It was a great pleasure to realize that my target's strength wasn't that great, I already guessed that from the strength of the Aura traits that Ragnar gathered, but confirming that the enemy only had Lesser Catastrophe Grade strength was a great joy.
"(I'm burning energy too fast to maintain my current power level, I'll only be able to maintain this for a few more minutes.)" (I)
"(Gotta get this over with fast.)" (I)
The fight was a little more difficult than I expected, but that was due to two strange factors, one was because this Siren's movements were inconceivable to be done in the air where we were fighting, but I understood that she was actually fighting inside the air water while I was fighting in the air.
Her movements were fluid and natural since she has lived her whole life in the water, but for me who only started flying less than 1 year ago, I still lack experience.
Also, the various improvements and forced changes I made to my body are hampering the accuracy of my attacks, I didn't think about it due to fury, but throughout the fight, it became more and more evident as she manages to dodge my attacks very easily that should be unpredictable.
I had to rely on sheer raw power and tactics to win before time ran out, plus it was only during combat that I realized how restricted I was, I couldn't use my poisons and I was expending twice as much energy as normal with my attacks, possibly a unexpected effect of one of the curses.
My time was running out so I started to use my Aura and curse affinity more actively, since two curses were connecting the two of us, I thought my curses might reach her.
When I finally got close enough to her, I fought using only my arms and legs even though I saw that she dodged all the attacks, I did it so she wouldn't notice me concentrating cursed energy on the blade on my tail, so the moment I saw her get distracted by something thing attacked before being sent flying away with one of its attacks.
After that, I used my Aura that I'd been infiltrating her shadow to control the shadow in an attack that brought her closer to me while the curse caused by my tail caused another moment of distraction.
When she was close I tried to rip her head off with my jaws, I wanted to finish it quickly since I was running out of time, but she dodged once more, so I was content with her shoulder that I ripped off along with one arm, I also took advantage of that moment to inject my Aura within her, I used the curse, the corruption skill, my Aura, my control and blood affinity to create an attack she would not be able to parry or deflect.
I turned her blood into Blood Leeches with crystallized blood teeth, I also activated the corrosion skill to increase the lethality of this attack, the effect was better than expected as well as very brutal.
It worried the part of me that was happy to see the enemy who had killed Layla in that beyond the cruel state, but I pushed the thought aside as the weakness was starting to show.
Luckily the Mermaid's ghost image broke before that along with the two curses, that means she was dead.
I was completely covered in sweat from the pain I'd been ignoring, and my body was aching from the weight of all the changes and abilities I imposed on myself.
I started by deactivating the various skills and techniques one by one to allow my body to adapt to the changes slowly, in the end, I used up what was left of my energy reserves to get my appearance back to normal.
I made the excess scales fall off along with the exoskeleton, so I started spitting out teeth full of cursed energy while waiting for new teeth to grow normally afterwards, used a little bit of corrosion on the bones inside my body to get them back to normal sizes and changed the position of my veins back to their normal positions.
Unfortunately, my horns had to be ripped out of my head, which hurt a lot more than I expected.
The process to get back to my normal appearance was more of a high torture imposed, in the end, my vision was spinning due to pain and energy expenditure, and I couldn't even keep flying when I fell into the sea.
"You worried me a lot this time." (Érica)
Soon I felt the arms around me that pulled me up, it was Érica pulling me out of the water and carrying me like a princess, she had tears in her eyes, something I don't remember seeing on her face before.
"You've been consumed by anger, I can understand that, but letting that happen is unacceptable for a King." (Érica)
"You are a King, so shut up!" (Érica)
"(If I'm a King, then that's not a good way to treat a King.)" (I)
"You treated Freya and the others who were worried about you badly, you fought alone against an enemy of unknown strength using a clearly ineffective method, and you forgot about Layla." (Érica)
"You got carried away by anger and forgot your priorities, duties, and what was important." (Érica)
"Everyone was injured or discouraged, we weren't sure what the attack was about, we didn't know if there would be another attack or we didn't know who had attacked." (Érica)
"This is the second time I've seen you acting out of hate alone, that time Diana was saved by it, but this time you took unnecessary risks." (Érica)
"(I feel like I'm in the orphanage getting scolded by the nuns again.)" (I)
But even though I was treated like a child, I kept quiet acknowledging the various mistakes Érica mentioned, mistakes I wouldn't normally make since I like to think and plan everything I'm going to do.
But in the middle of Érica's sermon something caught my attention, she talked about forgetting Layla, it made me sad again when remembering her death, but soon I hear something in my mind.
"(Idiot master, now that the fun is over, remake my body.)" (Layla)