A terrifying roar tore through the cavern, and then, in a blinding blur of speed, Celeste shot forward, lunging directly at Soo-min with her hand extended aiming to deliver a blow.

Soo-min instantly braced herself, stepping back and raising her own hand to meet the attack. A violent shockwave tore through the cavern as the two blows collided, and the impact completely pulverized Celeste's striking arm.

But Celeste didn't slow. She immediately swung her other hand to deliver a blow to Soo-min's head, but the opponent was faster. Soo-min blocked the blow with her other hand, which held her short sword, and immediately followed with a lightning-quick thrust into Celeste's chest. She yanked the blade out and stabbed repeatedly, thrusting and withdrawing the short sword with blinding speed.

Finally, Soo-min delivered a fierce kick to Celeste's massive body, driving the figure backward to crash hard against the cavern wall once more.

But before a second could pass, Celeste began to move. Seeing the figure about to rise, Soo-min instantly hurled her short sword. The blade flew through the air, burying itself in Celeste's head and pinning her instantly to the stone wall.

Then Soo-min immediately lunged forward, yanked the short sword free, and drove it back into the head, withdrawing and thrusting it again and again while yelling, "Die, dammit, die!"

However, at that very moment, Celeste raised her knee and delivered a crushing kick to Soo-min's abdomen, sending her staggering back, clutching her midsection. Before Soo-min could recover, Celeste tore herself free from the wall, grabbed Soo-min's head, and smashed it onto the ground.

She then roared and raised a blazing, clawed hand, ready to crush Soo-min's skull. But before she could bring it down, Tae-hyun vanished and instantly reappeared behind her, driving his longsword through the center of Celeste's chest, piercing her from behind. Without hesitation, he ripped the blade upward, splitting the demonic figure cleanly into two halves. The cavern air was instantly filled with a grotesque shower of boiling blood and smoking viscera that rained down upon Soo-min.

The two halves of Celeste fell to the floor with a sickening, wet impact, sizzling fiercely as the flesh made contact with the cold stone.

Soo-min gagged, spitting a mouthful of the grotesque splatter onto the ground. Then she immediately scrambled to her feet, asking, "Is the bitch dead?"

Tae-hyun took a step back, swinging the blood off his longsword. "I literally took its head off a minute ago and it charged me headless," he replied, his voice laced with grim annoyance. "What makes you think splitting it in half will stop it?"

He had not even finished when the two halves of Celeste began to join back together. The sizzling meat stretched and reformed, pulled by threads of dark flame and snapping bone. As the body rejoined, it began to slowly rise, and in less than a few seconds, the demonic figure stood whole once more.

Soo-min ran a hand through her hair. "Aisssh! I hate this sort of encounters! She's even worse than the creatures outside who do not die until sunrise. Tsk. What do we do now?"

A few seconds passed and when Soo-min didn't hear a reply, she turned to Tae-hyun.

"Tae-hyun?"

She could see sweat run down his face. After a few more seconds, Tae-hyun swallowed and finally replied. "We need to get out of here."

Soo-min frowned. "Huh? Are we running away from a Grade Two?"

Tae-hyun shook his head, his eyes wide and fixed on the figure. "I don't know how, but that thing right there is no longer a grade two."

"What?!"

As soon as she spoke, the demonic figure began to chant in a foreign language. As it did, nine crackling whips of pure flame, each tipped with a razor-sharp sword, slowly materialized around it.

Tae-hyun quickly added, "When I first used Search on it, it was Level 17, but right now, it's already halfway to Level 22."

At that moment, Celeste flung both arms out toward Tae-hyun and Soo-min, and the nine whips shot toward them in a lethal, fiery barrage.

Seeing five whips flash toward his head, Tae-hyun vanished instantly. The fiery lashes struck the cavern wall with such incredible force that the stone exploded into dust and shrapnel. The whips immediately detached from the impact site and spun violently, seeking their vanished target. Without slowing, they shot toward the entrance of the cave.

At the same time, Soo-min raised her hand and a bright blue shield that had shimmering, repeating patterns of a hexagon snapped into existence before her. The four remaining whips crashed onto the shield, then shifted back and struck relentlessly, over and over again, until hairline cracks spider-webbed across its surface.

"Shit!"

Soo-min instantly took a quick step back and placed two fingers to her lips. In a flash of blue light, her form fractured into multiple armed clones that instantly spread out to surround her.

The very next second, the failing shield violently shattered, and the four whips instantly scattered, shooting toward the new targets. Soo-min and her numerous duplicates engaged the fiery whips, dodging and deflecting the striking blades as the melee erupted.

The fierce clash lasted for over a minute.

The whips were relentlessly violent, cracking, shooting, and retracting with blurring speed, while the clones were impossibly fast, weaving and darting around the striking fire.

When a clone died, disintegrating with a silent puff of smoke, Soo-min would instantly replace it by sacrificing a small portion of her own focus, ensuring the ring of defense never broke.

…However, even with all her focus, there was one very crucial detail she had overlooked, which was: in a shadowed corner of the cavern, the boy Dion had regained consciousness.

Dion rubbed the back of his head slowly while also looking around to regain his bearings.

He could see Celeste's demonic figure in the corner chanting in a foreign language with her arms extended. He could also see the fierce battle of the clones trying to defend themselves from the whips of flames.

It took him only a moment to understand what was happening.

In the next second, Dion's weak voice rang out. "Lock!"

Instantly, all the clones, including the real Soo-min, froze mid-stride, their bodies locked solid in place.

"Shit!"

Soo-min cursed, and her eyes widened in horror as all the whips seized the opportunity and slammed into the immobilized figures, tearing through them completely in that brief second of vulnerability.

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