Geneva slashed open the head of a 6th stage of the Cockroach realm Charybdis. It was smaller than the nightmare Frederick had fought a couple of hours before, but it was still the biggest she had faced so far.

From what Jacob had explained to them, crossing the threshold toward the final Great Stage of the Cockroach realm was a big deal for monsters. Humans did not feel as much of an impact at lower levels, but it meant evolving further, developing new abilities, or greatly strengthening what they already had for Demonic Beasts. Therefore, it was wildly different to fight a 6th stage of the Cockroach realm Charybdis and a 7th stage of the Cockroach realm one.

Her Bloody Halberd started bleeding out the monster even while dead and absorbing its blood. Apparently, as Jacob had told her, the Bloody Halberd could drink Charybdis blood; and it was a big deal! Charybdis blood was not used in alchemy or any concoction. Instead, it was ofter burned by warriors to avoid it corrupting the soil.

Her muscles were burning while she finished chopping off the head of the monster and backed up to take a breather.

They had gone a full circle around Fort Mountain, cleaning out every single building with a Charybdis infestation. And it was taking its toll on them. The last building they had faced had been the biggest warehouse they had met so far. It had been active right before the apocalypse had come; therefore, the Charybdis had used the nutrients from the food – which included real food and people – to breed a mini-swarm.

Jacob was on the front, slashing wildly against smaller Charybdes. Even though they had yet to face one, he had explained that the smaller was the most significant risk for inexperienced warriors. They were fast and could kill in a matter of seconds warriors at the Cockroach realm.

Therefore, he used some magic Geneva did not understand that well to freeze them and then slash them off with his sword.

She put the butt of her halberd to the ground to hold her ribs with the other hand. They were not even close to being done, but her body was screaming for some rest. This battle had been going on for thirty minutes, and everyone was almost completely spent.

“Linda! Covering fire!” she screamed while seeing more Charybdes at the 4th stage of the Cockroach realm come toward her. Even though she was at the 7th stage of the Cockroach realm, those monsters still posed a huge risk.

“I’m almost tapped out!” Linda screamed while picking off the monsters with fiery Fireballs and cordoning some others off with her Earth Walls.

At that point, Juliet swiped in and literally strangled a 5th stage of the Cockroach realm Charybdis with her bare, flaming hands. Then, she used her grip to behead the monster; the flames made it easy.

After their first break, something had happened to Juliet. Geneva loved fighting, even those nasty monsters, but she had seen a fiery blaze in the girl’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. Then, during the next fight, they had felt a shockwave come from her, and her body had changed: her skin had become fairer like alabaster and exponentially tougher from what Jacob said.

It was her unique Body Technique. It had jumped in levels multiple times.

No Charybdes could now even scratch her skin. And she was the reason they had not yet lost anyone during this battle.

Juliet did short work of all the Charybdes that had been sieging Geneva and Linda, giving them space to breathe, and then, without saying a word, jumped back in the thick of the battle.

“Junior Disciple had a breakthrough. It seems that the bottleneck she overcame brought her straight up closer to the Heavens,” Geneva heard Linda say and shrugged. She was learning to tune out Linda’s weirdness.

Juliet had not just killed off the monsters above, but she had broken through the bottleneck of her flames too. She was now spreading them on the ground after killing the bigger monsters and burning so high that parts of the ground turned to glass.

Frederick and Helena were fighting off multiple 7th stage of the Cockroach realm Charybdes. They had killed three, but there were another three still up.

…

“Juliet!” Jacob shouted.

They were finally almost done. They had killed off most of the Charybdes, and only the two big ones remained. Helena and Frederick were taking care of them, even though both of them were suffering their inefficient use of Mana and Qi.

He hadn’t expected Juliet to jump in power thanks to the insight she received suddenly, but it had been a welcomed sight. Now, though, she was becoming reckless.

She went up to one of the 7th stage of the Cockroach realm Charybdis and went in for the kill.

Thanks to her Body Technique jumping in levels – and Jacob wasn’t yet sure how many – Juliet was still fresh and rose after forty-five minutes. Everyone else was ragged and barely standing. If they had not taken any losses, it was all thanks to Juliet.

Now, though, he was worried. It was the first time she was facing a 7th stage of the Cockroach realm, and he preferred leaving those to Helena and Frederick, who had—

Juliet stopped the poison stinger dead in his track with her own hand and crushed it. The Charybdis screamed and tried to bite her head off. Juliet covered her right arm in a twenty centimeters thick fire cover and launched a devastating uppercut toward the sky.

Jacob saw the head of the 7th stage of the Cockroach realm Charybdis explode and fly up in the sky.

His jaw almost fell to the ground.

Juliet killed off the other one and then started scouring the grounds to kill off any smaller one hidden away.

Jacob got his chance to rest too and sat, still marveling at Juliet’s explosive growth.