Gripping her dagger tightly, her mind wandered back to the description of her echo ability, 'I remember it saying something about "enhancing weapons"; I wonder.. would it be beneficial to enhance my dagger? Now would be a great time to see.'
Ira commanded her mist to wrap around the pristine dagger—the subtle yet defined difference was both disappointing and astonishing; Ira had only thought her enhancement would only alter the dagger's durability—that was not the case; it had grown increasingly sharper, durable, and light.
'Come at me, beast..'
Despite wanting the beast to come to her, Ira lunged forward, staying low to the ground to avoid its razor-sharp needles. The young girl had no idea what the creature looked like since she was not built for the dark, but she had a feeling it would be even more of a monstrosity than the Man-Eater Slave.
As the distance between the two closed, Ira could begin to make out the shape of the abomination before her.
The Man-eater Warrior—its body encased in jagged, blood-dark chitin. Six hooked legs kept it low and stable, while its mandibles clicked softly as it tracked Ira with cold, multifaceted eyes.
Barbed spines lined its back and tail, each one had a loaded needle. With sharp contractions, the Man-eater Warrior fired these needles at extreme speed, piercing armor and flesh alike. Every movement was precise and efficient—it was built solely for killing.
'What a horrid look..!' She commented to herself mentally.
Ira figured that maybe she could perform the same trick on the beast as she had done to its lesser version—only with a less severe effect, as the abomination before her expressed far superior control over the contractions and compressions it made.
Another cut landed on her shoulder—deeper, and more accurate than all the previous ones; with the closer Ira got to the formidable beast, the more cuts she had, and would inevitably receive in the future.
The pain brought upon her by the cuts was meager, but over time she would begin to falter, her mind would grow foggy, and her movements sluggish—the battle would not last longer than a few moments if that were to happen.
"Tell me this, Beast. Do you know conviction? Do you know of the flames of Hope? Your desire of destruction, against my will to overcome!" She screamed out. With a heavy step, Ira lunged at the Purge Beast—challenging its desires in a head-on collision against her morals and ideals. A spark ignited inside her—this had been the first time she had to face a being that directly challenged her very existence on more than a physical or mundane level.
The silver-haired girl swung her blade down at the creature, the Purge Beast lashing out in return; a violent roar bellowed out from the monstrosity—not backing down, Ira slashed at the creature again, only for the blow to narrowly miss, allowing the beast to counterattack.
"Oh-!" Surprise overtook her, she had no time to brace for the impact—she could only hope not to die from this.
A crushing blow slammed against her shoulder, reverberating down to her hand; the pristine dagger began to fall from her clutches as her hands went numb.
Ira knew losing the blade meant certain death, but she did not know what to do in the fraction of that moment that could possibly prevent it.
'If it hits the ground I'm screwed! Wait.. The ground!" The sudden realization slammed into her, she knew what to do—she would drop down with the blade, snatch it from the clutches of her death, and plunge it into one of the beast's multifaceted eyes.
No longer pushing herself off the ground with each step, she fell—and in falling, she grasped her death in hand, and plunged it into the abomination before her; the beast screamed out in pain as one of its eyes had been practically gouged out with a single lunge of the dagger.
In a desperate attempt to counterattack, it began to compress localized parts of its body. Its body began to creak and even crack in some parts as it overexerted itself.
The needles lodged in its back—the deadly projectiles it had used earlier in the battle began to glow bright red as the friction caused by the compression began to heat them to unfathomable levels.
Ira needed to run, the whole section of that part of the tunnel would collapse if Ira did not stop the creature—if she even could.
'Just my luck..! It's superheating the needles, turning them into mini explosives!'
Her luck was seemingly running out; bringing a close to their clash of ideals.
The silver-haired girl attempted to pull her blade from the creature's eye, but she could not—it was lodged in there. She could release her grip on the blade, but losing her only weapon would spell out her death.
The young girl suddenly had an idea; her mist! She could command her mist to surround one of the superheated needles, which would cause it to prematurely set off due to the temperature difference, triggering a chain reaction that would only destroy a minuscule amount of the tunnel compared to what it would do if given enough time to explode them manually.
'One thing though; I will have to let go of the dagger if I want to do that—unless I am comfortable being blown into smithereens!'
Ira needed a way to remove her dagger from the abomination's eye socket.
She began to twist and pull on the blade, causing the beast to writhe in pain; but the blade did not budge from the eye socket.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, she gave up on trying to pull the blade out. 'Let go..! You know what, screw it!' She internally screamed.
Ira commanded her mist to enhance her body, before she slammed her fist on the handle of the blade, sending it deeper in.
She continued to hammer the dagger deeper and deeper, until a sickening crack resounded throughout the tunnel—the beast falling over limply.
Resonance's mechanical and clear voice once again resonated inside her head:
[You Have Slain Illusionary Strayed Monster, Warrior Man-eater.]
Ira smirked, she had killed such a formidable beast all by her lonesome, but now was not the time for celebrations; she had mere moments before the needles would be shot out in all directions.
Discarding her previous plan to detonate the needles prematurely, she began to sprint swiftly down the tunnel.
In the next few minutes, a superheated needle shot right past her face, slamming into the tunnel walls ahead of her. The impact sent shock waves throughout the entire tunnel, resulting in it beginning to collapse under the assault caused by the slain Strayed Monster.
'That vile beast! Screwing me over even in death!'
Sand had begun to pour in, slowly at first, but over the course of a few moments, parts of the tunnel had already been flooded with the golden arcane sand of the endless desert.
Ira covered her face to prevent herself from being blinded by the golden sand.
'This is just my luck!'
In the distance, she could see a large open space—her paradise from the collapsing tunnel!
'Yes..! Yes!'
Her only escape from death was right before her eyes, a glimmering ray of hope evident in her scarlet red eyes.
Suddenly, the portion of the ceiling connecting the tunnel to Ira's paradise began to crack under the pressure of the golden sand—in the next moment, it all came crashing down.
'No! I will not die here! I promised myself, you bastard gods!"
Ira threw herself against the wall of sand, smashing through it and appearing in... Paradise?
'No.. this is no Paradise! I'm dead, dead!'
Before her eyes—the generals of the Hive and its queen. She was dead; after all, what could she do against Strayed Demons when she had just barely survived a mere Strayed Monster—let alone their queen, which was very apparent to be a Strayed Tyrant!
The glimmer of hope in her scarlet red eyes died silently. There was no way to escape this situation; she was only a mere Dormant Beast after all.