deal in that last confrontation.
On the other side, Lucy, who had just unleashed that deadly attack, had also lost her calm and indifferent demeanor. Although those scorpions had only been able to attack her body for a few seconds, during that brief period, she was completely covered by over a thousand scorpions, crawling and biting every inch of her skin. This... simply made her seethe with extreme anger.
When her body, floating in the air, returned to the ground, Leon finally saw how miserable her appearance had become.
The cute Lolita had vanished. The right side of Lucy's eye had turned into a huge bloody hole, with blood dripping down her silky, smooth skin. The terrible scorpion venom had left countless black and purple splotches all over her body. All of this, combined with her almost insane and mysterious smile... made her look on the verge of madness.
"Fuck! I have to run!"
Leon wasn't an idiot. When he saw Lucy looking directly at him with her lingering malevolent gaze, he didn't think twice before turning and fleeing.
With his abilities, there was no way he could fight against this Lucy. Moreover, the Worm Controller was half-disabled and couldn't stop this Lolita who was about to attack. So, without saying anything, Leon fled the scene.
Initially, Blake was waiting, hoping the scorpion venom would be able to kill this formidable Lolita. But when he saw the enemy slowly turn her remaining eye towards him, he immediately dispersed his scorpion body, transforming back into a swarm of scorpions and burrowing underground, disappearing without a trace.
Soon, a furious little girl was the only one left at the scene.
The commotion began.
She floated in the air and started to fly like a bird, heading in the direction Leon had run, quickly vanishing into the thick fog.
When everything fell silent for a moment, the dirt beneath a thin Assassin Tree was pushed up, revealing the Worm Controller, who had been hiding while waiting for the girl to leave.
He looked at the direction where Lucy had disappeared and hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he just couldn't muster the courage to pursue the terrifying girl. Although that little Lolita was also gravely injured, she still seemed to have plenty of energy left. He simply didn't have the confidence to face such a scary enemy again.
After a long moment, he gritted his teeth, turned, and ran in the direction Hawkeye had gone. As for Lucy... it would be better to let someone else deal with her.
...
Meanwhile, Leon was going through a tough time, but the digital arena was activated, and that helped him a lot. Previously, he discovered that this digital arena is one of several functions, like elemental vision, that the chip provides.
Unexpectedly, that enraged Lolita wasn't chasing the Worm Controller but was keeping an eye on him, who had only said a few words in the previous battle.
He covered his head and ran away from her like a rat to its hole. Behind him, the small Lolita was floating thirty meters in the air, holding the bizarre cage and continuously waving in Leon's direction.
However, something was truly intriguing Lucy. It seemed this rascal had a pair of eyes in the back of his head. Whenever her spatial attacks got close to him, he would speed up and turn in another direction, causing her attempts to target him to go to waste.
If it had only happened once or twice, perhaps he was just having a lot of luck today. But with her failing continuously, Lucy was certain this Beginner Apprentice could sense the existence of her spatial energy, making her want to kill him even more.
It appeared that his finding the weakness of her protective barrier wasn't a strange accident, but he could actually see the entire structure of her barrier by looking through her spatial energy.
In fact, this was a weakness of Lucy's innate spatial abilities.
Although her protective barrier was nearly invulnerable, it had a significant drawback. Once she used spatial energy to warp the fabric of space around her into a barrier, she became trapped in a relatively small space. While this spared her from taking any damage from an enemy, she couldn't launch any attacks while the barrier remained intact.
Thus, to allow her to attack, she had to leave a 'hole' in her protective barrier so she could manipulate her spiritual energy to strike an enemy. To prevent that hole from being noticed, she deliberately used Wind Elementium, which is invisible to the naked eye, and created a weaker barrier at that location.
The Air Barrier was fully covered and invisible, about the size of a fist, and while an enemy was unaware of it, no one would ever think there was actually a hole in this Protective Barrier.
No common enemy could defend against Lucy's bizarre and terrifying long-range attacks while searching for weaknesses in the protective barrier inch by inch. That's why she was able to keep this great secret and gained the confidence of being nearly invincible.
But today, unfortunately, she encountered two special Apprentice Mages at the same time.
One of them was an Advanced Apprentice who had completely modified his body and could transform into numerous scorpions. He also possessed an unpleasant and strange method of attack. In the end, he was simply a cockroach that was nearly impossible to kill. The other was just a stranger. Although he was merely a Beginner Apprentice, he was still able to expose her greatest secret… Moreover, it seemed he could truly see her spatial energy.
To capture this oddity, Lucy used the strongest energy she could muster and, in the shortest time possible, set an invisible Spatial Trap in his path. But, mere seconds before this rascal fell into her invisible trap, he suddenly changed direction and evaded it.
Now, Lucy had no doubts about his ability.
Thus, her desire to catch him grew even stronger!
...
After running for so long, Leon was extremely tired.
Due to his lack of training and cultivation, his Agility and Physique were very low. If he hadn't covered his body with Wind Elementium to boost his speed, he might have been caught long ago by that terrifying Lolita. He had a feeling that if he were truly captured by her, something extremely horrible would happen to him.
So even though he was panting, he gritted his teeth and continued running for his life.
The graceful Wind Elementium lifted his body, reducing his weight by half and allowing him to move through the muddy swamp at a relatively high speed. Feeling his physique tiring rapidly, Leon's face continued to contort as he began to panic. In his panic, he came up with a dangerous plan. Resolving himself, he turned right and ran deeper into the swamp.
He would never be able to escape by running, so Leon decided to lure Lucy into the Ghost Nanny's habitat.
This area of the swamp was a bit different from the others.
The rotten, foul-smelling sludge and the slowly moving muddy water mixed together, with pieces of grass growing haphazardly and other dirty debris floating all around. The water in this murky, filthy lake wasn't completely still, but flowed at an extremely slow pace. From time to time, bubbles and half-rotten tree branches appeared on the surface.
Indistinct wailing, reminiscent of the moans of the damned, echoed above this foggy lake, recalling the cries of the condemned and sending a cold sweat down the spine of anyone who heard that sacred music.
There was a trail through this swampy area, but the dark path blended with the murky water, making it very difficult for outsiders to find the ruined trail amid the filthy swamp.
Within this swampy area, covering nearly thirty square miles, lived many different groups of Ghost Nannies. The smaller groups consisted of only seven to eight members and normally resided in the more remote regions of this area. Meanwhile, larger groups could have up to a hundred members and occupied the largest region right in the center of this part of the swamp.
Like demons, Ghost Nannies only possessed basic intelligence. They were usually transformed from those humans who accidentally drowned in the swamp. Although they had once been human, their minds were filled with intense hatred and resentment toward all of humanity.
For months, or even years, they remained trapped on the swamp's edges. Once a living human approached, they would leap, biting into the flesh of their target and dragging them down to the swamp's depths to drown them. Through this method, they ensured that their population continued to grow.
Their appearance closely resembled that of a slender human woman. However, most of their muscles were missing, and their skin had turned pale due to constant immersion in muddy water. Adding to this were their old, moldy bones, giving them the appearance of a living corpse. While most were naked, those who had lived a better life as humans might be wearing a tattered dress, although it was always so faded that it was impossible to tell what the dress originally looked like, or even what color it was.
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