The blood and black liquid began gathering and adhering to Elizabeth Bathory’s body and, from the looks of things, she was about to transform. Maria wanted to charge forward but she was being held back by Ash, who saw what she was trying to do.
“My Queen, we can’t make contact with that demonic fluid. It will corrupt us just as it has corrupted my wife…”
“...Okay.”
“The liquid will disappear once it has completely merged with Elizabeth’s body, but unfortunately, we might have to kill her now, or else we won’t be able to win this battle…”
“Hmph, I was already aiming for that if we couldn’t save her. I guess you’ve been pulling your punches, weren’t you, Ash?”
“...apologies, my Queen.”
“Never mind. Let’s just end this!”
Just as Maria finished saying her words, Elizabeth Bathory’s transformation was completed and now, she was more like a monster than a vampire.
“This repulsive image must be Garm’s true form,” Maria said.
[GAHAHAHA! Fear me, mortals, for obliteration has come for you and bask in the greatness of my true form!]
*DING*
The evil spirit, Garm, has now revealed its true form! All regenerative-type skills, spells, or items, will have their efficacy cut in half! Evil Spirit Garm’s true form increases its DMG by 100% but, in turn, receives 50% more DMG from all sources
*DING*
Evil Spirit Garm’s core is now exposed. Destroying the core will cause Garm to retreat into its vessel
“...Called it.”
“My Queen, the demon is on his last legs now. We should kill it quickly lest something unexpected happens…”
Maria nodded at Ash’s words and replied, “You’re on support, Ash. I’m going to destroy this guy myself!”
She changed her wing’s form into [Bahamut’s Wings] before tossing Zantetsu-R into the air and dashing straight towards Garm with her supersonic speed with Calamity in its ax-form in hand.
“This battle has gone on long enough! It’s about time I ended this!”
Maria activated [Calamity Cleave] flung her ax right into Garm’s head. The large abomination was caught off guard by Maria’s sudden increase in speed, so he wasn’t able to dodge the attack, letting the demonic ax lodge itself into his head.
[GRAAAHH!!!]
Garm let loose a horrible shriek but Maria wasn’t done yet. She disappeared from her spot and reappeared right next to her ax before swapping it into its scythe-form and activating [Calamity Cleave] again. She knocked away Garm and forcefully dislodged her scythe off of the abomination’s head with the first wave of her [Calamity Cleave]. She slashed out a few more times with her scythe and used up the remaining charges of her [Calamity Cleave] before swapping it into its bow-form and activating [Calamity Cleave] again.
“Ugh…”
Her vision began to falter for a moment but Maria bit down on her lip and refocused herself. She pulled back the bowstring and charged straight at Garm, who was still being assaulted by the effects of Maria’s previous [Calamity Cleaves]. She instantly appeared underneath Garm with her bow and fired the enhanced energy arrow from her bow and sent the monster into the air with an energy explosion. Maria continued to fire arrow after arrow at the monster and sent it higher into the air with every explosion they caused.
Once the duration of her [Calamity Cleave] was over and she only had normal energy arrows to fire, she swapped her weapon into its spear-form before pulling her arm back and throwing her spear at Garm. Garm had just recovered from Maria’s attack and was definitely angry. He saw the girl’s weapon coming towards his head, so he quickly twisted his body in the air and caused the spear to miss its mark. At least, that's what he thought.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
[It’s my turn now little girl!!!]
“Idiot.”
Garm was surprised to hear Maria’s voice behind him. He didn’t know how it was possible for Maria to be behind him when she was obviously on the ground just a moment ago, but he could already feel the tip of her spear stab painfully into his back.
When she threw her spear, Maria wasn’t aiming to hit Garm at all, as she was aiming at the spot on the ceiling just behind him. Once her spear passed by his head like she originally intended, she teleported to her spear and grabbed it before using the ceiling as a foothold and charging right back at Garm, whose back was left wide open.
She activated [Calamity Cleave] the moment her spear struck Garm and began performing a series of multiple spear thrusts into the helpless monster’s back. Each thrust caused an energy wave to pierce through Garm’s body and the monster couldn’t help but raise a pained cry.
[GAAAAAHHH!!!]
Maria used her [Calamity Cleave]'s final charge to stab her spear into Garm’s body before powerfully kicking the butt of her spear and sending Garm crashing onto the floor like a meteor. She landed on the ground and cracked it apart as she stretched her hand out, beckoning her spear back to her.
Once her weapon returned to her hand, Maria changed it into its sword-form and got into a stance as she activated her final [Calamity Cleave]. The red crystal-like blade elongated as it was engulfed in hellfire right as Maria spun and used the entire weight of her body to launch her final [Calamity Cleave] with a roar.
“[Calamity Cleave]!!!”
It was as if the space in front of Maria was cut as a large explosion of hellfire ensued the next instant. She could hear Garm’s pitiful wails but her attack wasn’t over as she saw that the monster's HP was only depleted by a little bit.
'Dammit, how could it only be so little? Unless his HP increased after transforming?'
Maria took a deep breath after realizing that this could be the case. She stretched her arm into the air and caught her Zantetsu-R that she had thrown earlier and got into another stance as Odin’s phantom appeared behind her.
“Time to end you!”
“[Sundering Steel Sword Art - Final Form]!”
Garm was struggling to get up but he saw Maria already preparing her final attack, which caused alarms to rise inside of his head, so he quickly tried to get away, but with his body totally mangled from Maria's earlier attack and this being inside of the Ancient Blood Hall, he couldn't go anywhere. It was such a pitiful sight to see but Maria wasn’t going to show mercy. An enemy who was showing his back to her was nothing more than an easy target.
“[Perfect Shin-Zantetsuken]!”
She charged straight at Garm with her supersonic speed and appeared right next to him in an instant as she waved her sword and delivered her first sword slash using her Calamity-Z. It was then followed by a slash with her Zantetsu-R and each sword slash was accompanied by a spatial explosion. The subsequent sword slashes were even more powerful than the previous ones and once Maria completed the ninth and final sword slash of her sword dance, she fell to her knees as her HP, DE, and SP nearly zeroed out. Right as she fell, 9 spatial explosions ensued in front of her that completely engulfed Garm.
“...Dammit...that's not nearly…enough,” Maria struggled to say after seeing that Garm was still alive even after being hit by all of that.
Zantetsuken’s skill effect: Execute, has been triggered! You have successfully executed Blood Queen Elizabeth Bathory (Garm)!
-999,999,999,999!!!
When she saw that notification, her eyes widened in shock.
"!!!"
A sense of relief engulfed her after seeing the rest of Garm's HP disappear, so she fell back onto the floor, mentally and physically exhausted from the battle.
*DING*
You have received EXP! You have leveled up! Level 125 → 126 You have leveled up! Level 126 → 127 You have leveled up! Level 127 → 128 You have received 75 Free Stat Points!
Maria used up 99% of her resource pools to execute her [Perfect Shin-Zantetsuken] and although the damage was alarming, it wasn't enough to kill Garm. Everyone watching her stream saw the absurd damage numbers that popped up in Maria’s [Log] which she kept open for her viewers but seeing that that amount of damage hadn't been able to kill Garm, they thought that this boss monster was just unbeatable.
However, the most unexpected thing happened. The [Execute] effect of her [Perfect Shin-Zantetsuken] was triggered, dealing 999,999,999,999 DMG to her opponent, which basically guaranteed her target’s death. Maria was extremely lucky to have this effect triggered right at that time because if it didn’t she probably would have lost this battle.
Garm’s 25% HP was actually many times higher than the total amount of Elizabeth Bathory’s original HP pool, so Maria's earlier deduction was true, seeing that her [Calamity Cleave] combo had only been able to deplete around 5% of her opponent’s HP bar which definitely didn’t make any sense considering the power that was behind that unique combo of hers actually rivaled half of the raw power of her full-powered [Perfect Shin-Zantetsuken].
The [Perfect Shin-Zantetsuken] that Maria performed right after her [Calamity Cleave] combo was her last-ditch effort to try and do something about Garm's absurd HP pool. She used up the maximum amount of resources she could pour into the skill, but even then, the damage still wasn't enough.
She noticed that just before the [Execute] effect was triggered, there was still around 10% of Garm's HP left. Even though it was only 10%, it was definitely a lot. She thought that she had to leave the rest up to Ash and be hopeful that her vampire subordinate could pull through since she didn’t expect the [Execute] effect to trigger and instantly kill the monster at the next instant. Thankfully it did and she was able to secure her win against the Blood Queen.
On her stream, her chat was exploding with messages, donations, and emotes, as she had successfully cleared the Castle Bran dungeon exploration. It was a pity, however, that she couldn’t respond to any of them because at the moment, she really couldn't move or do anything at all due to her completely depleted SP bar.
It wasn't just her SP bar that was depleted, her HP and DE were all also at 1%, and they wouldn't recover for the time being since her natural recovery had been sealed due to the numerous debuffs she was suffering as a result of using her overpowered skill. It was truly a broken skill that came with an appropriate backlash that basically put the user into a death-like state after a single-use. If anyone were to come up to her right now, they'd be able to easily kill her without Maria being able to do anything about it.
Thankfully, the battle was over and there were no enemies around anymore. The only people left in the hall were Maria, her loyal retainer, Ash...and an unconscious vampire lady that was laying in her own pool of blood...