Mira looked around, curious, unbothered by the sounds of battle right next to her. 'Seems like around half the worms are dead.' She nodded in approval. Even with her Qi limited, Yanira was quite strong.
'However, it looks like she's running out of gas.' She turned her attention to Yanira, fending off six giant worm Wardens. The flames around her Divine Sword weren't nearly as potent as they were before, likely having drained themselves. Divine-grade weapons couldn't be used perpetually, after all.
'...Well, that's probably not entirely true.' Mira thought. 'It's just this environment isn't suited for that, and Yanira's ability to produce Qi has been severely hindered.'
Other than that, Yanira was spending a considerable amount of effort to rid herself of all the poison entering her body. Her movements were more sluggish, her aura wasn't quite as radiant, injuries had covered most of her body, and she was covered in sweat.
Perhaps the woman wouldn't last another hour before she eventually collapsed.
'...Should I just kill her?' Mira seriously considered it. After all of this was over and they left this cave, her biggest problem would be escaping Yanira's wrath. Everything was fun and games right now when she was weakened, but afterward…
Well, there wasn't anything particularly fun about being burned alive.
However, glancing at the giant cocoon, followed by the rest of the worms, she gave a resigned sigh and shook her head. 'As much as I hate to admit it, I need her strength.'
Nevertheless, she couldn't pass up the opportunity to mock her while she still had the chance. Waving her hand with a smirk, Mira shouted, "Hey! Need a hand?!"
"And here I thought you kicked the bucket! Tch!" A cold response came back, causing Mira to chuckle. "Now that you're free, why don't you deal with that big guy?!"
That was all the invitation Mira needed. Hell if she was going to attack that cocoon!
After ensuring that Hana was still alive, she shot over toward the battlefield and sliced through one of the worm's thick, icy exoskeletons, piercing its skin. The damage was limited, but Mira grinned at the sight. 'Heh~'
With one hand holding her scythe, she struck the worm with the other, sending it skidding across the floor and finally catching its attention. Without hesitation, she did the same to two others, taking half of the burden off of Yanira.
Dents and cracks had formed in their icy exoskeletons. Seeing that, Mira's smirk widened. 'I didn't spend all that time in those thing's stomachs in vain!'
"Hey, woman!" Mira called out. She jumped up in the air to dodge attacks from all sides before landing on one of the worm's heads. "I got a plan."
"You're just now saying that?! After I've taken care of half these bastards?!" Yanira barked back, but the faded light in her eyes seemed to brighten.
Mira chuckled, saying, "I'll create weak points in their bodies. All you have to do is stab that sword of yours into them when I say the word and unleash as much Fire Qi as you can throughout their bodies, hitting those weak points."
"..." Yanira fell silent, not because she was contemplating, but simply because she was dodging.
Mira saw that her situation was actually worse than she originally thought and jumped over to help. "When I give the word, you attack!"
Without receiving a response, she landed on the head worm attacking Yanira, activated her Scythe Manifestation, and slashed an 'X' on it. Then, she raised her scythe and penetrated it with the 'spear' end of it. She did this a few times, ensuring that the stab went deep enough, then filled it with Destruction Qi.
While the worm screeched and hissed in pain, releasing plumes of poison and shooting out ice spikes like a porcupine, Mira continued doing this all over its body.
During her time spent in the previous worm's stomach, she had learned through intense observation that the worms weren't perfect. They could be systematically killed as long as certain parts were cut off from the rest of their body at the same time.
However, it had to be at exactly the same time. Their regenerative powers were so strong that if even one part remained intact, they could duplicate.
"Now!" Mira suddenly yelled.
Without hesitation, Yanira descended upon the worm and stabbed her sword straight through one of the holes Mira had made. A torrent of fire surged through its body, connecting to the rest of the holes. At the same time, Mira stabbed her scythe into it and fully unleashed her Scythe Manifestation into it, letting the death and destruction energy merge with the fire.
The worm's insides were incinerated and destroyed rapidly. The sands on Mira's scythe fell just as quickly, and within mere moments, the worm dropped dead.
"So fast?!" Yanira exclaimed, temporarily forgetting about her injuries. She then glared at Mira and demanded, "What'd you do? And don't blow me off! I felt that sinister energy! What was that?"
Mira chuckled, not sparing her a glance. "Just a little something to deal with more… tenacious enemies."
"..."
"Tch! Fine. Keep your damn secrets! However, if you had told me you were capable of this before, I wouldn't have wasted all my energy, dammit!"
"Then, use this time to regain it."
"Bitch-!"
As the two argued, they hopped to another worm, repeating the same process.
Fortunately for them, the worms' intelligence was rather low. Although they may have sensed immense danger and knew something was wrong, there wasn't much they could do.
They tried controlling the surrounding ice, filling the room with poison, and wrapping them in a sticky acid webbing, but it was all for naught. Mira punctured holes in them whether they liked it or not, and all Yanira had to do was sit back and wait for the signal.
Although they might be semi-immortal worms, they were still just worms at the end of the day. There was only so much they could do, no matter how desperately they tried to kill the intruders.
Within minutes, three more worms had died.
The remaining two turned to one another as if communicating. Watching the harbinger of death approach them, they made a decision. Curling up in a ball, The two covered themselves in ice, putting all their effort into defense.
"You think that can stop me?!" Mira roared as she hacked at the ice, only for her scythe to rebound off it.
"Hmph!" She grunted and slashed a few more times, which quickly turned into hundreds. Yet, no real progress was made.
Any time she dealt any significant amount of damage, the ice would regenerate.
"Heh~ Weakling." Yanira sneered, raising her flaming odachi. The ice sizzled as she cut into it, but she only got about halfway before ice encased her sword. Her expression changed as she quickly took it back.
"Who's the weakling now?" Mira teased, but Yanira wasn't paying attention to her. Instead, her expression had become severe.
"...What's wrong?" Mira suddenly had a bad premonition as she approached them. She placed her hand on the ice, and her expression changed as well.
"Fucking hell! They're trying to implode!"
"I know that, dumbass! I'm trying to think of a way out!" Yanira rebuked.
The explosion of a Late-Stage Rank 9 beast was nothing to scoff at. It was the accumulation of hundreds, if not thousands of years of effort, all released at once.
Right now, that's exactly what these worms were doing, gathering every ounce of strength and energy they could get ahold of and condensing it as much as possible. Yet, these were beasts who could withstand the might of a Divine Sea master's physical body. At this range, Yanira couldn't guarantee survival, not with her Qi so limited.
With two of them, her death was almost guaranteed!
'Fuck! I knew I should've just run!' She inwardly complained before glaring at Mira. 'Worst of all, I have to die alongside this bitch!'
"So, did you figure a way out of this?" Mira ignored the glare and asked.
"Yeah. Pray to whatever god you believe in and hope you can live a better next life."
"..."
Obviously, Mira wasn't satisfied with that answer. "Don't you have some defensive treasure or something? Don't tell me a Sect Master is so poor!"
"Yeah, I do, but I would rather not waste it on you!"
"So, it's shit. Got it."
"Oi! This armor is the best defensive treasure I could have! Using anything more than that simply means I'm already dead."
"..."
Mira pinched her nose, taking deep breaths. This old hag annoyed her way too much but now wasn't the time.
"Can't you cut these defenses open?" She asked, but Yanira shook her head.
"I could, but then what? My sword is already running out of energy, not to mention my Qi is limited in this room. With it focusing on defense like that, even if I chop it in half, we're still dead!"
Mira fell into thought. She certainly couldn't do anything. Even with her Aboslute Ice Dao, there was only so much she could do. First, she'd have to wrestle control over the ice from them, then, while doing so, kill them in under a minute. At least, from what she could tell, that's how long it'd be until they exploded.
Since that wasn't much of an option, considering there were two of them, she started looking around the room. Maybe there was a hole or room they could throw them in? Unfortunately, no.
Stuffing them in a cave would take too long, so that wasn't an option.
Finally, her gaze landed on the giant cocoon.
'That thing should be able to take the brunt of the explosion, right?' She speculated. A Rank 10 beast couldn't be that weak to die from something like this, right?
So, without hesitation, she grabbed hold of the worms, sinking her fingers into the ice, and, using all her strength, hurled them towards the giant cocoon.
"What're you doing?!" Yanira yelled, but Mira had already taken off.
"RUNNING!"
"Dammit! I swear, I'm going to kill you after this!"
With no other choice, she dashed after Mira, who was running in the opposite direction, into the cave they came through.
As they sprinted through the various caverns, they could feel the energy skyrocket behind them.
There wasn't any more time.
"Get down!" Mira shouted. Using every ounce of Qi in her body, she carved out a foxhole, jumped in it with Yanira and Hana, and created an Earth Barrier. Something fell out of her-
All the surrounding Qi was swept into the lair they were just in. Then, silence.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
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