Round 3 of the Horizon Dawn's first-ever raid boss opened with the comeback of a threat who got the worse end of the battle right from the start.

Illma wasn't happy with getting the short-end of the stick.

The Untouchable busted out of the flaming wreck; her hair greyed with soot and blood bled from the cut above her eyes. Wiping away her blood, gritting for murder, Illma crawled from the debris searching for things to kill.

Then she spotted the spark of lightning in the distance.

Finally, a psychological nutcase got something to blame.

…

Everything was on fire.

Luxinna ran toward the dragon as everything around her burned. One particular flaming structure that once upon the time functioned as a restaurant crumbled as she ran. Golden lightning weaved her ornate armor into existence as she stormed into the dragon’s path.

The dragon limped on, a far cry from the unstoppable beast it was fifteen minutes ago. Sadly, it wasn't dead, and Luxinna got enlisted to harpoon it to death. Given that F-U3 and F-U4 were tied directly to the weapon she was carrying, this job was without a doubt the riskiest one.

The elf surveyed the damage as she ran. It was horrific. The North section of Millian was a blackened, charred husk of what it once was. The slum area which Illma had converted into her base was now a mound of bricks and metals. Firestorm reduced multiple streets into a burnt-out shell, marking the dragon's journey of rampage toward Milian's center. The flame didn't stop with this area if the screaming she heard was to believe. Finally, F-U2 detonating scarred the ground with meteor's crater.

Luxinna checked her mental map. The rampage started from the slum in North section, continued eastward into Illma’s base before being pushed toward the center. Pathwise, they must be near the center of Millian's Northeast section. Luxinna gulped. Unless they snuffed out the dragon quickly, a third of Millian would likely end in flame.

Knowing time was against her, the elf redoubled her speed and leaped into the crater, landing on the severely injured dragon. Wasting no time, she tossed two harpoons into the vulnerable flesh of its wounded tail. Luxinna continued to run along the dragon's spine. Electricity crackled across her armor, cutting a path into the ghost protecting the beast. Along the run, the elf would periodically impale the vulnerable flesh where the dragon's scale laid shattered from the explosion.

In response, dragon struggled mightily, tossing and turning to remove the mosquito harassing it. The movement forced Luxinna to rebalance herself while trying to protect the four harpoons still in her hand.

Suddenly, a fireball blasted her off the dragon's back.

Luxinna's vision blurred from the searing pain, but she managed to fight to the fog of confusion and launched two more harpoons. One missed and bounced off the dragon protected hide, but another found its mark at the site of the dragon's severed wing. Meanwhile, the two remaining secret weapons slipped from her hand and dropped into nothingness.

The young elf landed smack to the earth with a painful thud and a satisfied smile. Then she heard the thumping noise.

She didn’t like what she saw.

All functioning X-cution landed all around her. Each model varied in size and deadliness. Out of the shadow, the head honcho of how today went so wrong stepped into the light.

“Finally,” Illma Zoldiea Road said, toying with two harpoons Luxinna dropped. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. You ruin everything: my toys, my plan, my lovely house. You must have a death wish to challenge the Alliance. Not that I need them here, I alone will get to enjoy your scream."

Magic surged into Illma’s hand, crushing the two harpoons to smithereens.

Luxinna watched the X-cution starting to close in. Behind her, the dragon smashed through another house as it continued to rampage eastward.

…

Luxinna wasn’t the only person who experience things going south.

On the other side of the town, Melody ate a hammer right in the stomach.

Things weren't going well for the young demoness. Numbers was the main problem. Two or three people below her league wouldn’t be too much for her to handle. Hundred, on the other hand, was an improbable number. But Melody wasn’t in it to win; she fought to protect as many as she could.

The body-shot thrust her across the ground, creating a 5 meters long trench before she came to rest. The attacking adventurer leaped after the girl. War hammer held high as she brought it down on the girl. To the adventurer's shock, a grip of steel caught the hammer’s handle, and a flaming punch knocked the flabbergasted woman into a nearby house.

Melody got up, spitting a mouthful of blood while her Cultivation Technique stitched her torn muscle back together. That was the eleventh adventurers. The twelfth and thirteenth rushed her from both the right and left.

The twelfth reached her first with a twin dagger. She batted one aside and dealt with the second dagger in two short moves, while narrowly dodging the thirteenth’s rapier. Without pausing, Melody knocked the twelfth out with a backhand, while a high kick in the chin tossed the thirteenth up to knock-out land.

Barely able to catch her breath, Melody fought off another man lunging to her side with a spear, tripped him with a leg-sweep, before flipping him into an incoming fireball; one more down.

Suddenly, a killing intent flashed from behind. Fight or flight reflex kicked in as Melody dodged, but she still felt a sharp pain in her back.

The girl turned to meet the old man unsheathing his blade. Blood from her shoulder dripped to the ground. The wound hurt, but she could handle it.

“Impressive,” the old man replied. “Incredible responses, but you still need to work on your battle awareness.”

Melody blinked.

Battle awareness? 

Right on cue, a tremendous cyclone slammed into the girl and carried into a wall.

The wind proceeded to punch her through the ceiling, up the second floor, and out of the roof. Then the attack did a U-turn and slammed her into the ground with enough impacted to kick up a dust cloud.

A distance away, a young mage leaped up joyfully.

“I did it! I did it!” She yelled. “I got her—“

A plank flew from the dust cloud and hit the mage squarely in the face.

Melody limped out into visibility; her face scrunched with pain. Still, that didn’t stop her from catching an attacking adventurer by the neck and sent him crashing into a healer-looking girl with a back kick.

Suddenly, her [Heavenly Eyes] detected a flash of magic seeping into the ground.

Melody had a sinking feeling about that.

Without warning, the ground beneath her turned to mud, eroding the girl’s footing.

The old man seized this opportunity, leaping at Melody from the shadow and slashed across her shoulder. The beautifully crafted slash landed with a spurt of blood. Melody flinched from the wound but still able to retaliate with a wall of flame.

However, unlike her previous challengers, the elderly adventurer didn’t fold in one attack. A brush of wind dissipated her flame while a sword stabbed down from the cover of the fire. The gleaming blade pierced through Melody's shoulder and out of her back, pinning the screaming girl to the ground.

“You did well,” the old man replied, driving the blade deeper. “Not many come as far as you did.”

To his surprise, the girl grabbed his sword with a flaming gripped. With blood from her wound dyeing the ground red, the girl blinked back her tears and head-butted the elder in the face.

“Sorry,” Melody staggered up, clothing torn, dirtied with blood and mud, yet her eyes remain undeterred. “But I plan to go a little bit further.”

…

Luxinna eyed the surrounding X-cution. Out of her cape, she pulled out an egg-shape device.

 “Final warning, Road,” she stared down the Untouchable. “Call off this idiocy, or you will regret this.”

“Regret what?” Illma arrogantly stated. “You are surrounded.”

Luxinna sighed and dropped the egg.

The device hit the ground softly. Black pulsating energy rippled out of the egg and swept over the area. One by one, the X-cution dropped out to its knee. Ground unit halted and stopped functioning, while the flying-type dropped out from the sky like a lead balloon.

Illma abruptly found herself standing alone.

“How? What did you do to my toys, bitch!?”

“Your toys?” The elf retorted. “They are psychologically scarred kids, not toys! How can you treat people like this? Seriously, I need an answer to this question! What is in that sick head of yours to make you treat other people like they were lesser than dirt under your heel? What exactly devolved you that far?”

Illma barely blinked.

“Devolved?” She giggled. “I’m the evolution! An ascended being that you will never be.”

Luxinna disdainfully looked at her opponent.

“If you are so high above me, why do you look this desperate?”

“I’m never desperate,” Illma quickly denied. “The desperate are those dragged down by the world! I’m above it, you bitch! My status is my father's grand design! He made me untouchable! Comparing us is like comparing a hell-spawn and heaven ascend, can’t you notice the irony?”

Luxinna remained silent.

“Soul attack,” the elf finally spoke.

“What?”

“That grenade emitted high-intensity soul-wave,” Melody explained. “I don’t know the detail, but the grenade sends a wave of soul attack once it detonates. Theoretically, the soul attack should be so feeble that even a healthy baby could shrug it off. So how did your invincible toys short-circuit from something that weak?”

“How does this have to do with anything?!”

“Heh,” the masked elf chuckled. “My friend will say this get to do with everything. He has a bad personality, but he is a genius when it comes to pushing nerves. You know what he said about you?”

Luxinna continued.

“You are puppet queens, literally. Your X-cutions are so emotionally and spiritually dead that a harmless grenade can defeat them. This fact, more than anything, proves that you aren’t above the world. Heaven ascended god queen won't lead an army weaker than babies. What you are is a little girl who ate everything her parents feed her without thinking for herself.”

“Shut up! My father-“

“Your father is an asshole,” Luxinna interfered. “Trust me. I’m a professional when it comes to asshole father. Guess what, Road, we can’t pick our parent. I can’t dilute the truth that my mother doesn’t want to raise me, and my father hates everything I am. It's a fact. Facts don’t care about your feeling. It must hurt to accept that your mother's death was an unfortunate accident and your father responded like capital-A assholes, right? Sorry, that doesn’t excuse the way you put people in hell. It doesn’t prove you are a god in human skin. The only thing you proves is you're incapable of distinguishing right and wrong without a nanny telling you otherwise!”

“SHUT UP!”

Lightning raced from Illma’s hand, striking Luxinna in her chest, sending the elf crashing into the one side of a charred building and out of another.  

The crazed Illma waited for a second before finally relaxing her guard. Then she broke down, laughing in relief until a flash of gold arrived. Luxinna's super-speed punch crashed into Illma faster than she could retaliate and landed her several feet away.

Meanwhile, the puncher triggered her communication rune as she surveyed the plume of dust rising in the distance.

“Cy, we have a problem. I missed three harpoons and are now fighting Road. I don’t…”

Another blast of lightning struck Luxinna, charring her communicator. However, aside from pushing her back a few feet, the bolt didn’t leave any lasting damage. Luxinna’s lighting-immunity could stop a blast from Zeus himself much less Illma. Even her Ebony certified uniform didn’t get crumpled.

Illma yelled, switching her method of attacking. She didn’t understand how Luxinna took her lightning head-on, but no one could be immune to everything. If lightning didn’t work, she had to use fire. She stretched her hand, unleashing a column of fire which plowed toward Luxinna like an unstoppable tidal wave.

Luxinna leaped to the side; her armor crackled with lightning as her nervous response kicked into high gear. Heat basked across her face as the pillar of fire sailed past her ears.

Luxinna took out three throwing knives and threw it at Illma.

The knives, coated with electricity, sailed across the air at superhuman speed. Illma couldn't dodge the attack on time. She didn't have to as a pale blue hexagonal wall materialized to block the knife, causing it to clatter powerlessly to the ground, failing to do any damage.

“Sorry bitch,” Illma couldn’t help but brag. "That trick wasn’t going to work! Don’t you like it! The Isle of knowledge most cutting-edge Automatic Force-shield. There is no chance you can beat its attack detection.”

Luxinna’s eyebrows twitched.

“Try this!” The elf threw five more knives and a glass-vial at Illma; most of which bounced off the shield and impaled on the ground.

Illma made a face.

“Is this the best you got?” Illma shouted, then the vial exploded into a cloud of red-smoke. “Smokebomb? You must be kidding me.”

Illma started to step out of the cloud. It was a mistake. Illma failed to detect tiny golden lotuses latching on the knives, each flower ready to discharge electricity. Illma's action re-positioned the pseudo-taser in her automatic shield, completely bypassing her defense.

BZZZT!

Luxinna triggered the lotuses, unleashing their maximum voltage. The blade's electrical discharge latched onto Illma, electrocuting her.

Despite the elf's victory, Illma laughed.

Luxinna was confused for a split second until a feeling she never felt before slammed into her. Her muscle suddenly tensed up, and senses of heat invaded her nerve. Luxinna spasmed from the pain of electric shock before a fireball slammed her out of a piece of burnt-out wood she hid behind.

Illma glared the squirming Luxinna.

“Interesting tactic,” Illma commented. “I admit I didn’t see that coming. Sadly, you are way below my league.”

Luxinna recovered in time to survive another fire-ball, but the fight didn’t improve much.

…

On another side of the town, at least eighty adventurers encircled a kneeling girl.

The girl's clothing was bloody with bleeding cuts and scrapes. During the fight, a flying boulder left her face bruised. The girl tried to get up, wincing with pain as her stab wound act up, but pillory of rock still kept her firmly pinned to the ground.

“I can’t believe it takes us this much,” the old man stood exhausted and bleeding.

“Yeah,” said a hobbling scantily cladded woman nursing her broken arms. "What a monster."

Melody Solarmaria was captured and incapacitated.