Bargaining

Facing Shen Yue, who had reached Sequence Three, Su Ran no longer held back, having already resolved to capture her.

Under the control of her witch ability, the surrounding water vapor gathered into ice vines.

With the help of the Mist Tide Spell, the cost for Su Ran to condense the ice vines was further reduced, while the speed of their release increased significantly.

In the blink of an eye, two sharp ice vines shot toward Shen Yue’s position with unstoppable momentum.

Seeing the ice vines closing in, Shen Yue tried to dodge, but found she couldn’t lift her feet at all.

Looking down, she discovered that traces of frost had already covered the area around her feet.

Her attention had been completely drawn to Su Ran’s ice vines, so she hadn’t noticed that, under the cover of the Mist Tide Spell, Su Ran’s extreme frost had already extended to her feet.

She subconsciously tried to shatter the frost spreading around her feet by stomping, but Shen Yue had forgotten that her superhuman sequence was only Sequence Three—and a Sequence Three she had only reached after evolving, still a slight gap from a genuine sequence rank.

If she were two levels higher than Su Ran, there might have been a chance.

But being only one level higher wasn’t nearly enough.

The extreme ice that Su Ran controlled was enough to bridge the gap between them.

Just as Su Ran’s controlled ice vines were about to bind her completely, Shen Yue’s expression sank, as if she had made some kind of decision.

Just as the ice vines were about to make contact with Shen Yue’s body, a cracking sound reached Su Ran’s ears.

The extreme frost that had bound Shen Yue’s feet began to shatter inch by inch, and a large surge of Holy Stone energy poured out from her body.

“How dare you ruin my plans!”

With the appearance of the Holy Stone energy, Shen Yue’s originally fair face began to twist, and blood continuously seeped from her eye sockets.

Immediately after, Shen Yue threw another punch at Su Ran, and two gusts of wind from her fists collided directly with the ice vines.

Boom!

Su Ran’s vision was obscured by the shattered ice mist, making it impossible to see Shen Yue’s position.

However, even with the large amount of Holy Stone energy erupting from her opponent’s body, Su Ran would not just sit and wait for death.

The flintlock appeared in her hand with a thought.

She fired a shot toward Shen Yue’s position, and a surge of magic essence energy rushed toward where Shen Yue had been.

Frost Snow!

Without any charging, Su Ran expended all of her magic essence and fired this single shot at Shen Yue.

In the space of a few breaths, after recovering with the Ring of Pride, Su Ran fired two more consecutive shots, giving her no time to breathe.

‘According to the information Teacher Bai Yun provided, Shen Yue is only around Sequence Two. It seems my guess was correct; she also used Holy Stone energy to forcibly raise her level.’

The ice mist gradually dispersed, revealing a translucent ice sculpture where Shen Yue had been standing.

To prevent Shen Yue from having any chance to dodge, Su Ran had secretly used Frost Prison to restrict her position before firing the magic essence bullets, ensuring Shen Yue had no room to evade.

At this moment, Shen Yue was sealed in ice, her eyes closed, as if she were merely in a deep sleep.

The crack in the sky within the magic formation widened again, pulling Su Ran back from her thoughts to reality.

She had only eliminated the person guarding the magic formation’s core.

To completely shut down the formation, she had to destroy the core itself to truly escape.

Leaving Shen Yue on the ground, Su Ran walked alone toward the room where the magic formation’s core was stored.

Pushing open the door, Su Ran saw the core and drew in a sharp breath.

From the mass of light in the center of the room, slender pipes continuously extended outwards.

One end plunged into the mutated Earl’s corpse below it, while the other extended up into the crack in the sky.

The entire magic formation was using the mutated Earl’s corpse for sacrifice to obtain energy, while simultaneously using the returned energy to maintain its operation.

Now that the formation’s defense mechanism had been defeated by Su Ran, she only needed to shatter the core, and the crack in the sky would vanish.

The rocket launcher reappeared in Su Ran’s hand.

She aimed at the core and fired.

Just as the magic essence bullet was about to hit the core, a faint gray barrier appeared in front of it.

The bullet struck the barrier, creating ripples, but then nothing else happened.

The core continued to operate, completely unharmed.

“What’s going on?”

Previously, Su Ran had been able to stop a core with just a single Frost Snow spell.

This time, however, even using a magic essence bullet at close range had no effect; she couldn’t even shatter the barrier.

[Due to the influence of the rift above, stopping the core now requires power at or above Sequence Five to destroy it instantly.]

Just as Su Ran was about to try using another magic essence bullet, a system pop-up suddenly appeared with a reminder.

‘Sequence Five?’

Now Su Ran was in a bind.

Her current combat power was, at most, comparable to a Sequence Three opponent.

But destroying the core required her to have the power of a Sequence Five.

Was she supposed to be trapped here?

The rift in the sky was expanding.

Su Ran didn’t know what would emerge from it, but anything that required the sacrifice of a mutated Earl was definitely not going to be good.

Time was running out for Su Ran.

Suddenly, as if she had thought of something, Su Ran asked, “Does it only require the attack power of a Sequence Five?”

[The rift above has distorted the space around the core. Without the power of a Sequence Five, it is impossible to bypass the protection and destroy it.]

After getting confirmation from the system, Su Ran retrieved a spoil of war from her inventory.

The Divine Will Gauntlets.

After capturing Yuffie, these gauntlets had fallen into Su Ran’s hands along with her.

Su Ran had no intention of returning the Divine Will Gauntlets, which could unleash power up to Sequence Seven, to Yuffie.

Of course, she kept them as her own spoils.

Right now, Su Ran didn’t need the Divine Will Gauntlets to unleash their full Sequence Seven power.

Just a single attack with the intensity of a Sequence Five would be enough to solve her current predicament.

“Help me set up a magic formation to increase the concentration of magic essence.”

Worried that it would take too long to recover her magic essence with just herself and the Ring of Pride, Su Ran decided it would be more appropriate to set up a magic formation directly.

[Set up a low-level magic essence concentration enhancement formation? (Increases Weak Constitution Value by five points)]

“Wasn’t it only one point last time? Why is it five points this time?”

If Su Ran didn’t have more important things to do, she would have exploded after seeing the system’s pop-up.

Five points of Weak Constitution Value was almost a ten percent reduction in her constitution.

How could she possibly bear that?

[Dear, this is a small business. You don’t have any magic crystals on hand this time, so you need to pay a little extra for materials~]

“No way, five points of Weak Constitution Value, I don’t think so!”

Seeing the system’s mild-mannered appearance, Su Ran decided to bargain with it.