The Soul Eater gazed at the unharmed Lin Yiyi, lost in thought for a long while.
Strange, the touch was definitely correct.
Based on the texture of her flesh, she should be just an ordinary bronze-tier Swordsman...
But upon hearing Annan and Salvatore’s shouts, its intelligence level, superior to that of an average adult, immediately realized something.
—That’s right, Curse Binding cannot come without a cost.
Even more so for young humans of the bronze tier.
I understand. She might have used some harsh Curse Binding to reverse her own time...
The Soul Eater’s dark grey vertical pupil once again closed the innermost layer of its triple eyelids.
It turned its head back and bit its tail once more, straightening it out.
Just kill her one more time.
After all, it was hardly any trouble to do so—
At this moment, Annan saw from the Creator’s perspective that Salvatore was preparing to use the Philosopher’s Stone and the Soul Eater, ready to attack Lin Yiyi once again.
He was somewhat surprised by Salvatore’s decisiveness.
In Annan’s memory, Salvatore wasn’t someone with such strong initiative...
According to Annan’s original prediction, Salvatore would likely hesitate a few rounds, and then, upon Lin Yiyi’s second or third death, realize that he could attack her and the Soul Eater at the same time when she was being attacked.
—But this attack was doomed to be ineffective.
Salvatore’s combo that insta-killed the giant earlier, including the steel pin, took almost half a minute to cast.
An attack on the Soul Eater out of nowhere was bound to be futile.
So Annan had already prepared—
The moment the Soul Eater planned to leave Lin Yiyi’s side, ready to turn and attack Salvatore.
He would inject the Philosopher’s Stone—and immediately launch the Frost Sword Technique at the Soul Eater.
Due to Curse Binding issues, Annan had a very faint sense of pain. Thus, even after the Philosopher’s Stone’s effects ended, Annan would still retain a certain degree of combat capability.
That’s why there were two portions of the Philosopher’s Stone with Annan, while Salvatore, the Creator, only had one.
...However, if Salvatore had already planned to use the Philosopher’s Stone, the plan needed to be adjusted slightly.
After all, Annan couldn’t just say outright to Salvatore, "Pretend you’re casting to fake out the break, I’ll go for the big play."
The Soul Eater, as a high-tier Summon in the domain of Silence, could understand human speech...
Now it was time for Annan to create an opportunity for Salvatore!
He could only temporarily trust his senior.
As long as he obtains gold-tier strength temporarily with the Philosopher’s Stone... and can exhibit seventy percent of the power of Benjamin, a silver-tier Wizard, that would be enough!
If Salvatore messes up, Annan could only use the Philosopher’s Stone himself immediately to fill in. If anything unexpected happens after that, Annan would be left with only one chance of using the Philosopher’s Stone... and he’d have to take care of Salvatore, who’d be completely bereft of combat ability.
But if Salvatore succeeds, then Annan’s power could remain completely concealed. With almost no consumption, he could continue to exist as a non-participating NPC until the end of the instance...
"Yiyi, to your left!"
Just before the Soul Eater launched its attack, Annan shouted loudly, "Goose, protect me—"
Perhaps because of the cooperation in the last instance.
Gourmet Goose and Lin Yiyi didn’t hesitate to follow Annan’s command.
Lin Yiyi immediately turned slightly to the left.
She just caught sight of the black wheel, silent and spinning like a spiked wheel, flying through the air towards her—
She instinctively raised the wooden stick, gripping it tightly with both hands.
The Soul Eater was somewhat disdainful of this.
Attempting to use such a stick... to stop it?
It didn’t need to attack deliberately; it could shred it to pieces just passing by!
But what the Soul Eater didn’t know was.
As soon as Lin Yiyi saw it and gripped the stick tightly with both hands.
Lin Yiyi’s true Curse Binding was triggered—
[When you grip a weapon with both hands, you can see all the attack trajectories that will hit "you" in the next three seconds; and after a failed Parry, you will not enter an imbalanced state or fall to the ground]
[While using this ability, you cannot move; the attacker must be within your field of view]
The Curse Binding known as [Frontal Parry] provided Lin Yiyi with strong protective abilities.
And the ability to briefly foresee the future—
In Lin Yiyi’s vision, everything seemed to slow down and turn into a sort of grayish-white.
In front of her was a red afterimage.
Countless after-images of black blade wheels flew through the air in bizarre arcs, following a strange spiraling path as they came from the front, obliquely piercing through her skull and heart, sending her entire left arm and half her ribs flying away.
At the end of that red after-image, a gray color was rapidly filling in.
Lin Yiyi could only make one final decision in this slow-motion world.
There was no way to block it.
But she should still be able to hang on a bit longer—
Lin Yiyi’s feet couldn’t move.
She could only exert all her strength to try and lean her upper body to the right as much as possible.
In this bullet-time-like slow-motion world, her movements were extremely arduous and slow. But if scaled proportionally to her real-world speed, it was undoubtedly much faster.
—Because this was her "all-out" evasion speed!
In a normal battle, it was impossible to dodge with full force without any reservation from the get-go!
Just before the gray representing reality caught up to the red after-image, almost striking her.
Lin Yiyi suddenly felt a wave of fatigue in her mind.
She was ejected from that strange state.
But her upper body had shifted enough—
The blow that could have split and smashed both her head and heart only managed to shatter her wooden stick along with the upper limb of her left arm.
According to Annan’s settings, intense pain would disappear instantly after reaching a threshold. So after the limb was severed, Lin Yiyi was amazed to realize—she actually wasn’t dead!
Yes, even though her left arm had flown off, she still had 35% of her health left!
Does that mean that if it wasn’t for the dismemberment... a single attack wouldn’t take away half her health?
Although she was almost killed instantly upon direct contact, Lin Yiyi felt a strong sense of confidence surge in her heart.
She could withstand it!
"I need a sturdier weapon!"
Dragging her severed arm, Lin Yiyi retreated quickly backwards, calling out loudly to Annan and Salvatore for help.
She didn’t know if it would be of any use, but she decided to try calling out anyway...
Noticing its attack, full of confidence, barely dodged by Lin Yiyi by a hair’s breadth, the Souleater hesitated for a moment.
It immediately got riled up—
It hesitated for a moment, whether to first turn and kill the most dangerous human who could see through its stealth or the weakest human who had already lost an arm—
It finally decided that it had to kill this audacious human who was still jumping around after losing a limb!
This time, it didn’t use that wheel-like cutting attack again.
That was its mowing down attack reserved for large groups of unarmored units.
As the Souleater closed its two layers of eyelids.
Its body stiffened, raising its sharp triangular head—as if it were a speeding javelin, it hurtled toward Lin Yiyi with incredible speed!
It was a comet-like attack that came without any warning.
The invisible Souleater’s charge was utterly imperceptible and unavoidable.
Almost simultaneously with hearing the sound, Lin Yiyi’s chest and abdomen were pierced through in an instant.
Her entire body was knocked in two, a large cloud of blood mist exploded behind her, and the fierce wind howled violently to the sides.
Fortunately, she was facing the road and not someone’s home—even so, the T-intersection more than eighty meters behind her was directly smashed through by the Souleater, creating a large hole!
Then Lin Yiyi respawned in the original spot...
She called out again, "Any weapons?!"
Salvatore, without any hesitation, threw a solid, hard alloy steel bar he had transmuted towards Lin Yiyi.
The steel bar whistled through the air... but fortunately, due to Salvatore’s weak throw, Lin Yiyi easily caught it from the air.
The moment she held the bar with both hands, a look of concentration appeared on her face.
Without hesitation, she leaned backwards—and then the Souleater charged at her again, still aiming for her chest and abdomen. So this attack also missed.
After landing, it dragged out a long trail on the ground.
It then closed its third layer of eyelids.
After that, it suddenly disappeared, reappearing instantly above Lin Yiyi.
It viciously swung its tail down at Lin Yiyi, who was lying on the ground, aiming to split her in two!
Seeing this, Annan let out a sigh of relief.
Good, it seemed it was taking the bait...
What a great tank, she actually managed to keep aggro!