Ch.1197Fierce, Ferocious

I lunged forward, exploiting a momentary gap in the density of attacks aimed at me. With time frozen, I delivered a surprise slash. With that single strike, Hubrisia became Hubri/sia.

Sia sounds somewhat like a heroine’s name, but in reality, she looked less like she needed a heroine role and more like she needed heroin.

“Kha, haaauugh…!”

The Hubrisia before me was groaning, her face contorted in unbearable agony despite her demigod status.

Like the demilitarized zone between divided nations, her body had been diagonally sliced into two pieces, pouring out venomous blood like a waterfall from both halves.

It was a fatal wound—surprising she was still breathing at all.

“…Ha, you blocked that? You’re disgustingly tenacious.”

In other words, she hadn’t died instantly.

I had clearly aimed to split her head, but the moment my blade penetrated, she deployed a spatial distortion field at its limit, slightly altering the direction of my blade.

That was unfortunate. If I had split her face in half as originally intended, she would have died instantly regardless of how fatal the wound was.

Of course, having her body cut in half was sufficiently fatal too… but my opponent was a monstrous demigod. Without destroying her head, I couldn’t rest easy.

“Kheuk…! Do you think I would… die from such a wound…!”

See? That’s exactly the tone of someone who won’t die easily.

“Most would die, you monster.”

Just as I raised my sword again to finally crush her head—

“Βράσε…! Βράσε, αίμα μου!”

Hubrisia, who had been staggering and falling in two pieces, suddenly stopped mid-air and shouted incomprehensible ancient words in a voice filled with malice.

Magic—or a spell incantation. Though I couldn’t understand the meaning, I immediately grasped its effect.

– Kurrrrrr…!

Purple poisonous smoke erupted with a whoosh. All her scattered blood instantly began to boil, spreading toxic fumes throughout the surroundings.

“Die soaked in my poison! Not even a fragment of bone will remain!”

“Such desperate struggling…!”

A roar with a strange sense of déjà vu, as if I’d heard it somewhere before. The thick poison instantly enveloped my entire body.

– Wooooong…!

The magical inscriptions on my dragon scale armor reacted, forming a translucent barrier, but only for a moment. It dissolved immediately upon contact with the poison.

As expected, it couldn’t block it. Just as I thought.

I never expected a magical barrier to block it anyway.

Although I used dragon scales as a premium catalyst, the inscriptions were ultimately created by mere Naga priestesses.

They might handle light attacks thrown as feints, but they couldn’t withstand a demigod’s desperate all-out attack.

It was unsurprising and expected.

“You think that’s enough to defend—”

“Of course not!”

That’s why I didn’t panic and immediately extended Frosting forward, releasing the netherworld’s cold energy over a wide area.

Enhanced by dragon blood and Naga magic, the curse of Frosting no longer just penetrated wounds but spread like mist throughout the surroundings.

– Pussssssk…!

Hubrisia’s poison mist, upon contact with that eerie and chilling blue-black fog, crumbled as if frozen and scattered into powder.

“My poison blood neutralized by mere cold…?!”

Hubrisia was visibly shocked to see her dragon-melting poison vapor so easily counteracted.

“No, this isn’t ordinary cold…!”

She had initially reacted as if her technique couldn’t possibly be frozen by mere cold, but the next moment she seemed to realize the reason and growled through gritted teeth.

Indeed. It’s an easily misunderstood fact, but the essence of Frosting’s curse isn’t simple cold—in other words, it’s not just a cooling ability.

The netherworld’s cold. The essence of this curse is the death energy from the netherworld that seeps into the enemy’s blood vessels, depleting their life force and guiding them to death.

In short, it doesn’t freeze them to death, but rather resembles a curse that erodes their lifespan itself, weakening them to death.

That’s also why it feels cold just by looking at it.

It doesn’t actually lower the temperature; its essence is the energy of the afterlife, making any living being instinctively feel a chill.

You know how your spine naturally chills when you see something like a ghost in the middle of the night? It’s like that sensation amplified thousands of times.

The same applies to the freezing chill felt when the netherworld’s cold penetrates the body. It’s not actually freezing blood and flesh.

It’s just like how your whole body shivers when you’re sick and weakened—you feel intensely cold because you’re losing life force and dying.

Well, that’s just a digression. The important point was that the “netherworld’s cold” wasn’t just ordinary cold but a curse that steals life force through “blood.”

And Hubrisia’s desperate poison mist was created by evaporating her poisonous blood into a blood fog.

When a curse that seeps through blood to deliver death meets a blood fog, the result is obvious.

– Passsssss…!

What good is dragon-killing poison in her blood? The blood itself that formed and maintained that poison had already died from the curse.

…Ah, perhaps saying the blood “died” is too abstract and doesn’t properly convey the meaning?

To explain more simply and clearly, the fresh blood spoiled like corpse blood, and the poison components within it spoiled along with it.

The blood mist scattering like powder followed the same principle as long-abandoned blood hardening and crumbling.

Thanks to this, I was able to create an opening to barely escape despite being hit by poison mist that could have melted even dragon scales.

I was outmatched in output but had the advantage in compatibility.

Attack? That was beyond my capability. Since there was a limit to how much I could neutralize with the netherworld’s cold, I would eventually succumb to the poison if I delayed any longer.

So I retreated without finishing her off.

“You escaped after all…? Well, so be it. It’s regrettable I couldn’t kill you, but at least I’ve bought time.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? I regret not killing you in one strike.”

I was the one who bought time with the netherworld’s cold, and I was the one disappointed about not killing her. Such an opportunity wouldn’t come again.

“You seem to be in a lot of pain. Should I prescribe you some anesthesia?”

“…You start showing off as soon as you gain an advantage. How vulgar, just like your appearance.”

Hubrisia steadied her staggering body and slowly revealed herself from within the thick poison mist. Her upper body was now properly positioned on top of her lower body.

I wasn’t surprised. I had caught a glimpse earlier.

While I was blocking the poison and retreating, she had used her spider legs on her back to grab her severed upper body and attach it to the cross-section of her lower body.

“Regeneration ability… doesn’t seem like it. What is that?”

It’s not regenerative healing. Bodies aren’t clay—they don’t just go back to normal if you stick them together.

Even werebeasts who can do that have difficulty recovering from wounds properly inflicted by Durandal.

“Ha, I have no reason to answer—”

“Then don’t. I can see you just roughly connected the spaces. Right?”

“……”

Seems like I hit the mark. I suspected as much when I sensed the distinctive distortion of spatial interference near the cross-section.

Yes. Hubrisia hadn’t regenerated by connecting flesh to flesh, but had merely attached her upper and lower body by connecting the spaces, roughly maintaining the appearance.

It was similar to hastily suturing a severed wound with thread.

She had hurriedly attached them for now, planning to heal the wound properly later… something like that. The damage itself would remain intact.

That’s why she was now spreading poison all around herself to prevent me from approaching carelessly.

– Sssssss….

Vapor, liquid, and even formless energy—all kinds of poison spread thickly, dissolving everything they touched.

The ground bubbled and melted, forming a huge pit, while the poisonous air shimmered with an eerie purple glow.

The poison was so potent that merely approaching would melt limbs, and inhaling even once would instantly rot all internal organs.

The area around her had become, quite literally, a forbidden zone that denied access to all living beings.

“Why are you hiding? Won’t you come out?”

“If you’re dissatisfied, try approaching from your side. I am not a swordsman, so why should I close the distance?”

“Ah, so you’ll keep hiding?”

“Hiding? You’re simply afraid to approach me.”

This bastard is pulling a “no u” on me. And she’s doing it after setting deadly poison traps all around her.

True to her insect heritage, her tactics were as despicable as a vermin’s.

She deflected long-range attacks with layered spatial distortions, and melted anyone who approached with poison before they could even swing a sword—a truly vile strategy.

From a swordsman’s perspective, it was the worst possible matchup.

Even if I stopped time and charged in, I would obviously be poisoned the moment the toxic air touched my body. Approaching carelessly would result in mutual destruction at best.

All weak ranged attacks were blocked, and close combat was suicide.

Moreover, the range of the poison was gradually expanding, leaving me with no option but to keep retreating helplessly.

At least she too, perhaps due to the fatal wound I had inflicted, couldn’t attempt any attacks other than hiding and spewing poison.