This meant that the magical power riot caused by forcibly extending the transformation process was being controlled and delayed by Alex Morgan as much as possible, maximizing her combat effectiveness.
The Apprentice Maid was decapitated the moment it poked its head out, and the remaining two turned into wood shavings within five seconds, with the only cost being a scraped skin.
Then came the third wave, the fourth wave…
Fists and kicks sliced through the air, and blazing trails of light illuminated the nearby darkness.
Nearly twenty puppet wrecks were scattered in a circle around her, with wood shavings and limbs strewn about; however, aside from a few scratches on her arms, Alex Morgan had no other injuries.
Feeling the increasingly wild magical power within her that was once again about to hit a Breakthrough point, she adjusted her breathing and turned to look into the deeper darkness.
“Come to think of it, how many more enemies are nearby? Could this be the lair of these puppets driven by some mysterious force?”
Thump, thump, thump.
A dull sound of footsteps approached.
The fifth wave of enemies tore through the black mist.
In addition to two standard-looking Maid Puppets, a giant shadow appeared in the middle—a Carpenter Puppet wearing greasy overalls, holding a vicious-looking hand saw in its left hand and dragging a massive cast-iron heavy hammer in its right.
Although it looked like a carpenter, its aura was more like that of a butcher.
Feeling the magical power within her about to boil, a look of seriousness appeared in Alex Morgan’s beautiful eyes.
—The ninth game; she had died at the hands of these three guys, not even managing to attempt a complete transformation (self-destruction) at the very end.
The strategy had already been decided in the post-game review: prioritize taking out those two familiar Maid Puppets, then turn back and focus on dealing with it!
This time, Alex Morgan didn’t even glance at the hulking carpenter.
Her figure swayed slightly, and using her petite frame, she slipped directly under the carpenter’s slow swing, aiming straight for the two accompanying Maid Puppets.
Red and white skirt hems swirled in the air as the girl resembled a red butterfly weaving through the tips of blades.
First Maid, elbow strike, heart shattered.
Second Maid, side kick, head exploded.
Interference items cleared.
Only the Carpenter Puppet remained on the field, dragging its heavy hammer and having just turned around; its pitch-black button eyes twitched as it raised the hand saw in its left hand, seemingly only now realizing that its teammates had been completely wiped out.
“Next…”
Alex Morgan took a deep breath, her toes touching the ground as her figure danced gracefully.
The first punch, a light tap to the chest, yet it released a tremendous force.
“Clang!”
The hardness was extreme, and the recoil traveled up her arm, but Alex Morgan had prepared for this; she touched and retreated instantly, her slender, beautiful body side-stepping the lethal heavy hammer by a hair’s breadth.
Whoosh—
The heavy wind pressure grazed her cheeks, and the strong wind blew through her cherry-red long hair as the girl brushed past an attack that would have stunned her to death.
But this time, she did not retreat.
At the moment the heavy hammer hit the ground, when the old force was spent and the new force had not yet been generated, the girl’s figure closed in like a ghost.
The second punch; she leaped high and slammed an uppercut into its jaw.
“Thud!”
The sound had changed!
That indestructible texture showed a hint of loosening. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Third strike.
Fourth strike.
The girl turned into a white afterimage, unleashing a frenzy of attacks around the hulking carpenter.
Her attack frequency was astonishingly fast; every punch was precisely timed in the gaps of the carpenter’s attacks, like dancing on the tip of a blade.
The Holy Light enveloping the girl’s body began to turn red.
The saw swept horizontally, raising a sharp, ghost-like screech.
Alex Morgan crouched to dodge, and a whip kick radiating intense heat struck the opponent’s leg.
Fifth strike.
The heavy hammer smashed into the ground, sending chunks of earth flying with a rumble.
Alex Morgan dodged and slammed a heavy punch into the opponent’s lower back.
The Carpenter Puppet’s once-indestructible overalls shell began to show spiderweb-like cracks, and its movements visibly stuttered, as if rusty gears were about to break.
Just as it raised the iron hammer again, attempting to strike once more—
The blazing fire in the girl’s eyes flared, and she seized the opening.
“It’s over.”
Holy Light gathered on her right fist; she advanced instead of retreating, slamming a one-inch punch directly into the center of the crack on its body.
Seventh strike!
Crack— Bang!
There was no metallic clashing sound.
The steel carpenter that had left her with no power to fight back last time, at this moment, was like a detonated block tower, disintegrating from the inside out and exploding into a sky full of flying rotten wood and parts.
Clatter.
Countless fragments fell like raindrops.
Alex Morgan stood in the center of the ruins, shook her slightly reddened fist, looked into the empty depths of the black mist before her, and let out a long breath.
But…
it wasn’t over yet.
From the deeper darkness came even denser footsteps.
However, at this moment, due to the exertion and emotional agitation just now, the critical point of the transformation had been quietly broken.
Intense flames began to brew in her chest, bringing pain that exceeded her limits.
This meant she could risk her life at most one more time, and the journey would soon stop here once again.
Yet the girl only revealed a relieved smile: “Ha… going to die again.”
“Then…”
( ＜ ゝ ω · ） ~ ☆ Boom!!!
[Twelfth Arrival] [Fourteenth Arrival] […] [Eighteenth Arrival]
The black forest unfolded before her eyes once again.
The enemies of the first seven waves no longer held any secrets.
Although everything was 100% real and indistinguishable from reality, for Alex Morgan, who possessed the [Precision Control Engine], as long as she memorized the patterns skillfully enough, in terms of simple combat encounters, this was just a simple rhythm game. The source of this chapter is g.com.
The girl’s confident smile seemed able to illuminate this darkness.
“Smile: perfect score, courage: 100%!”
First wave, three seconds.
Second wave, seven seconds….
Fifth wave, shatter the Carpenter’s core, twelve seconds….
The girl’s body, covered in Holy Light, danced a gorgeous and cool dance among the crowd of enemies; even the steps under her feet trod out a certain rhythm unique to high-end players, carrying a sense of art.
The last puppet of the seventh wave fell.
Finally, the enemies of the eighth wave walked out of the black mist.
She was already quite familiar with this lineup as well.
In addition to two familiar maid-type enemies, there were three Fluffy Furballs with eyes hopping on the ground, as well as an armored stone statue holding a stone broadsword.
Six enemies!
Alex Morgan didn’t waste any words; she stomped her feet and her figure erupted forward.
The three spheres suspected to be “Fluffy Furballs” were just about to launch an attack, but Alex Morgan didn’t even look at them.
In her calculations, the flight trajectories of these spheres were already deeply memorized.
The girl turned sideways, slid lightly, and then a red light flashed.
A few tufts of fluff flew past her cherry-red hair as Alex Morgan had already dodged to the side, coming to the side of the “Apprentice Maid” holding a broom.
However, just as Alex Morgan ignored the stone statue holding the broadsword, and her fist was about to shatter the Maid Puppet’s head—
Hum!
Black ripples spread out.
An extremely disgusting sense of dissonance suddenly exploded from within the girl’s body, and the magical power that had been somewhat obedient within the limited time instantly became somewhat disordered, causing her movements to stiffen slightly.
This was the ability Alex Morgan called [Taunt].
If she didn’t prioritize attacking the Soldier Stone Statue, her magical power flow would be obstructed, and movement would become more difficult.
Although this was not absolute and could be forcibly overcome with willpower, doing so would likely disrupt the magical power that was already difficult to control, causing the critical point of loss of control to arrive sooner.
Starting from the eighth wave, not only physical attacks, these enemies had actually acquired extraordinary powers!
And facing this disgusting mechanism she had already experienced, Alex Morgan didn’t even lift an eyelid.
It was already within her expectations.
She didn’t try to forcibly resist the rules like the previous two times; instead, she extremely smoothly utilized the stiffness caused by the chaotic magical power, forcibly twisting her waist to swing the punch originally aimed at the maid, using the momentum to slam it hard into the chest armor of the Soldier Stone Statue beside her.
—The reason she locked onto the maid at the beginning was precisely to make the Soldier Stone Statue release this [Taunt] ability, so it couldn’t do anything else.
After all, in the last game, she tried to attack the Soldier Stone Statue directly, but the opponent, seemingly intelligent, didn’t use [Taunt] but slashed with its sword instead, needlessly saving the opponent an action opportunity.
Clang!
The fist slammed into the stone statue, making a dull thud.
Alex Morgan used the recoil, spinning like a top; the broadsword slashed past her hair tips, and her whip kick had already accelerated again using this rotational force.
Red light exploded, and that ready-to-fire double whip kick directly shattered the head of the Soldier Stone Statue before it could react.
Snap.