Tina's body expanded rapidly, her scales shimmering as her form swelled with terrifying grace. A shrill hiss escaped her throat—sharp, unnatural, and predatory. The goblins, mid-charge, froze where they stood. Fear blanketed them—their instincts screaming, primal and absolute.
She opened her maw slowly. A glowing green light began to pulse in her throat, thick and unsteady at first, then condensing into a tightly formed beam.
Jin's eyes widened. "Why is that lizard… that strong?"
Fiona's voice was steady, but low. "Jin, you lack insight. That beam—it's a basilisk skill. And not just any kind. That's a rare variant. And look how easily she shifts size… casually, like it costs her nothing."
Boom!
With a violent snap, Tina slammed her tail against the earth and shot forward like a cannon blast. The air cracked. Some of the stronger goblins barely dodged in time, stumbling away and fracturing their formation. The weaker ones didn't move at all.
They simply died.
Her beam tore through them like a turret in motion. Every strike disintegrated bodies, scattering limbs and gore into the wind. Her aura pulsed—growing wilder, more intense with each kill.
As the smoke cleared, Tina folded herself into a tight ball. Then—like a jade comet—she rolled, circling the battlefield in a tight orbit. Her body moved with terrifying control, scale against earth, speed unmatched.
Then she straightened—her form gliding like a blade across a frozen lake.
Her eyes blazed with a piercing emerald light.
The few goblins that remained standing began to stiffen. Their legs grayed. Their movements slowed.
Stone spread.
It crept from their ankles to their torsos, crawling like death's shadow until their screams turned to silence.
Petrification.
Tina glided to one of the frozen goblins. Without hesitation—
Boom!
Its body shattered into jagged stone.
Boom! Boom!
More followed. Her attacks were cold and final. She wasted no movement, no energy. It wasn't just brutality—it was mastery.
Jin's lips parted. "Petrification… that really is a basilisk skill."
"But what kind of basilisk changes size like that?" Fiona added, shaking her head.
Their eyes slowly turned toward me.
I didn't move.
I just watched.
---
Frida, meanwhile, danced through the chaos like a blade in human form. She moved through the hobgoblins with impossible fluidity, weaving webs between them with threads too fine for the eye.
The hobgoblin chief stayed back, chanting, buffing his warriors with stolen spells. His voice boomed with ancient goblin tongues, reinforcing his men with every word.
But Frida wasn't fazed.
With a flick of her wrist, a thread lashed forward—*shlick*—and a limb hit the dirt. Another sweep—another arm. Blood sprayed across the clearing like mist.
She was elegance in carnage.
Ten wolves collapsed, hobgoblins sliding from their backs, howling in pain. Frida circled them, web lashing out like a living whip, slicing clean through tendon and bone.
One by one, the beasts collapsed—limbless, helpless, defeated.
"Bobotashim!" the hob chief roared.
His men snarled as they entered a berserker state, eyes glowing red, bodies convulsing with raw rage. They no longer cared for tactics, for mounts—they wanted blood.
Frida didn't flinch.
Instead, her clothing tore apart at the seams, revealing a black metallic carapace underneath. It clung to her body like it had grown from her very flesh. Gleaming like obsidian, the armor radiated killing intent.
She looked like a goddess of war.
Her aura exploded. A storm of killing intent swept over the field.
Then she moved.
One breath.
One blink.
And she was gone.
A second later—*fwip*—silence fell.
The hobgoblins stood stiff. Then their heads dropped from their shoulders, rolling across the blood-soaked earth.
Only the hobgoblin chief remained.
---
I vanished.
Fiona blinked. "Where did he go?"
Jin scanned the field. "Wait… he was just there."
Then—
A shriek tore through the trees. Sharp. Hollow. Final.
"How…?" Jin whispered, eyes darting through the woods.
"This guy…" Fiona murmured, mouth dry.
All they saw were four limbs spiraling through the air—severed clean, trailing blood. Then I emerged, gripping the hobgoblin chief by the throat, lifting him effortlessly.
The goblin gasped, twitching, still clinging to life.
"You disrupted my dinner," I said flatly, my voice cold as winter steel.
"Gene Palace."
A black spiral bloomed behind me like a lotus from hell. The air twisted around it, heavy and sharp. Reality bent.
The hobgoblin had no time to scream.
I hurled him into the vortex.
He vanished—gone without a trace.
The spiral closed in silence.
---
Jin stepped back. "What… what *was* that?"
"Some kind of spatial ability?" Fiona asked aloud, unable to tear her eyes away from the spot where the void had opened.
I didn't answer.
Tina had returned to her smaller form, curling up beside me like a satisfied cat. Frida sat on a boulder not far away, her black armor still gleaming faintly under the moon.
The fire crackled.
Smoke drifted upward into the starlit sky, and not a single goblin remained to see it.