Her Highness the Witch can stand up straight again and conquer others with her force!

The magic essence contained within the magic crystal scattered wildly, rushing toward Su Ran in a scorching heatwave.

Faced with the surging wave of heat, Su Ran raised several ice walls in front of herself to avoid being burned by the searing air, buying herself time to escape.

The foremost ice wall rapidly melted upon contact with the heatwave.

The magic essence within the crystal had been compressed into a stable state, awaiting further compression into a liquid, but now, stimulated by the immense power, it had shattered.

The intensity of this explosion was no less than the self-detonation of a Sequence Three magical beast.

Su Ran felt a little fortunate that she had left Guo Zixiang and the others halfway.

Caught in the blast, she could barely protect herself even with her witch abilities.

If there had been two more people, Su Ran would have been powerless to rescue them, even if she wanted to.

Boom—

The sound of the explosion gradually faded.

The scorched earth still steamed, hissing and crackling as it met the water droplets from the melted ice walls.

The bisected body of the Earth Fire leader had also vanished in the explosion.

Nothing was left behind except for a deep crater several dozen meters wide.

This thwarted Su Ran’s plan.

She had originally intended to study the Earth Fire leader’s body to find out why it had mastered devour magic.

On this point, the system remained silent no matter how Su Ran questioned it.

Therefore, she could only discover the answer on her own.

Before Su Ran could walk toward the crater to check for any remaining fragments, she suddenly turned to look behind her.

Guo Zixiang was approaching with a man dressed in the habitat’s work uniform.

Upon seeing Su Ran, both of their faces lit up with joy.

“You’re alright? I was afraid you didn’t make it out of the blast radius.”

At that moment, Guo Zixiang turned to the staff member beside him and continued the introduction.

“This is Deng Xie, a staff member stationed here at the habitat. The explosion happened right after he found us.”

Su Ran looked at the staff member named Deng and gave a slight nod.

She glanced around and asked, “Where’s Liang Bo?”

Guo Zixiang had stayed behind to look after Liang Bo, so his appearance alone prompted Su Ran to ask.

“There’s more than one staff member who came into the mountain. Someone has already taken him down on a helicopter.”

“We were worried about your safety when we saw the explosion, so we stayed behind to find you after it was over.”

The staff member, Deng Xie, looked around and asked, “Wasn’t there supposed to be an Earth Fire leader? Where is it?”

Hearing this, Su Ran finally noticed the aura of a Sequence Three emanating from this staff member.

Moreover, it was a genuine Sequence Three, one who possessed liquid magic essence.

“The Earth Fire leader? It was in there, but now it’s gone!”

Su Ran shrugged, pointing at the deep crater on the ground.

Hearing this, Guo Zixiang’s eyes widened, leaving him nearly speechless.

“No wonder there was an explosion here. So it failed while trying to compress liquid magic essence and self-destructed.”

Sensing the residual magic essence at the scene, the staff member mused thoughtfully.

“Still, you’re incredible. A Sequence Two surviving such an explosion completely unscathed. You know, even I would have a hard time surviving a magical beast’s self-detonation.”

Since he no longer needed to deal with the Earth Fire leader himself, the staff member relaxed and started to chat.

After all, the appearance of a magical beast exceeding the specified level within the habitat was considered a failure on their part.

Fortunately, the Earth Fire leader had appeared deep inside the habitat, a place not many people reached, so the impact wasn’t severe.

“I run pretty fast, so the explosion couldn’t catch me.”

“Haha, you’ve got a sense of humor, little sister.”

“By the way, seeing as you’re already a Sequence Two at your age, you must be close to graduation, right? How about working at our habitat? The pay and benefits are excellent.”

“No, thank you. I already have a job.”

Guo Zixiang watched Su Ran and the staff member chat idly, his heart pounding with fear.

As someone who knew the whole story, he was well aware that Su Ran had come here for the sole purpose of killing the Earth Fire leader.

Since Su Ran was standing here now, it meant the Earth Fire leader had already been dealt with by her.

At the very least, she was one of the factors that triggered the explosion.

Perhaps the staff member didn’t know how recently Su Ran had advanced to Sequence Two.

But Guo Zixiang himself had witnessed Su Ran’s advancement with his own eyes, and had also watched her effortlessly dispatch Sequence Two magical beasts.

Yet now it seemed that no matter how highly he tried to estimate Su Ran’s combat strength, she would always shatter everyone’s perceptions with her own standard.

Su Ran was unaware of how terrifying her performance appeared in Guo Zixiang’s eyes.

She only knew that the appearance of the Earth Fire leader this time had led to the near-extinction of the Earth Fire Lizards, and the entire habitat would soon be closed for restoration.

And because she had set up a magic formation to increase the magic essence concentration, she was still just short of ten thousand yuan!

‘Ah! How did things turn out this way!’

Speaking of which, she was still carrying a bit of a “weakness value,” which required ten thousand yuan to eliminate.

All in all, Su Ran had already lost ten thousand on this trip.

When she had just eliminated the Earth Fire leader, nothing had changed about her.

‘It seems this bit of weakness value doesn’t have much of an effect on me. I guess there’s no rush to get rid of it.’

Just as Su Ran was worrying about money, the staff member suddenly seemed to remember something.

“Oh, right. Since this incident occurred within our habitat, I apologize on our behalf. After this is all over, we will send someone to formally compensate you.”

Hearing this, Su Ran’s eyes lit up.

This was like someone handing you a pillow when you were about to doze off.

She had just been wondering where to find the money, and unexpectedly, the habitat had provided her with a way.

“A formal apology isn’t necessary. Just convert it into cash for me.”

“I’ll have to request that from my superiors.”

As Su Ran and the others waited for the helicopter to return…

Elsewhere in the habitat, someone picked up an exquisite pendant from the ground.

“As expected, using it alone only allows it to devour, not refine. To make it completely one’s own, the two must be combined.”

Putting the pendant away, the person continued to mutter to themselves.

“However, this time wasn’t without its benefits. At least now I know the extent of that woman’s power. I’ll be more confident when I make a move on the vampire puppet.”

With that, the person vanished on the spot.

After the helicopter brought the group back to the habitat’s entrance, Su Ran waited a short while before receiving, as she had wished, compensation from the habitat.

Now, Her Highness the Witch could once again stand tall and use force to persuade others!