The sound of flesh being cut rang out. A moment earlier, a flash of white had sliced across the chief’s throat.

If he were human, even a glancing cut like that should have left him on the ground, his throat slit.

But the chief hadn’t fallen. His skin was far tougher than it looked.

The blade had only pierced his skin. It hadn’t reached anything beneath it.

Bright red blood slowly seeped out, tracing a line across the chief’s neck before running down.

That was how astonishing a magical beast’s natural defense could be. It only confirmed what Lucia had already suspected:

It would be hard to defeat an opponent like this with physical weapons alone. The surest way was to land a powerful spell head-on.

As they clashed again, the chief lunged forward. One of his short axes was about to carve into Lucia’s body.

At that instant, she flicked her right hand. The feather fan in her palm snapped out with a clang, streaking like a crooked flash of white as it struck the flat of the axe.

A sharp ring rang out, and brilliant sparks flew. The feather fan spun back in the opposite direction.

The force of the impact threw the axe’s wielder off balance, and he staggered back several steps.

If Lucia had attacked with magic then, she wouldn’t have had time to cast a powerful spell, but she still could’ve hurt the chief.

If that damage had built up over time, the chief would eventually have fallen.

But Lucia didn’t do that. She showed no sign of intending to chant—not even a moment’s hesitation. Instead, she went straight in.

In the blink of an eye, the feather fan was back in front of the chief. He’d nearly lost the ability to dodge, so he had no choice but to give up on evading it.

All he could do was seize the opening, turn his body, and throw everything into an attack on Lucia, forcing her to protect herself.

In the span of a heartbeat, the two figures crossed paths once more.

This time, the chief still came away with a few minor wounds. Several more bloody cuts marked his body.

There was a little more blood dripping at his feet than before.

“If you think making me bleed will weaken me, you’re underestimating a magical beast’s physical toughness!”

As the chief made that point to Lucia, a smug look crossed his face.

But in an instant, he could no longer keep up that composure.

Even he, with little knowledge of magic, noticed when he happened to glance down: the blood flowing beneath his feet was spreading, tracing the shape of a magic circle.

“What is this!?”

The moment Lucia judged that the time was right, she stopped attacking. Keeping her distance from her opponent, she smiled gracefully.

“Who told you my magical attacks and my ordinary attacks had to be separate?”

Before she’d even wounded the chief for the first time, Lucia had infused the blades of her feather fan with magical damage.

The core of the powerful spell she’d taken the time to prepare was to use her enemy’s own blood to complete all the preparations without him noticing.

If the chief proved easier to deal with and lost before she had to use her trump card, Lucia would be all the happier.

Of course, even if things didn’t go that way, the outcome wouldn’t change much.

Even if Lucia had nearly fallen behind in their close-quarters fight, the moment the magic circle took shape, her victory was beyond doubt!

Every spell required an incantation, and a powerful spell took even longer to chant.

But there were ways to greatly shorten the time needed to cast one—like drawing a complete magic circle beneath the target in advance.

The instant her plan succeeded, Lucia took the final step of the battle.

The chief had no time to run. No matter how fast he was, he couldn’t escape the area.

Unlike the sea of fire she’d created earlier, this powerful spell could inflict immense damage on a single target across an extremely wide area.

It wasn’t designed to damage a whole group. So even though the chief had survived the earlier sea of fire, there was no way he could withstand this killing move, cast specifically for him.

“Blood reflects man, man steps on the array, the array turns to blood...”

As the incantation ended, blood gushed from the chief’s body, and the ground beneath his feet flashed out of nowhere.

Then, guided by the magic, dozens of wounds opened across the poor chief’s body, spraying blood.

As the blood poured down, a blood-red vortex formed beyond the ground beneath the chief’s feet.

“Die!”

Lucia swept her fan forward. In the next instant, crimson magical energy completely enveloped the chief.

Then a thunderous explosion erupted from within.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!...

After the explosion, not even bones remained of the target. With his life, he’d proved one thing:

As unexpected reinforcements entered the various battlefields one after another, the overwhelming advantage held by Inran’s side was slowly being shaken!