Abyssal Awakening

Taking a deep breath, Alice closed her left eye and focused her mind. The entire world seemed to slow down around her as she transformed her bracelet into a dagger before extending the threads on her gloves.

Swinging it around her, she took a deep breath before nodding at Allura.

"Well let's hope this isn't the limit of your plan since you've already tried it before."

Flicking her finger, numerous flaming spider lilies appeared in the arena once more as they shot towards Alice, each aiming to 'kill'.

'Pick out the path with the least resistance. I don't have to dodge all of them. Plan the dodge, cut down any that I can't!' Alice thought to herself as she immediately started at full speed. Running to the right, she side stepped two needles before twisting her body and swinging her dagger, cleaving another in half before continuing on.

Seeing this, Allura smiled and fortified her defences and launched another wave of needles while simultaneously gesturing towards Ria to prepare her attacks.

'Two from the right that I can't dodge, one from above and three in front. Tsk.'

Stabbing her dagger into the ground, Alice dashed to the left while slowly closing the gap between the two of them.

*BANG!!!

Before she could get any closer, a bolt of lightning shot down from above as Alice pulled on her thread to forcefully drag herself away from the strike area.

Just as she pulled herself back, another wave of needles appeared above her and shot down.

Remaining calm, Alice once again picked the best path possible and retrieved her dagger, cutting down anything that she could not dodge.

Right now, she had three tools in her arsenal. Four if she counted her poison ability but that was not going to work right now.

First was her kinetic vision, second was her glove and lastly was her physical boost. As much as she wanted to bait using her physical boost, she was not at the stage of having the luxury of keeping the Sigil turned off so that was impossible.

Same goes with her kinetic vision meaning the only flexible option she had was her weapon.

'I need to hold off on the plan until I get closer. If I expose it too soon, I won't be able to use it again without Allura being prepared.' Alice thought to herself with a frown.

She needed to push herself to be as close to Allura as possible.

Dodging a second wave of lightning, Alice transformed her dagger into a staff and started to knock aside the needles using both sides of the stick but times was running out.

As more and more needles are thrown towards her, Alice could sense her options running out as the moment she is wounded by a needle, she'll be forced to turn off her Sigil les she risks herself dying from blood loss.

'Just a little bit closer!' Alice cried out in her mind but Allura simply waved her hand as a barrage of needles rained down upon her while being accompanied by several lighting bolts.

Gritting her teeth, Alice kneeled down on one knee.

'F*ck it! Now or never!'

Just as Allura thought that Alice had reached her limit, Alice grabbed her staff and slammed it into the ground, causing it to transform into a dome around her and warding off the attacks.

With the nature of the strange material the guard was created from, it was not limited to weapons.

Once the barrage paused momentarily, Alice jumped through the dome as the material wrapped around her body, forming a makeshift suit of armour around her upper body.

Mainly a pair of gauntlets and some chest armour.

Raising an eyebrow, Allura was surprised by the durability of the weapon as it warded off her flames with relative ease despite the fact that Alice was still feeling the heat.

'What in the f*ck did Kaden give her?!'

Running forward as fast as she could, she warded off the needles using her gauntlets before twisting her body and transforming her armour into a sword. Putting as much force as she could without any hesitation, Alice swung towards Allura who only smiled as a wave of flames erupted from around her, pushing Alice back.

"ARG!!" Letting out a cry from the force of that attack, Alice rolled against the ground and quickly stabilised herself before dodging a wave of needles.

Looking up at Allura, she widened her eyes at the pair of flaming wings behind her.

"[Widow's True Face]. All of the blood increases in potency. How will you deal with this?" Allura asked as Alice was unable to answer.

Looking at the needles that have transformed into spears, Alice wanted to rush forward once more but was immediately stopped when one of the spears stabbed the ground in front of her.

Had she been faster, she would've definitely been pinned to the ground!

"Alice dear, don't keep me waiting now." Allura grinned as all of the spears shot towards Alice.

"F*ck."

###

Naturally the result of the fight was utter domination by Allura. Alice was unable to deal with the second ability as she was completely outclassed in raw power.

Similar to her fight with Chloe, she was too slow to react or dodge the attacks.

Bitterly shoving food into her mouth, Alice had to admit that she was annoyed. She was annoyed that her plan didn't work and now she's lost the element of surprise against Allura. She'll be ready for when she transforms her bracelet into armour that'll protect her momentarily.

"Oh don't be like that. It was a valiant attempt and certainly better than your other attempts. Why don't you use that armour more if it can block the attacks?" Allura asked curiously as she understood that Alice wanted to save it until the last few moments.

"Material is spread too thin. It can block a few attacks but not a lot. Takes too long to reform compared to just changing it to a weapon. So, I can only use it when I'm close to block some attacks then counter with a weapon attack." Alice answered after swallowing her food.

"Is that so? What's the limit of the transformations?"

"Everything has to stay connected. I can't separate the material apart unfortunately." Alice shrugged. She wasn't sure of what will happen if a piece of the weapon breaks off mid combat, but she wasn't eager to test it out. After all, she understood that this was a priceless item that she was holding in her hands.

A weapon of such versatility was not seen often and even when she did see a transforming weapon like Freida's spear, it was limited by shape unlike her bracelet.

Thinking to herself, Allura nodded her head and smiled.

"Well with this new information, seems like your chances of clearing this hunt has increased from 5% to 10% based on how you use it."

Hearing this, Alice paused mid bite and slowly turned to Allura.

"Wait… I only had a 5% chance of clearing the hunt?"

"Yep! That's including the gifts I wanted to give you by the way. Without it, I'd say you have a 1% chance." Allura calculated as Alice furrowed her brows.

"A 1% to clear the hunt…"

"Oh sorry, I meant a 1% chance to survive approaching her. If you wanted to kill her then that's even lower. But hey, on the bright side it's not impossible anymore. We just need to be smart with how we use your weapon." Allura corrected herself as Alice no longer felt like eating.

She had actually embarked on a Hunt that only has a less than 1% chance of succeeding if she did not include the gifts that Allura was planning on giving her.

Meanwhile, Ria could only pray for Alice's safety as she understood what Allura was like.

After all, when she embarked on claiming her third Sigil, Allura took the same approach when training her and forcing her to get strong enough to complete the hunt.

This was simply Allura's way of doing things and Alice had two choices. Yes and Yes.

"Though then again, it's not really fair since you're unable to use your best weapon in all of this. Your poison blood. It's the main reason as to why I even put this beast on the list of targets. Otherwise I would be training you to kill the Dark Crusader instead since his [Dark Vigor] Sigil is VERY useful for you." Allura shrugged.

Tilting her head in confusion, Alice didn't know how her poison blood would work.

"Fine let me explain. The Blood Widow is a beast that has very very strong offensive power but weak defensive power. Despite being a three star hunt, her actual body is as weak as a one star beast. If you can wound her, she will gather blood towards her main body in order to heal.

This means if you can mix your poison blood into her system, she'll naturally fall into a state of hallucinations making it hard for her to use her abilities to defend herself. That is when you'll land the final blow.

The hard part is getting to this stage as you'll need to traverse her onslaught of attacks and actually succeed in harming her enough to the point where she starts to recover her injuries." Allura explained.

"Wait… Then can't I just shoot her with my blood or something from afar? Ya know load it into a vial connected to an arrow and just, fire in her general direction."

"I mean you can if you want to lose the advantage of her not knowing about your poison blood. There's a chance she recovers from the effects of your blood before you can get to her. It's more potent when directly applied into her body." Allura chuckled while leaning back and pulling out a cigarette.

Falling silent, Alice understood that there were no shortcuts to this. She had to get strong enough to the point she could dodge the onslaught. Everything else becomes easier after this step.

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