Chapter 59: Mimic Beast.
Facing Suna’s whirlwind-like movements, the street’s wary denizens—used to a harsh environment—reacted instantly. Some backed away, while others gripped weapons or activated magic circuits, ready for a fight.
Suna, too focused to care, narrowed her perception magic to track the faint magical traces lingering on the street.
She knew this signature all too well, which only fueled her agitation.
Locking onto the trail, Suna sprinted, deftly weaving through crowds and obstacles with agile footwork.
After navigating nearly a kilometer of twisting streets, she reached a deserted alley.
Silently stepping to its end, she found a courtyard piled with steel slag and garbage, walled off by high barriers.
Her target was inside.
“You blind idiot, can’t you understand us? Can’t even handle a simple job and you dare escape? I’ll beat you to death!”
A burly thug, face full of menace, gripped a scrawny beggar boy’s matted hair with one hand, pummeling his frail body with the other.
The thug’s two companions watched, laughing, from a distance. Spotting Suna at the courtyard’s entrance, one sauntered over, hands in pockets.
“Hey, miss, lost? Need us to escort you—Guh!”
His sleazy grin and words were cut short as Suna, in a foul mood, swatted him into a wall with a giant hand of water.
“Which generation are you? Have you undergone full [Devouring Mimicry]?”
Facing Suna’s commanding presence, the burly thug, sensing danger, dropped the boy and adopted a fawning tone.
“Miss, I don’t quite get your question, huh?”
Mid-sentence, a thin, sharp bone chain blade slashed across his chest.
“Whirlpool Shield.”
As his body was neatly bisected, a swirling water shield formed, blocking a sharp bone spike aimed at the beggar boy.
A stream of water then whisked the boy into the alley behind Suna.
Raising her hands, Suna kept her eyes locked on the scrawny, unremarkable thug.
He retracted the bone chain blade into his right hand, the spike-launching holes in his left fingers sealing shut.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
His bisected companion’s severed arm and body hit the ground, blood spraying from the wounds.
A deafening boom answered.
A high-speed projectile rocked his body, forcing him back a few steps to brace the impact.
He realized his left arm and shoulder had been blown off, and Suna stood in a shoulder-aimed stance, gripping a lizard-hunter gun aimed at him.
“Answer me, mimic beast.”
Feeling the Corona magic seeping from his wound, the mimic beast made a guess about Suna’s identity.
His body tensed, and he unleashed his strongest form.
His frame swelled, regenerating his severed arm. Two pairs of mismatched arms sprouted from his sides, his legs morphed into robust bovine hooves, and his head transformed—covered in scales, jaws elongating into a crocodile-like maw of fangs.
His eyes turned insect-like, compound and multifaceted, his hair thickened into venomous snakes, and his ears split into clusters of pointed tips.
“No need to answer the second question,” Suna said.
Her lizard-hunter gun roared again, spitting a massive muzzle flash.
“You’ll be the one devoured, Golden Branch Temple’s mimic beast hunter!”
Roaring, the mimic beast charged, its chest sprouting layered bone plates that deflected the 30mm round, shattering only a few.
Closing in, its compound eyes and snake-hair glared at Suna, activating [Petrifying Magic Eye]. The curse barely slowed her movements, failing to freeze her.
Suna swapped her gun for an axe-spear, wielding it to parry the mimic beast’s bone chain blades, now whipping like a storm, shredding steel slag and garbage, carving deep gashes into walls and ground.
At the storm’s center, Suna deftly blocked the onslaught with her axe-spear.
As the three-meter-tall mimic beast closed within five meters, it stomped its hooves, casting magic.
“Quake Shockwave. Flame-Wind Hunting Arrows.”
The ground shattered, the shockwave surging like a tidal wave toward Suna. A pair of arms with mouths on their palms unleashed a dozen arrows fused with storm and flame.
As Suna staggered from the ground’s upheaval, the crimson flame-wind arrows shot forward.
They pierced walls, gouged pits, and exploded into a crimson fire cloud, turning the courtyard into a molten crater.
Yet, amid the rising smoke and flames, golden radiant raindrops tore through, crashing like a storm onto the mimic beast’s body.