Just as Grin started walking toward Elsa's fallen body—
Snap!
A sharp tearing sound rang out.
In that instant, Grin lost all sensation in his tail.
He turned his head and saw that the thick tail behind him, as heavy and massive as a giant anaconda, had been severed at some point without him even noticing.
Only now did the delayed aftermath of Elsa's Northern Kukri appear.
The jagged flesh exposed at the break made his dark-gold slit pupils contract violently, and a low, furious growl rolled up from deep in his throat.
The moment Meili landed and regained her freedom, she immediately moved.
Her hands flickered through the air, constructing a magic circle at once.
Pale blue patterns spread and swirled across her palm, the halo of the spell illuminating her face while the ground beneath her feet trembled faintly with magical vibration.
She still had one more powerful demon beast in reserve.
That was her trump card—
the blade that could cut open the desperate situation she was trapped in.
At the same time, Elsa, whose body had almost been smashed apart, suddenly opened her eyes.
"Splendid… this feeling of hovering at the edge of life and death is truly intoxicating…"
Black mist rose from her mangled remains.
Like countless threads controlled by invisible fingers, it drew scattered flesh and broken bone back together.
Severed blood vessels rejoined, wounds sealed themselves, and her spine closed like a zipper being drawn shut.
In less than two heartbeats, the shattered doll had been pieced back together.
Elsa rolled over and pulled out the reserve kukri hidden at the base of her thigh.
This was the last blade she still had.
"What a pity."
She licked her lips, red eyes sliding between Grin and Meili while the kukri spun a cold flower between her fingers.
"I thought I'd get to enjoy that near-death feeling a little longer. But unfortunately, my body was in more of a hurry than my mind."
Before she could even finish speaking, Grin erupted.
The agony of losing his tail ignited into a fresh tide of rage.
Demonic energy surged wildly through him as dark violet-black mist coiled around his body.
He suddenly arched his back and slammed both forepaws into the earth, cracking the hard ground beneath him.
Then, through the spray of rock and dirt, he charged straight at Meili.
Right now, killing the backline unit that could command demon beasts was the highest priority.
"Don't come any closer!"
Meili screamed, fear finally filling her eyes.
The magic circle in her hand was complete, and the pale blue halo exploded outward.
"Stop him, Rock Pig!"
Boom—!
A deafening roar burst from the depths of the forest, and the ground shook violently.
Then, through the smoke and flying dust, a colossal demon beast charged out.
Its body was enormous, almost mountain-like, its shape closer to a monstrous hippopotamus, with gray-brown rock armor covering it in hard plates.
Its thick tusks aimed straight for Grin's face.
"Damn it, do you think I'm scared?"
Grin charged straight at the Rock Pig.
With the Blessing of the Forest running at full output, his body had grown even larger.
The two giant beasts, each standing four or five meters at the shoulder, crashed together like two fully loaded transport trucks colliding head-on.
Bang!
The impact landed hard.
The Rock Pig slammed into Grin's lower body and drove him backward with terrifying force.
But in the instant that pain exploded through him, Grin's mind turned cold.
The manic fury did not disappear—
it condensed into something ruthless.
He endured the force of those huge tusks gouging into him, then drove his bone-spiked claws into the cracks in the Rock Pig's armor and locked on.
The beast howled in pain and rage.
It stopped charging, then began to unleash all its strength at once, its thick limbs stamping so hard that spiderwebs of cracks spread across the forest floor.
Its enormous head thrashed wildly, trying to shake Grin free.
Deep in the woods, beast and beast entered a savage deadlock.
Dark violet demonic energy surged around Grin like a tide and poured through his limbs and spine.
He arched his wall-thick body and wrapped himself around the Rock Pig's neck like iron chains.
Crack. Crack.
The dull sound of bones and pressure echoed through the trees.
His scaled arms tightened inch by inch, like twin iron bands crushing steel, locking down around the giant beast's throat.
The Rock Pig's roar slowly changed.
What had begun as a thunderous scream degraded into a hoarse dying sob.
Panic flooded its crimson eyes.
Its huge tusks flailed uselessly.
In fewer than ten breaths, the beast was running out of air.
Its kicks weakened.
Its neck sank deeper under the pressure.
Blood and foam leaked from the gaps in its armor.
Hot, foul breath mixed with desperate gasps sprayed over Grin's body.
Grin licked the blood from his cheek with a scarlet tongue, murder glinting in his dark-gold pupils.
By brute force alone, he had strangled the thick-skinned Rock Pig to death.
"And you dared play beast in front of me?"
In the next second, he drove power through his waist and back.
His arms tensed like forged steel—
and he actually lifted the several-ton corpse up onto his shoulders.
Then Grin pushed off the ground, spun with his whole body, and swung the mountain-like corpse through the forest like a weapon.
Branches, thorns, and brush snapped apart as the dead Rock Pig hurtled toward Meili.
It was on course to pulp her instantly.
"Look out!"
Elsa's sharp warning split the roar of the battlefield.
Her red figure blurred into a streak, almost too fast to see.
At the very instant the Rock Pig's corpse swept across, Elsa snatched the back of Meili's collar and yanked her away from death.
Boom!!
The corpse grazed Meili's clothes and smashed into the ancient tree behind her, cracking the giant trunk like a splitting pillar.
Wood chips and gravel erupted into the air, and dust swallowed both girls in an instant.
Using the smoke as cover, Elsa raised her kukri and, with one slash, chopped off her own left hand.
Then she thrust the severed arm toward Meili.
"Meili, go wait for me at the base in the capital. This monster has already entered force majeure territory."
After saying that, Elsa hid the stump behind her back and walked toward Grin with her remaining blade in one hand.
Meili's pupils shrank at once.
The moment she saw the severed arm, she understood Elsa's plan.
Without wasting a second, she shoved the arm into her clothes.
Pale blue runes flashed again in her palm, and she recited an urgent, mournful incantation.
"Come forth, Shadow Wind Wolf!"
A small, lean black wolf darted out from the bushes.
Meili scrambled onto its back, clutching its mane tightly as her teeth rattled.
"Go!"
…
"How many more times can you come back, I wonder?"
The giant beast sat half-crouched amid the wreckage, Elsa's body crushed in one hand.
At that moment, the Bowel Hunter looked as fragile as a broken figurine.
"Cough… cough…"
The crushing force made blood pour from Elsa's nose and mouth.
Even so, her goal had already been achieved.
She had bought Meili enough time to escape.
"Mr. Beast… you're absurdly strong. Next time we meet, I'll definitely cut open your guts…"
"Next time?"
Grin frowned.
Then he noticed it—
Elsa was missing one hand.
Elsa's cheek twitched.
Crunch.
She had just bitten down on the poison hidden beneath her tongue.
From her mouth outward, black corruption began to spread across her body, staining her flesh with death.
Cursed dolls revived by drawing smaller fragments of flesh back toward the larger body.
Any missing part that could no longer be recovered would consume ambient magic and restore itself separately.
So if the Elsa in Grin's hand decayed fully into ash—
then she could resurrect instead from the severed hand that had already been sent away.