Leaping down, the snake didn't immediately attack Lucy, instead, it glanced up at the window.

Annoyed at being ignored, Lucy smashed her fist into the snake's head.

"Ignore me and you won't ever be able to get them."

The snake hissed at Lucy, trying to bite her but failing as she stepped to the side and quickly retaliated with a palm strike.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy took a proper stance as a singular horn appeared on the right side of her forehead which split her bangs.

The horn was easily explained. Witches made pacts with demons in exchange for power so when they released the full extent of their mana, gaining wings, horns, or even their skin changing color was pretty common.

The Silver Veins she had were similar but a bit harder to explain. They were something specifically tied to her bloodline aka the direct descendants of Circe. What does it do? She doesn't actually know. Surely, it does something but it activates whenever her life is in danger so her sample size wasn't high enough to figure it out.

Alas, all of the previous wielders of it became legendary beings in their own right so it can't be bad at the very least.

Seeing this as a nice challenge before hunting down the others, the snake grinned. Even in its weakened state, it was enough to deal with a little girl.

Backing up slightly, he fired off several blasts of mana in the general direction of Lucy. None hit her but they all exploded on impact causing considerable damage to the surroundings and forcing her into a smoke screen.

"So this is how we're gonna fight?" Lucy sighed while dashing out of the smoke screen.

Dealing with things that had a range advantage was always annoying.

Escaping the smokescreen, the serpent had grown several times larger, being the size of the two-story building Lucy was just in.

Lunging at her while brandishing its fangs, he unfortunately ate concrete with Lucy only getting a graze on her arm and getting on top of the now massive snake. Oddly enough, the change in his size didn't slow him down at all. Not that it really mattered. He was still just giving Lucy a bigger target,

Continuing to absolutely beat the hell out of the snake from above, she looked for a weak point. Something natural like a weak spot in his scales or something artificially made from the battle it had prior but failed to find anything as the snake flew into the sky and shook Lucy off.

She didn't fall from far, opting to just jump off before it got to a point where she'd be seriously injured from the fall, only about 12 meters or so.

It still hurt like hell and she couldn't move right away, giving the snake the perfect time to fly straight down and crash into her!

CRASH!

It impacted with such force that the ground around them cracked and another brief smokescreen caused by dust appeared only to vanish seconds later.

Inside the smokescreen, Lucy was holding the snake by his fangs as his mouth was ever so slowly closing against her force. The speed at which was increasing!

'His power is increasing? He's playing with me!'

"I'm still... A proud Witch! DAMNIT!"

Using her terrifyingly high upper body strength to anchor herself to the snake's fang, she flicked her legs up into the snake's mouth, kicking him with great force where his scales weren't protecting him. Using the gap this created she gained some distance.

Her hands were visibly shaking and covered in blood, her clothing was partially torn, and she couldn't feel her arms at all due to the strength of that impact.

"If I didn't hate that old fool they call a god I'd be thanking him that you don't seem to have any venom in you."

The result of this was the snake showing some form of emotion. Lucy was unsure if it was glee or hatred because in this context it could most likely be either and or both.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Whatever the case happens to be, the snake closed the gap of several meters between them in under a second, not giving Lucy a chance to react by smashing his head into her, sending her into the air briefly. Clearly not done with the girl who couldn't dodge while airborne, he fired off a blast of magic which sent Lucy off like a cannonball into a nearby building.

BOOM!

Coughing up an unhealthy amount of blood from that single impact before falling to the ground, she struggled to get up as the snake slowly approached her.

Luckily, she was heavily reinforced with her own Mana. Any normal person would have instantly died from that.

This was good. The longer this bastard played with his food, the longer the others had to escape. At the very least she was fulfilling her promise.

"Yeah... Like hell I'm going out without leaving a mark... If only I could use actual spells..."

Wiping some blood off her face, Lucy took an odd combative stance.

Dashing forward, the snake matched Lucy's pace and the two collided again and again. No matter how hard Lucy pushed, the snake was capable of exerting just a tiny amount more force.

What was worse, Lucy could feel herself actively getting stronger. Every time she inched closer to Death's door her next hit was stronger and faster than the last and yet it didn't matter.

It didn't matter at all...

How strong was this thing? Was there an end to its strength? If there was, would Lucy be able to find it?

Everything hurt. Her body ached so much yet she didn't have a choice but to keep going. 5 Minutes passed and that quickly turned into 10. She had already long surpassed her estimated amount of stall time but it was finally time to come to an end.

She was nearly out of Mana at this point with her Stamina running out at an unnervingly high speed as well. She tried to escape several times but every single time the snake managed to catch her.

Her clothing was nothing more than bloody rags and she lacked the strength to even stand but the damned serpent didn't have any new noticeable wounds.

Even Utopia was able to leave a wound yet she failed to do even that. Outdone by a servant of God. That was probably more humiliating for her than losing to this thing.

"Just... End this..."

'Is this a good way to go?' Lucy wondered.

Only now was she really having regrets. She has been absurdly lucky in life and here she was throwing all that away to save two people she didn't really know. One of which she actually hated the guts of.

She had loving parents... Or, as loving as they could be with their identities as Witches. Was quite smart and certainly talented when it came to martial arts. She was even lucky enough to avoid death in one of the most dangerous events in recent history.

The snake towered over her, lowering down ready to eat her.

'Dues Ex Machina... I never got to thank her... How sad.'

This time, instead of closing her eyes in fear. She began laughing maniacally.

Unlike 9 years ago, she wasn't a terrified little girl anymore.

Her horn grew another several centimeters as her left eye gained a dull purple glow and the side of her bangs turned to a wonderful silver.

||

A translucent screen appeared in front of her saying these words but she really didn't care.

With a sudden second wind, she got up, assisted by two lanky, almost spider-like legs that grew out of her back, and launched at the snake, completely ripping one of his fangs straight off before flying back downwards and impaling him with it.

In pain, the snake started flailing around rapidly, sending her off its back only for her to easily land on the ground.

Silver Veins spread throughout her body as her posture became uncanny and her smile demonic.

"Well, come on little snake. Waltz."

The snake was unnerved by the weird actions of Lucy and charged forward.

Opening his mouth wide and biting down on Lucy, he felt a sense of relief for a few moments which was quickly followed by a world-ending amount of pain.

Jumping through a hole she created in the creature's head, Lucy's horn and silver veins receded quickly.

'Haah... Even 9 years later, I can't hold it for longer than a few seconds. Whatever. It's dead now.'

Honestly, that was extremely unexpected. She figured her Silver Veins would fully activate eventually but this wasn't the outcome she saw coming. At the very least she figured out what they do. Sort of.

It makes her magic more efficient. A lot more efficient. She poured in the same amount of Mana as before into her reinforcement but the effects were several times better. Prior to this, whenever her Silver Veins were active, she was too focused on running and could never tell.

Unfortunately, what happened within the next 2 seconds made her heart stop.

Attempting to sit herself up and failing to do so, she heard a faint hissing sound.

'No way...'

Turning her head, she saw the snake struggling to move.

It was still alive. And while it wasn't in much better shape than her... It was still in better shape. Capable of moving.

'I blew a hole in its head and it can still move?’ Lucy questioned with her eyes widening in surprise.

`That is such bull crap…Well, twas a good fight regardless I guess.' Lucy lamented.