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"GRYYAAAAHHH!"
The Insect Chimera Queen screamed in annoyed pain, hissing furiously at Elizabeth as she charged forward with pure rage. She swung her giant scythes, covering the blades in bright red flames.
Elizabeth met the incoming scythes with her Daylight Sword and layers of sharp Sword Light, cutting through the monster's thick exoskeleton by consecutively covering the creature in her "sharp" light.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
"GRRRRR!"
The Queen hissed even more angrily. Her long centipede tail suddenly caught Elizabeth completely off guard, wrapping tightly around her back and smashing her into the ground repeatedly. At the same time the sharp tip pierced through her scales and injected a deadly, dissolving venom deep into her body.
"Ugh…?! Heh, thanks!"
But that was actually good for her!
"Harmonious Chaos Reversal."
FLUOSH!
The venom circulating in her bloodstream was instantly reversed. It transformed into a powerful antidote and a restorative potion that helped her build resistance against nightmare poison. The same mixture would also be perfect for healing everyone else later.
Feeling suddenly revitalized and leaving the queen thoroughly confused, Elizabeth grabbed the thick tail with both hands and suddenly lifted the entire massive creature into the air.
"Give me back my people!!!"
With a mighty roar, the princess of Frostbane swung the Chimera Queen hard into the canyon walls, into stone pillars, and against the monster's own children. She was careful not to harm any of the people still trapped in cocoons. She sent the queen flying through the air and then chased after her at lightning speed, swinging her blade dozens of times while the creature was still airborne.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
The queen hissed in fury, desperately parrying the blows with her flaming scythes, but she ultimately began taking massive damage. Her hard exoskeleton cracked and broke apart rapidly under the relentless assault!
"You're one damn tough nut to crack! But…!"
Elizabeth's form suddenly shifted. She transformed into a beautiful crystalline ice dragon. Her ice magic surged with immense power and combined perfectly with Harmonious Light through her Skill Weaving Ability. With a single chilling breath she froze the entire beast solid.
Then, by charging all of her power into one fist, it grew into a massive dragon fist covered with hardened, stone-like scale growth. This was something she had discovered she could do by forcing her scales to grow over and over on top of each other.
She called this technique "Overlapping Scales"!
CRAAASH!
Her blazing fist struck the frozen queen downward. The ice shattered on impact, but the combination of being instantly frozen and then rapidly boiled alive created a severe deterioration effect on the creature's armor.
Freezing something and then rapidly warming it can break even the hardest surfaces and materials, such as metals.
And the queen's exoskeleton was just like that…
Thus Elizabeth continuously froze the monster and then boiled her alive. The armor gained more and more cracks as it warmed up too quickly, until…
Crack, crack…!
BOOOM!!!
Her entire armor completely shattered and exploded into countless smithereens. The queen's soft, fleshy inner body was revealed. Elizabeth mercifully sliced it into thin pieces resembling crab sashimi with her Daylight Sword.
"And… Done!"
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
"GYAAAAEEEEGH!"
The Queen cried out in final agony. Her remaining pieces exploded into harmonious light and flames as Elizabeth caught the glowing core and cleanly cut it into two halves.
The rest of the insect swarm was left completely perplexed once they saw their mother die. This gave Elizabeth the perfect chance to join the rest of the group and massacre the remaining monsters with her sharp claws and magic.
After roughly ten minutes of arduously killing as many monsters as possible until the remaining nightmares finally fled and abandoned their nest, Elizabeth dropped heavily onto the ground, completely exhausted.
"Phew… that was tiring…" she sighed.
"Ugh… you don't say…" Mongrel groaned. "My whole body was bitten!"
"I'm exhausted…" Dryad sighed as well. "I should've evolved into the Obsidian Variant!"
"Reinhardt?" Elizabeth noticed he was not speaking. She found him lying unconscious nearby. All the intense effort had finally made him pass out.
"He passed out a while ago. Paragon has been moving his unconscious body around this whole time, hahaha!" Mongrel laughed at the half-elf's expense. "Once he wakes up, his muscles are going to be sore as hell."
"I see," Elizabeth sighed. She quickly sent a Cherubin to heal him and give him some of the antidote she had created. "Now, let's quickly gather everyone."
With the help of Mongrel and Dryad, Elizabeth managed to rescue everyone still trapped inside the cocoons. They carefully freed the victims, revealing dozens of unconscious adventurers. Most of them were people she did not recognize.
A few had taken part in the earlier trial, but only a small number were people she actually knew. Among them was the Oni Samurai, who woke up almost instantly after being injected with the antidote, unlike the others.
"Wha…! Who…?!"
She dashed forward rapidly and immediately gripped her naginata, pointing the sharp blade at Elizabeth, who had already returned to her human form.
"E-Elizabeth?"
"Hikari!"
Elizabeth was overjoyed to see her friend alive and well. She ran forward and hugged her tightly without hesitation.
Hikari dropped her combat stance and lowered her weapon, looking around in confusion as she allowed Elizabeth to hug her.
"W-What… What happened?" the Oni Samurai asked.
"A lot," Elizabeth sighed. "Let me tell you more or less what happened."
Using her Nebula of Memories, Elizabeth carefully inserted her own memories of the recent events, allowing Hikari to finally learn everything that had taken place.
"Ah!" Hikari gasped. "S-So… you're…! THE PRINCESS?!"
"Yep," Elizabeth sighed. "Let's keep it a secret, okay? Everyone else is still asleep, so let's leave it at that… only you and the punk know right now."
"I-I'm friends with the princess…!" Hikari was completely shocked. "T-This is… really a lot to take in…"
"Unfortunately we don't have the time to process it slowly. Can you help me rescue more people?" Elizabeth asked.
Hikari nodded without any hesitation. Her expression quickly became serious and stoic once more.
"Of course. This sword shall serve you, your Highness Elizabeth-sama!"
"N-no! Just call me Elizabeth! No honorifics!"
"Eh? Why? But someone as important and honorable as you surely must want to be called by—"
"No. I want to develop a normal friendship. Being a princess… kind of gets in the way, you know? That's why I decided to disguise myself in the first place."
"Oh!"
Hikari was a little slow on the uptake at first, but she quickly understood everything once it was properly explained.
"Understood. From now on, your highness, I shall refer to you just as Elizabeth-sama-san— I mean, Elizabeth-san!"
"Yeah, yeah," Elizabeth sighed while flying off to collect the remaining monster corpses for another extraction. "Watch this."
"Huh? Oh?!" Hikari gasped as she watched the corpses turn into pure light while Elizabeth extracted their essence.
Ding!
[You have Extracted…]
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