Chapter162

If the opponent were just a soft target, Elara could have had Tres take her over quietly, then look for a chance to strike.

But the enemy was a strong fighter. Its massive body and brute strength meant that even a sweep of its tumor-covered limbs could knock down a group of people. The three members of the Wei clan could only barely hold it off, and with the number of living puppets attacking them doubling on all sides...

Elara frowned. This couldn't go on.

Even if the Wei clan members could fight like a hundred soldiers each, they were still outnumbered.

They had to finish this quickly, or the casualties would multiply. The longer it dragged on, the more likely things could go wrong.

But how?

The first thing that came to Elara's mind was fire. It didn't matter if it was a living puppet or a dead one. Anything made of organic matter feared fire.

But she had already sent the flammable oil to the granary with the Wei clan members. Oswyn's medicine could affect most of the puppets, but with that Sect Leader on the field, the effects of his medicine had clearly weakened.

The other Wei clan members were already busy dealing with the overwhelming number of puppets. Elara's puppet army and the summoned creatures were all locked in combat with the enemy forces.

In the entire battlefield, the only ones not engaged were her and Tres, who was guarding her.

"Tres, if you went to fight that Sect Leader, could you subdue it quickly?"

The one holding her, Tres, paused, as if he'd guessed her intention. "Your Highness, my duty is to ensure your safety. I cannot—"

Elara interrupted, "Just tell me. Can you or not?"

"...Yes, Your Highness."

"Then put me nearby and go."

"Your Highness..." Tres seemed like he still wanted to argue, but Elara had already slid down from his arms. She raised her slender arm slightly, and a massive black snake, as thick as an adult's waist, slithered out from somewhere and moved quickly along the stone wall until it reached her. It gently wrapped around her leg and nuzzled her affectionately.

"Go ahead. Don't worry about me. If you can suppress the Sect Leader early, this fight will end faster, we'll suffer fewer injuries, and I'll be safer."

Tres was still hesitant, but a powerful, irresistible command had already been issued through the blood bond.

He glanced at the snake, whose strength in battle wasn't low, and then turned toward the battlefield.

Elara sat on the snake's broad body. Its long, thin tail coiled up around her waist and secured her in place. She didn't sway at all.

After confirming that Tres had joined the battle to suppress the Sect Leader, Elara patted the large creature under her.

"Let's go. Take me to the top, right above that Sect Leader. Wait for the right moment."

The snake flicked its crimson tongue, as if replying to her command. Its enormous body slithered up along the stone wall, carrying her swiftly. The black scales blended perfectly with the darkness and chaos around them. Without close inspection, no one would notice that a girl was riding a giant black snake above them.

The battle was raging across the whole area.

Uno and Dos were fighting against the eleventh and twenty-first ranked puppet warriors. Their movements were so fast they blurred, and violent gusts of wind surged from their clashes. The overwhelming force destroyed everything nearby. Their battlefield had become a vacuum zone that no ordinary person could approach.

On the ground, puppet armies fought against both puppets and living creatures in intense combat.

Since most of the puppets couldn't feel pain, scenes of "severed limbs flying" played out quite literally. The battlefield was drenched in blood.

As for the Wei clan members fighting the Sect Leader, with Tres now in the mix, the balance was finally tipping in their favor.

But the Sect Leader was still extremely strong. Even with Tres joining, making its movements more difficult, it still endured their combined attacks. It used summoning techniques to hold its ground.

Elara had already reached the highest point above the battlefield, suspended above the chaos by the powerful black snake. More precisely, she was right above the Sect Leader.

She sat on the snake's back, eyes fixed without blinking on the fight below.

When the Sect Leader finally showed a flaw under the pressure of all four Wei fighters, Elara immediately gave the command.

"Now. Release."

Far away, a figure suddenly dropped from the ceiling of the battlefield. The landing point was right where the grotesque Sect Leader, covered in bloated tumors, stood.

But just as the girl was about to make contact, the Sect Leader, who had seemed overwhelmed and sloppy under attack, suddenly smiled with triumph.

Right before the girl reached him, the Sect Leader lifted his massive body. His face, which barely resembled a human's, stretched open like a shark's mouth, splitting to his ears and forming a terrifying, bloody maw.

The mouth aimed at the falling girl. The moment she reached him, it opened wide and swallowed her whole.

"Cack cack... As expected, the princess tastes just as delicate as I imagined. My target has always been her alone. How could I not keep track of her? No matter where she hides, she'll never escape my eyes..."

The Sect Leader chewed as he spoke, savoring the fresh blood and tender meat in his mouth.

That flaw he showed earlier was all an act. It was a trap meant to lure Elara into coming close and sacrificing herself.

"I knew," came a clear female voice from above his head, "Did you really think I was that foolish?"

The Sect Leader froze, about to look up, when pain suddenly tore through his insides.

He looked down in shock with his four strange eyes and saw his body dissolving rapidly from throat to belly. It was like poison had been poured into him.

"Heh. Tasty, isn't it? That corpse I fed you was specially prepared. It contained twelve different poisons. They say every one of them is a nightmare for your kind of insects. How is it? Does it taste good?"

What the Monster Leader swallowed just now was actually a fresh corpse of a Gu Master that Elara had picked up on the battlefield while riding her black serpent.

She had always been cautious. Until she was sure that the Monster Leader was really being suppressed, she would not go down personally. So she dressed the corpse in her own clothes and filled it with another kind of defensive weapon Oswyn had given her: poison.

It was specially made to counter the Youdan Gu worms.

Though the effect would weaken against the Monster Leader, Elara had stuffed every last bit of the remaining poison into the corpse. The quantity was overwhelming and the concentration was strong.

If her body hadn't been strengthened recently with various buffs, she might have died from all that exposure to the poison.

Now that all that poison was inside the Monster Leader's belly, plus the fact that Elara had hidden several venomous snakes in the corpse, it was impossible for the Monster Leader to fully resist the damage.

Sure enough, just as Elara finished speaking, the Monster Leader—having already chewed and swallowed the entire body—began to tremble and freeze up.

Elara could even see its abdomen swelling and melting into chunks of disgusting flesh.

The Wei clan guards nearby instantly noticed this moment of stiffness. They took advantage of the opening and launched even fiercer attacks.

With blow after blow crashing down and the poison raging inside, the Monster Leader howled in pain. Its massive body shook violently and soon collapsed.

But Elara still didn't rush in. She kept pulling out poisonous items from her clothes and tossed them one after another.

Only when the Monster Leader's body was entirely rotted and nearly turned into a puddle, and even the mother Gu core at its center began to show faintly, did the puppets controlled by the Monster Leader start to freeze up too.

Even then, Elara did not step in herself.

Instead, she used the power of the blood spirit to command a hyena-like beast closest to the Monster Leader to rush toward the pile of rotting flesh and bite out the glowing mother Gu.

Just as the hyena beast was about to clamp down on the mother Gu, the pile of flesh suddenly surged back together. The Monster Leader, showing no sign of injury, tore the hyena in half.

Watching this, Elara narrowed her eyes.

So it was all an act.

That display of weakness had been bait to lure her closer.

Even after being poisoned and attacked for so long, it still had such strength. This creature was not easy to kill.

Elara clicked her tongue silently, still sitting atop her black serpent. The moment she saw the hyena get torn apart, she commanded all nearby beasts to charge at the Monster Leader.

The Monster Leader had suffered some damage despite its act. Elara could tell it was losing control over the puppets driven by the Gu worms. Some of the puppets even started fighting each other due to corrupted commands. This was the only reason Elara could deploy so many of her own beasts now.

"Ahhhhhhh! Holy Spirit Blood! Elara!"

The Monster Leader shrieked as the beasts tore into it. Its bloated flesh was ripped off in chunks.

Its bulging eyes glared at Elara above and let out a furious scream.

It looked horrifying, but Elara had been in Marigold long enough to get used to things like this.

Thick, sticky liquid oozed from its body. Even while under attack from all sides, its strength didn't wane at all.

Maybe because it was near its limit, its attacks grew even more brutal and savage.

Piles of beast corpses began to form a ring around it.

The Wei clan members stayed nearby, watching for any weak spots.

Under the intense siege, the Monster Leader's wild attacks slowly weakened. Its body fell apart more completely, and the glowing mother Gu at the center was finally fully exposed.

Elara's heart stirred. A mutant gecko nearby suddenly bit into the mother Gu core, tore it free, and began scrambling up the wall toward her.

Just as the gecko was about to reach Elara with the core, the system's voice suddenly yelled in her mind:

[Master! Something's wrong! That's a fake Gu worm! Throw it away! It's a trap!]

Elara replied calmly without surprise, [I know.]

Right after she said it, the gecko violently flung the core from its mouth.

It flew straight back toward the Monster Leader.

At the same time, the Monster Leader's rotting body, which had almost collapsed into mush, reformed once again. Its body exploded with even more power than before. Its nearly ruined throat let out a sharp screech.