Evolution: From Little Devil to Devil Empress

Chapter 402: Banishment

”Is there really nothing besides me and these bronze statues?”

Liora glanced at the devastated planet around her with faint confusion in her gaze.

Several minutes had passed since the fight began.

Having reached this point, Liora would of course not take a unilateral beating.

Once she realized that she could not damage the statues in the slightest, she sought alternative ways to deal with them.

Her first focus was the trial space itself.

During these minutes, Liora had wandered around the planet while fending off the opponent’s attacks, searching for anything that could assist her.

Unfortunately, she discovered nothing of value nor any great secrets.

Similarly, Liora realized that she could not leave this planet.

She could only fly for a few kilometers before hitting an invisible ”wall” in the distant sky.

Surprisingly, the starry sky around the planet was fake.

Besides the planet itself, everything else was nothing but an illusion created by the inheritance palace.

Having gone through these two experiences, Liora realized that the combat trial was truly different than the one testing the challenger’s talent.

Here, there were no tricks or any mysteries involved.

The challenger had no way of passing the trial through luck or trickery.

All one could do was defeat the bronze statues.

If they failed, they would die.

Of course, this was the case that Liora was facing.

According to Assira, the normal process should not be to defeat the bronze statues, but to remain undefeated against them for a short period of time.

Similarly, a normal challenger would not face a dozen of them. In most cases, they would only face one or two. At worst, three.

Unfortunately, Liora was obviously not an ordinary challenger, and she was not undergoing an ordinary trial.

”This is... difficult.”, Liora couldn’t help but mutter, as she wrapped the incoming club in the power of Nothingness and threw it to the side, before taking a step to the left, dodging the threatening spear narrowly.

Staring at the bronze statues, which were as threatening as when they first woke up, Liora realized that wearing them down was not an option either.

Thinking of this, her eyes narrowed. She didn’t wish to keep this fight going on for long.

”It seems that I can only use that.”, she whispered and didn’t hesitate to take action.

Before the bronze statues could launch their next attack, Liora had already moved.

This time, she didn’t activate one single ability, but several of them at the same time.

The projection of the Land of Nothingness materialized above her head, and its boundless power descended.

The black serpent, coiled around her finger, let out a roar and quickly transformed into an illusory river that wished to drown everything.

Most importantly, Liora’s own body shook.

Her blood boiled while a soul-crushing, eerie sound echoed from within her.

The next moment, with an imaginary line stretching from her forehead to her feet, her body was swiftly divided into two.

Blood, bone chips, and even brain matter splattered everywhere, creating a gruesome scene.

Fortunately, the Indestructible Matter moved quickly and sewed the injuries together.

As the surfaces of the broken parts squirmed, their appearances also changed.

Soon, two identical Lioras had appeared on top of the planet, making it almost impossible to see which one was the real one.

Although one of them possessed a more powerful aura and could thus be judged to be her real body, the difference was not too great.

Both possessed power at the True Spirit stage and were quite powerful among True Spirit Greater Devils.

However, Liora displayed no happiness.

Feeling that almost forty percent of her Indestructible Matter had been consumed and was draining away from the clone at an astonishing rate, she couldn’t help but feel a little heartbroken.

She knew that if the clone were to perish, she would suffer a great loss.

Similarly, if the fight were to last for a while, she would also suffer greatly.

Realizing this, Liora didn’t dare to wait any longer.

With a move of her mind, Eclipse was thrust forward.

The gray sphere fell onto the bronze statues and began to revolve, attracting four of them and pulling them away.

Then, the sphere broke apart and transformed into various weapons, entangling with the statues and preventing them from escaping.

What followed next was the Snake of Time.

As the illusory river extended like a snake, it also wrapped around four statues and pulled them away.

Unlike Eclipse, though, which only attempted to entangle them, countless illusory water drops shot out of the river and fired at the statues.

Although they failed to cause them any real harm, it was more than enough to contain them.

Finally, the last one to take action was none other than Liora’s clone.

With a wave of her hand, countless elements gathered around her and entangled three more bronze statues.

A powerful domain from the four elements was formed almost instantaneously, slowing down their movements as if they had fallen into a quagmire.

From start to finish, less than a split second had passed.

Yet, in such a short amount of time, eleven out of the twelve bronze statues had been contained.

Only one of them remained unattended, facing Liora alone, like the final soldier on the battlefield.

Liora immediately took advantage of this opportunity.

With a flicker, she flashed forward and appeared beside it before coughing a mouthful of blood on her own hand.

Then, while using her other hand to fend off the incoming halberd, she moved the blood-dyed hand and began scribbling inexplicable patterns on the bronze statue’s body.

She didn’t complete her goal at once.

She had to evade several times and dance around the statue in order to continue her ”painting”.

Yet, slowly but surely, more and more Devil Runes took shape on the bronze statue’s body.

Before long, the originally lone patterns became part of a bigger picture and began to merge.

A small formation soon appeared.

It was something created through Liora’s insights into the World-Descending Array, as well as the runes she had comprehended from the Universe Chamber of Commerce’s space gate.

The moment the formation materialized, the Devil Runes evolved with a breathtaking light.

Then, a powerful teleportation force arrived out of nowhere.

Although the space within the trial seemed strong and should have been able to get rid of it, it didn’t try to dissolve that force.

Instead, it allowed it to fall onto the bronze statue and act on it.

The next moment, the space around the statue was torn apart.

A small space crack formed, which quickly grew bigger.

Within a moment, it had grown large enough to contain the entire bronze statue.

Then, the crack swallowed it whole.