The moment Gaia saw the blood-red totem that had brought all this misery upon her, the endless fury inside her finally erupted.
She raised a two-handed warhammer she had picked up at random and charged madly toward that bone arena.
Fearless lunatics rushed at her, trying to stop her advance, but under her frenzied swings of the hammer, they were smashed into bloody pulp one after another.
There was an old saying from Ancient Terra: between empty hands and a weapon stood an uncrossable wall.
Gaia's combat strength had already been terrifying enough while unarmed.
Now, with a weapon in hand, she was like a bulldozer plowing her way straight toward the arena.
Behind her, the surviving warriors of the First Warband followed in her wake, intercepting the enemies flooding in after her.
They were all elites among elites, men who had forged bonds in blood and fire.
With the seamless cooperation of those warriors, Gaia could fight without any need to worry about her back.
Very soon, with a single leap, Gaia landed atop the bone arena.
But before she could even steady herself, Garrick's attack came crashing in.
Wielding his battle axe, he slashed horizontally at Gaia's abdomen, forcibly dragging her into a direct clash of strength.
Gaia immediately fell into a disadvantage.
Although her muscular strength was tremendous, raw collisions like this depended most on body weight.
Only by borrowing force and redirecting it could Gaia fight enemies above her own class.
And this bone arena seemed as though it had been designed specifically against her. It was too flat, leaving her no room at all to use that style of fighting.
As much as she wanted to tear into the bastard before her with her teeth and drink his blood, the overwhelming difference in size still caused her to gradually lose ground.
Garrick laughed wildly as he toyed with the beautiful little thing in front of him.
He could sense her strength, but that only made him more delighted.
The great Lord of Skulls had already bestowed upon him supreme favor.
As His champion walking among mortals, he would use this woman's flesh and soul as his first offering.
When Gaia was knocked flying once again, the fury in her heart rose to its peak.
She needed a point of leverage.
If her opponent would not give her one, then she would create one herself.
As an unsettling madness surfaced in her eyes, Garrick's next downward chop came straight for her head.
This time, Gaia neither blocked nor dodged.
She merely tilted her head aside, avoiding the fatal strike, then took the full force of the blow on her left shoulder.
The living flesh-axe sank straight into Gaia's shoulder and chest, sending blood spraying everywhere at once.
Garrick bared a savage grin and prepared to yank the axe free so he could continue tormenting her.
Then he realized the axe would not budge at all.
Under his shocked gaze, Gaia's left hand reached out on its own and pressed down on the haft, completely disregarding her own safety as she forced it deeper into her chest.
With the contraction of her muscles and the clamping of her bones, the axe was locked in place just like that.
Boom!
At the same time, the warhammer in Gaia's right hand came crashing down, smashing hard into the ground.
Before Garrick could understand what she was trying to do, a powerful right fist slammed heavily into his face the next instant.
That was Gaia's tactic.
As long as she bound herself to Garrick, his size advantage would disappear.
What followed was a death match of fists and flesh.
Garrick roared. His giant fist, hardened by Chaos empowerment like solid stone, crashed heavily into Gaia's face.
But Gaia ignored his blows completely. Driven by the monstrous rage surging inside her, she swung her fists with even greater speed and even crueler force, smashing them again and again into his mutated skull.
Even when the bones in her face shattered, even when blood poured from the chest that had been split open, even when the hand she punched with twisted out of shape, she never stopped her storm of violence.
At this moment, there was only one thought in her mind.
Tear this thing apart.
Make it suffer the greatest agony possible.
Offer that pain to her father's soul.
And so the two of them fought in the most primitive, most foolish way imaginable.
One punch. Two punches. Then hundreds. Then thousands.
"Get up here! Kill her!"
Garrick could no longer endure this thing that could not even be called a battle, and roared toward the arena below.
The mutated fighters of the Wild Dog Gang immediately rushed for the bone stairway leading up to the arena.
Just as those madmen were about to climb up and change the course of Gaia's duel with Garrick, a tall, blood-soaked figure blocked the stairs.
It was Myles.
His flayed face twisted into a terrifying expression as he roared at them:
"Your opponent is me!"
Just like that, the mutated monsters trying to interfere in the duel were blocked by Myles, and the two sides fell into deadlock once more.
Gaia's consciousness had long since become blurred under the repeated hammering of iron fists and the massive loss of blood.
At this point, only one thought kept her ruined body fighting on.
Revenge.
And now Garrick was reaching his limit.
Since the exchange of punches began, his mindset had gone through a series of changes.
From anger at first, to contempt, then confusion, then shock, and finally...
Fear.
He could feel that the skull blessed by his god was beginning to crack apart under punches no weaker than his own.
If this duel continued...
He would die.
No. He could not die.
He had only just become the champion of the Lord of Skulls walking among mortals.
He had only just begun his great enterprise of conquering the galaxy.
That was right. He could not die.
Stop this meaningless "fight" and kill this thing using your advantages.
The moment that thought appeared, the right hand that had been gripping the battle axe embedded in Gaia's chest loosened.
And then, something changed.
The instant he let go of that flesh-axe, the immense power that had filled his body receded like a falling tide.
It struck Garrick like a bolt of thunder.
The Lord of Skulls had withdrawn His blessing.
Having lost that tremendous power, Garrick immediately let out a shrill scream as the agony of his wounds crashed down on him.
He convulsed on the ground like a maggot.
The pain he had ignored because of the blessing erupted all at once.
That sudden flood of unbearable torment began tearing his soul apart.
In the end, after a heart-rending struggle, the bastard lost his soul and became a crippled imbecile.
Gaia's body swayed, and just as she was about to collapse, a strange force suddenly appeared and rapidly began repairing her nearly broken body.
But the source of that power seemed to have a slight problem.
It was the flesh-axe still embedded in her chest.
Now it seemed to be melting, trying to seep into her body through the wound.
If the power that had filled Garrick before was a stream,
then what descended upon Gaia now was an ocean.
Below the arena, the madmen who had been fighting the First Warband suddenly stopped.
One after another, they turned their heads, raised their weapons, and shouted toward Gaia atop the arena with fanatical fervor:
"Champion! Champion!"
Silently watching the scene, Raven's gaze turned ice-cold. Then he pulled out a massive boltgun from beneath his cloak.
Its merciless barrel aimed directly at Gaia, who was in the middle of undergoing a transformation.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[+500 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter]
[Thank You For Your Support!]