Levi was shocked as he sensed the energy radiating from her transformed body. The oppressive aura that pressed down on him was unlike anything he had felt before—thick, suffocating, and filled with murderous intent that seemed to have physical weight.

Her energy level had actually surpassed the half-step Genetic Soldier threshold and had reached the true Genetic Soldier stage! This was a realm that stood at the pinnacle of mortal cultivation, a boundary that separated the extraordinary from the truly transcendent.

The difference in power level between a Super Soldier and a Genetic Soldier was as vast as the distance between the earth and the heavens themselves. It was said in all the ancient texts and modern military academies that even ten peak Rank 9 Super Soldiers working together couldn't handle a single Rank 1 Genetic Soldier. While it appeared to be just a single realm apart on paper, their actual combat power was insane—at minimum, ten times the amount of a regular Super Soldier, with some exceptional Genetic Soldiers being even more terrifying than that baseline suggested.

Levi's hadn't expected her to actually possess such a forbidden treasure, something that could forcibly elevate her to the Genetic Soldier stage just like that, even if only temporarily.

Seraphina gazed at him with those completely black eyes that held glowing purple irises, her expression one of cold indifference mixed with cruel amusement.

"This is power," she stated simply, her tone carrying the absolute certainty of someone who had just ascended to a higher plane of existence. "True power. In front of me, all tricks are useless."

In that single instant, before her sentence had even fully finished echoing through the cave, Levi felt every hair on his spine rise as an overwhelming sense of danger enveloped him like he had been submerged in ice water. His instincts, honed by countless life-and-death battles, screamed at him with an urgency he had never experienced before.

He had barely activated his Crimson Thunder Step and shifted his body to the side when he felt a sharp, burning sensation across his left cheek. Four razor-thin claw marks appeared on his face, drawing blood that immediately began to trickle down toward his jaw.

The pain was sharp and immediate, but what truly shocked him was that he hadn't even seen her move. One moment she had been standing fifteen feet away, and the next moment his face was bleeding.

"BOOOOOM!"

The cave wall directly behind where his head had been a microsecond earlier exploded with force. Chunks of solid stone the size of human heads blasted outward, and when the dust settled, four deep claw marks could be seen gouging into the wall, each furrow at least six inches deep and perfectly parallel to the others. If his head had still been in that position, those marks would have been carved through his skull instead of the stone.

Crimson lightning rippled out from beneath Levi's feet in chaotic, branching patterns as though he were riding thunder itself. He activated his Thunder Step technique to its absolute limit, pushing the skill harder than he ever had before. His body became a blur of red and white as he desperately tried to create distance, barely able to dodge Seraphina's relentless assault.

She was so impossibly fast that she moved like a living blur—no, faster than that, she seemed to partially phase in and out of visibility as she attacked. He was completely unable to track her movements with his eyes and was relying purely on his danger sense to tell him where the next attack would come from.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

The sounds of her claws cutting through the air created a terrifying symphony of death. Each slash created a visible distortion in the atmosphere, miniature vacuum trails that collapsed back on themselves with sharp cracking sounds.

However, as the battle continued, a realization began to dawn on Levi. She wasn't fighting him seriously. She was simply toying with him, the way a cat plays with a mouse before delivering the killing bite.

Each of her attacks was precisely calculated to wound rather than kill.

Her poisonous claws and blade scraped across his entire body, opening up numerous deep wounds that penetrated all the way down to the bone. His transformed white fur was quickly becoming stained with blood.

The poison coating her weapons was seeping into his system, attacking his nerves and making every wound feel like it was on fire from the inside out.

"Slash!"

All of a sudden she managed to get past his speed entirely.

Her claws, glowing with that sickly purple energy, suddenly swept horizontally across his left shoulder.

Levi's eyes widened in shock and pain as he felt his entire left arm flew from his body.

The limb, still transformed with white fur and deadly claws, flew through the air in a spray of blood before hitting the ground with a wet, heavy thud several feet away. It twitched once, twice, then lay still, disconnected from the nervous system that had controlled it.

The pain was excruciating, a white-hot agony that threatened to overwhelm his consciousness entirely. But Levi, gritted his teeth through the pain, controlled his muscles to contract as he stopped the bleeding almost immediately.

"Clever."

Seraphina licked her claw with her tongue as she chuckled.

Levi continued to use his cleaver in his remaining right hand to desperately parry and deflect the most fatal attacks, but the accumulating fatigue from both his wounds and the poison coursing through his system was beginning to slow him down noticeably.

His movements, which had been sharp and precise at the beginning of their fight, were becoming sluggish and predictable. His reaction time was deteriorating with each passing second.

After each successful attack from Seraphina that broke through his defenses, a notification from his system would appear in his mind's eye.

[Ding! 50x multiplier activated]

[Poison Resistance → Lvl 1]

[Ding! 500x multiplier activated]

[Regeneration → Lvl 3]

[Ding! 77x multiplier activated]

[Crimson Thunder Step → Lvl 4]

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