The Summoner's Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

She distanced herself from the Serpent, and decided to fall back to Blythe's group for now.

What Cha Seol-hyun did to her group was mainly area protection and not individually connected spells. By going to her side, she would be able to receive some of the additional protection and leave herself a chance to recover from the stress without the danger posing to be a threat.

She locked eyes with Blythe for a split second, and it seemed like the man had caught on somehow.

Everyone saw as Aria plunged down and created a large crack on the polluted ground, before breaching into Cha Seol-hyun's area spell and taking cover.

"...You and your little life.. They're tenacious, unfortunately." Cha Seol-hyun chided.

Since they were quite far from the rest of the group, with Cha Seol-hyun and Blythe standing on the higher ground, the woman did not bother to hold back her words or continue a public act anymore.

"Shouldn't you be thanking me? If it wasn't for me and Reina, your people would've gotten wiped out. That would be very embarrassing for your image, am I right?" Aria retorted in annoyance.

She was still putting on airs even though the two didn't do anything except for defending their own people. 

This wasn't time to banter with each other, so Aria took a short rest, her eyes lingering towards Reina with hope.               

If Reina already gave her the sign, then she should be able to manage that attack now.

And indeed, the shadows that surrounded Reina began to go on a rampage right after Aria reached a safe place.

The Serpent's rage was still locked on to Aria, so Reina took this chance to halt the creature's movements right then and there.

Her shadows travelled in an extreme speed. Moving through the ground, and reaching the Serpent's location. From where the Serpent laid at, poles of shadows began to swirl up from the ground.

What began as only small protrusions exponentially grew.

The Serpent kept moving, but Reina's shadows kept chasing it down. Growing bigger and bigger with each passing second.

The Serpent only realized the dangers of what it regarded as futile attempts to stop its movements when it couldn't break apart the clutches and cease the growth.

The cage kept on growing until the Serpent was completely enclosed in the shadow cage Reina created.

A black, opaque cuboid that shut Xenos and separated it from the outside world completely.

Right after the cage was formed, and there was no movement from Xenos, Reina clasped her hands together. The cage started to move again. But this time, it wasn't getting bigger, but rather smaller.

Xenos was still held inside. With the cage's slow but steady decrease in size, there could only be one predictable outcome from this move.

Death for the serpent.

'Or, is it?' Aria was in a sullen mood.

If her guesses were correct, then this one move shouldn't be able to erase the Serpent's existence for good.

She watched as the cage continued to shrink with no hindrances at all.

The people thought that this was indeed the end.

A rather strange end, but anything would do in a life or death situation.

No one could wrap their heads around the technique Reina was using.

Not even Blythe and Cha Seol-hyun.

Of course not. They didn't delve in the Shadow element, so this kind of bizarre showcase was unsettling. Even Reina was unaware that such a manipulation could be done.

Reina kept her focus until the cage could no longer shrink.

The cage that was once the size of Xenos, was now closer to that of a Rubik's cube. It laid in the middle of the battlefield. Xenos' struggles created a massive damage towards the environment around it. so the ground where Xenos used to stand was now caved in with a pool of poison.

The more Xenos felt threatened and wanted to defend itself, the more its attributes would become potent. Despite Cha Seol-hyun's protection, some of the weaker people in the group could no longer withstand the poison's influences now that the cage was gone and the poison was set free.

They fainted, and was supported by others. The numbers kept on dropping. There was just no solution to contradicting Xenos' poison. Not even Aria had a resistance towards it and could only stay alive once she used up all her compiled techniques.

Aria gazed at Blythe's group as a whole once more, before heading towards Reina's side.

"..Are you alright?" Elgin was the first to ask. Aria had been fighting so desperately up there. He could see it. How close she was to death.

And yet, now she stood in front of him with seemingly no residue of the former nerve-wracking fight.

"Yeah. I'm pretty fine, I just need to recover and I'm all set. Didn't get injured or anything, so that's good." Aria sighed. "Reina, how do you feel?"

"..Did we take it down?" Reina was out of breath.

Despite her fatigue, the only thing she was concerned about was whether she succeeded or not. Whether she did it right or not. She had so many doubts inside her heart no matter how hard she tried to lift herself up.

Her strength had been consumed by the attack, leaving only a shred of energy left within her, keeping her consciousness intact.

She was teetering between the realm of being conscious and fainting. The line was very thin, and she knew that the prospects weren't looking good at all.

She just needed the battle to be over. She refused to back down, faint, or give up before that.

Sadly, her long overdue rest needed to wait a bit longer.

"It can't be that easy. Let's stay wary. Reina, be sure to recover as much as you can in this period. The technique you used should come in handy any second now, but that isn't a cue for us to relax, unfortunately."

Aria noticed one thing when she penetrated the Serpent's skin.