NOVPUBLucivar's physical strength output is already incomparable to those in the same rank.
Most of the time, he was pulling back his punches.
Based on Sutekh's assessment, his physique is already at the Sphinx-rank, and that alone shows that he was abnormal. Perhaps, at this moment, he would be equivalent to the strength of a Titan Hybrid at the same rank, or even stronger.
Garran, who was most likely an Amazonian Hybrid, couldn't compare with him.
One serious punch, infused with two God strands and his attributes, was enough to take her down.
"Lucivar!!"
A shout reverberated through the air, piquing Lucivar's attention.
Glancing to the side, he saw Mirel was running despite still being in pain, trying to reach him.
Lucivar scoffed and made a pistol with his hand, pointing it at Mirel.
Casting the Night Piercer spell, he fired two consecutive energy beams—one hitting the shoulder, while the other hitting the right leg. Mirel's body was yanked backward from the first shot, and as the second shot pierced him, he stumbled and fell to the ground.
Despite his attempt, the gap in power was too much.
Not to mention, Mirel was already exhausted from the battles, while Lucivar was still eager and strong.
Once he made sure Mirel was going to be fine, Lucivar turned around to focus on Orivelle.
'Hmm? How was she able to move?'
Lucivar was confused when he realized her position had changed slightly.
It was not by much, but he was quite sure Orivelle was a little bit to the left seconds ago.
And since she was pinned down helplessly, there's no way she could move.
'A bit weird, but I should focus.' Lucivar thought before he made a dash, heading straight for Orivelle.
Sensing his movements, the ground bursts with lava as more tentacles emerge, trying to knock him off his momentum and crush him under their weight. But Lucivar's senses already caught them before any of them emerged.
Coupled with his agile moves, he easily coursed through the sea of tentacles.
A smile bloomed on his face as these tentacles provided great cover from the drones above.
Meanwhile, Orivelle was struggling.
She was holding onto the lava slime's two tentacle arms, but with it sitting right above her stomach, she was not in a good position. At this point, the fabric of her outfit was already down to its last strand, and when the last strand broke, the lava slime's body made direct contact with her skin.
Pssh!
"Errgh!!"
Orivelle hissed in pain, feeling her stomach being charred badly.
Gritting her teeth, she channeled as much ether as she could throughout her body.
A relentless torrent of ether flowed from her Supernatural Ego at the center and spread throughout her entire body, causing flames to burn everywhere. With one powerful yelp, her entire body burst with her pale crimson flames, trying to overpower the lava slime's heat.
Swoosh!
But even then, the lava slime wasn't budging.
Orivelle wasn't necessarily aiming to kill it; she only wanted to push it off of her, but he couldn't.
'How is this one so strong?!' She complained inside as the fear of death began to grip her—when she realized she had no way of getting out of this situation. 'I can push all of them off earlier without much issue, but this… It's oddly strong!'
Mercilessly, the lava slime created another arm from its body.
And with the newly grown limb, it encased Orivelle's face, drowning her inside its lava-hot body.
Slimes might be one of the weakest monsters, but a lava slime is different.
It's strong and capable of being cruel.
She moved her legs frantically, her back arching—it was the desperate attempt of someone nearing death.
Though she's a Phoenix Hybrid, there's a limit to how much heat she can handle.
Having her head submerged in lava-hot, slimy substance is not a good feeling; it was suffocating, extremely scary, and a bad way to die. Composing herself enough, knowing that she'd die if she did not—she tried reaching for her Supernatural Ego again.
But it was then she realized her ether reserve was empty.
No matter how panicked she was, she was quite sure that there was still some left for her to use.
In reality, her ether reserve was empty.
Maybe she was wrong, maybe she wasn't—but either way, she was powerless to fight back.
She's going to die!
Just as her eyes slipped and her entire face began to burn, when she was right at death's door, a shadow appeared and slapped the lava slime away. Lucivar came to the rescue, saving Orivelle right when she was about to die.
Enraged, the abnormal lava slime tried to attack Lucivar, whipping its arms at him.
However, one glare from Lucivar, and the lava slime shuddered.
It halted its attack and ran away as if it were a scared pup.
Monsters have far less intelligence than humans, but the primal instinct to survive still persists.
Once the lava slime was away, Lucivar went down to one knee and inspected Orivelle.
"I already told you, we should stick together," He muttered whisperingly.
Hearing this, a tear drizzled down Orivelle's eyes as she answered through a constricted, burned throat.
"I… I thou-ghkk… you're go-eughk to blame me."
"Blame you? For what? Arthur? I knew the person who sent him for me. I'm not going to blame you."
"Th-ankhh… Youh…"
Lucivar smiled lightly and held her hand, sad to see Orivelle in this kind of state.
Even though they hadn't known each other long enough to be friends, they are allies in the second stage, and have fought side by side, so they weren't strangers either. Seeing her cling to life should still be quite devastating, and for a brief moment, Lucivar remained by her side.
He forgot about the tournament for a moment, at least until death came to take her.
'That's what the crowd is going to think.' Lucivar smiled devilishly.
Of course, this was all an act to sell the story.
Devastated seeing Orivelle at death's door like this? Who? Him? That's not possible.
Not because he was heartless, but because he was the one who orchestrated for Orivelle to die.
Moments earlier, before he tackled Garran and rescued Orivelle, he made a detour, sprinting past them to reach this particular lava slime that was right on the path toward the third checkpoint. He pretended to fight that lava slime who 'bothered' him as he took up a good position to tackle Garran, in front of the drones.
In reality, he infused that lava slime with a God strand, turning it abnormally stronger and berserk.
Fighting Garran was only a distraction, to make it seem to the crowd that Lucivar was 'occupied'.
As soon as Orivelle got into a bad position and was almost killed by the berserk lava slime—he would then save her like this. Lucivar planned all of that for the sake of one thing and one thing only, the well-known ability of a powerful Phoenix Hybrid.
Infernal Bloom, also known as Fire Resurrection.
Learning that Orivelle has above 10% bloodline purity basically guaranteed she has that ability.
And Lucivar could steal it with his Greedy Grasp ability.
Letting Orivelle struggle against the lava slime would save him the trouble of absorbing her ether first before reaching her life energy, her vitality. It saved him some time to obtain her ability, making sure that the twisted narrative he was offering to the crowd was foolproof.
Even now, at this moment, Lucivar could save Orivelle, but he wouldn't.
Orivelle moaned a little, feeling safe as Lucivar supported her head.
He's going to bring her to the third checkpoint and heal her there.
Since she could barely move her body, too scorched and battered, Lucivar had to carry her.
But then, she saw Lucivar raising his other hand, and caressed her face gently, softly, like a gentleman.
It took a second for her to realize that Lucivar wasn't helping her.
He was absorbing her vitality!
"Sshh… It's okay," Lucivar whispered, staring gently at Orivelle's round eyes. "It's okay…"
Orivelle's heart sank to her stomach as she watched Lucivar in horror—the calmness he was exuding as he absorbed her vitality was bone-chilling—and it instantly made her recall what Arthur said to her, that Lucivar was dangerous.
'A-Arthur was right… He's dangerous!' She screamed inside her head. 'I need to break free!'
Naturally, Orivelle tried to push Lucivar away.
But she couldn't.
She realized that her limbs or even her entire body wasn't responding to her anymore.
Too much of her vitality was absorbed by Lucivar in these seconds that her body already grew numb.
Finding that her body wasn't listening, she naturally resorted to another thing—her voice.
Orivelle opened her mouth to scream, but Lucivar was faster—his hand clamped over her lips before a single sound could escape. Somewhere, bones cracked—Lucivar didn't know where, and he didn't care as his focus remained unshaken.
He kept draining her vitality.
From her eyes, Lucivar could see pure terror as they were the only thing that could reflect what was in her mind.
Soon, the fiery tear of death seeps out of her right eye and onto her porcelain cheek.
It didn't take long before Orivelle's eyes fixated on somewhere Lucivar had visited before, reluctantly back then as he had no choice, and her eyes now had that place's lifelessness. Lucivar closed his eyes; now that she was dead, he could check his Inner Chamber.
Back in the chamber, he got exactly what he wanted.
Of course, there were options, but his choice was clear.
'I was worried earlier that she might not have it, considering that she was afraid of death so much,' He thought, exhaling in relief. 'But you have it. You're only afraid because you haven't gotten around to trying and using it, which is understandable, not everyone has the bravery to kill themselves to try out a single ability.'
Outside, Caldaros glanced to the side and saw Lucivar embracing Orivelle's corpse.
A peculiar glint flashed in his eyes before he turned away, continuing ahead.
Not too far away, Mirel also saw the same sight, and he immediately dropped to his knees.
It was too late.
He was far too late to stop Lucivar from hurting an innocent person.
Meanwhile, outside of the dungeon, Arthur was brought into an isolated room, which had only a table and two chairs at the center, both made of steel. He was placed here by the Hybrid, told to wait and not do anything that would make his situation worse.
As he sat down, he looked up, realizing that there was a TV, and it was playing the tournament's progression.
Abruptly, he stood up and approached the TV.
On the bottom right corner, he saw a small square-shaped replay, which showed Lucivar embracing a woman, a familiar woman. Arthur's eyes squinted before he realized that it was Orivelle, and instantly, his face fell.
"No… No! No! NO! ORIVELLE!!"
He shouted at the top of his lungs, but nobody could hear him.
Just like how only he would know that Orivelle had died by the Devil's hand, one that reached even the lava slime.
