"Kill?" The chimera asked amusedly. She was still careful with her movements, and it didn't take a genius to realize she had been stalling for time to recover from the backlash. "Is this what they teach at the Association these days?"

James didn't allow the provocation to distract him. Through their talk, he, too, had been recovering. While his reserves were much increased thanks to the new levels he had gained, it had still taken a lot to disrupt the ritual. Ethereal Leech had worked furiously to absorb the leftover mana in the air from the broken spell, and he had managed to refill.

He watched Poison Snake like a hawk, waiting for the right moment to strike. Her fate was sad, but it wouldn't stop him from eliminating her. Too much was at stake.

The moment he sensed a wisp of mana concentrating around her throat, James shot off.

The packed earth exploded beneath his feet as he reached her in a second, fist swinging with explosive mana, ready to take her head off.

As if her spine didn't exist, she bent backward, letting the explosion sail over her harmlessly. Her left foot shot for his midsection with punishing speed, forcing James to disengage.

Still, he had managed to disrupt the skill she was preparing, which was his goal. It also showed that the damage she had received to her mana system was significant, as she needed much more time than a B-rank should to do anything.

A lance of darkness sailed over his shoulder, aiming to skewer Poison Snake, but it was batted away to the side.

A battery of fire bullets followed, impacting the earth with explosions and finally forcing her to leave her position.

James took this time to craft gauntlets out of the ether. He had the feeling that touching someone called Poison Snake wouldn't be conducive to good health. As soon as the fiery barrage was over and the enemy had stopped running, he rushed to engage her again.

This time, she met his charge with a gleeful grin that stretched far beyond what a human mouth should allow.

She's fast.

James realized quickly that she had allowed him to get in close because she much preferred having him as a human shield between his teammates and herself. Unfortunately for her, Team 0 was perfectly capable of adapting to such a tactic.

Golden beams rained down on her, forcing the chimera to give ground, while James continued his attack as if there was no interruption.

Despite the time spent apart, Ezekiel knew the pattern of his attacks like the back of his hand, so he managed to interpose his spells where needed, thus stopping Poison Snake from leveraging her superior physique.

As the fight continued, she became more harried and confused. James didn't need his psychic powers to confirm that she had expected him to succumb to the poison exuding from her pores long ago. He confirmed it by keeping a light presence at the edges of her mind, which allowed him to avoid the attacks his teammates couldn't redirect.

She roared in frustration, a sound so feral that it couldn't come from a human. Her pupils contracted, and noxious, uncontrolled mana poured out of her. Immediately, it converged on James, who extended a telekinetic barrier around his body.

The two energies clashed, and the purple mana began eating away at his defense, probing for weaknesses, promising instant death.

It whispered terrible things, singing the story of countless men who had fallen to it.

James paid it no heed. He knew from sparring with Miss Walker that B-rank was where more esoteric effects began to take place. While monsters were usually much more limited to their specific power set, Awakeners developed personalized auras capable of enacting great change.

Given the damage the backlash had done to Poison Snake, her aura was extremely limited. Even a D-rank like him could easily withstand it, though that didn't mean he was not taking the threat seriously.

His hand swept forward, seemingly repeating a previous move he had used to force her away from him and toward an incoming barrage of fireballs.

Poison Snake, this time, remained in range, warily looking around to divine where the sneak attack was coming from.

The ether that composed his gauntlet lost coherence, revealing an unblemished hand below it before it reformed into a small marble.

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The chimera's eyes widened, and to her credit, despite the difficulty she was experiencing, she still managed to interpose a good portion of her aura between her and the incoming attack.

However, it wasn't enough.

The etheric beam tore through the rudimentary shield like paper tissues and continued, burning a hole into her shoulder and through it.

Poison Snake was thrown back by the force of it, flying until she impacted a massive tree, which halted her painfully.

James quickly assessed the battlefield. His teammates were already moving into their next positions with practiced ease. The clearing resembled a war zone, marked by scorched earth, shattered trees, and the twisted forms of dead Grasstalkers.

Daniel's barriers still glowed faintly around the entranced humans, the soft hum of protective magic a contrast to the chaotic energies that had just been unleashed. The morning light, filtering through the canopy, cast long, dancing shadows that seemed to play across the destruction, adding an eerie beauty to the scene.

As if a spell was broken, everyone attacked at once. Maria's fireballs exploded precisely where their enemy had fallen, her control over her flames absolute as she wove her fiery magic into devastating arcs, keeping the heat contained. Ezekiel’s feathers, now slightly singed from the intensity of the battle, dematerialized into another volley of light beams.

Lauren manipulated the shadows to form a dense wall on one side of the clearing. Her dark tendrils snaked out, seeking to crush the chimera before she could recover.

The air was filled with smoke. Thousands of mana points had been employed to destroy the clearing beyond recognition. Winds howled from the constant temperature change, though Maria didn't allow them to take her flames elsewhere, keeping them concentrated.

And yet, despite the grievous wound inflicted by James's etheric beam, Poison Snake survived the attack, her aura eating away at the incoming mana.

Her resilience was terrifying; her body was already starting to knit itself back together, the torn flesh around her shoulder slowly resealing. James watched her warily, knowing they needed to end this quickly before she could fully recover and renew her assault.

He signaled to the team that she was still alive, his hand gestures sharp and decisive. Maria nodded, understanding immediately, and prepared another series of fireballs. Ezekiel, catching James's eye, positioned himself for a direct strike, his energy gathering around him like a halo of vengeful light.

James himself focused, drawing on his mental reserves. This time, he decided, there would be no subtlety. As Poison Snake pushed herself off the tree, grimacing in pain but with a wild look of determination, he unleashed the full might of his psychic power.

The air around him shimmered with the force of his attack, a visible manifestation of his will as he directed a torrent of energy toward the chimera. The attack was a blinding streak of power, cutting through the poisonous aura with a sound like tearing silk.

At the same moment, the chimera screamed. Anger, pain, and a boiling, tar-like despair filled her voice, and her mana answered the call.

An enormous wave of power poured out of her, seeking to suffocate the entire world. Darkness filled the clearing and obscured the sky, and the plants started decaying. Dead things moved with her will.

Silvery barriers erupted around everyone as Daniel roared with the effort.

Rot set in everywhere. Pustules of bloody liquid emerged from anything that wasn't shielded. Poison Snake's pain was reversed upon everything. It filled the area with despair.

And yet, it was unfocused. The damage wrought upon her by the ritual's backlash was too significant even for her monstrous resilience to heal. She couldn't control her wild aura.

That, in the end, was her undoing.

James's psychic attack cut through the miasma, reaching for the beacon of emotion.

Having wholly opened herself up to the world and being in the process of pouring her very soul out, she was at her most vulnerable.

Against anyone else, she wouldn't have risked anything. Indeed, all the attacks unleashed by the others had been swallowed by the wall of noxious mana.

But James operated on different rules. He could ignore the physical realm and reach deep within.

His mind slammed into hers, and no natural resistance could stop him this time.

A jumble of colors greeted him. It was disorienting, mainly because they had no rhyme or reason, but his experiments had allowed James to retain control even during chaotic situations.

He quickly found himself coalescing into a psychic manifestation of his body. He swam around the iridescent sea of Poison Snake's mind, observing the surroundings.

A great tear ran along the entire firmament above him, which James suspected was the consequence of turning her into a chimera.

Deeper, he found a curious sight. Seven women were crucified, the poles lifting them just above the silvery sea.

As he got closer, James realized they were all the same person. Minor differences, such as clothing, hairstyles, and age, could be seen, but they were all unmistakably Poison Snake.

"Have you come to end our suffering?" The eldest version, the closest to what he had seen personally, asked.

"Yes." He answered. There was no point lying here. He would kill her, and he suspected she would be glad for it.

"I should have known better. Uncle always told me not to trust men." The youngest said. She wore her hair long, with a cute fringe. She seemed the most innocent, but something in her eyes told him she wasn't ignorant of suffering.

"Nothing that pig ever said was worth taking seriously." A slightly older version replied. Her hair was short, almost a buzzcut, and she had an openly hostile look.

"However much I might find this fascinating," James interrupted, "I have other duties. Where is the central mind?"

He liked to think of himself as a scholar of the mind and would have genuinely enjoyed taking his time to explore the peculiar setting. However, despite how differently time operated in the mindscape, it still passed. Any second he allowed the noxious cloud to remain active, Daniel needed to use more mana to defend everyone. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen should he run out.

"Rude." The youngest one replied.

"There is no central mind." The most elegant one finally said. She wore intricate makeup and would have been very attractive in any other situation.

"What do you mean by that?" James asked incredulously.

"Exactly what I said. Hephaestus broke our minds when he broke our bodies. He used a template of who we are to grant the resulting monstrosity a form of autonomy." She said heavily, "There is still a mind, but it's stilted. Artificial in its limits."

James felt his mouth form a grim line. This wasn't something he had ever heard of before, and from the outside, he hadn't been able to notice it. Thinking about it made sense but felt so profoundly wrong that he could only conjure up revulsion at the thought.

Noticing his look, the same version replied, "Yes, we are all that's left of the original. Snippets of time forced to contribute to the biological machine puppeteering our body."

"I'll free you," James said, and he meant it. He couldn't get Poison Snake back to what she was. That was beyond his skills. But he could end this mockery.

"Thank you." They replied as one, and James allowed destructive ether to fill the space.