Once Human, Now a Parasite

Chaos unfolded in the stretching green plains, which were either frozen by Lucy's ice, destroyed by Halone's fists of fury, or wrecked by Celina's gigantic water wave.

The battle between Lucy and her opponent has reached its climax, with the two finally going all out.

The elven maiden cast a spell on herself, which wrapped her body with an armor made of literal plants and significantly boosted her speed. Meanwhile, Lucy preferred to maintain her distance and bombard the enemy with the explosive elemental bullets from Lonely Moon, the silver revolver specifically crafted to her by none other than Arthur.

It has been a while since the revolver has been upgraded, nevertheless, every bullet shot from its glistening barrel was truly frightening, no matter the attribute used.

The ice lotuses were rapidly spinning around Lucy, deflecting the incoming shock waves caused by Halone's fists. They were an effective defensive measure, which made Lucy practically untouchable.

Although Halone's agility and strength were strengthened, she still could not catch up to Lucy, thus did she resort to long-ranged blasts that had a wide radius and dealt substantial damage to the environment.

Lucy loaded another bullet, aimed at the speeding elf, and fired a red bullet with three spinning magical circles in front of it. The second the bullet was shot, a scorching heat and a blast of purple flames encompassed the azure-colored canopy, slowly cascading onto Halone.

In retaliation, the elf rooted her feet onto the icy ground, mumbled a couple of words then shot right into the sea of flames. She met the purple flames head-on and surprisingly managed to split it with a torrent of blurry punches. Meanwhile, the ground down below cracked and from within, a moving enormous tree appeared.

It was actually a Treant, a higher-variant of the plant-type monsters. This Treant, however, has impressively long and thin limbs, the face of an old man, and an absurdly long white beard.

The vines were too fast for Lucy to evade them so she swiftly loaded another bullet and shot it at them. The bullet didn't directly affect the vines, but it did shatter the space and cause a series of large spatial tears to appear all around her. The spatial tears easily suċkėd the vines and even forced Halone to circle around them.

Unfortunately for the elf, this bought Lucy enough time to cast her next spell. The White Specter channeled her Mana and, within seconds, a miniature golden sun manifested itself, wrapped in blinding flames of the same color.

The sun slowly rose into the air, its light shadowing the artificial sun of this small dimension. Lucy wasted no time and, with her signal, the sun exploded, bringing forth a storm of golden flames which blew Halone away and even spread to Dan, who was minding his own business and protecting the flag in its respective circle.

The Treant down below suffered the same fast as its master, its massive body crashed into the ground and was struck by the raging golden flames.

The Golden Crow Fire caught the attention of all the participants. Xavier and Celina stopped fighting, the former backing away and the latter protecting herself with a small bubble of water.

Lucy's spell affected half of the green flat plains, scorching the earth and grass and spreading across the sky, in which the artificial sun was replaced by a real, burning one, emitting a suffocating heat.

Lucy calmly landed on the ash-covered ground and looked around, spotting no traces of the treant. Halone, on the other hand, was still there, but she didn't look unscathed.

Her clothes and her whole left arm had burn marks, she didn't have the same easy-going expression and her breathing was heavy and uneven. It was apparent that Lucy's attack dealt a considerable amount of damage to the elf, though it wasn't able to defeat her, unfortunately.

"I'm impressed, madam Lucy."

"I have to admit that I didn't expect to be thrashed… and so badly, at that. My apologies for underestimating you."

"..."

Lucy maintained her silence, she kept her guard up and cautiously looked at the elven maiden.

"I forfeit."

Halone raised her hand and surrendered, her aura vanished on the spot and, soon, she was teleported out of the stage.

With one more opponent down, Lucy, albeit a bit tired from the previous fight, focused on another participant.

**

"What are you doing?"

Holand was meditating in silence but soon stopped upon seeing his grandsire take out a bunch of ritual materials from out of his ring.

"Come on, Holand. We're leaving."

His aunt grabbed him by the elbow and tried to drag him outside. There was urgency in her tone and actions, which made the situation even more confusing for the youth.

"I asked you what you are doing!"

Even though he already knew the answer, Holand insisted, but he got no answer. His usually kind grandfather nonchalantly waved his hand at him, which made both he and his aunt get dragged outside by a gentle magical wind.

"We have to leave the city."

It was obvious that his aunt wasn't in cahoots with his grandfather, nevertheless, Holand refused to cooperate. Those materials were a bad omen and trying anything within the parasite's territory was simply suicidal.

"He's going to summon our ancestor's avatar, right? Why? Is my father still after Cristina and Bora?"

Holand bombarded his aunt with questions but she kept her lips tightly shut. Although Holand vehemently refused to leave, his cultivation was eventually sealed and he was forcefully taken outside.

"Forgive me, Holand."

"Let me go! I need to warn them."

"There's no need to. I'm taking you outside because I know my brother will fail. They will get killed but at least you will survive…"