*ROOOOAARRRR!!!*
That loud roar made Nero's spine do this weird little shimmy dance.
It's like someone had just played death metal through a blender. It's outright ear-grating.
"Holy shit…"
Jin was limping like her leg, but somehow she was still keeping pace. It's a miracle given her body injuries.
Blood kept dripping from her wounds, painting little red dots on the ground like the world's most depressing breadcrumb trail.
"How the hell did that thing break free so fast?!"
Aurelia's wings spread wider as she scooped Jin up without breaking stride.
And she did it in princess-carry style, because apparently divine beings don't believe in piggyback rides.
"Lord Nero, the containment was designed to last 18 hours..."
"Yeah, well, Vincent probably had a Plan B for that too."
Nero was breathing hard, but adrenaline was doing most of the heavy lifting right now.
His new Metalloid Transformation was already tingling in his arms, ready to activate whenever shit hit the fan.
Which, judging by the sounds ahead, was happening right fucking now.
*CRASH! BOOM! CRACK!*
Trees were snapping like toothpicks.
The ground was literally shaking beneath their feet with each massive footstep.
Whatever the Verdant Tyrant was doing, it sounded like it was having a temper tantrum that could level cities.
"There!"
Jin pointed toward the clearing where the parents' base was supposed to be.
Except "base" might have been too generous a word at this point.
It's more like a "disaster zone with some people still breathing in it" at this point.
*WHOOSH!*
A massive chunk of earth came flying over their heads, missing them by maybe three feet.
The thing was easily the size of a small car and moving fast enough to turn anyone it hit into human soup.
"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"
That was Mina's voice, screaming from somewhere in the chaos.
Her tough-girl act was cranked up to maximum volume, probably because yelling helped with the whole "not dying horribly" situation.
*SLICE!*
A blade of pure ice came whistling past, carving through the air with surgical precision.
It slammed into something with a wet *THUNK* sound.
"Ren's awake!"
Yuki's voice carried relief mixed with battle-ready excitement.
Sure enough, there was the older version of Kaito but thinner, standing on some kind of ice platform he'd created.
His face was still pale as hell from mana exhaustion, and he was wobbling like a drunk person trying to walk a tightrope.
But his ice magic was flying around like he was conducting a frozen symphony of death.
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
Ice spears kept materializing and launching themselves at their target.
Each one was perfectly aimed, hitting with enough force to puncture tank armor.
Too bad their target wasn't exactly cooperating with the whole "dying" plan.
*ROAAARRRRR!!!*
Because apparently the Verdant Tyrant had decided that taking damage was optional.
Every wound was healing almost as fast as it was being made.
Ice spear through the trunk? Healed in seconds.
Slash marks from earth attacks? Closed up like nothing happened.
Burns from fire magic? The plant matter just regrew itself.
"Holy smokes… Is that thing really immortal?"
Nero finally got a clear look at their enemy as they reached the battlefield.
And honestly?
He immediately regretted having functioning eyeballs.
"... Just what the fuck happened? What did that manipulative bastard do…?"
The Verdant Tyrant had grown.
A lot.
What used to be maybe five meters tall was now easily nine meters of pure plant-based nightmare fuel.
Its flower head had split into three separate maws, each one lined with teeth that looked like they'd been carved from bone.
Multiple vine arms were thrashing around, each one as thick as tree trunks and moving with the speed of whips.
Massive twisting roots were bursting from the ground everywhere, creating a maze of spiky death traps.
And those human faces...
"Jesus fucking Christ."
The five absorbed victims were still there, embedded in the creature's flesh.
But now they were distortedly screaming.
Actual, audible screaming that mixed with the monster's roars to create a sound that could probably traumatize angels.
Their eyes were wide with terror and pain, mouths opening and closing in desperate pleas for help that would never come.
"BY THE POWER OF EXPLOSIVE MOTHERLY LOVE!"
Yuki came flying through the air like a magical girl having a midlife crisis.
Rainbow sparkles were trailing behind her as she spun in some kind of aerial attack formation.
Her hands were glowing with enough colorful energy to power a small rave.
*BOOM!*
The magical energy blast hit the Verdant Tyrant square in one of its flower faces.
The explosion was bright enough to temporarily blind everyone within a 20-meter radius.
But when the smoke cleared...
"Are you shitting me right now?!"
The damage was already healing.
Charred plant matter was regrowing like the explosion had been a minor inconvenience.
"Ara ara~ This is quite troublesome."
Haori's gentle voice somehow carried perfectly over the battle chaos.
She was standing on a platform made of giant root vines, her hands weaving through complex magical gestures.
Vines were sprouting from the ground around the Verdant Tyrant, but these weren't attack vines.
They were restraint vines.
Thick, rope-like plant matter that wrapped around the monster's limbs and tried to hold it in place.
"The anomaly has assimilated too many abilities."
Juno's voice was coming from somewhere behind a massive stone barrier.
He had apparently created some kind of mobile command center using earth magic.
"Current analysis shows regeneration rates of approximately 340% beyond normal SR-tier parameters."
"English, math nerd!"
Mina was darting around the battlefield like an angry hummingbird on steroids.
Her red flowing martial ki was letting her dodge the creature's attacks, but her counterattacks weren't doing jack shit for damage.
"Our damage output is too little compared to its regeneration."
"Got it!"
Nero activated his Metalloid Transformation mid-run.
*CRACK! POP!*
Grey scales erupted across his arms and torso as his muscles bulged with borrowed dragon strength.
The weight of the transformation made his footsteps crater the ground.
"Lord Nero, stay close!"
Aurelia deposited Jin safely behind Juno's barrier before spreading her wings wide.
Divine energy started swirling around her like liquid starlight having an orgasm.
Her usually stoic expression had shifted into something that could only be described as professionally pissed off.
*WHOOSH!*
She launched herself into the air, silver light trailing behind her.
And that's when everyone witnessed why she was called the Divine Blender of Death.
"..."
Aurelia's form became nothing more than a streak of divine energy moving faster than human eyes could track.
Her sword strikes weren't just quick…they were invisible.
*SLICE-SLICE-SLICE-SLICE-SLICE!*
The sound of her blade cutting through the Verdant Tyrant came in rapid succession, like machine gun fire made of pure cutting force.
Chunks of plant matter began falling to the ground before anyone even realized she'd attacked.
"What the hell…"
Even Nero, with his enhanced reflexes, couldn't follow her movements.
One moment she was hovering in the air, the next moment the creature was suddenly missing entire sections of vine arms.
"..."
Aurelia moved around the Verdant Tyrant like a silver hurricane.
Her wings created sonic booms with each direction change.
Her sword carved through the creature's massive form with surgical precision.
Despite its SR-tier durability and insane regeneration, she was quite literally outpacing its ability to heal.
For every wound that started closing, three more opened up.
"She's... she's actually winning!"
Yuki's voice carried disbelief mixed with awe.
The Verdant Tyrant, this nightmare creature that had been shrugging off their combined attacks like they were gnats, was being systematically dismantled by a single fighter.
*ROAAARRRR!!!*
The creature tried to catch her with its remaining vine arms, but Aurelia was moving in three dimensions at speeds that turned physics into more of a polite suggestion.
Her divine energy left trails of silver light that created complex geometric patterns in the air.
"This is what fighting an SR-tier looks like..."
Ren's voice was barely a whisper.
Even through his mana exhaustion, he was transfixed by the display.
Aurelia's attacks weren't random slashing.
Each cut was calculated to maximize damage while preventing the creature from coordinating its regeneration.
She severed nerve clusters.
Disrupted energy flow.
Carved through vital connection points that the monster needed to maintain its enhanced abilities.
"Holy shit, she's not just fast..."
Mina, despite her own enhanced speed, was staring in amazement.
"She's striking faster than it can adapt!"
Within the span of 30 seconds, Aurelia had reduced the nine-meter nightmare into something that looked more like a severely pruned garden.
The creature's multiple flower heads were spinning wildly, trying to track a target that was moving too fast for their enhanced senses.
Its vine arms kept regenerating, only to be cut down before they could fully form.
Even its massive root system was being carved away faster than it could regrow.
"Is she actually going to kill it?"
Jin's voice carried hope for the first time since the battle started.
From behind Juno's barrier, it looked like they might actually survive this.
The Divine Blender of Death was living up to her title, turning an impossible fight into a one-sided massacre.
"Oh my god… Did you just trigger a red flag…?"
Nero almost facepalmed at Jin, to which the woman was confused as to why Nero reacted that way to her words…
But as if proving the myth as something factual.
That's when the Verdant Tyrant did something that changed everything.
*ROAAARRRR!!!*
Instead of trying to regenerate, the creature suddenly pulled all of its remaining mass inward.
The scattered chunks of plant matter that Aurelia had carved away began flowing back toward the main body.
Not to heal, but to concentrate power.
"It's changing tactics!"
Juno's analytical voice carried a note of alarm.
"The creature is sacrificing regeneration for raw power!"
The Verdant Tyrant compressed itself from a nine-meter-tall monster into something more compact but infinitely more dangerous.
It's now six meters tall, but with density that makes the air around it tremble.
Its remaining flower heads merged into a single massive maw lined with teeth that gleamed with absorbed divine energy.
*WOOOOSSSHHH!*
Suddenly the creature wasn't the slow, lumbering giant it had been.
It moved with speed that actually made Aurelia pause mid-attack.
*CLASH!*
For the first time in the fight, the Verdant Tyrant managed to block one of her strikes.
Its condensed vine arm, now thick as a tree trunk and harder than steel, caught her sword in a shower of sparks.
"It adapted to her speed!"
Haori's gentle voice carried genuine concern.
The creature had been studying Aurelia's attack patterns even while being dismantled.
Now it was using that knowledge to fight back.
*BOOM! CRASH! SLASH!...*
What followed was a high-speed battle that turned the air itself into a weapon.
Aurelia's invisible strikes met with blocks and counters that moved just as fast.
Sonic booms echoed across the battlefield as the divine broadsword met condensed plant matter at velocities that created their own weather patterns.
The Verdant Tyrant's single massive flower head with triple maws began charging an attack that looked disturbingly familiar.
… Corrupted divine energy swirled around its teeth.
Energy that it had absorbed from Aurelia's earlier strikes.
"It's using her own power against her!"
Ren created an ice platform to get a better view, his exhaustion forgotten in the face of what he was witnessing.
Two forces that operated beyond normal human comprehension, locked in combat that was rewriting the local laws of physics.
*BOOOM!!!*
The creature's version of divine energy erupted from its mouth.
Not the clean and silver power that Aurelia wielded, but something twisted and violet.
Divine energy filtered through plant-based corruption that made it hungry and aggressive.
*HACK! SLASH!*
Aurelia's response was to accelerate even further.
Her form became less a person and more a force of nature.
Her sword work reached speeds that turned her into something closer to a natural disaster than a fighter.
But the Verdant Tyrant had learned.
*WUUUMM!!!*
Even moving at incomprehensible speeds, Aurelia's attacks followed patterns.
Angles of approach.
Timing sequences.
Energy expenditure cycles.
The creature had been absorbing all of this information, and now it was using it to stay one step ahead.
"..."
For the first time in the fight, one of the creature's counterattacks came close enough to Aurelia to actually ruffle her hair, but the absolute beast of a girl remained stoic as usual.
A vine strike that moved with stolen divine enhancement, aimed not at where she was, but at where she was going to be.
"She's in trouble!"
Nero was already moving, his Metalloid Transformation reactivating.
Although the mana demand for maintaining the transformation is outrageous, Nero didn't spare a glance at his little mana capacity if he could save his waifu!
The metallic scales immediately erupted across his body as he charged toward the aerial battle.
But before he could reach them, the Verdant Tyrant did something that made everyone's blood run cold.
*WAAAPPP!!!*
The creature's triple maws opened wide, revealing not just teeth but a void that seemed to pull at everyone's life force.
The five absorbed human faces, now clustered around the mouth, started screaming again.
But this time it wasn't from pain.
They were trying to warn everyone about what kind of shitshow was about to come next.
The air around the creature began shimmering as it prepared to use its most terrifying power.
Not direct absorption like it had done to the original victims.
But a wide-area drain that would slowly suck the life out of everything within a half-mile radius.
Trees started withering.
The grass turned brown and cracked.
Even the stones began developing stress fractures.
… And Aurelia, caught in the center of the effect at point-blank range, suddenly found her divine energy being pulled away.
Her incredible speed faltered.
Her invisible strikes became visible as her power was drained.
"... Run."
Her voice was barely audible as she fell back, wings struggling to keep her airborne.
"Everyone run. Now."
The stern expression on her face and the coldness of her voice spoke of the dangers that were about to be unleashed by the plant anomaly.
"RUN!"
Only when Nero shouted as his Greater Instincts were ringing alarm did the others snap out of their reverie.
… But as they all turned to flee, the Verdant Tyrant's absorption field began expanding faster than human legs could carry them.
The shimmering effect was spreading outward like a wave of death, and there was nowhere to go that would be far enough.
That's when the creature opened its massive flower mouth and began doing something that sounded like chanting.
In a language made of screams and dying plants.
And whatever it was saying, the absorbed human faces were mouthing along with the words.
Like they'd been forced to learn this unholy spell through weeks of continuous torture.
*WOOOOMMM…*
The chanting grew louder.
The absorption field grew stronger.
And somewhere in the distance, more roars could be heard answering the call.
Every monster within miles was coming to join the feast.
***
Gilbert had been fighting monsters for exactly three weeks and two days.
He'd thought he was getting pretty decent at the whole "not dying horribly" thing.
But it turns out he was wrong.
Dead fucking wrong.
"Holy mother of God."
He was crouched behind what used to be a storage building, watching the battle unfold like some kind of divine intervention gone horribly sideways.
The plant monster was bad enough.
Nine meters of pure nightmare fuel that regenerated faster than they could damage it.
But the people fighting it?
That was something else entirely.
"... Is that woman actually flying?"
Aurelia was moving through the air like gravity was just a suggestion.
Her white wings caught the light from magical explosions, creating patterns that hurt to look at directly.
And when she got serious...
"Jesus Christ, where did she go?"
One moment the angel was hovering in the air; the next moment she had simply vanished.
The only evidence of her presence was the sound of cutting and the chunks of plant monster falling to the ground.
"She's moving too fast to see!"
The other fighters huddled behind cover were whispering in amazement.
"Look at that thing getting carved up!"
"She's winning!"
"Single-handedly!"
Gilbert had to agree.
What had seemed like an impossible fight was turning into a one-sided massacre.
The woman with angel wings was systematically dismantling a creature that had been shrugging off everyone else's attacks.
Her sword work was so fast it was invisible, creating these geometric patterns of silver light in the air as she moved faster than human eyes could track.
"... That's not human speed."
The whispered comment came from somewhere behind him.
Gilbert wasn't sure anymore what counted as human in this new world.
The way she fought, the casual way she was overpowering something that could level buildings...
That was operating on a completely different level of existence.
"She's an angel sent by God."
"... Has to be."
"Look at those pretty wings..."
When Aurelia fought, it looked like watching a legend come to life.
Every movement was perfect, calculated, and divine.
Even when the plant monster adapted and started fighting back at her level, she was still clearly the superior fighter.
"... This is what a true angel looks like."
"An angel graced by the Gods."
"It's a mercy from the above…"
The whispered comments made Gilbert nod in agreement.
Everything he knew about combat was being rewritten in real time.
This woman wasn't just strong.
She was operating in a realm different from them.
It's truly the work of an angel of a warrior.
… But then the creature did something that changed the entire battle.
"What's happening to the air?"
The shimmering effect was spreading outward from the plant monster.
The trees were withering.
Grass was dying.
And the angel's incredible speed was suddenly... slower.
"It's draining her power!"
Gilbert watched in horror as the woman who had been winning effortlessly suddenly found herself struggling.
Her invisible strikes became visible.
Her perfect flight pattern wavered.
The divine energy that had made her untouchable was being pulled away.
"... Run."
Her voice carried supernatural clarity even in her weakened state.
"Everyone run. Now."
"RUN!"
And that's when Gilbert realized they were all about to die.
The shimmering death field was expanding faster than any of them could move.
The plant monster was chanting something in a language that hurt to hear.
And in the distance, more roars were answering its call.
Every monster within miles was coming to join whatever unholy ritual was about to begin.
***
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