Elsa looked at Subaru, her tender pink tongue sweeping across her lips.
Truly fascinating.
This brat was quite interesting.
Though Emilia was still angry, the moment she saw what was happening, she instantly shifted into battle mode.
“Subaru, get over here!” Saying so, she raised her hand, and in a few bursts of light, ice shards shot violently toward Elsa.
Even though Subaru’s words earlier had been incredibly harsh, now that such a crisis had struck, she would never abandon him.
Not to mention, putting everything else aside, it was Subaru who had warned her of the danger.
Yet she had been standing there dazed, complaining about him.
“Hmph, that won’t be necessary.” Diavolo stood his ground, unmoving; he needed to conduct a small test.
Without anyone noticing, King Crimson had already materialized beside Elsa.
Diavolo didn’t attack directly.
Instead, he made King Crimson reach out a hand to touch the blade Elsa was wielding.
The blade passed right through it.
As if passing through thin air.
Diavolo’s eyes lit up, a rare flash of joy welling up in his chest.
*It seems she not only can’t see King Crimson, but she can’t touch it either.* *That makes this marvelous.* Even so, Diavolo did not grow careless.
“King Crimson!” In an instant, time was sliced away.
Activating time erasure directly to secure a guaranteed kill and then making a swift getaway—that was Diavolo’s current plan.
After all, there was a pseudo-deathrattle entity right beside him; there was no guaranteeing this woman didn’t possess a similar trump card.
His physical body retreated, prepared to run at a moment’s notice.
Meanwhile, King Crimson closed in on Elsa, stopping at its ten-meter limit.
Standing directly in front of her, it raised a fist, drawing back its power.
Within the erased time, Emilia was still firing ice shards, and Elsa was still swinging her blade.
All their attacks passed straight through King Crimson’s body like a phantom.
Completely ineffective.
“That’s enough.
Time shall resume its flow once more!” The very moment time reconnected, King Crimson unleashed a full-power strike.
*Pfft-tch!* In a flash, flesh tore and blood erupted furiously.
“Ngh?!” Elsa’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Completely oblivious to what had just happened, she felt only a sudden coldness in her chest, followed by excruciating agony.
She looked down at the gaping blood-filled hole in her chest, her face written with sheer disbelief.
What happened?
What just occurred?
She hadn’t seen the opponent make a move at all.
Gradually, Elsa collapsed, blood pooling across the ground, a lingering trace of confusion frozen on her face.
“Eh?
What happened?” Emilia blinked, completely unable to process the scene.
One second they were fighting, and the next second the opponent just collapsed?
And that wound…
It looked as if something had pierced straight through her chest?
Yet she hadn’t seen a single thing.
“Don’t lower your guard, Satella,” Diavolo said coldly.
“Satella?” Emilia paused in surprise.
“Ah…
right.” Only then did she remember she had given him a fake name.
She had originally intended to use the Witch’s name to scare Subaru away so he wouldn’t get dragged into this, but it turned out the guy had no idea who the Witch of Envy even was.
What a truly strange person.
Diavolo said nothing more.
He took a few steps back, crouched down slowly, and finally lay flat on the ground, pressing his ear tightly against the earth.
“Boss, what are you doing?
Why are you lying on the ground?” Watching Diavolo display such overwhelming power, Subaru felt his blood boiling with excitement, but a lingering dread also crept over him.
If Diavolo hadn’t warned him in time and stepped in to help, he probably would have been forced into his third Return by Death.
Sure enough, Boss was right.
In an unfamiliar alternate world, one had to be cautious.
Diavolo offered no response to Subaru’s confusion.
Because he was listening for a heartbeat.
He had to confirm whether the opponent was truly dead.
After all, in a bizarre world like this, anything was possible.
On the ground, Elsa lay in a pool of blood.
The blood hole in her chest was still oozing crimson, staining her clothes and soaking the ground beneath her.
The warm blood slowly spread outward, gleaming with an eerie sheen under the dim light.
Controlling King Crimson to lie on the ground, Diavolo pressed its ear tight to the earth, listening intently.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
—The heart was still beating.
And…
beating quite steadily.
It didn’t sound like she had suffered a fatal injury in the slightest.
“…Tch.” Diavolo instantly stood up, stepping back a few paces to put distance between them.
His green pupils narrowed slightly.
“Get up.” He said coldly, “Stop playing dead.” Subaru, inside his body, was completely baffled.
Huh?
Get up?
Isn’t she dead?
Her chest was literally punched through!
“Wait, Boss, what are you talking about?
With a hole blasted in her chest, there’s no way she could still be alive, right?” Though he said this, Subaru still trusted Diavolo’s judgment implicitly.
To have the opponent collapse after just a momentary daze—Boss was insanely reliable.
The air fell still for a few seconds.
Silence.
A few seconds of absolute quiet.
And then…
“…My, my.” The corpse on the ground spoke up, her voice carrying a faint chuckle mixed with a hint of surprise.
“You caught me.
I really didn’t expect you to be so cautious.” Elsa slowly sat up.
The blood hole in her chest was regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Flesh squirmed, bones snapped back into place, skin knitted together…
In a matter of seconds, she was restored to perfect condition, without even a scar left behind.
It was as if that blow earlier had never even landed.
Though he had braced himself, Subaru was still utterly dumbfounded.
*Holy crap?!* *What is this?* *An immortal body?!* *She can regenerate even with a hole punched through her chest?!* *This is way too ridiculous!* “B-Boss…
what’s going on here?” Subaru’s voice trembled.
“She’s clearly still alive.
Now, I’m going to try to kill her.
Otherwise, this operation is likely to fail.” Diavolo stared intently at Elsa, his gaze grave.
Being cautious had indeed been the right call.
It also made him realize that people in this alternate world were quite difficult to kill.
Elsa didn’t stand up right away.
She just sat on the ground, looking down at her chest, touching it lightly, and then raised her head to look at Diavolo.
There was no anger in her eyes, nor was there any unhinged excitement; there was only…
curiosity.
A curiosity like that of a hunter who had spotted new prey.
“Impressive.” She clapped her hands gently, as if applauding.
“Truly impressive.” “I didn’t feel it at all.
That blow just now…
how exactly did you pull it off?” She tilted her head, her tone casual, as if asking a completely ordinary question.
Yet her body maintained a posture ready to dodge at any moment.
The blade in her hand wasn’t raised either, resting casually at her side.
She appeared entirely defenseless, but in truth, her body was full of openings that were all lethal traps.
“Magic?” “Curse arts?” “Or perhaps…
some kind of Divine Protection?” She guessed them one by one, her tone laced with a hint of inquiry.
“No, none of those.” She shook her head.
“If it were magic, I should have felt the fluctuation of mana.” “If it were a curse, there should be marks left on my body.” “As for a Divine Protection…
I’ve never seen one that attacks out of thin air.” Her gaze locked tightly onto Diavolo.
As if trying to see right through him.
“What exactly did you do?
How did you attack me?
That feeling just now…
it felt just like being impaled by a fist.” —