Chapter 61: How can mere steel compare to muscle?
Crashing through three concrete buildings like a cannonball, the mimic beast smashed into an abandoned steel water tower, altering its trajectory. It bounced and rolled across the ground and walls, carving deep craters before slamming into a derelict factory.
Its body was battered—golden rain had stripped most of its bone plates and scales, scorching its flesh with black char marks. The bullet’s direct hit left a spiraling, deep crater, and the arms that blocked it were reduced to splinters.
Despite using crimson magic, hardening spells, and mimicked sturdy bone armor and resilient muscles, the mimic beast only barely avoided being torn apart by the bullet’s devastating force.
The bullet’s sheer impact pulverized its abdominal organs, and its spine was severely deformed and shattered.
“Cough! Mere steel can’t compare to well-trained muscle,” it muttered, spitting blood.
Shrinking its form in an instant, it bolted toward an area dense with life signs, aiming to blend into the Rust District’s crowds and escape.
As it scrambled away on all fours, its writhing flesh expelled the molten remnants of the glowing golden bullet, shattered despite its multilayered enchantments.
But as it fled, Suna sent an unencrypted telepathic message in its direction.
[You think you can escape? Burning Vine Bind.]
The mimic beast, now disguised in a humanoid form and hooded cloak, stiffened as it blended into the crowd.
Trembling and struggling, it let out a pained roar.
Burning golden-brown branches pierced from within, their roots tearing through its veins, entwining its muscles, and burrowing into its bone crevices.
“Aaagh! You hid seeds in that rain curtain?!” it demanded.
As blood poured from its body and burning branches sprouted, the surrounding crowd scattered in terror, fearing the same fate.
Suna leaped down from a nearby rooftop, landing lightly on the dilapidated street. She faced the mimic beast, now half-crouched and immobilized by the spreading branches.
“Not seeds, just fragments of my blessing’s byproduct,” she replied casually.
Pressing her hand to its forehead, she asked again, “What’s your name?”
“You damned saintess! Aagh! What’s the point of asking? Do mimic beasts even have names?! Haha, ridiculous! Aaagh!”
As it answered, enduring rapid memory extraction, translucent golden gauze bloomed around its forehead. Suna read its chaotic, paint-swirled memories.
“…How pitiful. Your original name was Maso. Whisper it and find peace.”
Like a cold judge, Suna drove her glowing, serrated double-handed sword through the mimic beast’s core, just above its abdomen.
With a twist of her wrist, Maso’s body trembled violently, leaking vast amounts of life force.
Its lifeless eyes dulled, and its body, no longer sustained by crimson magic, began disintegrating. Flesh melted into crimson slime, oozing from cracked skin, while bones crumbled to dust.
Suna lowered her head, her expression grim, watching for a few seconds.
Without waiting for Maso’s body to fully dissolve into a pool of magic-infused sludge, she leaped onto a nearby rooftop and vanished.
She cranked up [Veil of Truth]’s output to erase her tracks.
Even in the lawless Rust District, a saintess fighting and killing a golden-tier mimic beast would cause a stir.
As her anger and hatred subsided, Suna remembered she’d left someone behind.
Panicking, she raced back to the Viper’s Tear tavern, leaping across rooftops.
[Tch, I sensed an unexpected mimic beast trace and chased it without thinking. Hope Skull didn’t notice the fight and wander off in the Rust District. If he got lost or hurt, that’d be a mess!]
It didn’t take long for Suna to return to the tavern’s entrance.
Cautiously extending her perception magic, she detected Skull’s magical signature and sighed in relief.
[He actually stayed put, waiting for me. What a good kid! Should I praise him… No, I need a cover story for what just happened.]
Brainstorming excuses, Suna entered the tavern. Skull, sitting in a corner of the first-floor hall, looked up.
“Sorry, Skull. I ran into an old friend and chatted a bit. My bad—I got caught up in his invitation and didn’t tell you.”
“It’s fine, Miss Suna. I thought you were fighting some random monster, since I felt magical fluctuations from here.”
Suna realized her cover wouldn’t hold.