Chapter 35: Sophie Liya

Because of the protection of the arena's field magic "False Life," Sophie Liya had now completely recovered as before. The pure white girl was still spotless, white to the point of glowing, as if she had never been injured at all.

However, the healing of the body does not mean the heart has recovered as well. That feeling of being instantly killed and then having one's remains scattered to the winds is not so easily forgotten.

False Life could only ensure that the witch would not be truly injured; besides that, it had no other functions. Therefore, when injured in a duel, it still hurt as it should.

Then what should it feel like to have one's heart gouged out by a claw and then have one's bones ground to dust?

After being teleported back to the lounge, Sophie Liya opened her eyes after a long time. In those golden pupils, lingering pain and fear remained.

The pain was the brand left by the experience of having her bones ground to dust, and the fear was simply the resistance to the fact of death itself.

It was just that the angel witch was ultimately not the kind of delicate young lady who was pampered. She quickly calmed her mood, stabilized her emotions, closed her eyes again, and began to review the battle that had ended in an instant.

Although Sophie Liya was very unwilling to accept the result of being one-shot, a loss is a loss. No matter how much she tried to quibble, it remained a fact. So, rather than pointlessly venting her emotions here, it would be better to reflect on herself and learn from her failure to avoid repeating the same mistake next time.

First sin: jealousy. I was afraid that Dorothy's appearance would threaten my status in the teacher's heart. Jealousy made me lose my calm, leading to the fact that when the duel started, I didn't put up a shield at the first moment, but chose to attack.

Then the second sin: arrogance. The reason I made the choice to attack first, besides jealousy, was also underestimating the enemy. I looked down on Dorothy, feeling that this witch who grew up in a small rural place could absolutely not really threaten me. Subconsciously, I felt that dealing with her didn't need a shield at all, just fight casually.

Then...

Then there was no then. The duel ended too quickly, so Sophie Liya didn't have time to make more mistakes. Just the choice error in the first move of the opening directly announced her defeat.

And this also further indicated Dorothy's terror.

She was not at all the harmless internet-addicted homebody that the teacher's collected data said she was. As for the aspiration of wanting to become a research witch in the future, that was even more nonsense.

Which research witch could possess such terrifying combat intuition? Do you really think that keenly perceiving the opponent's insignificant flaws in a rapidly changing battle is an easy thing?

There was no shortcut to cultivating this kind of combat intuition; it could only be cultivated after experiencing thousands of battles and killings. This Dorothy was undoubtedly an old duel witch.

But how could an internet-addicted girl hone such combat intuition? How could she have experienced so many duels?

Sophie Liya thought for a moment, and then realized.

"Mana Web duels?"

The angel witch murmured in her mouth, and then she felt the frustration in her heart become even more severe.

She actually lost to a Mana Web duelist?

There was also a contempt chain in the witch duel circle. Those ruthless people who played life-and-death duels looked down on arena duels conducted under the protection of False Life, and arena duels in reality looked down on Mana Web duels.

After all, the realism of the Mana Web was only 99% of reality. That last bit of gap between reality and illusion didn't make much difference in entertainment, but it was very fatal in battles, especially in slaughter on the battlefield. Perhaps that subtle feeling being wrong could lead to the witch losing her little life on the battlefield.

Not to mention that Mana Web duels could also block pain and the like. Where was this something a warrior should do? If you are afraid of pain, what duel are you playing? Scars and pain were also a kind of fun in duels, which must be tasted. If you couldn't even accept this, you might as well go home and drink milk.

Therefore, the Witch World generally believed that Mana Web duels were just an entertainment game that little witches would play, letting underage little witches or those research witches who wouldn't go to the battlefield experience the atmosphere of a duel.

And true armed witches rarely played Mana Web duels. Playing one or two games occasionally as relaxation was fine, but if played for a long time, it would only cause the strength of armed witches to decline.

After all, doing too much of bullying the weak and fishing in small ponds would only make oneself assimilated by the fish pond. Waving a knife at the weak could only make you weak; wanting to become stronger could only mean challenging the stronger.

Sophie Liya hadn't played Mana Web duels for a long time. The last time she played was when she was a child. At that time, she was only seven or eight years old and could already kill everywhere in Mana Web duels. She only felt that there were weak chickens everywhere, so she didn't play much after that.

But now Dorothy's appearance made her start to doubt life. Could it be that Mana Web duels had quietly upgraded over these years? Was the quality of current Mana Web duelists very high?

The angel witch decided to go online and try it out after going back later.

However, while keen combat intuition is important, it was only one factor in Dorothy being able to one-shot her, not the whole story. What truly played the decisive role was the opponent's strength.

In fact, if it were replaced by other opponents, then even if her mistake was caught, with Sophie Liya's strength, she would have had a chance to calmly dodge the subsequent attacks and quickly adjust her state.

But facing Dorothy...

The angel witch fell into memories.

The sword she swung out before was actually just a routine probe. After all, when both sides didn't know much about each other's means and moves, probing was always right. Under normal circumstances, who would open with a big move upon meeting? That's a lunatic.

Probing moves naturally wouldn't be full-force. She had left a few points of strength at the time, just to be able to timely withdraw or defend when the attack failed.

And after that sword brushed past Dorothy's body and missed by a millimeter, Sophie Liya had already decisively decided to dodge, but what she never expected was that Dorothy's speed was actually faster than hers, fast to an unreasonable degree.

Sophie Liya hadn't seen magic that accelerated her movements in a short time, but normally, this kind of strengthening magic could speed up by about 50%, which belonged to a very excellent buff. But the rapid speed that Dorothy erupted in that instant was far from being comparable to this kind of strengthening magic. In that instant, her erupted speed directly soared by at least ten times.

What is the concept of suddenly speeding up ten times in a battle? For this situation, people generally only use two words to describe it, and that is—hacker.

This kind of skill that completely destroys balance shouldn't exist at all.

It's a pity that reality is not a game. Games might need balance, but reality doesn't.

In the previous battle, there was no time to think carefully before being one-shot, but now, reviewing the situation just now in detail, Sophie Liya could almost understand what exactly Dorothy had done.

That was the power of time. She had indeed perceived the abnormality of the time flow on the other party in an instant before. The time flow on her body had just accelerated ten times in an instant.

And this relatively meant that Sophie Liya's own time slowed down ten times. Even though she was already retreating at the fastest speed, her movements must have been equivalent to slow motion in the eyes of Dorothy, whose time had just accelerated.

Facing the great power of time, Sophie Liya didn't lose unjustly. At that time, having been approached, she was already powerless to resist, and the defensive power that her angel body brought with it might have had some effect in front of other races, but in front of Dorothy, who possessed the Dragon's Claw, it was almost like paper. The dragon's sharp claws, which brought their own magic-breaking effect, easily pierced her chest, grabbed her heart, and crushed it.

And what was even more outrageous was that Dorothy didn't just show the power of time, but also space.

A broken heart was a fatal injury to other races and could be a one-hit kill, but to an angel, it could only be considered a serious injury. Even if they lost their heart, angels could still forcibly continue to fight for a few minutes. Sophie Liya was already prepared to self-destruct and drag the opponent down with her at that time.

But that space, which shattered like a mirror, directly crushed Sophie Liya's hope of forcing a draw. The lethality of space shattering is beyond doubt; for targets below the Grand Witch rank, it is almost always a one-shot kill.

Sophie Liya, as an elite witch who was only one step away from a Great Witch, could barely resist the damage of that space shattering if she went all out, or if she were wearing battle robes, she could have taken this hit with the defensive power of her highest-level battle robes. But who made her want to defeat Dorothy fair and square, not only taking off her battle robes herself but also self-sealing her mana, leaving only 10,000 mana?

10,000 mana, no armor, fighting a hacker who possessed both of the two supreme powers of time and space, and it was already a situation where she had been surprised and approached—this is fighting a hammer.

If Sophie Liya were given another chance, she would definitely pull up her shield at the first moment and then immediately pull away to start a guerrilla war of attrition. Fighting like that, she would have a chance; otherwise, she would definitely lose.

But did she really have a chance to fight a guerrilla war of attrition?

Sophie Liya remembered the multi-element composite plastic magic that Dorothy used when she ground her bones to dust at the end. The perfect reaction between various elements allowed each element to perfectly exert its own characteristics, reaching the theoretical maximum damage effect.

This fine operation of magic, although not as shocking as the power of time and space, was also very outrageous. Controlling multiple elements at the same time required multi-tasking, and letting conflicting elements not conflict and riot among themselves required absolute control over mana.

But was this kind of precision really something that could be achieved below a Great Witch? Wasn't composite plastic magic composed of conflicting elements generally a high-level magic above the 7th ring? Theoretically, it must be a Great Witch to learn it, right?

So, what kind of monster am I fighting, or should I say it's truly worthy of being the teacher's daughter?

The pure white girl fell into thought for a while.

She didn't lose unjustly at all. ===== CHAPTER 36 =====