Though it was the Speed Superpower her body's original owner had utterly despised, deeming it useless, Paige Summers felt incredibly lucky to possess such a life-saving tool.
Now, desperate to stay alive, she threw everything she had into a mad dash for the collapsed valley wall.
She became a blur, a phantom shape that vanished from before the giant python and the White Lion in an instant.
If her opponents had been human, she might have already succeeded.
But, what a tragedy.
The creatures she faced possessed a speed most humans couldn't hope to match—and that, naturally, included her.
Then, to her horror, Paige discovered that one moment she was running on the ground, only a few dozen meters from the climbable rock face. The next, something coiled around her waist, and her body was helplessly yanked into the air, hurtling toward the White Lion!
'I really don't want to get up close and personal with this kind of Mutant Animal!' A torrent of curses flooded Paige's mind.
But what good would that do?
None, obviously.
So she tightened her grip on the stone rod in her hand and, going by feel, stabbed viciously at the part of the python's tail wrapped around her that was closest to its main body.
It all happened in an instant.
Paige had certainly never expected the python to use her as a projectile against the White Lion. But the python was even more surprised that this tiny human—its intended bait for now and meal for later—actually dared to fight back.
So this time, it was the python's turn to suffer.
Paige may not have had immense strength, but she possessed one skill that no one could match: the art of crafting cold weapons.
Even the old master of the Summers Family from her previous world, now deceased, had once been forced to admit that as the heir to an Artificer House, Paige Summers had absolutely surpassed her master when it came to Artifact Making for cold weapons.
Artifact Making wasn't just a craft; it demanded that the maker have a thorough understanding of the weaknesses of every creature that might fall victim to the weapon. Only then could the created weapon easily strike its target's vital points.
The tip of the stone rod Paige had crafted was unbelievably sharp. Behind the point, it flattened into a blade-thin plane, which in turn was flanked by two smaller spikes. Farther up, it thickened into a grip-friendly shaft.
So when she struck, she held the stone rod at an angle.
The tip bypassed the python's tough scales, plunging directly into the soft flesh beneath.
Once it was in, she thrust forward with all her might.
The thin stone plane acted like a knife, prying the scale clean off, while the side spikes dug deep into the python's meat...
What kind of pain was that? Paige didn't know.
But the giant python was definitely hit hard, because it immediately flung the culprit away.
Paige was airborne once again.
Glancing at where she was about to fall, she could have wept. 'This isn't much better than facing the White Lion head-on!'
In its agony, the python had, by some rotten luck, thrown her toward the collapsed valley wall. It was a jagged mess of rocks with sharp points jutting out everywhere. While she might be spared from being turned into a meat pancake, she would surely be impaled and disemboweled!
But she was stuck in mid-air, with nothing to push off of...
All Paige could do was awkwardly shield her head with her arms.
However, the expected pain never came. A white shadow shot past, positioning itself right where she was about to land. It met her momentum with its head, redirecting her force.
Paige was airborne for a third time.
Fortunately, thanks to the White Lion's intervention, her momentum had been significantly slowed.
Her eyes scanned the smooth valley wall opposite her. She tucked her legs in, and just as her body made contact with the rock face, she kicked off with all her strength.
Her timing was good. She was finally soaring over the open ground. All she had to do was roll with the landing, and she should be safe.
But at that very moment, on one side of the clearing, the giant python, its pain having subsided slightly, turned in a rage to find the one who had wounded it!
Unsurprisingly, it immediately spotted Paige, who was about to land less than twenty meters away!
The giant python lunged without a moment's hesitation.
The injury made its movements slightly unsteady, but that didn't stop it from opening its gaping maw to snap at Paige.
From a short distance away, a very human-like look of regret appeared in the White Lion's eyes. It couldn't help her this time...
A crisp CRACK echoed from the valley floor.
Paige had managed to save her head from the python's jaws, but her arm was inevitably caught and bitten hard.
'B-broken...'
Overwhelming pain washed over her, and Paige nearly passed out.
But that same pain also ignited the ferocious side of her nature.
'You hurt me, but you won't get off easy!'
Her other hand, still gripping the stone rod, instinctively lashed out!
They say a person's true potential is only unlocked in the face of death, and it's absolutely true. The last thing Paige saw before her eyes closed was the image of the giant python, its mouth ripped open, thrashing wildly in pain... With her normal strength, she could never have done that!
She quickly fell into a coma, yet she didn't lose consciousness completely.
Her body temperature swung wildly. One moment, she felt like she was lying on scorching asphalt in the heat of summer; the next, she was in a frozen wasteland in the dead of winter. The agony was unbearable.
But amid the hazy pain, strange thoughts began to surface in her mind.
White Lion, giant python, valley...
'Why does this all feel so familiar?'
'It's like I've seen it somewhere before.'
Next, wasn't there a city, and inside it, The Citadel, with an overbearing man and a cold-hearted woman... and a woman with the same name as her, always wearing a pitiful expression, constantly backing down when threatened and despised, who ultimately died outside the city, in the jaws of a Mutant Beast...
'This is... this seems to be... the plot of an apocalypse novel I read before I transmigrated?!'