"Little Thief!!!" he roared, his voice raw anger. The sound echoed through the entire grotto and beyond, a primal scream of loss and fury that made the very walls tremble.

Seraphina sneered, her expression one of amusement. She looked down at the small, impaled creature on her blade with complete indifference, as though it were nothing more than an insect that had accidentally flown into her weapon.

"Pathetic," she hissed, her voice dripping with disdain.

Then, with casual cruelty that spoke of a complete absence of empathy, she deliberately twisted the blade that was still embedded in the little creature's chest. The little thief let out another weak whimper of pain, its tiny paws twitching helplessly.

Knowing exactly what would torture Levi the most, knowing how to inflict the deepest psychological wound, Seraphina made her decision. She raised her free hand, her massive claws extending and beginning to glow with that poisonous purple energy. She moved to attack the beast again, to finish it off completely, to ensure that there would be no hope of recovery or rescue.

"Let's see how you handle watching your precious companion die slowly," she said with sadistic glee coating every word. "I'll make sure to drag it out. Every second of its suffering will be etched into your memory forever."

Levi's face changed and he activated his Crimson Thunder Step, pushing it beyond its normal limits,

[Ding! 9999x multiplier activated!]

[Crimson Thunder Step → Lvl 5 → Lvl 9!]

His speed, which had already been impressive, suddenly increased to a level that defied mortal comprehension. He moved so fast that he seemed to simply blink out of existence in one location and reappear in another, the lightning trail behind him so dense and bright that it left afterimages burned into the retinas of anyone who might have been watching.

"CRACK!"

The sound of his movement was like a thunderclap concentrated into a single point in space. In a microsecond, he closed the distance between himself and Seraphina.

His remaining hand shot out and snatched the little beast from the dagger that was piercing it, pulling the small creature free before Seraphina could even process that he had moved.

Her claw strike, which was about to slash through the little beast slashed at empty air.

But the very edge of her attack caught him as he retreated, her claws raking across his chest and opening four deep furrows that exposed his ribs beneath.

[Ding! 9999x multiplier activated!]

[Regeneration → Lvl 7!]

[Ding! 6836x multiplier activated!]

[Poison Resistance → Lvl 6!]

The system notifications flashed through his mind, but Levi didn't care about them at this moment. All of his focus, all of his consciousness, was centered on the small, dying creature cradled carefully in his remaining hand. The little thief's breathing was shallow and irregular, its tiny chest rising and falling with visible effort. The wound from the blade had pierced clean through its body, and blood was seeping out at an alarming rate for such a small creature.

Without hesitation, Levi immediately began pulling out numerous treasures from his spatial ring.

His fingers fumbled slightly from the urgency, but he managed to extract several precious items that they had collected together during their adventures.

The Moonlit Jade Orchid petals, the crystallized essence from various dimensional fruits, rare herbs whose names he barely remembered but whose healing properties he recalled—all of it came tumbling out.

He stuffed the treasures directly into the little beast's mouth, not bothering with proper preparation or refinement.

When the beast's mouth was full and it was clearly having trouble swallowing, Levi took a different approach. He grabbed several of the most potent healing herbs from his collection and, using his thumb, crushed them directly against the wound in the creature's chest.

For several seconds, nothing seemed to happen.

Then, gradually, the little creature's condition began to stabilize. Its breathing became slightly more regular.

Levi carefully, gently placed the little beast down in a small alcove in the cave wall,

From across the cave, Seraphina watched this entire scene with a expression of mocking expression on her face.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. This guy in the middle of a life-and-death battle, with his own body crippled and poisoned, this fool was wasting precious time and resources trying to save a beast that was probably going to die anyway.

She suddenly moved, wanting to finish off the little beast while it lay helpless in the hole of the cave wall.

"Risking your life for a beast," she continued, her tone mocking and cruel. "What a touching display of stupidity. Don't worry, after I kill it, I'll make sure your death is slow enough that you can reflect on your failures as a—"

"Die."

The single word cut through her words like a blade that it actually made Seraphina pause mid-step. The temperature in the grotto seemed to drop several degrees, and an oppressive feeling of danger, far stronger than anything she had felt from Levi before, suddenly made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

At that exact moment, something extraordinary happened within Levi's body. The droplet of liquefied Astra energy that had formed in his chest from the harmonization of the two breathing techniques suddenly exploded.

The condensed energy erupted outward through his entire body, flooding every cell, every meridian, every fiber of his being with an intensity that felt like burning lava being poured directly into his veins.

Thunder erupted from him like a thunder storm compressed into the shape of a man.

"CRACKLE! BOOM! CRACKLE!"

The sound was deafening, a continuous cascade of thunder that made the entire cave shake and small rocks fall from the ceiling.

The streaks of lightning arced and jumped between the walls, the floor, the ceiling, creating a web of destruction that scorched black marks into everything it touched.

The waterfall at the entrance of the cave was instantly vaporized by the msssive amount of heat and electrical charge that surged through the atmosphere.

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