While "Crushing Bone to Dust" proved challenging for Aglaea, searching for the core—a delicate operation requiring precision—was precisely where she excelled.
Seeing Vic charging toward her, Helena met him head-on, declaring, "Leave this one to me! You deal with the other!"
An Evil God who had undergone Divine Descent and the Goddess of Love, also descended by divine power—two beings of such transcendent power were now locked in a brutal hand-to-hand combat right before Aglaea's eyes. Her eyelids twitched involuntarily at the spectacle.
Though each of Helena's strikes—whether from her fists or legs—glowed with divine energy, making them far from ordinary physical attacks, Vic's body constantly morphed. His hands would transform into razor-sharp blades or gaping maws during offense, then harden into impenetrable shields for defense.
Each collision between them shook the ground, creating craters ranging from several meters to over a dozen meters deep. The thunderous booms echoed across the clearing, their destructive force immense. Yet witnessing these god-level beings engage in such primal, close-quarters combat still left Aglaea utterly shaken.
Only then did she turn her gaze to Vic's lower body, where a swarm of locusts had been unleashed. Half of them flew toward the city they had just left, while the other half swarmed toward Helena and Aglaea.
However, the battle on Helena's side was so intense that the shockwaves from each collision shattered the locusts mid-air. As for Aglaea, she stood motionless, and the locusts were sliced into pieces mid-flight, as if committing suicide, raining down like droplets onto the ground.
The locusts flying toward the city met the same fate, spontaneously disintegrating as they flew. The moment Aglaea stepped through the Century Gate, she had already enveloped the entire battlefield in Golden Thread, transforming it into another inescapable prison.
Looking up, the night sky was crisscrossed with shimmering Golden Thread, an awe-inspiring and magnificent sight.
Though Helena had instructed Aglaea to deal with Vic's lower body, the creature posed no threat to her at all. Aglaea curled her finger, and a Golden Thread flashed past, severing the man-eating flower that had sprouted from Vic's lower half.
Vic's body was exceptionally durable, but this carnivorous flower proved far less formidable. After severing it, Aglaea watched the two legs stand motionless for a moment. The muscles around the severed wound began to writhe, as if something were about to sprout again.
This time, greasy, slippery tendrils resembling octopus tentacles emerged. The moment they sprouted, however, they were instantly severed by a passing Golden Thread.
The legs remained still for another moment, as if realizing this wasn't working. They then lurched forward to charge at Aglaea, only to trip over a Golden Thread beneath their feet after just one step.
Thus began a bizarre cycle: scramble up, fall, scramble up, fall. After about three falls, the legs seemed to forget what had just happened and resumed their attempts to grow strange appendages. The pattern repeated: grow, be severed; grow, be severed.
After three cycles of this, the legs would revert to their charging-and-falling routine. After three more falls, they would once again resume their growth attempts.
Aglaea silently observed the scene, feeling less like she was fighting and more like she was toying with an idiot. Well, the creature before her didn't seem to have any brains at all; calling it an idiot would be an insult to idiots everywhere.
The only variable was that each time the legs regenerated, they sprouted something completely different, though Aglaea swiftly severed them each time, rendering the variations inconsequential.
After allocating approximately 30% of her focus to the creature, Aglaea focused the remaining 70% on Vic's true form.
She narrowed her eyes slightly, her emerald-like eyes fixed on Helena and Vic, who were locked in a fierce aerial battle. An ordinary person might not even be able to see them, only hearing the occasional sonic booms and witnessing the sudden appearance of massive craters on the ground.
But after observing for a moment, Aglaea suddenly declared, "Found it!"
In the next instant, she surged forward in a golden streak of light. Even as Helena and Vic traded blows in their high-speed melee, neither of them saw the golden thrusting sword pierce Vic's right calf until it was already done.
In that instant, Vic froze mid-motion.
Helena's eyes widened in surprise. "Ah?!" she exclaimed.
Even amidst the lightning-fast combat, Aglaea precisely monitored every minute change in Vic's body. It was no exaggeration to say that if, at any given moment, a single hair on Vic's leg suddenly tilted one degree in a certain direction, she would notice.
Given enough time, locating this so-called core would be child's play for her!
To be honest, now that she thought back to the Sea of Flesh, it must have had a core too. If Aglaea had known this at the time, she wouldn't have been helpless against that mass of flesh. If faced with it again, clearing the Sea of Flesh would be an absolute breeze for her.
One could say the Sea of Flesh dealt Aglaea a brutal "first encounter kill."
With its core shattered, Vic withered at an alarming rate. One moment he was a robust young man; the next, he had become as gaunt as a scarecrow, resembling a frail old man ravaged by disease and on the verge of death.
Another second passed, and "Vic" collapsed backward onto the ground. The moment his body struck the earth, he dissolved with a splat into a puddle of humanoid crimson slime.
Aglaea bent slightly, using her golden thrusting sword to lift the blue heart-shaped pendant from the slime—the so-called Priest Divine Artifact!
Its power was undoubtedly immense, but... given that it had just been used to summon an Evil God through Divine Descent, it was impossible to say whether any lingering corruption remained. In any case, Aglaea intended to take the artifact away and seal it up. At least for the foreseeable future, she would absolutely prevent anyone else from touching it.
Helena, who had also spotted the pendant, cautioned, "This thing... it's best to handle it with extreme caution. After all, no one knows if any lingering traces of something harmful might remain."
Aglaea nodded. "I understand."
Then, Helena looked directly at Aglaea, clasped her hands together, and exclaimed excitedly, "So, can we finally continue our earlier conversation? Can we be friends?"
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