40 The Steel Shelled Turtle 2 (2/2)

The little kitten's eyes open warily as she slowly recovers from the great pain aching throughout her small body. She spits out a glob of crimson blood before attempting to stand up from her prone position. Her legs shake as she pulls herself up, but she is clearly worse for ware.

The little kitten turns her attention to the Steel Shelled Turtle to find that, to her surprise, that the beast was also looking pretty beat up. Its mouth was gaping open as it breathed heavily, visibly steaming. Its eyes also looked dim.

'It must have took a lot of aura to produce such a killer attack... Looks like this is not over yet!' The little kitten's eyes lit up in confidence before she sang out in a chant, summoning the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' once more.

'I can't hold on much longer with all the damage I've taken... I need to end this quick!' The little kitten gritted her teeth. 'While the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' dealt quite a good amount of damage back then, it would still take several more hits to finish this beast off... I need to up the ante... And I know exactly what to try!'

The little kitten's eyes took on a peculiar gleam and she let a long breath. Meanwhile, the Steel Shelled Beast had also begun to recover as its breathing evened out to some level of normalcy. The beast's head retreated into its shell once again, leaving only its gleaming eyes visible as it continues to glare at the little kitten.

A few seconds, later, the Steel Shelled Beast was singing in a chant, summoning those metallic spears from before. This time however, they spent no time hiding and seemed to swim openly in the air and ground as they crisscrossed and charged forth in a waving motion towards the little kitten.

As the little kitten watched this, she suddenly began to sing another chant and soon a familiar, orange flame ignited into life and took on the form of slithering snake. It was the 'Wandering Glow' spell.

'Lets hope this works.' The little kitten let out a nervous exhale as her eyes narrowed in concentration. But before she could act, she found that the Steel Shelled Turtle's spell was fast incoming. Those metallic spikes were just seconds from piercing through her already wounded body. She could not afford to go lax.

The little kitten jumped to safety, just as those spikes crashed into the wall where she once stood. Meanwhile, the little kitten's eyes instantly changed target, from those spikes to the floating 'Wandering Glow' spell and the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' spell which had followed her.

'Now!' The little kitten gritted her teeth while those two spells suddenly took action, shooting forward in conjunction towards the Steel Shelled Turtle.

Within seconds, the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' and the 'Wandering Glow' spell's trajectory grew steadily closer until eventually, the two began to overlap, the flaming snake of the 'Wandering Glow' spell overlapping with the metallic bolt that was the 'Sky Piercing Bolt'!

'I'll call the combination of these two spells, the 'Bolt of the Blazing Snake'!' The little kitten declared as her narrowed eyes watched on nervously.

Meanwhile, those steel spikes were still in action after missing its target the first time. However, the little kitten couldn't spare the time to split her attention when she was performing a new spell that was so crucial to her victory to dodge this upcoming attack.

In this desperate moment where she felt she might just have to take on this deadly attack, sacrificing her body to deal a possibly finishing blow, it was at this time she suddenly remembered another option.

The bracelet!

Back in Evergale City, when the little kitten and Jonathan visited the 'Howling Paragon' and bought all those spells for her, Jonathan also bough her a collar that allowed for emergency communication between the two of them, and he also bough her a protective collar.

This bracelet, when activated, would seek out a target and explode in a blast of aura, like a smaller and more crude version of the Steel Shelled Turtle's attack from earlier.

The little kitten wasted no time after thinking of this method and directed a strand of her aura towards her right paw and activated the bracelet from where it lay.

Once activated, a white blast suddenly shot out and, directed by the kitten, shot towards the incoming metallic spikes, blasting directly on them. A large boom resounded the room as a blast of a few meters long took place, succeeding in actually breaking those metallic spikes into several pieces and redirecting the rest of the metallic spike's careening off course to scrape against the floor, becoming lifeless for the moment.

While the little kitten had safely protected herself from that imminent threat, the 'Bolt of the Blazing Snake' blazed through the small room, the flaming bolt reaching its destination in less than a few second, striking the Steel Shelled Turtle without giving it the time to react.

The Steel Shelled Turtle instantly let out a loud, guttural scream of pure pain as the flaming bolt brutally pierced through its steel shell and penetrated its body, the flaming snake boiling its innards in a matter of seconds.

As the little kitten watched on, she found herself a little horrified as the beast slowly succumbed to the pain and thrashed about aimlessly, as if trying to ward off the pain desperately. Soon, that loud, ear piercing cry slowly grew hoarse and quietened down until it became but a whisper, until eventually, the Steel Shelled Turtle made no sound anymore.

Watching this, the little kitten's only reaction was to hug the floor in her exhaustion. She had finally beat the third test, and without losing consciousness this time... Though she could feel that she was cutting it close...

'Hehe... I knew I was awesome. Now there is only one test left... Just one more.' The little kitten purred. Her eyes were hazy in here exhaustion, yet they also held a bright gleam as she thought on with excitement at how close she was now that she had passed another test