The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

Chapter 208: Suffering a Loss Due to Materials

With this, it didn't even matter if Alice had sealed Marion's bedroom with psychokinesis. Andusia's dragon form had caused the entire villa to burst into smithereens. So, the room that Rosa and Marion were in had similarly been destroyed.

Fortunately, Rosa's skills as a thief did not grow rusty even after her retirement. So, the instant large cracks started appearing on the walls of the room, she promptly grabbed Marion and fled through one of the cracks. Had Rosa been a moment slower, both she and Marion would have been crushed into meat paste under Andusia's titanic dragon form.

Meanwhile, after escaping from the destroyed house and landing in a clearing outside the villa, Rosa looked back to the villa to see what had happened exactly.

"Dragon's Shadow" Rosa muttered when she saw the massive black dragon that was fighting back against a holy cross composed of light mana.

A successful thief needed to possess a wide range of knowledge. Although the information she had access to paled compared to an entire kingdom's intelligence department, she still recognized the taboo known as Dragon's Shadow. When used, Dragon's Shadow created a phantom of a dragon that could fool the world and grant the taboo's user the strength of a true dragon.

Yet, despite having the frightening strength of a true dragon, the black dragon before her was currently letting out an agonizing cry as it tried to fend off the cross slash. A moment later, the cross slash had even cut through the black dragon's wings like tofu, severing the wings from the dragon's body.

Although the cross slash had disappeared after severing the black dragon's wings, the cross slash's light mana continued purifying both the black dragon's wings and body. However, just when it seemed like the fight was over, the black dragon's body suddenly began expanding like a balloon, its size nearly doubling in the blink of an eye.

Rosa's expression instantly changed when she saw this. Immediately, she turned around and embraced Marion. Then, she began concentrating all of her mana on her back.

Boom!!

Along with a terrifying explosion that sounded from the villa's ruins, Rosa felt a torrent of mana scorching her back. At the same time as this scorching mana was rapidly depleting Rosa's mana reserves, it also sent Rosa and Marion flying and crashing into the ground several dozen meters away.

Fortunately, the black dragon's self-destruction attack was primarily aimed at Alice. Hence, the torrent of scorching mana was only the residue of the explosion. Even so, Rosa had still expended all of her mana just to defend against it, so it could be seen just how powerful the black dragon's self-destruct was.

At this point, there were no intact villas in the villa district anymore. Although the villas here had been reinforced with magic, there was no way the civilian-level defensive magic cast on these villas could withstand an explosion caused by a taboo-level self-destruction.

For villas located far away from the explosion's epicenter, they only had a few of their walls torn down by the explosion's shockwaves, revealing the shocked residents inside. For villas located close to the epicenter, they were demolished entirely, and the residents inside were probably buried alive. The disaster relief team would definitely have a lot of work to do later.

Fortunately, unlike Rosa, these buried residents did not experience the explosion's shockwaves in an open area. They had the magically-reinforced walls of their houses to act as a buffer for them. So, unless they were very unlucky and got hit in the head by falling debris, these buried residents should be fine and alive. At most, they would have suffered a few scrapes and bruises.

Alice, the first victim of the explosion, naturally wasn't feeling very well right now, either. She did not expect Andusia to suddenly self-detonate her Dragon's Shadow. So, she had no choice but to hastily erect an Enochian Prism to defend herself.

As it was a hastily erected Enochian Prism, its defensive properties weren't as strong as one that was cast normally. As a result, the barrier had shattered after blocking the brunt of the explosion, leaving Alice defenseless against the explosion's shockwaves. Fortunately, apart from suffering a few burns, Alice didn't suffer any other injuries.

However, Alice didn't have time to tend to her burns. Psychokinesis Transcendence allowed her to pinpoint Andusia's location amidst the dust clouds raised by the explosion, so she promptly gathered mana in her hand and cast Forest Crystallization at the Demon King.

Immediately, a massive amount of mana gathered around Andusia's position and created a dark-green crystal that encapsulated her. Then, the natural mana inside the crystal condensed into a solid state to form bindings that restrained Andusia's miniature body, robbing her of her movements.

"Tsk. The elves' taboo?"

Andusia's expression turned a little ugly. She didn't think that Alice could pinpoint her location even within such a dense cloud of dust. This meant that Alice had already developed her mental prowess to a considerable extent, which was outside her expectations. She thought that Alice was merely a Hero that had yet to develop any significant strength. However, it would seem that she had severely underestimated the little girl.

Andusia also recognized the "Forest Crystallization" Alice had used as one of the elves' taboos. However, while the taboo had powerful restrictive abilities, it wasn't infallible.

Alice had also quickly noticed something wrong after restraining Andusia. While Forest Crystallization had indeed restrained Andusia successfully, it didn't stop her from using mana. After having her mobility robbed, Andusia opened her mouth and spat out a sphere composed of black mist. Immediately afterward, with the sphere as the center, a powerful gravitational force appeared and tried to absorb the dark-green crystal into the black sphere.

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Isn't this gravity magic a little too much of a cheat?

Alice grew a little frustrated because of this situation. She felt that Andusia's gravity magic was too absurd to be able to attract even the mana of a taboo. It was no wonder why, apart from learning one of the standard elemental magic, Demon Kings would also try to train in a special type of magic for their secondary magic.

To make matters worse, while the giant crystal created by Forest Crystallization could restrain the target trapped within it, the crystal also prevented people on the outside from harming the trapped target. Hence, Alice had no way to interrupt the miniature black hole Andusia had created inside the crystal unless she canceled Forest Crystallization. However, Alice would be playing right into Andusia's hands if she did that.

Alice had used Forest Crystallization so that she could capture Andusia alive and get some information out of the other party. However, it would seem that the other party wouldn't be letting herself get captured obediently.

Since physical attacks can't reach her from the outside, I'll just use magic, Alice thought to herself with a frown. Although she couldn't physically attack Andusia through the crystal, she could still influence the crystal's interior with magic. After coming to this conclusion, Alice promptly raised the Hero's Sword in her right hand, using it as a staff as she cast another taboo:

Hubert's Tree!

Immediately, trees began rampantly growing out from the ground around the dark-green crystalthis was the effect of the taboo "Hubert's Tree." When cast, Hubert's Tree would expedite the growth of trees in a certain area and manipulate these trees to restrict one's enemy. Moreover, these trees carried a frightening amount of mana meant for restraining purposes. So, the average person who got trapped by the taboo wouldn't be able to break free from it.

"Hubert's Tree? What are you using this spell for?"

Andusia also recognized the taboo Alice just used, and she couldn't help but laugh coldly at the young Hero's futile attempt. However, just as Andusia was about to ridicule Alice for her foolishness, she suddenly noticed something was amiss.

The miniature black hole before Andusia suddenly started to destabilize. Then, under Andusia's shocked gaze, the black hole disintegrated into mana and scattered to the surroundings.

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What's going on?

Andusia was momentarily stunned, her mind failing to comprehend how Alice had managed to disrupt her spell. However, her surprise lasted only for a moment as she quickly realized that the black hole's collapse wasn't caused by Alice directly. Instead, it was a result of her losing control over her mana.

Upon realizing this, Andusia's expression quickly changed as she looked downsure enough, there were thick tree branches rapidly growing out of her petite figurine body.

Hubert's Tree's effect was to expedite the growth of trees in the affected area. Meanwhile, the material used to craft her figurine body just so happened to be wood!

After realizing this point, Andusia finally understood why Alice had used Hubert's Tree. The young Hero had done so to cause tree branches brimming with mana to grow on her figurine body. This, in turn, would disrupt the flow of mana within her body and cause her to lose control of her mana.

Unfortunately, by the time Andusia had realized this point, countless tree branches were already growing out of her body. Meanwhile, with Alice's mana mixed with hers, Andusia couldn't cast any magic whatsoever.