Lillian was blasted to the side as a mysterious force crashed into her. With her grip tight on her shortsword, she flipped through the air, dodging the man's scythe.
Skrr...
Landing on the ground, skidding a bit, she gave Thalrek a cold look as she muttered:
"You've been doing it wrong."
This confused the man for a split second. However, he realised not even a second later what Lillian meant as she—
CLANG!
—Struck the ground once again, propelling herself into the air.
He then watched as she shot towards a pillar—
CLANG!
—Striking it and blasting herself towards another hard surface.
She did this again...
CLANG!
And again...
CLANG!
And again!
This had gone on for several minutes. Even maybe a dozen.
It was at this point that there was nowhere but the ceiling she had explored or struck.
She had studied this technique by looking through how Millis had used it with her sword and how she had used it in her own match.
And what she concluded was that constantly hitting the ground would ultimately increase the speed, which meant, if she did it enough and reached an extremely high speed...
Her stab would deal an enormous amount of damage.
Thalrek, who was spinning himself around to catch even a glimpse of Lillian's blurring figure, couldn't help but be amazed and baffled at the speed she was going.
Even though he was of a higher tier than the rodent, he couldn't believe that he was failing to keep up with her increasing movement. It was also at this point that he decided to use the mechanical eye in the centre of his forehead.
The mechanical eye, which was once shut tight, opened. It revealed a glowing blue pupil that narrowed and widened, adjusting to surroundings.
It then quickly pinpointed Lillian's movements while also calculating the speed at which she was going.
And what he found out shocked him.
Currently, Lillian was bouncing around with the calculated speed of 200 Miles per hour. Something that left him in disbelief.
How was the rodent bouncing around him capable of reacting at that speed? By now, shouldn't their brain be rattled?
While it was true that those of a higher tier with training could react to high speed far better than those of the lower Tier, it was absurd to think someone of the 2nd Tier could achieve a feat like this.
And not only that, but he was absolutely sure that the intruder didn't have any abilities related to speed.
So... How could this be?
CLANG!
How much did this rodent before him train to react to speed like this?
CLANG!
And the answer to that was... A lot.
Lillian, striking the ground again, felt her arm tremble as the force behind her slashes increased. She wasn't sure how long she could keep it up.
And she wasn't even sure how she was able to react fast enough to keep her body moving. Her past self would without a doubt not have been able to keep up with the speed she was achieving.
Currently, she couldn't even see properly where she was going. It was extremely nauseating for her. But, she did train for this. She trained her reaction time for this.
She had been training her body for these harsh movements.
Although the friction of the air had begun to burn her, she had already fixed it by repeatedly coating herself in a thin layer of water.
Lillian slashed against another stone surface, blasting off from it while still letting her momentum carry her forward. Her limbs felt twisted as she kept making sharp turns.
She even feared that they might snap off any moment.
But she needed to keep going, building up more speed, and dish out a devastating stab that would leave the Puppeteer's body in utter shock.
As she struck another hard surface, she noticed a bright light in the corner of her eyes. Unfortunately for her situation, she couldn't exchange even a millisecond of attention for it.
However, she knew what it was, given the sounds of distorted chirping of birds echoing through the air, followed by a fierce blast of heat she was almost caught in.
Dodging the beam, she passed by a pillar that had melted down. She could feel it tracking her, and that was when she went into her next plan.
She was bounced around the room, leaving a trail of water behind her speed figure.
She had even wrapped herself in a teardrop-shaped liquid shell, which produced enough drag to slow her down slightly, removing a lot of pressure on her body.
As she consistently dodged the beam and ejected a trail of water at it, the room was slowly filled with steam.
Thalrek, who was trying his hardest to move his mechanical arm around, eventually stopped as his arm glowed a burning red.
It had overheated.
Clicking his tongue, he lowered his arm before looking around his surroundings, finding it to be misty.
However, he ignored it and used his mechanical eye to figure out where Lillian was. This was one of its features—being able to see through areas with low visibility.
However, as his eyes adjusted and glowed faintly, he found that he had completely lost Lillian's whereabouts.
As he twirled and spun around, confusion was made apparent on his face as he struggled to find Lillian's location. How could this be? His eye was capable of tracking her?
"I-impossible—..."
PSHT!
Right as the word left his mouth, he felt a tremendous force crash into his back, piercing through it as a gaping hole appeared in his chest.
Lillian, who had transformed her body into a stream of water, pierced through Thalrek's body with her sword.
Reappearing in her regular form, she fell to the ground, scraping her body harshly—her chestplate screeching as she finally came to a halt.
She gave several rapid, deep breaths.
Due to her high-speed movements earlier, her lungs hadn't been able to get enough air into her body.
At this point, she was beginning to feel like she was getting brain damage from her oxygen-restricting actions.
Slowly getting up and getting back onto her feet, she was immediately hit with numbness around her body, followed by pins and needles in her legs.
She stumbled a bit due to this, stumbling over to a nearby pillar to use it as support as she stared at Thalrek's body, who lay on his stomach, motionless with a lethal hole through his lower abdomen.
"Pant... Pant..."
Lillian knew he wasn't dead despite how devastating her attack was.
'But... I feel like I am...'
Her arms were shaking, and so was her brain. She had to pull off something as crazy as this to deal this sort of damage to him.
She then looked towards the tubes dangling over Thalrek's throne, watching as they moved towards him, connecting with the metal holes in his back.
Slowly but surely, she watched as the hole in his lower back became filled and healed.
After it reached a certain point, Lillian sent a water blade that sliced through the tubes, disconnecting him from it.
'I can't kill him yet... I still need to kill him in style...'