CHAPTER 463: PLAGUE’S KISS

The scissors opened and snapped shut a few more times, yet only the golden shields raised around the trio suffered. No harm came to them, which was a minor miracle.

Yannick and Leslie re-summoned their weapons, since it seemed their fight was nowhere near over.

The void-like saber and flame halberd appeared in each of their hands, and together they attacked the Puppet. They made a simple pincer maneuver, attacking the young girl from both sides.

Astrid stayed behind and provided defense for her companions. She also raised her golden spear, which began glowing.

’Loyal Carrion: A golden spear, which raises the attack and defensive potential of all allies who want to kill their enemy.’

After acquiring this weapon, she and Kim tested the increase in attack potential for allies. It was quite a significant raise, but it only worked if the ally truly wanted to kill...

With Leslie’s enraged state, this wasn’t an issue. However, Yannick’s collected and tranquil nature might hinder the buff.

It was nigh impossible to read Yannick’s thoughts and emotions, so Astrid didn’t know how he felt towards the Puppet. Did he feel bloodlust or the need to kill?

The golden spear’s tip began shining, and soon the speed at which Leslie and Yannick moved vastly increased.

Astrid nodded to herself while breathing a sigh of relief. With increased attack and defense, they had a chance to defeat the Puppet.

However, soon an additional problem arose. They didn’t know the Stellar’s weakness...

Yannick’s saber cut through a few strings of the Puppet, but it regenerated much quicker, so she suffered no actual damage.

Leslie’s halberd and explosive fire burned the Puppet’s surface quite well, but ultimately, the strings didn’t burn away.

They both attacked the young girl, but even with improved attack potential, they couldn’t make any progress. The Stellar didn’t even defend against their blows actively, since her passive regeneration healed her.

She began giggling after a few seconds. Her scissor’s blades separated, and she parried each man’s attack. She then stabbed her scissor blades into both of their bellies.

The golden shield appeared, but under constant high pressure, it couldn’t defend against the blades.

While Yannick and Leslie suffered from the heavy blow, the Puppet’s whitish-gold, button eyes stayed focused on Astrid.

Her bare feet walked through empty air, right towards Astrid. She held her arms to the side as if balancing on something thin, like a rope.

"The Strings of Reality connect everything, Valkyrie. Your defenses might be impenetrable to my cutting, but that doesn’t mean I can’t cut something else..."

"What if I cut the strings of your heart, or maybe the strings connecting you to this planet, or the strings n your mind, which control your body? But the strings of your soul are also a splendid choice! Or maybe the strings of fate, memory, life, past, future—"

The Puppet tried to continue naming different strings, but her speech got cut short by the giant lightning punching through her body.

She shrieked in pain, which surprised Astrid. The Valkyrie fully believed the Stellar couldn’t feel pain, but it seemed they just hadn’t caused enough yet.

The giantess’s golden eyes moved to the lightning strike’s source. Relief flooded her body as she saw Kastral flying nearby, carrying Joan and Melinda on his back.

The lightning came from Joan’s sword, which explained why it could punch through the Puppet’s powerful body.

Joan became Transcended two years ago, when her twin sister passed away. However, she only began exploring the extant of her abilities recently, with Melinda’s constant support and presence.

After losing their loved ones, the two women became inseparable. They grieved together and pushed past their depression and suffering. Now they reached a state of functionality, but neither smiled since that day two years ago.

The beautiful yet uncaring woman sat atop Kastral with a straight back. Her whitish-blue hair, shaved on one side, waist-length on the other, whipped behind them as the hippogryph flew slowly around their battlefield.

Her electric blue eyes stared at the Puppet’s buttons. Electricity danced along the bright blue longsword’s blade as she pointed it at the Stellar. Another lightning bolt shot forth, carrying even more power than the previous.

The Puppet could dodge it, and she didn’t try to. Instead, she summoned back her scissor’s blades from the two men’s stomachs. They came back covered in blood, carrying pieces of their intestines.

She snapped the blades together, just as the lightning hit her Puppet body. However, unlike anybody expected, she didn’t cut the lightning into pieces. Maybe she couldn’t.

Instead of the lightning, she cut through her own chest, which meant Joan’s attack only hit useless pieces of string.

The Stellar chuckled as her body regrew, and moments later she counterattacked. The scissors snapped closed and opened a few more times, but Astrid’s barrier defended everybody.

"Dammit Valkyrie! Stop ruining my fun!"

Shouted the Puppet while glancing towards Astrid. Her expression was too inhuman for anyone to translate, but her tone suggested obvious annoyance.

She ran towards Astrid with all her might, prepared to kill her with one blow. However, while Stellars moved much faster than Transcended could react, there was someone on the battlefield who was faster than anybody else.

The Last Angel’s mount, Kastral, swooped in just before the Puppet arrived. His claws grabbed the giantess, then with the same move, he flew off, leaving the Stellar standing alone.

However, just as Kastral flew away, Melinda jumped off towards the Puppet with a determined expression. Nobody expected this move... Nobody except Joan, who watched her girlfriend fly through the air with a hidden glint in her electric blue eyes.

The young woman had no extra appendage or ability that lent her flight. She simply jumped towards the Puppet, her long whitish-blonde hair whipping as the wind clashed against her gorgeous body.

Her one blue and one green eye focused on the young girl’s position. The Stellar could’ve moved out of the way, but even she got shocked by this unexpected move.

Melinda grabbed the Puppet’s shoulders. She held no weapon, at least nothing visible, which meant the Stellar never could’ve guessed how dangerous Melinda’s attack was.

She didn’t punch, kick or slash at her with some hidden weapon or appendage. Melinda simply held onto the Stellar’s shoulders and leaned in, delivering a quick kiss onto the Puppet’s string lips.

The Stellar still couldn’t move from the shock of Melinda’s actions, and by the time she realized what had happened, it was already too late.

On Kastral’s back, Joan shook her head while a small smile appeared on her face. She imagined the different thoughts moving through the Puppet’s head after Melinda kissed her in the middle of a life and death fight.

"The Stellar definitely didn’t expect an attack of that kind... She wouldn’t have guessed that a small kiss could end someone so powerful!"

Melinda pushed herself off of the Puppet, while the young girl’s string body began trembling. Kastral plucked her out of the air too, and he stopped near Yannick and Leslie’s healed forms.

Together they watched as the strings of the Puppet began dissolving and untangling themselves.

"What did you do with her? And was it enough to kill her?"

Melinda climbed onto Kastral’s back, behind Joan. Her girlfriend smacked Melinda’s head, then leaned in and gave a kiss on her lips... Everyone shuddered after witnessing that kiss, since it was clearly deadly.

"It’ll kill her. This active ability’s name is Plague’s Kiss. It uses my accumulated knowledge of different viruses, diseases, bacteria and fungi to kill my opponent."

While she explained everything in a monotone, serious voice, the Puppet began screaming in agony.

The strings began changing color, from pale white to sickly green and black. The strings continued dissolving and untangling from the Puppet’s body.

"With the kiss, I can inject any disease I know about in detail to my opponent. In the year I spent at the Eastern Outpost, I accumulated all available knowledge about new and old sicknesses, including Evolved viruses and such."

Her friends stared at her with wide eyes, while the Puppet continued screaming and dissolving.

"But I don’t understand. Evolved can’t contract any diseases. We’re basically immune. Also, what kind of sickness affects a string doll?"

Leslie’s questions were quite normal. Joan had similar ones when she first learned about her girlfriend’s strange ability.

"No Evolved is immune to even the common cold. Our boosted white blood cells simply kill any viruses or bacteria that enter our system before they can do anything harmful..."

"However, I inject far more viruses than a usual infection would, plus they’re different types. They can overwhelm even the strongest immune systems."

An especially loud scream interrupted Melinda’s explanation...

The Puppet’s face began untangling too, and the scissors fell out of her dissolved hands. Nothing of her lower half remained, as Melinda’s attack disrupted her body composition.

"I injected her with dozens of different string and cloth eating bacteria and fungi. It seems her Puppet body has no equivalent of our immune system, and since they attack her entire body at once, she can’t do anything to stop the dissolving."

Everyone watched in horror as the Puppet’s chest and arms dissolved too, leaving only part of her head intact.

"I also couldn’t do this without you all weakening her. Leslie and Yannick’s explosion might have seemed harmless since it didn’t kill her, but it drained most of the Puppet’s essence to stay alive. She must’ve used some ability like Sera’s resurrection or Lucy’s invulnerability."

The screams soon ended, as the entirety of the Puppet’s head untangled, leaving scraps of strings and two whitish-gold buttons falling towards the ground.

However, just as the Puppet died, a shiver went down everyone’s spine as they felt an overwhelming presence nearby.

They all looked into the night sky and saw a gigantic, barely visible hand drop a wooden cross, which puppeteers used to control puppets.

The Puppeteer’s hand soon dissolved too, since its Puppet wasn’t alive anymore...