Zoe wasn’t quite sure what her plan should actually be at this moment. And unfortunately, a dozen or so meters wasn’t nearly enough distance to give her time to come up with anything well thought-out with both of their speeds.

Neither made any additional moves or changed their course as they closed in. The only time either deviated from a perfectly straight charge was to briefly duck under a lashing tentacle or two. In fact, within those precious few seconds Zoe deliberately chose to not try anything fancy or use any of her more powerful abilities.

She was counting on the prediction that nothing in her current arsenal would be capable of taking out the paladin in a single strike—and that the same was true in the reverse. Given this assumption, her instinct was to get a feel for her opponent.

The paladin whipped her spear around far too early. Arcing through the air, the long weapon froze to a complete stop just as it was angled to point straight at Zoe. The paladin also planted her feet to the ground at the same time.

It seemed like there was quite a bit of strength and finesse behind it, which only confused Zoe more. Even at the very beginning of the attack, she could tell that the tip wouldn’t be nearly close to strike her. Perhaps the paladin falsely anticipated a dash.

A streak of golden light heralded the arrival of a sharp, searing pain stabbing all the way through the middle of Zoe’s gut. Zoe instinctively tried to activate {Kinetic Dash} as she was propelled straight backwards at a great velocity.

The ability flared to life but refused to actually take effect. At the same time, Zoe’s talons raked chips of stone out of gouges in the ground. Her back hit something enormous and just slightly rubbery a fraction of a second later, but she just kept going. Her speed wasn’t reduced at all—she just dragged the tentacle along with her.

It was an unstoppable force that had transformed her into an immovable object.

The stop was quite sudden. Fortunately, the tentacle provided a bit of a cushion between her and the jagged rock of the wall—but just a bit. Zoe was a momentarily surprised that she hadn’t just kept going through solid stone.

Zoe glanced down. A solid spear of pale, almost white light skewered her through the center of her abdomen, pinning her and one of the larger tentacles to the edge of the cavern. Around the blindingly bright shaft, glowing golden fissures spiderwebbed across her exoskeleton, some reaching all the way up to her collarbone and down to her hips.

The pain quickly caught up. It was so brilliantly hot that ironically, it almost felt cold and numb. Zoe ignored it. There were more important concerns—that the cracks continued to widen and grow, that she was currently almost entirely immobilized, and that the obviously really strong enemy was quickly approaching.

Speaking of which, Zoe noticed that the spear in the paladin’s hand had changed. Not only did it look much shorted, but it didn’t even have a proper tip. It had basically become a quarterstaff. Zoe looked back down.

I wonder if that’s the rest of it. She hoped it was—because that would probably imply that the paladin was limited to just conjuring one of these attacks at a time. Don’t count on it yet though.

As Zoe really was quite neutralized—she could get no leverage, didn’t want to try grabbing the magical projectile, and couldn’t seem to even just rip herself and it out of the rock—she decided to just go ahead and use {Corrupted Spirit Shield} to destroy the effect.

She got a better idea.

Pretending to still struggle vainly against her confinement, Zoe waited for the paladin to get closer. The fact that she hadn’t yet been skewered by another spear straight through the head did seem to suggest that her theory about the weapon might be correct.

Or maybe she’s just smug and overconfident. Or maybe she wants to see if she can question me first. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Thankful for the respite no matter what its true reason, Zoe snarled and increased her frantic scrambling. The main downside to her charade was that it did make the steadily increasing damage happen even faster. The large chitin plate of her breast was starting to actually come apart down the middle, and smaller scales were actually flaking off.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Not to mention the feverish headache and weakness. By this point, Zoe had realized that the projectile continued to pump her full of a thick, scorching mana that invaded both her veins and mana channels, tearing them apart and thoroughly cooking the surrounding flesh.

By the time the paladin was just shy of arm’s reach, Zoe barely had to act. Her muscles were shivering and shaking violently completely of their own accord. Come on, get just a little closer.

Tilting her annoyingly perfect face to the side, the paladin seemed to study her. Zoe growled. Ignoring the vocalization entirely, her opponent actually removed her right gauntlet and placed her naked hand flat against the center of Zoe’s chest. Yeah, I’m not waiting to find out what this is all about. Satisfied that the situation couldn’t get much better for her purposes, Zoe activated her shield.

{Corrupted Spirit Shield has leveled up! Corrupted Spirit Shield is now level 3.}

The cavern seemed to instantly be plunged into darkness. Zoe hadn’t quite realized just how bright the glowing projectile had been. It didn’t matter for her, though—{Predator’s Eyes} was good enough, and honestly she could have accomplished her objective completely blind.

Zoe had also activated {Kinetic Enhancement} and {Corrupted Strike} the very instant after the opposing magic shattered. Coiling her tail around the paladin’s legs and grabbing her right wrist before she could properly react, Zoe finally activated {Kinetic Dash}.

The last ability had been carefully calibrated to send them straight down into the ground—with Zoe on top.

Got you!

A brilliant blast of blinding light struck Zoe at point-blank range. She held on. It was nothing compared to the spear. With her upper left fist, Zoe struck with all of her strength—and her corruption too.

It was as if her fist hit a smooth barrier. It seemed her opponent had her own shield of sorts—but Zoe’s corrupted continued straight through. Ha!

Striking at the woman’s head again and again as she finally began to thrash and squirm, Zoe kept blasting her with corruption. While none of her strikes seemed to physically connect, that wasn’t even necessary here.

Continuing to press the advantage, Zoe activated {Corrupt Wound} as well—on both herself and her victim. Her own grievous wounds began sealing up delightfully quickly—her own demonic and corrupted mana quickly purging out the invading mana and stitching her soft, internal tissue back together. As for how the ability affected the other woman—

Zoe narrowed her eyes. It’s not responding at all. It was like the corruption she had been pummeling the paladin with didn’t even exist. At the same time, the woman was fighting back harder and harder—a second later, she almost broke free for a moment.

Shit! She must be somehow immune—it was the only simple explanation. If I can’t hit her and I can’t corrupt her—

Despite still being the one ostensibly in control, Zoe began to panic. Switching to dumping her power all into {Kinetic Enhancement}, she tried to just throttle the armored woman even harder. Unfortunately, the sheer violence of the motion sent one of the paladin’s hands free.

Something poked Zoe in the chest from below. Uh-oh.

Hurtling straight up this time, Zoe found herself quickly pinned to the cave ceiling. The paladin didn’t waste any time in getting up, and then the projectile vanished from Zoe’s chest for the second time. It was a good thing, too, because the wound was significantly worse this time. It was only a centimeter or so off from where Zoe sensed that her demon core was—had it struck directly, it might have truly shattered.

I might not even react to my own death.

But even then, the sheer proximity had meant that her core was still severely threatened by the potent, hostile magic radiating into her so very close to it. But strangely, Zoe hadn’t activated her shield yet. The spear had vanished on its own—which implied that it was the paladin’s own doing.

Damnit, I bet she realized trying to keep it pinned inside me won’t work—which means she’ll probably try to keep spearing me again and again really quickly. Zoe herself knew that it would be a far more effective tactic, so she wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

Now falling back down to the ground, Zoe prepared to dash to temporary safety just before landing. At the same time, she quickly surveyed the whole area from her unique and unexpected vantage point.

The paladin had positioned herself back on the other side of the pool, blocking the only exit. Millie, for her part, was tucked away almost completely underneath some rocks. She had probably literally buried herself.

None of this was unexpected. What did surprise Zoe was the complete absence of the mysterious kraken. The surface of the pool was still choppy, and many bubbles were rising to the surface—but there was no sign of tentacles.

Just as she touched down, Zoe narrowed her eyes. I would be glad about that—except I have a feeling this is actually a sign of something worse.