Crack!
The moment Sands of Time disappeared, wild wind swept past Hibiscus's body, immediately followed by severe pain in her waist and abdomen. Looking closely, flesh and blood were mangled, even exposing broken ribs, blood flowing freely.
Having landed a hit, the Three-Eyed Cat showed a humanized smile and raised its claw to crush the dangling flesh. Actually it was quite puzzled—why had the target's position just now moved to the floor below? It felt like something was missing for an instant. But no matter, Disaster Beasts that fought by instinct always only believed in being faster and more powerful.
Healing technique fluorescence covered the wound but only stopped bleeding and pain, far below expected effect, making the girl frown tightly.
Indeed the netizens didn't deceive me—the higher the level of combat, the more techniques are just for show, completely useless.
Am I going to be crippled?
Hibiscus drank a Small Health Recovery Potion and barely recovered. The healing limit was at this level—beyond this, if missing arms or legs it would definitely be dire. The Disaster Beast's one strike dealt ultra-high damage. Even though she had taken a stance and distanced herself during time stop, it didn't change anything. Slightly higher damage couldn't be healed even with potions. She had to be extremely careful. In this speed assassin flow duel, life and death were decided in an instant.
She poured all her magic power into strengthening Origin. Both sides' intimidating presence confronted each other equally, crackling and grinding against each other in the air, showing electrical currents, neither giving way and viewing each other as great enemies.
Humans would wait for the right moment and plan before acting, but this didn't apply to Disaster Beasts. The next moment the Three-Eyed Cat lunged forward in one stride, brushing past the girl's cheek and cutting several strands of long hair. She barely dodged and seized the opening.
Thud!
One punch hit it right in the face, making flesh and blood cave in messily, directly causing the Disaster Beast's lips and teeth to fly and rot.
Even a monster said to fear nothing cried out in pain and retreated a step, but the next moment the wound emitted rolling heat and recovered before the girl's eyes. Though quite slow, it undoubtedly had strategic value—too damn cheating. Moreover, the feel just now was very poor, with a considerable portion of force absorbed by the outer shell armor.
Damn high attack, high defense, high recovery, magic almost useless.
Just as Hibiscus was thinking, she saw the Three-Eyed Cat suddenly arch like a bridge, fur standing on end emitting rolling intimidation, Origin power turning into shock waves that swept and lifted rooftop floor tiles.
She tried to block the bullet-like debris with levitation spells but it was useless—she was still scraped and wounded, blood spattering, covered in wounds.
Strong Origin can suppress techniques!
Before she could think further, Hibiscus extended one hand to block the Three-Eyed Cat's approaching claw. Thanks to her petite form, she dodged sideways to deflect force and landed a straight punch thunderously embedded in the Disaster Beast's body. The outer shell cracked and collapsed along with flesh and blood, and an infectious aura hit her face.
More painful than the nose injury just now, it hissed and retreated. Just as she wanted to pursue victory, her limbs felt sore and she couldn't move.
The small enhancement potion was nearing its time limit. From now on she probably wouldn't even have the strength to resist.
The Three-Eyed Cat's keen senses immediately understood the girl's body was experiencing drastic changes and should be unable to continue. No need to worry anymore—strike while you're sick to kill you, go all out.
Its muscles swelled by a circle emitting vast energy, responding to the entire patch of clouds overhead with lightning and thunder. The dock area's sea surface became even more turbulent, lightning, thunder, and gale combining into a fierce tiger phantom aimed at the building roaring repeatedly. Such a big commotion was clearly visible from several blocks away. Not knowing why the Disaster Beast was angry, quite a few people even knelt down on the spot, becoming fanatical believers praying desperately:
"Spare our lives!"
"The great foreign creature will guide humanity."
"Come on, just let everything be destroyed."
Hibiscus smiled bitterly, thinking that indeed a Disaster Beast that could stir celestial phenomena couldn't possibly have attack power limited to just this. Her life hung by a thread, but retreat didn't exist in her dictionary.
"Stay away from her!"
A delicate shout accompanied by substantial magic power release spreading out actually caused a moment's delay in the Three-Eyed Cat's intimidation. Seizing the opportunity, Hibiscus took advantage of the Disaster Beast's daze to land a high kick lifting its chin and threw all the grenades she carried into it. With a thunderous sound, the black monster fell from the rooftop.
Turning around, she indeed saw Nan Zhiyi had returned. After releasing intimidation, she was gasping for breath and couldn't even stand, finding it very difficult even to look up at the girl.
She didn't mention her own condition at all and immediately asked: "Did I help you?"
Before finishing, Nan Zhiyi's head tilted and she fainted. With her current stage equivalent to only first awakening, overdrawing Origin to directly confront a Disaster Beast simply exceeded limits. The price was that bodily functions wouldn't indulge her for even a moment and simply went to sleep.
"You did enough. Let's go."
Just as Hibiscus picked up the girl, rumbling thunder came from underfoot with spreading cracks, quickly extending and stirring up dust. A building that had stood overlooking the sea collapsed in the blink of an eye.
Simultaneously, a black shadow leaped from the first floor air into a residual image, sharp claws gleaming coldly stabbing directly at the girl's body.
0.5 second pause.
She barely dodged and jumped to another broken floor slab. The moment Sands of Time lifted, the opponent pounced again, following like a shadow. Each charge ignored concrete acceleration and simply crashed through, flying concrete blocks serving as hidden weapons.
1 second pause.
Hibiscus leaped up holding Nan Zhiyi and descended from the stairwell of a hundred-meter-high building, seeing violent destruction marks along the way.
The Disaster Beast could actually blow up a building with one strike, far exceeding expectations—practically comparable to some movie blockbuster performances.
The gray-white world faded again just enough for the two girls to reach the 12th floor. Just as she wanted to activate magic again, it wouldn't obey and instead made her body tremble continuously. She'd reached the limit of continuous high-frequency use. In this condition, even mana recovery potions wouldn't work. Seeing the situation was hopeless, Hibiscus threw Nan Zhiyi to a safe corner. Missing by a hair plus rapidly declining bodily functions, a flaw was finally caught—
Crack! Blade-like claws penetrated the girl's waist and abdomen, bringing out black blood.
Hibiscus was in so much pain she almost lost consciousness, but still used her last bit of strength to grab the necklace that never left her body, clutching the three advancement stone fragments and feeling power—this was the moment!
After landing a hit, the Three-Eyed Cat showed a sinister smile, but when it tried to pull back its hand it couldn't manage it, then heard a crack. Better to hurt ten fingers than break one—the severe pain made even the monster stagger back.
The girl clearly had her back to it and suffered a fatal wound, yet her aura continued climbing, the wound regenerating and healing at visible speed.
She turned around.
In this simple movement, Hibiscus was draped in a layer of rosy light. The first thing revealed was silver-white long hair floating and dancing like falling starlight. She wore an hourglass-shaped hair ornament, a black-toned gothic short dress decorated with red shawl, golden sash and red bow tie at the chest, metal-buckled leather belt at the waist. Her hands were wrapped in lace long gloves, white thigh-high stockings on both legs accentuating slender curves, feet in black high-heeled round-toe shoes. At this moment the silver-haired girl's entire temperament changed dramatically, with boundless intimidation, like a pair of black pupils devouring endless magic power that made the Disaster Beast almost unable to stand.
Magical girl third awakening—Regalia. Stacked with the previous two layers to form a truly complete form:
Full Transformation state.
Hibiscus spread her palm to see the three Advancement Stone Fragments corresponding to Origin, Magic, and Regalia turn into light and electricity and disappear, but the power had already gathered in her body.