Ibnoxe and Holoxe eagerly followed her to uncover more of their magic skills. They went to another block in the city where the buildings could conceal them from the beheflea swarm. Even if they made noise, the insects would not stray so far from the behemoth corpse.

"First, how much Mu do you guys have?" Victoria asked.

Eagerly, Ibnoxe checked his own status. The name change did not automatically apply to his profile.

Name: eX-0281 [Sub-Dragon Shifter (Dragon Form)]

Vitality: 100%

Discrete Parts: Right Wing (100%), Left Wing (100%), Tail (100%)

Mana Reserves: 10 Mu

Element: Ice

"Still the same," he said, profoundly disappointed. Victoria had gotten him excited for nothing. When he analyzed Holoxe too, the numbers were all the same right down to the his official name, eX-0704, remaining in the system.

"Well, that sucks, but not wholly unexpected…. This spell takes very little mana so it'll be okay." Victoria picked up a rusty chunk of metal and bobbled it in her hand. "Similar to how you can [Manifest] your element, you can also [Infuse] it."

The metal shard snapped out of her hand with a flash of yellow. Electricity arced over its surface as it flew out of sight. Glass shattered somewhere else in the city. Victoria turned to them with a smirk. "You try."

Ibnoxe and Holoxe selected some rocks on the ground. "So, we [Infuse Ice], like this…" A crystalline structure formed around the rock. Ibnoxe chucked it for good measure.

Victoria drew in a deep breath and slapped her hand to her forehead. "Ugh, you just used [Manifest] and coated it in ice. Not quite an [Infuse], but it'd probably work? Try again, but embed the ice within the rock rather than coating it."

Their mission was not pressed for time, so Ibnoxe and Holoxe had the luxury to practice with their abilities. They used up all 10 Mu, but it regenerated quickly thanks to the environment saturated with mana. Since Ibnoxe had gotten a small head start on his magical talent, he achieved the desired outcome first.

[Infuse Ice] learned!

Updating information for eX-0281….

The rock glimmered in his claws. Icy patches had formed along its surface and appeared to embed within the minerals.

"Now try throwing it," the Disco Menace explained.

The rock lobbed through the air. Upon contact with the old cement, the ice shattered outward and took with it some cracks in the rock.

"Dang," Holoxe remarked. "That's impressive!" The demonstration left him inspired to do it himself, quickly following up Ibnoxe's success.

"Nice job, guys," Victoria said. "Ice is a powerful element, both offensive and defensive. It should rip those bugs to shreds. Ready?"

Ibnoxe and Holoxe let out a throaty growl, trailing off in a reptilian whine. Already, the dragon brothers felt victorious since the stalker behemoth lay dead. They were ready to clear out the pests from its body.

Near where the stalker behemoth was slain, the real disco menace had collapse in a pile of scrap metal. The fearsome monsters had engaged in a deadly duel, taking each other's lives in the process.

Stationed behind rubble, Ibnoxe and Holoxe took cover. A plan of attack was devised in quiet whispers.

Meanwhile, Victoria reclined and elevated her feet, examining her short fingernails. "Let me know if you guys need help, particularly if the beheflea queen comes out to play. Otherwise, I'll just be here."

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The dragon brothers intended to take care of this themselves. "Ready?" Ibnoxe asked.

"Affirmative."

They drew their assault rifles from their back and peeked over the jagged rock. The buzz of behefleas was soon overpowered by the sound of gunshots. The bullets infused with ice cut down the behefleas, no matter where they were shot. Given that the ice could explode in a small radius, they were not even required to aim perfectly at the bugs. Their shots simply needed to get close enough, then their magic took care of the rest.

The bugs scattered and flew faster. Some tried to bury themselves into the behemoth's dark, coarse hair for cover. The injured ones glowed with a nature [Cure] spell as they tried to recover, giving Ibnoxe and Holoxe an easy target.

The behefleas dropped like the flies they were. Their big bodies thunked against the ground. Soon, there were more bodies on the ground than in the air. However, the insect carnage brought about their fury.

A deep buzz was amplified from within the shell of the disco menace. The largest insect yet crawled out what looked to be an eardrum on the side of its large head. The beheflea queen spread her yellow, fibrous wings and roared to life.

Target: Beheflea Queen

Vitality: 100%

Discrete Parts: Abdomen (100%)

Mana Reserves: 5,000 Mu

Element: Nature

"There it is!" Ibnoxe called.

Victoria opened one eye from her nap, but quickly returned to it for the time being. Their supervisor waited to intervene, only if they needed help.

Since the queen was the most immediate threat, both Ibnoxe and Holoxe concentrated their firepower on it. Neither felt scared, figuring that the beheflea queen would not offer too much difficulty compared to her colony.

Furthermore, the beheflea queen offered a larger target than all the other flies. In particular, her abdomen had swelled so large, it was impressive that she could fly at all. Whenever they tried to shoot her down, however, other behefleas shielded her with their own body. The bullet pierced the exoskeleton on the front side, then the nature magic thickened the interiors to keep it from bursting out on the other.

The swarm became a cohesive unit under the beheflea queen's command, and they all flew towards Ibnoxe and Holoxe. Then, she cast a spell to make matters worse.

A chartreuse light flashed in their entire vision and lingered for a while afterward. The buzzing uproar of the behefleas quadrupled at once. The previously dead behefleas rose from the ground.

Target: Zombie Beheflea

Vitality: -100%

Discrete Parts: None

Mana Reserves: None

Element: None

"Ack!" Ibnoxe yelped. This did not even make sense. How could something have a negative vitality? The zombie behefleas made his display go wonky with the nonsensical number.

Holoxe yelled, "Victoria!" to got her attention. "We could use a human bug zapper over here!"

"Huh, yeah?" she said, jerking awake.

Heart-pounding, Ibnoxe knew that he had to do something at once. Electricity was not the only thing which could kill off a large number of bugs quickly. Ice could do that just as well. With faith in his abilities, Ibnoxe jumped from the rocks and ran to meet the swarm.

"No!" Holoxe gasped. "What're you doing?" He covered for his brother the best he could, taking aim at the behefleas which swooped in to bite with their razor-like jaws.

When Ibnoxe ran as close as he dared, he stopped and released all 10 Mu in a [Snap Freeze]—the same technique which he had used to kill the slime trap. The rush of cold air killed some of the bugs nearest to him, but the majority had time to avert their flight trajectory.

"Get out of there!" Victoria yelled. Her electricity carried her in a shocking sprint to his side.

Ibnoxe knew that she would not hesitate to electrocute him along with the bugs, so he propelled himself backwards with his wings. The swarm of bugs converged on Victoria, then a massive [Discharge] sprang from her body.

His field of view lit up with the yellow electricity. Then, hundreds of bugs—scorched black—fell to the ground. This included the swarm of zombie flies, no longer animated.

Target: Zombie Beheflea

Vitality: 0%

Its negative vitality returned to zero in its lifeless state.

Unfortunately, the slow beheflea queen had lagged behind. She took only a partial amount of the damage.

Target: Beheflea Queen

Vitality: 75%

Discrete Parts: Abdomen (55%)

Mana Reserves: 1,750 Mu

The numbers for vitality and mana quickly rolled through the digits on the screen. A green, hexagonal gem at the center of her abdomen glowed a luminous green as she recovered.

Vitality: 100%

Discrete Parts: Abdomen (100%)

Mana Reserves: 1,500 Mu

Ibnoxe was left stupefied. The queen only took 250 Mu to regenerate herself to perfect condition. Practically speaking, this meant that they would have to kill her one and a half times over to send that bug dead in the dirt.

"Concentrate our attacks on her abdomen!" he ordered. Some of his own mana had already recovered, so Ibnoxe joined Holoxe in some more [Infuse Ice] attacks.