One second later, Elsie was already missing half her corpse. It was so bizarre and unbelievable, Sylph’s mind lagged behind before it registered inside her. Before she could raise her voice once again, that thing was already munching the entirely of her deceased pet, up to her very bone.

Five seconds. That’s all it took for Elsie’s gigantic body to be eaten.

Elsie’s height, specifically, is around 300 feet. Compared to that, Yggdrasil reaches over 900 feet and it’s still growing. Elsie is almost a third of Yggdrasil and yet, this tiny, unassuming monster whose size isn’t even that large compared to a goblin, ate her in a matter of seconds…

Sylph, for the first time in her life, actually looked shocked and a little bit of terrified.

She got ahold of herself quickly, however. Losing focus in the middle of a fight is the worst thing anybody can ever do. At the back of her mind, she realized that she was considering this a ‘fight’ now, unlike earlier. The idea irritated the tiny fairy.

“You’re hundreds of years early to even think of fighting me, worm…!” with narrowed eyes, Sylph glared at the now normal-sized red alien, it having finished its lunch. “I am the Wind Spirit Guardian, Sylph!”

“Wind, blast that thing into pieces!”

He heard the tiny fly squeak something or another, but he can’t really understand fly-language. He knew that it’s angry though. Its face was all red, and it looked like it was going to pop off like a balloon there and then.

Maybe it’s because of his Stage IV brain, but… he doesn’t feel scared anymore. Well, not as terrified as before.

He gained a significant amount of mass, but with the Enhanced Crawling Speed, he feels even lighter than when he was still small. This new found speed helped him dodge a surprise attack from the fly, what with it suddenly throw a spear of air towards him. Even though it was flying fast enough to send waves of air spiraling around it, he was still able to quickly move to the side and avoid what most likely would have been a fatal blow.

Not only him, but the green fly also looked shocked. The spear of air exploded on a tree it hit behind him, sending a strong gust of wind all over the forest.

If his calculation is right, his speed has almost tripled from before. To be fair though, his former top-speed is barely seven miles per hour. So he’s not fast… just not slow. Still, for him, this will certainly be helpful.

He quickly dashed towards his opponent, with his activated and ready to shed blood.

Right before reaching the fly, he jumped into the air, all the while spinning his bones wide around him. However, his spinning attack was met with resistance by an invisible wind barrier of some sort and promptly blasted him away from the fly. He landed several feet away from it, on the opposite direction of the crater and with the unscathed part of the forest behind him.

The fly looked smug after deflecting his first attack. It was even giving him the tongue.

So it has a defense mechanism too. From his earlier evaluations, she seemed nimble, destructive, and also has a form of defense. All in all, a perfectly balanced opponent.

Balanced build is a safe strategy… but also cowardly. This is the weakness he had been looking for in this seemingly all-powerful fly. Balance may mean you’re not weak on any front, but it also means that you’re not powerful on any.

This will be just a matter of him finding her weakest link. After that, this fight will be over.

Everything is good. It can’t touch her with her barrier activated. And she can keep it for weeks thanks to her nigh-infinite amount of mana. There’s nothing to fear here.

Sylph couldn’t help the smirk on her face when she saw the monster got effortlessly deflected away from her. She was wary of it eating her whole like Elsie before, but since it isn’t doing it, that ability must be limited, or have a special condition for it to be used. That’s her conclusion.

Aside from that, she’s superior in all aspects compared to that monster. There’s no logical way for it to defeat her.

“In the end, you’re still just a pest. You killing Elsie was just a fluke, and I’ll thoroughly make you regret that!”

Sylph summoned a huge amount of smaller condensed orbs of air behind her and sent it flying towards the monster. She watched in amusement as it tried hard to zigzag and dodge away from her attack. All the projectiles that missed sent patches of land exploding upon contact. Inevitability, some managed to graze and even directly hit the monster, earning her the sweet sound of the monster screeching in pain.

“I’m surprised you’re still in one piece!” she cackled as she continued on sending the volleys of wind orbs.

With a sudden stop, the alien suddenly shot towards her again, reminiscing a speeding red bullet. Sylph strengthened her barrier ages ago before it even approached her, and was able to block yet another sword strike from the monster.

“This is getting annoying. Just die already!” Sylph began to summon a crescent, giant concentrated mass of wind above her, the same one that etched the 500-kilometer wide crater behind her. She was going to throw it to the monster whose right in front of her. She knew that she’d be unharmed anyway, and it’s not like somebody’s going to scold her if she erased 30 percent of the forest in one day…

The monster just stood there like a statue, probably crippled from fear of finally dying. Sylph laughed it off in her mind.

With a wave of her hand, the gigantic projectile fell down on both of them, resulting in a massive explosion… at least, that was what would have happened if she had waved her hand.

Sylph tried hard to turn her head, but she only managed to get a glance of her stiff raised hand. Even turning her eyes became a chore.

Actually, now that she noticed it, she can’t move her whole body. Her fae wings stopped its movements, sending her spiraling down to the ground. Even as she landed, her body still remained as it was before.

“W… What… is…” Sylph tried to move her mouth and utter some words, but could ultimately only mutter a few unintelligible words.

Her Wind Guard, the thing that she trusted the most to protect her from anything, vanished into nothingness. All of a sudden, Sylph felt exposed to the world; to the dangers that can easily kill a measly, tiny fairy like her…

Like that approaching red mass of death.

“Ruru…”

Ability . A new organ developed inside his body, which can create different kinds of toxins that he can discharge in the form of liquid, or gas. Unfortunately, he still only has one kind of toxin right now, but... the paralysis toxin worked better than he expected. Slipping in some gaseous paralytic toxin on his second attack was a piece of cake for him. He just had to pierce its barrier even just for a little, and the gas was able to get in by itself.

Not only that but since it was completely covered by that barrier, he guessed that the toxin got even more concentrated inside, worsening its effects and speeding up the process of entering its body. In short, he turned its almost perfect defense against itself.

But that wasn’t the ‘weakest link’ he found on the fly, either. Its weakest link was its overconfidence; the idea of losing never crossed its mind, most probably. A typical mindset for an overtly powerful being.

He can only guess the state of its mind now, now that’s he’s the one in power. He menacingly looked down on its form, with his two swords raised and ready to strike true.

He didn’t know flies can cry. Well, he learns something every day.