Chapter 1379 A Step Forward
'What the hell is she doing?!'
Sunny dodged a fearsome attack, feeling the wind raised by the abomination's spear throw his hair into disarray. As a chill crept up his spine, he sidestepped a black tentacle that insidiously shot at him from beneath the water, and prepared to dive into the shadows to come to Cassie's aid. However, he did not get a chance to. Right at that moment, the water which he had been using for footing suddenly tore free of his control. With no time to react, Sunny plunged into its cold embrace. This section of the dark hall was not flooded too terribly, but still, a moment later he was submerged up to his chest. 'Curse it...'
Sunny did not have to look around to know what had happened. One of the Corrupted Devils leading the Drowned was targeting him, using some profane power to wrestle the dark waters from his control. He did not possess a Domain yet, after all, so whatever connection to the element the Crown of Twilight provided him with was weak and rudimentary. The situation was not good. Currently, Sunny was only augmented by a couple of his five shadows and some of Neph's flame. Because of the synergy between the two, he was much stronger than he would have been otherwise — enough so to push his body through water with sufficient speed. But not enough speed to keep the same frantic cadence of combat. 'That Devil has to die, fast...' This substance is firmly embedded in n0v*lbin★
Distracted by his own predicament, he had to delay joining Cassie in the battle against the sybil. ...Up on the dais overseeing the flooded hall, meanwhile, the Defiled creature and the blind seer continued to stand opposite of each other without movement. Only the sybil's appalling tentacles were swaying subtly, her monstrous figure reflected in the polished metal of Cassie's light cuirass. Despite their inaction, the air between the two was swelling with an invisible tension. It was as though something utterly dark and dreadful was seething, unseen, beneath the fabric of the world, ready to explode and engulf the expanse of the flooded hall.
Cassie stood with her weapons lowered, her silver mask directed straight at the Defiled monstrosity. Her beautiful face was slowly growing paler and paler... but its expression remained calm and resolute.
Despite her body remaining motionless like an ice sculpture, her mind was in a state of utter havoc. It was because she was using her Awakened Ability to its utter limit, well past it even. If Sunny was capable of reading thoughts, he would have known that the blind girl was in a state of absolute, pristine battle clarity. Time moved slowly for her, and a thousand thoughts were being born in her head each second. Cassie was sensing the future... or rather, a multitude of futures.
At the same time, she felt something breaking through her armor, crushing her ribcage, ripping her heart and lungs into shreds, snapping her spine, and exiting from her back. Cassie's convulsing body was raised into the air and tossed aside, leaving a long bloody trail on the dais. The harrowing wound did not kill her instantly.
Drowning, she wished it had. At the same time...
There was nothing in the future but terrible, inhuman, intolerable agony. Cassie was broken, torn apart, and drowned. The pain never ended.
But that was alright.
Thanks to her strange Ability, she had already survived dying ten thousand times. Every time she fought, she died countless times to emerge victorious from the fight. That was how she won.
...Back in the present, no more than a split second passed. She was still standing motionlessly, a calm expression on her face. 'A step to the left, then.'
In Cassie's mind, she took a swift step to the left...
