Chapter 260
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 260
Chapter Title: Master's Faithful Slave
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Gula's lips trembled.
He had already clashed with Maia once before, of course.
He even knew the humiliation of fleeing with half his head melted away.
That's why Gula prided himself on knowing better than anyone just how terrifying a monster Maia was.
But at this moment...
Watching her crush massive giants like chicks underfoot, Gula couldn't help but doubt his own conviction for the first time.
Kaboom!
"Grraaah!"
Just one punch extended.
Yet another giant exploded into a pulp of flesh and blood, and the shockwave alone sent several more tumbling down in heaps.
They seemed to have grown accustomed after taking a few hits.
Instead of fear, they now roared even more ferociously, charging at the opening left by Maia's outstretched fist.
Maia didn't falter.
She simply opened her clenched hand and unleashed the Absorbing Star Golden Snake Style toward the lead giant.
Thud-thud-thud!
"Gr... grrah?"
The moment its fist seemed to be sucked into Maia's palm.
Her fingers coiled like a serpent devouring its prey, yanking and snapping it back. Her pale hand had already slithered up to its wrist.
Those five slender fingers, like jade chopsticks, didn't stop at twisting the wrist—they tore into the flesh like a snake's fangs and crushed the bones to powder.
Even as the wrist shattered and dangled limply, Maia refused to let go of the giant.
She simply yanked it toward her.
Whoosh!
"Graaaargh!"
The giant weighed well over a ton.
Maia, with her visibly delicate frame.
Considering the weight difference—easily twenty times over—she should have been the one dragged in.
But it was the giant that flew toward her.
With one hand, she flung it upward like a flail.
Bam! Bam! Boom!
"Yelp! Grrah! Graaah!"
No, calling it a flail would insult actual weapons.
The giant, limbs splayed wide as it was whipped around, looked more like a feather duster or a flyswatter.
How fiercely she swung it.
After smashing through a dozen comrades with its own body, the giant's bones finally shattered entirely.
Still, Maia didn't release her grip.
She merely pivoted on one foot, spinning like a top.
Whoosh, whir, whir-whir-whir-whir-whir!
Boosting her strength explosively with the Heavenly King's Tower Supporting Style, she infused the giant's body with rigidity and elasticity via the Adamant Indestructible Style.
And at the peak of centrifugal force...
She multiplied its weight dozens of times with the Thousand Catties Light Body Style, then launched it using the secret technique of the Hundred Needles Flower Rain Style.
Seventy-Two Martial Flows' Four Ultimate Techniques
Other Mountain Stone Throw
Boom! Kaboom! Rumble!!!
Dozens of times crashing into giants.
A few more times toppling buildings.
And once more pulverizing blood giants.
By the time the rubber ball-like giant finally hit the ground after bouncing everywhere, no intact body remained.
Only shattered fragments of bone and flesh from nearly a hundred giants were strewn about.
It was the horrific result of superhuman strength surpassing common sense, combined with pinnacle secret techniques.
"Graaaaaargh!"
Thanks to physical abilities far superior to the other giants, perhaps.
A blood giant that had dodged the flying one lunged from behind Maia, slashing with its claws.
That lightning-fast strike was lethal enough to overwhelm even high-level players or Seven Dragon Society elites.
Clang!
"...Rrh?"
But afterward...
The blood giant could only blink in stupefaction.
Its claws hadn't so much as sliced her back or parted flesh—they'd bounced off like toothpicks scraping steel plate.
It wasn't that her clothes were unusually tough.
Her outer garment had indeed torn under the blood giant's claws, exposing her pale back.
The problem was her back itself.
Clang! Scraaape! Crack!
Skin as white and soft as if it would scratch on rose thorns.
Yet no matter how many times it clawed, not a single mark appeared.
On the contrary, the blood giant's claws cracked and chipped with every scrape against her back.
Adamant Indestructible Style.
The strongest external art of the Seventy-Two Martial Flows, freely controlling the body's hardness, rigidity, toughness, elasticity, and flexibility.
A demonic technique that would harden one's organs solid just from learning it without being the Jade Dragon Princess—yet it protected Maia more solidly than diamond.
And the cost of attacking her wasn't just broken claws.
Sizzle.
"Guh! Grraaah!"
Not even direct contact.
Just a few claw swipes, and both arms turned pitch black. The blood giant writhed in agony before melting away, covered in pus.
Even its giant-toughened body had limits against Maia's poison.
The massacre continued relentlessly.
Storm-like fierce fists shattered rock-hard giants effortlessly.
A graceful touch would snap limbs before hurling them aside; golden needles from her fingertips felled them like mayflies sprayed with insecticide.
She'd leap light as a feather, only to crash down like a thousand-ton boulder, stomping giants underfoot.
It was no longer battle.
It was outright slaughter—an utterly one-sided, overwhelming ravaging unfit even to be called combat.
'That monstrous bitch...'
Gula trembled with rage at his forces, reduced to half in the blink of an eye.
Even without skills, hundreds of giants were a force to threaten a monarch.
Against Maia, they were worthless.
A body blocking all attacks.
Superhuman strength and reflexes.
Martial arts beyond mastery.
Even that dreadful poison.
Possessing even one would be called cheating.
She had them all, so no matter how many thousands she faced, it was only massacre.
'Calling an environmentalist like me a monster lord while keeping a freak like that around? This filthy world judges by appearances.'
Muttering curses inwardly, Gula coldly calmed himself.
He already knew overwhelming her with numbers wouldn't work against Maia.
What he needed was one thing.
A powerhouse to pierce that overwhelming defense.
In that regard, his best option now was to step in personally against Maia.
'No, not yet.'
But Gula held back.
He merely glared at Maia with bloodshot eyes, holding his position.
'Just a bit more.'
He'd been poisoned by her once before, so he had no desire to face her directly unless necessary.
Thus, Gula waited.
And chanted inwardly.
'Just a bit more...!'
Until the hundreds of giants dwindled to around a hundred.
Until only two of the eight blood giants remained.
Gula watched Maia's storm of blood and slaughter with a sinister smile.
And finally.
That moment arrived.
"Cough!"
The instant she swung her fist.
A sudden cough made Maia freeze, furrowing her brow.
Seizures were routine for her, but not now—they shouldn't happen.
'With the Great Blood Heaven Poison Formation active, why?'
Maia hadn't deployed her entire clan into the formation just to block Gula's escape.
The greater purpose was stabilizing her condition using the psionic flow from hundreds of warriors.
And it had succeeded.
Even amid this fierce battle, her psionics remained stable.
So why the sudden seizure?
Suppressing it with psionics and self-diagnosing, Maia raised an eyebrow.
The cause disrupting her psionic flow and triggering the seizure was utterly unexpected.
"...Poison?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
Thud!
A mad laugh erupted on cue.
Gula dropped from the roof, grinning venomously at Maia.
"Monstrous wench, how's it feel to be poisoned by the same venom you always use on others?"
His blatant mockery didn't faze or anger Maia.
She merely scanned her surroundings coolly.
Seeing the giants halt their charge and her body drenched in fresh blood, she nodded slowly.
"...I see. Now I understand."
Creating Ambrosia.
Sending assassins after her.
Turning his minions into giants.
Just watching the fight.
And the seizure that conveniently struck when the assassin attacked.
Finally piecing it together, Maia spoke softly.
"Your true goal was to poison me with Ambrosia."
"Heh heh heh. No matter how monstrous you are, even you can't shrug off Ambrosia poisoning."
Any other poison wouldn't work.
Her blood was the world's deadliest.
But Ambrosia was the exception.
Its original, Nectar, was the pinnacle narcotic crafted by the Jade Dragon Clan's full might.
Including the knowledge and techniques of that era's Jade Dragon Princess.
With even Nectar's recipe lost, Maia couldn't prepare for this replica Ambrosia.
One mystery remained.
"How did you create Ambrosia?"
Even a masterpiece from the Jade Dragon Clan's all-out effort, Nectar was just a narcotic.
It had no effect of turning humans into giants.
Not enough—they'd even embedded a stealth poison activating only after repeated dousing in giant blood, like wasp venom.
Even she couldn't do that easily.
Yet somehow, he'd refined it.
As a pharmacist before Jade Dragon Princess, Maia felt genuine wonder.
"You still don't get it...? Wench, that's not the point right now."
Her composure irked him.
Gula snarled murderously.
"You should be wondering how I'll kill you."
"Quite the grand dream."
"...Fine. Look forward to it. I'll chop off your limbs like a pig, toss you in a sty, and toy with you till you die!"
Isolated in enemy territory and poisoned to boot.
Yet Maia met his taunt with a provocative sneer, no tension in sight. Gula's forehead veins bulged.
Still, Maia didn't waver.
Though Ambrosia triggered a seizure, the Great Blood Heaven Poison Formation let her suppress it forcibly.
Thud! Kaboom!
"...!"
But right after.
Maia's face hardened.
Sudden explosions rocked the forest everywhere, crumbling the once-steady psionic flow of the Great Blood Heaven Poison Formation.
'Ambush outside too...? The real force was there!'
The fortress guards—unusually inept guild members.
They were mere sacrifices.
Forest Guild's true main force was outside. Realizing this, Maia rushed to escape the fortress.
The formation trapped internal foes but was vulnerable externally.
With the surprise attack collapsing it and psionics backlashing, she had to intervene personally to save them.
"Cough! Cough-cough-cough!"
But it was too late.
Without the formation's psionic aid, she couldn't suppress the Ambrosia-induced seizure.
"Now! Everyone charge and subdue her!"
Gula smirked slyly.
Normally, no.
But coughing up a storm, Maia was full of openings.
Still, only giants moved—as a precaution.
That caution saved him.
Splat!
...Had Gula rushed to subdue her himself, his head would've been the one kicked flying.
"Who are you?!"
"Me?"
Suddenly bursting in, wrapping an arm around Maia's waist, effortlessly dodging the giant's charge.
One kick pulverized its skull.
Gula's face stiffened at the intruder.
The black-haired youth grinned at him.
"My master's faithful slave."