The Girl Who Looted Tomorrow

That utterly technique-free punch was, of course, blocked by Jerome with his other hand.

But the moment his palm caught Life Freya’s fist, he felt a sharp, numbing pain shoot through his palm and wrist. Immediately after, Life Freya’s fist opened, and her fingers slipped between his.

Just like that, their hands were locked together.

At that instant, Jerome’s [Intuition] began screaming warnings like mad. But both of his hands were caught tightly in Life Freya’s grip, leaving him no way to retreat.

Life Freya, relying on her excellent flexibility, lifted her right leg. Her bare, pale, delicate little foot swept upward from below and slammed hard into Jerome’s jaw.

Of course, to Jerome, there was nothing soft or charming about that kick. Several of his teeth were knocked clean out, and his entire body was sent flying backward.

Everything happened in a flash. Even at the very end, Jerome still could not understand why an Earth Path healer had this much strength.

As for the truth, Life Freya had already completed a round of [Lifeform Modification] on herself before the battle began, replacing her body structure with War Freya’s.

The result was that her physical ability now approached War Freya’s. However, because she did not have [Blood Fury], Life Freya could not keep increasing her physical ability by staying at low health. For a healer, though, this was already more than enough.

As a [Rank Five General], Jerome could only match a normal-state [Rank Four Warrior] in physical ability if he fully benefited from [Battle Formation]. But right now, the black-shadow Soldiers had been divided into small formations and small battlefields. He could not receive the full buff from [Battle Formation], which meant Jerome’s physical ability was actually below Life Freya’s.

The others did not know any of these details.

Especially in Jessica’s eyes, what she saw was Jerome charging straight at their healer. Then, just as her heart tightened with worry, the healer kicked Jerome flying back.

Jessica stared.

“???”

Huh?

Was that… right?

Still, Jessica reacted quickly. Taking advantage of the moment Jerome had just been kicked away, she raised the spear in her hand and hurled it.

With a flash of electricity, the spear pierced straight through Jerome’s chest.

Just as Jerome had caught Jessica off guard at the beginning, this result came entirely from Life Freya catching Jerome off guard.

It was quite the boomerang.

It was worth mentioning that after Life Freya modified herself, she discovered that her [Mind Sense] and [Source Trace] had weakened considerably. Her sensing range, sensing precision, and spirituality recovery speed had all declined.

To put it another way, if Life Freya was a tree, then her feet were naturally the roots. Standing barefoot on the ground was like taking root in the soil, allowing her to draw nourishment from the earth.

After modifying herself, however, it was as if she had plated those roots in a layer of metal. Her defense had indeed gone up, but for a great tree, that did not seem like a good thing.

Right now, Life Freya’s most obvious feeling was that walking barefoot on the ground no longer felt as comfortable as before.

But that was not a major issue. [Lifeform Modification] was not permanent. If Life Freya wanted, she could simply change herself back after the battle ended.

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Back on the battlefield, Jerome crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.

In that instant, the entire battlefield seemed to fall silent.

No, it did not merely seem that way. All the black-shadow Soldiers had truly stopped moving.

After coughing up several mouthfuls of blood, Jerome slowly turned onto his side and climbed up from the ground. Jessica’s attack had dealt him a fatal wound. He had already entered the state of [Battle Continuation].

If it had been another War Path practitioner, they might have used this strongest final state to launch a frenzied revenge. But to Jerome, that was meaningless.

Instead, his expression calmed. He swept his gaze across everyone present, then sighed.

“Perhaps this is heaven’s will. This ending is not bad for me either…”

In truth, destroying one of the kingdom’s first-tier cities had placed a burden on Jerome’s own conscience as well. Now that his operation had failed before it even began, perhaps that was not necessarily a bad thing.

“It is only a pity… I still cannot let go of that territory, or those three cities…”

Seeing Jerome like this, Life Freya could not help speaking, even though he was their enemy.

“If you truly wanted to save this country, then you should never have tried to prepare your advancement ritual inside the Kingdom of Tarapaca. Would it not have been better to go directly to the Pentagram Alliance, the nation trying to start a war with Tarapaca?”

Of course, there was a certain sense of “easy to say from the sidelines” in Life Freya’s words. A massive plan involving an entire city was not something one could simply do just because one wanted to.

The most important issue was materials. Such an enormous occult array naturally required a huge amount of resources. Jerome had only managed to obtain them in his own kingdom’s city by relying on his status as a general, along with help from others.

If he had tried to do the same in another country, the difficulty would have skyrocketed.

Jerome gave a helpless expression and answered honestly, “I did think about that. But the issue of transporting large quantities of spirituality crystals alone trapped me completely.”

Life Freya said, “Then that was your problem. You are not even afraid of death. You were already prepared to save the Kingdom of Tarapaca no matter what. In that case, stop blaming heaven and earth. In the end, it only means you did not work hard enough.”

Jerome stiffened.

He fell silent for a long while, then suddenly laughed again.

“You are right. In the end, the reason was that I was not strong enough, and I did not work hard enough.”

Life Freya sighed and said, “In a sense, I do understand you. I cannot accept that king surrendering without a fight either. If I were the one making the decision, I would never hand over even an inch of land, no matter the cost. A nation’s soil must be defended inch by inch.”

“Inch by inch… defended inch by inch…”

Jerome kept murmuring those words under his breath. Finally, he looked at Life Freya and smiled.

“You are right. I…”

But before he could finish, the effect of [Battle Continuation] seemed to end. His entire body fell straight to the ground, and all life left him.

Life Freya, however, sensed something faintly strange. Her delicate brows drew together slightly.

Before she could say anything, a system prompt suddenly appeared in front of Freya’s main body far away.

[Detected successful survival of the second death crisis. System upgrading…]

Seeing this, Life Freya swallowed the words she had been about to say.

Since the system said the death crisis had ended, that meant the city had been saved. Everything else had nothing to do with her.

Life Freya turned to Archbishop Pantheon and the others.

“Let’s go.”

Before she left, however, Jessica could not help saying, “Thank you very much for your help. And this… may I ask your name?”

Life Freya paused slightly.

After thinking for a moment, she answered in a light, sweet voice that felt pleasant just to hear.

“You can call me Columbina.”

Come to think of it, even the people of the Earth Church, Pantheon and Atticus included, did not know Life Freya’s name. She had rushed to the church in a hurry, called everyone out to help, and never introduced herself. Jessica was actually the first person to ask her name.

But Life Freya obviously could not say that her name was “Freya” or “Life Freya.” She needed another name.

So she thought about it. Her current outfit had been designed as a Columbina cosplay outfit, even if the resemblance was not perfect.

When someone asked her name, aside from her real name, “Columbina” was the second thing that came to mind. Thinking about it carefully, the name Columbina itself carried meanings like “peace” and “purity,” which really did suit this Earth Path clone.

Life Freya muttered silently in her heart, Sorry, little dove. I’m borrowing your name for a bit.

Jessica nodded and said, “Miss Columbina. That is a lovely name. Thank you.”

After that, the Earth Church members left the scene.

The perspective shifted to Freya’s main body and Euphemia. After watching the whole battle, Euphemia could not help saying excitedly, “Faye, did you see that? That Earth Church girl in the white dress, the one with white hair, was amazing! She sent Rank Five General Jerome flying with one punch!”

“And she was so cute too. So pretty!”

“Uh… yeah.” Freya had no idea what expression she should make.

From her perspective, was Effie not basically praising her wildly right in front of her face?

However, seeing Freya’s expression, Euphemia somehow added another sentence.

“Of course, Faye, you’re super cute too.”