The God Virus

"Her? She's someone I was trying to get my hands on alone for a long time." Although Ra could not quite comprehend the meaning behind the Purple-Maned Ancient Lions grunts, he still pretended to understand as he responded to a hypothetical question a normal person would have asked in this situation.

After learning about the difficulty level of the Invisible Fortress, all the participants except the mysterious cloaked people had decided to team up with one another.

At the time, since the barbarians and the monstrous beasts had past dealings and close ties with each other, the barbarians had decided to team up with the representative from the monstrous beasts which happened to be the Purple-Maned Ancient Lion.

Indeed, they also invited Hadelia to join them as well, however, for some reason, Hadelia wasn't quite fond of the barbarians since she had come to dislike the barbarians' attitude. As a result, she was against teaming up with them. Instead, she chose to ally herself with the only surviving participant from the Academicians.

"Grrrrr?"

"I think you're asking why I didn't dare do anything to her outside the Invisible Ancient Fortress World? Well, that's obvious really. First of all, I wasn't this strong at the time. Second, I don't believe there weren't any elders protecting her from the shadows outside. So, I had to wait until we're inside."

"ROAAAR!"

Feeling troubled by the lion's angry howl, Ra could only try calming it down while waving around with her hands. "Okay, okay… calm down, I just can't understand what you're saying. So please don't be offended by me not getting what you're talking about."

Turning toward the veiled lady again, an evil grin beamed on Ra's face as he opened his mouth again, "What were we talking about? Oh, right… about how I'll beat you to death right here and now."

"Hmph! Who do you think you are? Do you think I'm scared of you or something? Dream on, you ugly ass bitch!" Cursing him like that, the veiled lady pointed her thumb at Ra. In her culture, pointing a thumb at somebody signified 'Fuck you!'.

"Just because you've allied yourself with that disgusting beast doesn't make you all omnipotent since that's not even your real strength. If you're truly confident, just come at me alone. I'm all up for a one-by-one duel."

"But if you don't want to, that's fine as well, Henna and I will just leave this treasure room at once and I'll have a go at your disgustingly smelly ass at another time." Displaying a mocking grin, the cheeky lady stated.

"Ah, right, I don't think you're daydreamy enough to assume the three of you are adequate to stop the two of us. I mean let's be honest here, you three may have some possibility of defeating us two ladies if we stayed here and confronted you guys, but if we wanna leave, we'd be gone before you guys even blink!" She was squinting her eyes at this point as if she just couldn't believe Ra was that naïve.

Listening to the cheeky woman's logical analysis, an unfathomable smile sat on Ra's mouth while he hummed a strange tune beneath his breath. For some reason, he didn't appear to be the least bit concerned about her escaping. 

Instead, he readily accepted the duel request, "You're right, I won't be able to stop you in case you decide to run away right now, but don't worry, I never had the intention of ganging up on you, to begin with. Let's duel!"

Taking a step forward, Ra grabbed the huge hilt of his ax as he brought it before himself.

Although one might mistakenly assume that the enmity between the veiled lady and Ra had been sparked because of Virus, that couldn't be far from the truth.

The truth about these two was that their hostility ran much deeper as it had begun at another time in the past many years ago.

Since then, every time the two were put against each other in matches like famous martial contests or other races, they would put everything they had in order to strike or even fatally wound one another.

Thus, now that she had such a rare opportunity to battle this disgusting man possibly without anyone else's interference unlike in the past, she wasn't going to miss it!

And that's precisely why she was adamant about having a duel in this treasure room.

Turning toward Henna at this point, she advised her gently, "Don't interfere as long as they don't."

"…"

Finished with her reminder, the veiled woman wielded her staff and walked to the front.

The two opponents stepped forward while inspecting each other's poses cautiously. Next, just as she was about to charge in Ra's direction, suddenly, a huge amount of energy was released from Ra's body as it immediately put massive pressure on the cheeky woman's figure.

"Y-You… broke through!" Gritting her teeth, she mouthed in frustration.

"Hahaha… did I forget to mention it? Just before you came here, I found an amazing pill that helped me breakthrough to the next level… hahaha." Laughing uproariously, Ra started behaving as if he had already won the game.

Every time the two had confronted one another so far, their overall combat strength had been on the same level as a brutal fight would amaze all of their spectators.

This time, however, it looked like Ra had obtained the pill a little faster than her as he had temporarily broken the equilibrium that had been maintained for years now.

"If that's the case…" Reaching into her pocket, the veiled lady took out a specific pill and threw it into her mouth beneath the veil. It was the same pill she had also eaten before while engaging with the withered corpses.

Instantaneously, the pill started to show its effect as her energy's quality became much more chaotic to the level where it could almost compare to Ra's.

"Hahaha, at the end of the day, a fake boost is still nothing compared to a true boost in power!"

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Afterward, the two charged in each other's direction as an ax and a staff began clashing and colliding while producing devastating noises everywhere in the closed space of the treasury.

The two collided with each other several times and every time there was a skirmish, they would release their most powerful and savage attacks at each other without backing down.

However, just a single minute had gone by when the veiled lady's face began to get paler and wan by every second. She was almost at her limits.

Therefore, understanding that limit better than anyone else, she decided to retreat this time. "We'll settle this at another time."

Without further ado, she retreated in front of Henna who was waiting for her right at the place where their own gate back to the Sphinx was erected at.

"Let's go." Notifying Henna of their immediate departure, she was just about to leave when Ra's casual sentence garnered her attention. Strangely, Ra hadn't even taken a single step toward her like he had no intention of barring her path and stopping her from leaving, "Hmph! As expected of you, running away now that you know I'm stronger, what a bitch. Stay and fight me to death if you dare."

"Huh? Do you take me for a fool? Stay and die? Okay, I admit you won this time, but that's only because you just reached here faster than me and consumed a pill! But don't worry, in our next battle, I'll fight you to the death."

Quietly listening to her talk, at first, Ra didn't say anything, but then, he abruptly fell into a hysterical burst of laughter as if he had just heard the most absurd joke in the world, "Hahahaha… The next time we battle? You think you'd be able to leave?"

Feeling ridiculous by his illogical claim, the veiled lady began vocalizing, "Are you seriously an idiot? Try stopping me if you-"

STAB~

Suddenly, the cheeky woman felt a sharp prick at her back while also simultaneously feeling something penetrating her stomach. Thus, attempting to determine the source, she tilted her head down at full speed.

What she observed in her chest, however, promptly made her dumbfounded.

Currently, the sharp end of an unknown blade was visible right on her chest, which signified she had been probably stabbed in the back by someone.