Chapter 33: 33. Is that all?
"What's going on? Why did she suddenly take off her clothes?"
Dorothy was momentarily stunned as she sensed her opponent's movements through the wide-area detection magic, just as she was about to strike first.
However, in the midst of battle, she couldn't dwell on it. Her opponent's perplexing actions actually made things easier for her.
After all, she had been quite worried about whether her surprise attack could break through the opponent's defenses. That golden armor looked very high-end, which made her feel a pang of envy.
If given the choice, who wouldn't want to wear a magnificent set of armor?
Most men harbor a dream of armor, and Dorothy, with her masculine heart, was no exception.
In fact, she had always wanted to acquire a cool set of Witch battle robes for herself, but...
Alas, it always came back to the same thing: a tight budget.
A Witch's battle robes were the most expensive piece of equipment in a full set, ridiculously expensive. A standard set of battle robes for a Command Witch was roughly one-third the price of a small sky island. And if it was a custom-made set, the price was even more outrageous.
For example, her younger sister Alice's set of battle robes wasn't actually hers, but their stepmother Anne's. However, their stepmother had since become a Research Witch and no longer needed that set, so she simply passed it on to Alice.
As for the price of that magnificent blood-red battle robe?
Heh heh, their stepmother had poured all the wealth she accumulated from fighting for her life on the battlefield into that set of battle robes, leaving only a small fraction to establish their current sky island property.
That set of battle robes could at least buy more than a dozen of the sky island houses Dorothylonged for.
She couldn't afford it, she really couldn't.
Dorothy hadn't even saved enough money to buy a house to this day, let alone custom-made battle robes. As for the relatively cheaper standard battle robes?
Forget it. Those weren't even as strong as her innate Dragon scales in terms of defense. Buying them would be a pure waste of money, neither good-looking nor practical.
The battle robes on Sophia looked like high-end goods, and in the Witch World, expensive things usually only had one drawback: their price. You get what you pay for, and battle robes that cost so much money had terrifyingly high defense, one after another.
Dorothy looked at her pitiful mana pool of only 10,000 mana and felt that even if she used all her mana for an ultimate attack, she might not be able to penetrate the opponent's defense, and even if she did, it might not cause much actual damage.
She had been pondering how to deal as much true damage as possible to break through the armor.
However, before she could find an answer, her opponent suddenly took off her battle robes herself.
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Although she didn't know what Sophia was thinking, she probably had lost her mind, but Dorothy was too lazy to think further. In any case, she would take advantage of it without hesitation.
As for whether this might be a trap? Deliberately showing weakness to lure her in for a sneak attack or something.
Dorothy had considered this, but she still felt she should charge directly. After all, whether this was a trap deliberately exposing a weakness or not, as long as the weakness was a real weakness, that was fine. This might be her only chance to win.
After all, no one would seriously think she could defeat a full-strength Sophia, right?
What a joke. She only had 10,000 mana, and the opponent had 290,000. With a 29-fold mana difference, it would be a miracle to counter-kill.
It had long been said that for a Witch, mana was paramount. Only when mana was similar was there an opportunity to show off skills. If the mana difference was too great, no matter how much you showed off, it would be like doing a power slide in front of a tiger—a delivery to its doorstep.
She was indeed the Magic Net Duel champion, but Magic Net Duels were absolutely fair; everyone had the same mana value. However, in a real-life duel, no one would balance your mana for you.
The reason she proposed a duel today was merely to gather as much intelligence as possible. The true day of the duel should be twenty years later when she graduated from the Witch Academy.
Hmm, this was a twenty-year pact.
As for today's probing?
Heh heh, as long as she could break through the defense, it would count as a win.
Dorothy was very pragmatic. Being able to break through the defense with a 29-fold mana difference was already an extraordinary achievement.
And now that her opponent had taken off her battle robes, Dorothy immediately got excited. The difficulty of breaking through the defense had decreased, so why not be a little bolder? Maybe she could even see Angel blood today.
Charge, charge, charge!
"Roar~"
After a clear Dragon roar, Dorothy, without pity for the mana in her pitiful mana pool, burst forth with all her might, rushing at full speed towards the Great Angel who was still standing in place.
And that Dragon roar was not for show; it was actually a spell, cast in Dragon Language.
Although magic was a subjective power, where believing was your magic, and the strength of one's will could directly affect the power of magic, besides will, there were still other ways to enhance the power of magic.
Using transcendent languages to chant spells was one of the most common methods to strengthen spell power.
And what were transcendent languages? Simply put, they were the languages of transcendent races, such as Elvish, Merfolk, Giant, and so on.
The strength of transcendent languages was directly linked to the strength of the transcendent races that created them. Therefore, the strongest transcendent languages in the world were still the old three: the Dragon Language of Dragons, the Divine Speech of Angels, and the Blasphemy of Demons.
As the Dragon Witch, Dorothy naturally possessed the Dragon Language. This was something she knew without learning; the asterisk in her skill bar indicated Dragon Language Mastery.
She didn't want to use it before, so Dorothy had always cast spells using human language chants, and all her spells were unenhanced originals.
But now that the misunderstanding was cleared, it would be too wasteful not to use the convenient Dragon Language.
Dragon Language was a very complex and mysterious language. Thanks to the Dragons' much wider vocal range than humans, every growl in Dragon Language contained a vast amount of information.
Therefore, a spell that might take dozens of lines of text and several minutes to chant in human language could be summarized in just one or two syllables when translated into Dragon Language.
This was even more convenient and faster than High-Speed Divine Words, and not only was it faster, but the power of the magic would also be amplified by the power of the Dragon.
I'm not only faster than you, but also stronger. Are you mad?
But this alone wasn't enough...
Anyway, with 10,000 mana against 290,000 mana, there was no point thinking about war of attrition or the art of kiting. She couldn't outlast her opponent. Dorothy only had one path: an all-out, one-shot burst.
Succeed or die trying.
"So, success or failure depends on this one move."
The Gladiator Arena map was quite large, roughly the size of a small mountain range, but with Dorothy's full-speed flight, that distance vanished in an instant.
Less than two seconds after the countdown ended, just as the Angel Witch's raised sword was about to strike down, Dorothy had already appeared directly beneath the descending blade, and then, just as the sword burning with holy fire was about to touch her body, she suddenly vanished.
When her figure reappeared, she was already behind the Angel Witch, and her right hand, which had transformed into a sharp Dragon claw, pierced through Sophia's chest, and within the terrifying claw, she held a still-beating heart.
The next moment, Dorothy, still somewhat bewildered and not yet having fully recovered, instinctively tightened her grip.
And so, blood splattered, and the Angel's heart burst open like a tomato, splattering its contents all over the ground.
Then, the sound of shattering glass echoed, and the equally bewildered figure of the Angel Witch cracked open like a broken mirror.
This wasn't the end. A sudden rising sphere of water enveloped the shattered Angel fragments, but then a fiery ghost claw rising from the ground crushed the water sphere along with the Angel fragments inside. Fire and water evaporated, and high-temperature steam spread.
At this point, lightning erupted, causing water and lightning to conduct, and fire and lightning to overload...
Then, the cooled steam turned into ice, and the earth churned like a grinding mill...
All sorts of elemental magic bloomed in an instant, and the combination of different elements erupted into a dazzling array of special effects.
Finally, after nearly a minute of elemental bombardment, a wisp of dust dissipated completely with a gentle breeze.
Only Dorothy remained, frowning as she stared at her hands, still stained with what looked like ketchup, lost in thought.
"So, that's it?"
Sigh, I was almost done writing, but I felt it went off track, so I deleted and rewrote it. Thankfully, I made it just in time.