"Are you two ready?" Medusa asked as she looked at both Meris and Inara, who were standing side by side, watching the settlement of snakes with cold expressions.
The settlement of the snake was like any other beastly outcrop. The houses inside were made of both green stone and tree, shaped crudely and far from the level of human creativity. Surrounded by bushes and trees, and ribbed with a massive door in front, upon which a gigantic snake with a wide-open mouth was inscribed.
Meris and Inara shook their heads at the sight and focused on Medusa's words. They then turned toward her in perfect sync, nodding their heads.
"We are," they said.
Medusa smiled faintly, her eyes glinting with something motherly. She didn't know why, but she felt some kind of happiness and pride to see her daughter with another girl.
It was like her daughter was finally making a friend. Something… that had never happened.
She had always blamed herself for the fact Inara never truly interacted with the other snakemen. True, she wanted to protect her from those betrayers, but that didn't lessen her guilt. After all, she knew how important it was for a growing child to have friends to talk to. Friends to do things together, and share countless memories.
That was one of the beautiful sides of life. One good friend could literally be your lifeline in difficult situations.
So Medusa smiled happily, like a proud mother, and turned her head to look at Lari.
"Your opponent will be one of the commander snakemen. He is…"
Medusa started to tell Lari everything she needed to know in order to kill the grandmaster snakeman more easily. Nothing was left behind, and as the former Queen, she knew their weaknesses better than anyone.
None of them had the intention to struggle in this battle. Even calling it a battle wasn't quite accurate…this was a slaughter.
This was an event to create an ocean of blood. A green one. But that only made it more interesting.
So, the harbingers of this slaughter departed.
Inara was the first to strike, with her skeletal bird with blue fire in its eyes. It appeared again above the Oribus Tribe, making the snakemen instantly stiffen at the sight of that all-too-familiar creature.
Instantly, instead of trying to fight together, they began looking at one another, shifting their stances as they wondered who would stab them in the back this time.
What a stupid mistake.
Blue fire began to plunge down onto the Tribe like a waterfall of searing azure rain. And it wasn't over, the two-headed wolf also appeared, bursting through the already fragile front door of the Tribe, howling and biting through anything in front of it.
Its fangs were dangerously sharp, coated in a potent poison that stiffened, then paralyzed, the bodies of its victims.
Chaos erupted.
Snakemen began to die easily with how disoriented they were. Soon, green blood started to carpet the floor.
Bety, Waly, and Old Naka all erupted out from the meeting room they were in, their venomous eyes as cold and poisonous as a river buried deep inside Hell.
Bety, this time, was standing straight.
Not for long, though.
SLAP—!
A resounding, earth-shaking slap boomed across the chaos like a crack of lightning, as Bety found herself hurled backward with impossible velocity, crashing into the wall of the tribe, shattering it, before falling with the rubble over her.
The chaos seemed to stop. Only for the snakemen, though. Inara's monsters didn't halt their merciless slaughter for even a second.
Their mother had told them clearly. No fucking mercy. And none of them dared disobey Mother. She was more monstrous than all of them combined.
Medusa now stood before Waly and Old Naka, whose faces still bore the shock of what had just happened. Her left hand was steaming, the high friction still radiating from her strike.
Her lips twisted upward, sharp and cold.
"That was just for daring to say, in front of me, that you wanted to rape my daughter," she said toward Bety, before turning her gaze to Waly and Old Naka.
"Now…" her hair shifted, becoming writhing snakes, each one fixing its unblinking eyes on the two snakemen. Even her own irises twisted, as snakes slithered within them.
The two couldn't help but shiver. They had never seen this version of Medusa before.
"I will definitely enjoy it," Medusa hissed and lunged instantly toward the two Epithet Realm beings, her eyes burning with cold murder as the snakes snarled and attacked with her.
Medusa wasn't the only one.
Lari too stood in front of a snakeman, the grandmaster she was meant to kill. She looked at him with flat, unreadable eyes, then…
CRACKLE—!
Lightning enveloped her body as she struck.
During all of this, Inara and Meris were calmly walking toward Bety.
Each of Meris's steps produced ice beneath her feet, as she manipulated the water molecules around her, forming spears of ice that she fired at the snakemen without even glancing at them.
Anyone attempting to approach her would collapse, slipping on the snow she had spread across the ground, before being impaled by rising spears of ice.
Inara was more unique. She didn't just control monsters, she controlled what made monsters monstrous.
Her body could corrupt anything normal into something warped and terrifying. So with every step she took, she ensured the mutating toxins coated her skin, her breath, her aura.
She had already poisoned the snakemen before their escape. Even now, she could feel the toxins mutating inside them… and inside…
She smirked cruelly.
"Bety," she growled.
Meris and she stopped, standing face to face with Bety, who was slowly rising. Her face twisted into a deep, feral snarl that promised destruction. The left side of her face was cracked, and within, poison slithered like veins of green fire.
She raised her head at the sound of her name and saw Inara and Meris, two Intermediate-ranked beings.
A cruel smile spread across her bleeding, swollen lips.
"Inara, you're back," she hissed like a serpent, her voice disgusting, like spoiled venom.
"And with a new friend," she added, staring at Meris's body with lecherous eyes.
Instantly, Meris's eyes became colder than ice itself.
"How dare you look at me that way?" she said, her voice devoid of feeling, hollow.
Before Bety could respond, Meris was already in front of her, sliding forward on a sheet of snow, aiming her ice daggers straight at Bety's eyes, her gaze lethally cold.
Bety reacted immediately. Her tail lashed with terrifying speed, destroying Meris's dagger with ease, ice shards spraying out but they stopped mid-air and twisted into needle-like spikes, sharper than blades, before flying toward Bety, who was already reaching out to grab Meris by the throat.
She didn't stop, her tail deflecting every threat, but…
"I'm here too, you fucking slut," Inara snarled from behind, as the snake coiled around her neck hissed and bit deep into Bety's right cheek.
CLANK—!
The snake's fangs struck Bety's scales, unable to pierce them. But the interruption made Bety lose sight of Meris, just long enough for her to drive the sharp tip of her ice-coated foot straight into Bety's gut and draw blood.
Bety snarled in deep irritation, ready to counter only to freeze as a downpour of ice daggers rained from above like a storm.
Both Inara and Meris took the chance to retreat, but not before one of Inara's leeches slithered into Bety's wound and vomited a thick glob of deep, sticky black blood.
Inara's blood.
And that was all she needed to tighten her control over the mutating toxins inside Bety's body.
A cruel smile curled her lips as she stood beside Meris, who was cracking her neck, her silver eyes still lifeless.
"I'm going to gouge your eyes out," Meris said with a soulless smile.
Inara followed next, smiling wide and Bety swore she saw eyes staring from deep within that smile.
"I'm going to make you the monster you deserve to be."
Instantly, Bety dropped to the rubble beneath her as the blood inside her froze… then began to change.
Her eyes widened in horror as she looked at the two women in front of her, still smiling, but there was nothing human in those smiles. Nothing right.
What are these two?
She couldn't speak. But her eyes screamed it loud enough for them to understand and their smiles only deepened, becoming… eldritch.
"What are we, huh?" Inara asked, turning to Meris. "What are we, Meris?"
Meris smiled, finding more and more to love in Inara's cruelty.
"What else?" she whispered.
"We are her worst nightmare, of course."
Inara cackled and Bety's lips twisted into a human eye, while her lower body contorted into the hairy leg of some unknown beast.
The torture of Bety began.
—End of Chapter 259—
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