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A combination of lineages—bloodlines with their own unique powers—formed something new and even stronger than before.
Something that she has never seen before.
The Bloodline of the Rabbit-kin considered the weakest of all Beast-kin, and their amazingly high affinity for Spiritual Energy and Magic, way above that of other Beast-kin.
And the blazing power and transformation of the Blazer Dwarf lineage, which granted them tremendous power and fire magic power.
Both came together, giving Peperina’s flames a blue color as they overflowed with both Mana, Spirit Energy, and Ki all at once.
“RAAAH!”
With a ferocious, wrathful roar, the rabbit girl leaped into midair, clashing against Infernos dual-axe techniques. The red orc roared back, unleashing countless divine axe techniques, each one releasing countless explosions of divine flames.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The two relentlessly clashed against one another without letting the other overwhelm them. However, because of her size, it was quite obvious that each blow she blocked or intercepted made Peperina’s entire body struggle.
“You keep blocking my blows, but for how long can you handle the force you take head-on?!”
Infernos laughed as he kicked Peperina right after she blocked yet another dual-axe attack, crushing one of her ribs and sending her flying away.
CLAAASH!
“Ugh…!”
Peperina felt at least three of her ribs break instantly, and that’s while considering she was wearing a powerful armor Bing Xue gifted to her. She had told her to deactivate the nine-heaven protection, though, wanting a real fight with risks and honor.
She wanted to beat him without having an invisible shield protecting her; she wanted to taste pain and also the euphoric sense of victory. She wanted to avenge her family with the power she had cultivated.
Peperina thought she had already received too much help. She wanted to repay Bing Xue by showing her how much she had changed.
“{Revitalizing Spiritual Flames}”
However, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have an ace below her sleeve. Combining the healing magic she learned previously with her spiritual energy and then her ki-flame aura, she conjured white fire that began to slowly heal her wounds, revitalizing her body.
“Do you think I’ll let you heal yourself?”
“Ah!”
Peperina barely evaded an incoming blow from Inferno’s two axes, which were like giant guillotines coming for her. Just two of these blows would easily slice her apart into pieces, no matter how strong her armor was.
CLAAASH! CLAAASH!
As she evaded the blows while in midair, she kicked the air above her and descended towards Inferno’s head with as much speed as she could, constantly kicking the air and releasing tiny explosions with her rabbit foot.
“HYAAAH! {Spiritual Shapesmithing Arts: Surtr’s Hammer}!”
Her hammer moved down as she increased its size to its limits, becoming over ten meters big, with an enhancement on its weight of over ten thousand tons.
CRAAASH!
Infernos received the titanic hammer with both of his giant axes, imbuing them with his powerful Divine Aura and his Mana Aura together at once.
“{Infernal Rampage}!”
His eyes flared with crimson flames as he rushed upwards, clashing against Peperina’s hammer and unleashing a devastating series of blows with constant blazing explosions.
The result of the collision between their techniques unleashed an explosion resembling a small atomic bomb; the floor beneath shattered, and any bystander was instantly calcinated into ashes.
BOOOMMM!!!
“Hahh…. Hahahah…” Inferno smiled, still alive, missing his right arm, only revealing half of its bone, burned to a crisp. “It looks like you couldn’t absorb all the flames, hm?”
The vicious orc glared at Peperina’s figure. She was on the floor, barely conscious; both of her legs were missing, completely destroyed by the orc’s attacks; she wasn’t bleeding because her fire cauterized the terrible wounds.
“Hahh… hahhh…” She was gasping for air, her powers barely responding to her. Her hammer was far away; she couldn’t reach it. “M-My legs…”
She looked at her missing legs with despair and agony, only to see a shadow loom above her body, Inferno’s axe, and his sickening smile.
“At the end of the day, you’re still the same as them,” he smiled. “I’ll chop you down into pieces and eat your tender meat... I’ve been craving some rabbit lately!”
She was going to be eaten.
Peperina felt despair; her power, at the end, could not compare to that of a veteran and a god avatar like him.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
She felt frustrated and also like a hypocrite for telling Bing Xue she didn’t need her help.
“At the end, he was indeed stronger than me,” she thought. “Is this how I will die...?”
Peperina’s consciousness was coming in and out, while the axe of Inferno rose into the skies as he prepared to finish her down.
And as her consciousness faded away and came back constantly, there were sparks, images, and memories of her younger years.
Memories of her father.
CLANK!
CLANK!
CLANK!
She still remembers when she was a child watching her father work on the smithy, how he wielded his flames, and the hammer he used to shape his creations into reality.
Her father would often times let her watch as he worked, but her mother would reprimand him for letting her so close to the flames.
But her father knew that if his daughter inherited his blood, she would naturally always feel attracted to the flames of a smithy.
“Watch closely, honey.”
He showed his daughter as he grabbed a piece of metal, melted her through his techniques, then covered it in flames, and lastly,
“{Shapesmithing Arts}: {Sword Form}”
FLUOSH!
The item immediately took the form of a blade. This was a power she had inherited from him and that, after so long, she could finally use.
But…
There was something she had forgotten about this power.
Or, well, her powers.
“Woah, daddy, that’s amazing!” she said. “Can I do it too?”
“Sure, come and try. While your mama is not watching!” laughed her father.
The girl walked close to the smithy as her father gave her a prepared ingot.
“Now do your thing.”
“Oway!”
The girl grabbed the ingot, trying to shape it, yet she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried.
She tried and kept trying, but nothing.
“Umm… It’s not working! Why?!”
“Hmm, well, you’ll develop that ability one day, Peperina.”
“B-But I want to be like Papa now!”
“Listen, Peperina, there’s a time for everything… I am sure that one day you will reach even higher heights than me.”
Peperina back then felt frustrated even after her father’s words, hitting the anvil where her father did his work.
“I-It’s not fair!”
FLUOSH!
And in that very moment, her father’s eyes widened in shock as he saw his daughter’s Spiritual Energies and Mana erupt into the anvil.
“Wha…?!”
The anvil’s entire structure began to change immediately, something that he couldn’t do so easily with anything but ingots.
She could manipulate any metal she touched, even if it was already processed into something, and even if it wasn’t even her own item.
“P-Peperina, careful!”
Her father grabbed her as a huge explosion happened right after that. The anvil erupted into countless metallic spikes, destroying half of the smithy.
“Waaaahhh! Papaaa!”
Little Peperina started crying in fear as she saw her father hugging her, his right shoulder bleeding as one of the metal spikes pierced him.
“It’s fine… Ugh… You’re safe…”
“Papaaa! You’re not fineee! Buaaaah!”
Her father didn’t die, but because of the wound on his shoulder, he was never able to create his perfect artifacts anymore, lacking dexterity in his two hands.
It was such a traumatic experience for her when she was merely 5 years old that she had almost completely forgotten it.
It was as if her brain had tried to block this memory.
But right now, in this very moment, as her eyes started crying, she understood.
A power that her own consciousness had sealed away because of how dangerous it could be.
The true power was born when the Rabbit-kin’s Spirit Magic and the Blazer Dwarves Shapesmithing Arts combined together.
It wasn’t Spiritual Shapesmithing Arts either, no.
The power sealed within her was something entirely different.
“DIEEE!”
Infernos laughed as his axe descended toward Peperina.
But she suddenly raised her hand, touching the blazing hammer as it began cutting through her hand.
CLASH!
It hurt like hell as it cut through her flesh and bones.
But she managed to touch the weapon with her bare hands.
“Nnggh…!” Peperina gritted her teeth as she unleashed her powers in full, unleashing the very last bits of Mana, Ki, and Spiritual Energy within her.
“{Worldsmith}”
A power that could even defy the authority of Gods.
TRUUUM!
“Ungh?!”
Suddenly, Infernos noticed his hammer stopped moving, no longer obeying his hand.
And instead, it seemed to be slowly melting.
As if it were a living being of its own!
“What the…?! Let go… Let go of my axe!”
Infernos panicked, only to see something even more ridiculous.
The axe melted into blazing metal, wrapping itself around his arm and piercing it with hundreds of spiraling spikes, tearing through his arm within seconds.
The sound of his flesh, muscles, skin, and bones being torn apart and destroyed reverberated across the battlefield, alongside the orc’s agonizing cream.
“Gryyyaaaagggh!”
It didn’t stop there; the liquid metal wrapped around his torso, piercing through his flesh and tearing it apart.
It was as if the metal had become a living being, eating him piece by piece.
This was because the metal had been imbued with Peperina’s hatred for him.
This was her vengeance—her revenge!
Within it, she put all the suffering the people Inferno had slaughtered and eaten.
“EAT HIM! PIECE BY PIECE!”
An eye for an eye!
Inferno saw his own weapon beginning to tear him to shreds, quite literally eating him apart.
He tried to fight it back and unleash devastating magic and skills.
Yet even as the metal was destroyed, it kept fighting.
This was because it was a divine weapon given to him by his God!
It was tougher than he ever imagined.
Yet that rabbit girl could control it?!
“I have to kill her! I have to…!”
He tried to step on Peperina’s head to crush her skull, only for another patch of metal to wrap around his legs.
“What?!”
He didn’t realize that Peperina had also touched his footwear when he swung his axe against her with her other hand.
“{Worldsmith}”
TRUUUM!
His metallic greaves turned into metallic slime-like entities, devouring his legs and then pushing him down until they crawled over his face.
And began to slowly bite and tear it apart, piece by piece, until they reached his skull, and then devoured that too.
His muffled screams could be barely heard beneath the metal covering him.
Until his skull shattered and even his brains were eaten.
A brutal death for a brutal man.
“Hahhh… It’s finally… over…” Peperina sighed. “Wait… no! He’ll revive later… T-This is…”
Just after she finally thought it was over, she remembered the wicked rules of this world.
Infernos was going to revive once the War Games were over, and he would come after her again, at full power.
“After everything… this bastard…! Ugh…!”
As she cried, a bright figure made of light materialized by her side; a wave of light covered her body; her legs regrew anew; and all her wounds were undone.
It was Bing Xue, or, well, one of her Doppelgangers.
“Well done, Peperina… You fought like a true warrior, till the very end.”
“B-Bing Xue!”
Peperina hugged her tightly, sobbing over her chest.
“It was hard… I thought I would die…! B-but I avenged them… my family…!”
“I know… I know.”
“But he’ll come back, and he’ll…!”
“He is not coming back.”
“Huh?”
Bing Xue’s doppelganger pointed at the distance, and the body of the red orc, which was now on the bones, had a large soul floating by its side.
And then something grasped it tightly and began to eat it bite after bite; it resembled a red-skinned imp, giggling maliciously.
“Gyehehe! What a delicious soul this isssss!”
“These are my new friends, demons. They can eat souls. Don’t worry, he is not coming back…”
As Bing Xue smiled gently at Peperina, the rabbit girl smiled as she continued crying.
“Thank you for everything…”
Although this battle had ended, the war had yet to conclude.
And above the skies, the rage of a god made the clouds rumble with crimson lightning.
His six watchful eyes were slowly being filled with tremendous frustration.
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