Killing Time

Luke used Time Reversal to drag the dodging Bernie back beneath her descending blade.

With one slash.

She split the three-star hero dwarf in half as though chopping firewood.

After killing Bernie, Luke advanced with her blades, sending two Ice Wheels grinding toward the terrified Mad Axe Gang members.

The Mad Axe Gang members recoiled in fear, crowding together in the narrow corridor. The range of Ice Dance Garden spread over them, and the Ice Wheels formed by Star Dust Starry Azure charged into the packed gang members like the wheels of a meat grinder.

Moisture froze into drifting white frost and snowflakes.

Great sprays of red blood burst outward, staining some of the snow crimson.

White snow and red snow danced in the airflow stirred up by the spinning Ice Wheels.

When they fell, they buried the unrecognizable limbs beneath them.

A layer of ice formed over the corridor walls. Blood that splashed onto them froze, creating patches of coral-like ice sculptures.

Luke walked forward through this corridor of strange beauty. No one remained standing ahead of her.

After flying to the end of the corridor, Star Dust Starry Azure turned back, shattering the ice clinging to its blade before sliding back into the sheath at Luke's lower back.

Luke arrived at the stairwell leading to the second floor.

According to the guide records, there was a spacious hall below, and Jumu's room lay at the end of the corridor on the right side of the hall.

From above, she could hear chaotic footsteps and voices shouting orders in the second-floor hall.

Apparently, some Mad Axe Gang members had managed to escape downstairs and reported what had happened above to the reinforcements.

Knowing they could not use their numerical advantage in the narrow corridor, they had chosen the second-floor hall as the battlefield to stop the intruder.

Luke vaulted over the third-floor railing and jumped down.

A thunderous boom exploded at once.

The Mad Axe Gang had actually set up a cannon in the second-floor hall!

It was an obsolete 18-pound muzzle-loading smoothbore naval cannon, capable of firing solid shot and grapeshot.

Its muzzle was aimed directly at the stairwell entrance from the third floor to the second.

The instant the intruder appeared, a gang member holding a torch lit the fuse.

The enclosed stairwell made the cannon blast especially deafening. As flames and thick smoke burst from the muzzle, a mass of pellet-shaped grapeshot sprayed out.

The fan-shaped barrage covered the entire stairwell entrance.

A weapon meant for warships trading broadsides displayed its unstoppable might in this environment.

The barrage swept forward in a fan, blasting the staircase apart in an instant.

Broken stone and wood splinters flew through the rising dust. Several Mad Axe Gang members standing too close were struck and cried out in agony.

Had the intruder been blasted to death?

No one knew.

But the temperature in the hall suddenly plummeted.

Everyone's breath turned to white mist, while frost rapidly spread over the walls and ceiling.

It was as if deep winter had arrived.

Exposed skin felt as though it were being sliced apart by the cold.

"The intruder is still alive. Find her and kill her!"

Someone shouted.

Then, a massive Ice Wheel surged upward from the middle of the crowd.

Several severed gang members were hurled upward by the Ice Wheel and slammed into the ceiling. Their spraying blood quickly froze, sticking them to the icy layer overhead.

The rising Ice Wheel carved a deep groove into the ceiling, then turned and cleaved downward, spinning forward.

It stopped only after crashing into a wall.

The ice covering the Ice Wheel shattered, revealing a curved blade within.

The curved blade spun back along the path cut by the Ice Wheel and was finally caught firmly by a hand.

Only then did the Mad Axe Gang members realize that the invading Elf had somehow hidden among them.

She held a curved blade in a reverse grip in her left hand, its surface beginning to frost over as energy clung to it.

In her other hand was a machete wreathed in white Holy Flame.

Ice-mist flowers bloomed in the air.

Freezing cold burrowed fiercely into their bones.

Some Mad Axe Gang members became rigid and unable to move.

Then a ring of white light edged with ice crystals spread outward from the Elf, instantly freezing the nearby Mad Axe Gang members into ice statues.

Next came a shockwave infused with sacred energy, spreading outward from the Elf.

The powerful impact struck the humanoid ice statues, shattering them instantly and sending their fragments flying outward with the shockwave.

In mere moments, the hall that had just been packed with people held only a handful of survivors.

The remaining Mad Axe Gang members stood scattered around the hall with weapons in hand, trembling all over as they faced the invading Elf. Whether it was from fear or cold, they did not know.

Clang, clang, clang...

A burly Mad Axe Gang member pushed the cannon around to change its direction.

His expression was utterly blank, unaffected by the frozen chunks of corpses strewn across the floor. He aimed the cannon at the Elf, then methodically cleaned the barrel and fetched a bag of gunpowder to pour into the muzzle.

He was calm and orderly.

Like a well-trained sailor in a naval battle, as long as he was alive and the ship had not sunk, he had to keep firing the gun position under his charge at the enemy.

Everyone else assigned to the cannon was dead, so loading it alone was much slower.

Luke walked over and sliced off his head with a single stroke.

Jaburlais, three-star hero.

All his abilities were focused on operating cannons. In a warship artillery battle, he would undoubtedly have been an exceptional hero-class gunner.

His other abilities were merely passable.

Jaburlais's body slumped against the cannon barrel, and the surviving Mad Axe Gang members dropped their weapons and fled as fast as they could.

Luke ignored those terrified cowards and headed toward Jumu's bedroom with her blades in hand.

She passed through a short corridor.

At its end lay the target of her visit.

Before an exquisitely carved door stood a woman in a black robe.

The woman was exceedingly beautiful, with pale purple hair and a jeweled circlet around her head. As the Elf approached, the gems on the woman's circlet lit up one by one.

"Elf, the fact that you made it this far proves you are strong. But this is as far as you will go."

Luke continued forward, holding the curved blade in a reverse grip in one hand and the machete in the other.

"Brenda, is Jumu inside?"

Brenda, a dark mage skilled in curses, poison, and corrosive Magic.

She was Jumu the Horned Demonkin's mistress.

Her strength was rated at three stars, but Players widely agreed that Brenda was overpowered, so her true strength should have been three and a half stars.

Against a devious three-and-a-half-star dark mage, she had to be careful.

Brenda said, "A dead person does not need to know the answer."

The corridor darkened, and eerie wails rose from every direction. Countless ghostly hands reached out from the walls to grab Luke, while a cloud of black mist rose behind her and a giant cobra extended its head from within.

A chant echoed through the narrow space.

Black energy swept toward Luke.

Ignoring the threat right before her, Luke raised the machete before herself, white light shining through her right arm.

"Brenda, it seems no one told you what kind of power I just used."

Divine Blessing!