Expectations? Surprise?

In the mountains, two forces faced off against each other.

One side stood on high ground, looking down at the army below with savage expressions, as though they were lambs awaiting slaughter.

The other side, meanwhile, had nearly everyone panicking.

They had never expected to be ambushed—and for the one behind the ambush to be General Esdeath!

As a general, Nacita should have remained rational at all times. In truth, few things could shock her so greatly that she lost control of her emotions.

But the moment she saw Esdeath, she panicked.

For a time, she did not even know what to do!

"Who knows? Perhaps we simply happened to run into each other?"

Esdeath's casual words made Nacita's heart sink to the bottom.

It seemed Esdeath had known about her operation today all along and had come specifically to intercept and kill her?

Once she understood that, Nacita knew there was no escaping.

However...

"At a time like this, I'm at my strongest!"

The Teigu Nacita possessed could materialize mental power and use it to attack.

Because it attacked with mental power, the more intense the emotional fluctuations, the greater its power became.

The more critical the situation, the more unimaginable power it could unleash!

And this was undoubtedly the moment Nacita had come closest to death in her life. Faced with the threat of death, the power her Teigu, Roman Artillery: Pumpkin, could unleash was something no one could afford to ignore.

"Even you, Esdeath!"

A sky-filling barrage rained down on Esdeath. Even for Esdeath, by the time she saw the barrage fired by Roman Artillery: Pumpkin and tried to evade, it was already too late. Her speed could not possibly surpass Pumpkin's attacks!

But Esdeath's neural reaction speed was beyond anything Nacita could imagine.

The moment Nacita raised Roman Artillery, Esdeath had already made her defense.

Roman Artillery's attacks shattered the rocks and sent dust flying, obscuring Nacita's vision and preventing her from seeing the result.

She could only hope the attack had landed.

Faced with so many ambushers, the only way to get her subordinates out was to defeat Esdeath.

Nacita did not want to kill Esdeath so easily, but even if she could merely injure Esdeath—even slightly—that would be enough.

When Esdeath charged out of the dust-filled haze, Nacita's pupils constricted.

"She's... completely unharmed!"

Nacita was utterly shocked. What shocked her even more was that not only was Esdeath fine, even the Three Beasts under her command were completely unharmed!

At that moment, the Three Beasts had already rushed out of the smoke and begun slaughtering her subordinates.

Helplessly, the two Teigu users under her command could only step forward to fight.

Two Teigu users against three Teigu users was a battle with no advantage no matter how one looked at it, but they had no choice. They could not let the Three Beasts continue massacring the soldiers.

Nacita's subordinates were in dire straits, and her own situation was no better.

Boom—

A massive chunk of ice several meters in diameter fell from the sky, crashing toward Nacita.

Nacita used Roman Artillery to shatter the ice and moved away from her original position.

The next second, a flash of cold light swept through where she had been standing.

Holding a rapier, Esdeath looked at Nacita. "Oh, you care quite a lot about your subordinates. Too bad—they're about to die."

Nacita had originally been surrounded by her own subordinates. If she had allowed that enormous block of ice to fall, perhaps she could have escaped, but the subordinates around her might not have been so fortunate.

But now, Esdeath was standing amid the encirclement of her subordinates.

Surrounded by more than a dozen elite soldiers, an ordinary person would have long since been pierced through by spears.

But at that moment, Nacita realized something and raised Roman Artillery at Esdeath.

As if responding to Nacita, Esdeath's rapier swept through the air.

The subordinates surrounding Esdeath could not even resist before they were chopped into pieces.

When Nacita saw this, her eyes nearly split open in fury.

"Esdeath!"

She roared and launched an attack at Esdeath.

Consumed by immense rage, Nacita unleashed an attack even more powerful than before.

At some point, the barrel of Roman Artillery in Nacita's hands had changed. Its attack was no longer a scattershot, but a concentrated laser—or rather, a cannon blast!

A laser nearly twenty centimeters in diameter shot from Roman Artillery's barrel toward Esdeath.

The instant Roman Artillery was aimed at her, Esdeath's keen senses detected the danger, and she evaded in advance.

Nacita moved Roman Artillery and continued sweeping fire at Esdeath, but Esdeath was exceptionally agile, and Nacita was unable to hit her for the moment.

Then Nacita noticed that her subordinates were being slaughtered.

So, even while attacking Esdeath, Nacita adjusted her position and used Roman Artillery to attack the troops Esdeath had brought.

And because of Roman Artillery's immense power, it even changed the surrounding terrain, causing a sizable collapse that buried many of Esdeath's subordinates alive.

"You dared to lose focus while fighting me. You're the first."

Esdeath's low voice sounded beside Nacita's ear.

In an instant, unprecedented terror surged into Nacita's heart.

Concern had thrown her into disorder. Because she had been too worried about her subordinates, Esdeath had found an opportunity to approach her.

A flash of cold light passed through the corner of Nacita's right eye. It was the last sight that eye ever saw.

"Aah!!!"

Excruciating pain surged into her brain from her right eye socket and right shoulder.

Her right arm and right eye had been destroyed!

Nacita used her left hand to cover the bleeding wound on her right shoulder, but such a gushing wound could not be stopped so easily.

Pain twisted Nacita's face into a savage expression. "Why... why didn't you kill me?"

That strike had been more than enough for Esdeath to kill her, yet Esdeath had not. She had merely taken one of her arms and one of her eyes.

Esdeath looked at Nacita, and there was a trace of anticipation in her gaze.

"Nacita, you're a rare opponent. It would be such a waste to let you die like this. So I won't kill you. I look forward to seeing what kind of surprise you'll bring me the next time we meet."

Expectations? Surprise?

For such a reason?

"You lunatic!" Nacita spoke those two words one by one.