Flames surged in all directions. Night Frost barely escaped through the gap she had hacked into the giant serpent’s lower jaw, while her familiar, Li Dogegg, returned to her side.

Night Frost was covered from head to toe in sticky liquid—the serpent’s saliva. It was disgusting enough already. After being roasted by the flames, the saliva grew even more adhesive and revolting.

But Night Frost had no time to care about it. The spear she controlled transformed into a dazzling blaze, swallowing the serpent’s body. Scorching flames burned across its scales, while the black smoke from the fire spread outward.

“This much fire isn’t enough…”

Standing on the shore, Night Frost extended a palm covered in Array Patterns. The Spear she had drawn from the flames was connected to the two Crimson Gold Lances by patterns spreading from her wrist.

Night Frost hurled the Crimson Gold Lances.

Both spears struck true, embedding themselves in the gaps between the serpent’s scales. Night Frost was just about to press her advantage when the giant serpent twisted its body and plunged into the water.

The flames clinging to its surface suddenly dimmed.

Several clusters of fire were still burning, but it was only a matter of time before they went out.

Night Frost’s incomplete release couldn’t last long. Once the time limit was reached, she would revert to [Cantata Two]. If she wanted to kill this thing, she had to end the battle quickly.

For now, however, the advantage was hers.

She gathered the vast Mana inside her body into her palm. A gigantic, razor-sharp sword, more than a dozen meters tall and woven entirely from Mana, formed in her grasp.

It was large enough to cut the serpent struggling in the flames cleanly in half.

The Magic Spell descended.

Night Frost drove her strength through her waist and brought the great sword down from her palm. It slammed into the serpent’s deep-green scales.

The sword had clearly split through the scales. Otherwise, it couldn’t have produced such a crisp cracking sound or such a solid sensation of cutting into flesh.

Night Frost continued pouring Mana into the blade, determined to kill the giant serpent here and now.

But the serpent’s scales weren’t merely smooth and hard. Its skin seemed to function much like Night Frost’s Magic Layer, blocking a large portion of the damage.

Her sword became lodged in the serpent’s flesh.

It couldn’t go any deeper, nor could it be pulled free.

“Roar!”

The giant serpent roared furiously toward the sky. It hadn’t expected to be wounded by such a weak human.

It was curious about how Night Frost had unleashed such power. But the Mana around her was unstable. This strength clearly couldn’t last much longer.

The giant serpent stopped holding back.

It opened its mouth and gathered all its Abyssal Aura in its throat. A dark-green beam shot out from deep within its maw.

“Boom!!!”

The ground beneath Night Frost exploded.

Dust filled the air. The Array Patterns she had hastily woven around herself shattered under the impact of the deep-green beam.

Night Frost was blasted dozens of meters away before finally coming to a stop.

“Cough, cough…”

Night Frost wiped the blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. Her face was deathly pale.

She looked around and found that every stretch of land swept by the beam had been cleaved in two.

So that was the deafening explosion she had heard inside the cavern earlier. It had been caused by this giant serpent.

The deep-green beam faded.

Night Frost, who had crouched low to avoid it, suddenly rose. Under her control, the Mana glider behind her folded backward, moving like a nimble bird.

She landed directly on the wound she had carved into the serpent.

Her sharp Spear pierced into its body. Flames bloomed from the tip, drying the blood gushing from the wound.

The surrounding flesh was roasted as well, and the Spear sank deeper into the serpent bit by bit.

The giant serpent shrieked in pain. The scales along its back spread outward.

Night Frost wouldn’t give it that chance.

Five fingers of Mana threads gathered in her palm, binding the serpent’s movements. Night Frost pulled hard and stomped one foot down on the Crimson Gold Spear, forcing it even deeper.

The giant serpent thrashed with all its might, trying to throw Night Frost from its back.

But because she was pulling on the threads, the serpent lost its balance and crashed heavily onto the ground.

“Sever everything before me—Prismatic Edge…”

This was another Magic Spell from the book.

Most Magic Maidens considered it useless. Ordinary objects could be cut with a little Mana, while harder materials could be handled by Magic Tools.

There was simply no need for a Spell with such awkward cutting power.

Moreover, the Spell required the amount of Mana available at [Cantata Two]. Yet for someone at [Cantata Two], it was too troublesome and inefficient.

As for the powerful [Chapter Three], its users looked down on it entirely.

When Night Frost had first learned the Spell, she had also thought it was painfully useless.

But now, in this situation, she discovered that it was unexpectedly effective. Especially since she had no cutting tool at all, it was perfect for slicing through things that were difficult to cut.

Night Frost was also stuck in the awkward gap between [Cantata Two] and [Chapter Three]. She met the Spell’s requirements and needed a powerful cutting method.

It was practically made for her.

The giant serpent’s toughness had already been worn down considerably. Night Frost gathered her Mana into a hazy mist, then transformed that mist into crystals.

Within only a few seconds, countless prisms floated behind her.

The prisms overlapped and concentrated the Mana, creating an effect much like laser cutting. Compared to the devices inside the Order Keeper’s Tower in District Twenty One, however, its power was still weaker.

With Night Frost’s current Mana, she could strengthen it further.

For example, she could carve Array Patterns into the prisms and increase the Mana output. That seemed capable of maximizing the power available to her.

After a series of adjustments, the cutting force surpassed even that of the great sword from earlier.

It was designed specifically to deal with thick-skinned, heavily armored creatures like this.

The laser descended.

The giant serpent writhed in pain as strands of Crimson Gold flames drilled into its body like swimming dragons.

The serpent knew it couldn’t continue like this. It twisted its body, spat out another deep-green beam, and released a deep-green mist from within.

The smoke spread through the entire space.

Night Frost held her breath. The flames in her palm continued burning without pause.

But the deep-green beam collided with her head-on, sending her entire body flying backward.

Li Dogegg stood some distance away.

When it saw the giant serpent preparing to fight to the death, it cautiously slipped farther away. Then it watched as the beam collided with Night Frost and sent her tumbling toward its position.

Li Dogegg didn’t know whether it should catch her.

She wouldn’t die from falling such a short distance. But if it didn’t catch her, Night Frost would definitely nitpick about it later.

What a difficult problem.

Its brain wasn’t equipped to consider something so complicated. As a result, its entire body froze in place.

But Night Frost was falling faster.

Before Li Dogegg could react, she crashed down on top of it. Its hard skull struck the cold stone with a crisp crack.

Of course, that sound had come from the stone.

Li Dogegg might not be very powerful, but its head was quite hard. After all, its skull and beak were meant to break through soil and rock.

How could a mere pebble possibly crack them?

Night Frost clutched her blood-soaked shoulder.

That attack from the giant serpent had actually pierced straight through her reinforced Magic Layer. If it had been given a little more time…

Night Frost used Mana to heal the wound.

But no matter what she did, it refused to close. The blood inside her body was growing slower and slower.

Night Frost understood now.

She finally knew how this giant serpent had defeated another [Chapter Three] Monster without suffering much damage.

The serpent’s attacks were extremely simple. Aside from its intelligence and that laser, it had little else worth mentioning.

These creatures liked to hide in dark corners and observe their prey. Once they understood the prey’s movements, they began charging their beam.

They charged it until it was powerful enough to send the prey completely flying.

Then, when the right opportunity appeared, they bit through the nerves and heart used by their prey for movement.

That left the target paralyzed on the spot.

The serpent’s beam, or perhaps certain substances inside its body, also prevented wounds from healing. Anyone struck by the beam or bitten by the serpent could only watch helplessly as the blood drained from their body.

In direct combat, this creature could only ram its enemies, lash out with its tail, spit the non-poisonous spikes inside its body, and release that strange deep-green gas.

It had no other methods.

Night Frost steadied her breath and stared at the deep-green mist as it slowly dispersed.

She held the Crimson Gold Spear in her hand, aiming it at the shadow before her.

But aside from half a serpent’s tail, nothing remained.

The giant serpent had severed the rear half of its own body and slipped into the seawater through the mist, using the water to escape.

That made sense. It was a [Chapter Three] Monster. As long as it didn’t die, it could regenerate.

Night Frost held her chest and slowly dispersed the Mana within her body, leaving behind only what her physique could endure.

That ultimate melody had completely faded.

For the days ahead, she’d better not need to use the release Spell of [Chapter Three] again.

Night Frost’s Magic Armor vanished.

The clothes Eye Orb had just given her had been ruined once again.

Using the last traces of that melody, Night Frost purged the serpent’s saliva and toxins from her body. Her injuries then began to recover slowly.

She evaporated some seawater with flames and collected a little distilled water. With that water and a Cleansing Spell, Night Frost cleaned herself in a corner.

Afterward, she put her Magic Armor back on.

Eye Orb emerged from the corner.

It hadn’t been able to interfere in the battle at all. That had been a battle between [Chapter Three] creatures.

Besides, this was the Myth Abyss. Eye Orb wasn’t familiar with the place, and it didn’t recognize many of the Monsters here.

Eye Orb and Night Frost arrived before the giant serpent.

Night Frost still had plenty of Mana left. She carved Array Patterns into her palm, and the prisms slowly sawed through the serpent’s tail.

If Night Frost were still in her released state, cutting through a dead creature would be effortless.

But now, she no longer possessed that much Mana. She could only saw through the tail bit by bit.

“Are you all right?”

Eye Orb looked toward Night Frost.

Her injuries were recovering slowly, but out of concern, it still asked the question.

“I’m fine. My health bar’s full.”

Night Frost shifted her gaze to the serpent’s tail.

“These scales are pretty good. They’d be excellent for making armor plating, and even better as material for Array Patterns…”

Eye Orb gently touched the serpent’s tail with the nerve endings on its body. Its eyes glittered brightly.

“This serpent isn’t recorded in the database. Judging from the battle, its performance is quite impressive.”

“It’d be even better if it were smaller. It’s clearly an ambush-type Monster, yet it grew this huge…”

“What a fatal flaw.”

“But if we extracted its genes and made some minor modifications to reduce the host’s size, the resulting artificial human would have outstanding performance…”

Eye Orb continued muttering.

Night Frost didn’t understand a word.

But this thing looked like it would taste pretty good.