*Ghaaaaaiiiiih!!!*

Dai heard the Giant Seagull scream behind her. She was determined to kill the creature. Dai was rather angry that everything had gone wrong. The journey, her life, the danger. It was quite a pressure on her.

Dai urged Stigma to greater speed and gripped the reins tightly with one hand while the other pulled the chakram from her inventory.

She released a bit of her spiritual energy into the chakram. The chakram spun off its own accord and flew towards the Giant Seagull.

Dai quickly checked their direction and pulled the Stigma more to the left so she could watch the beast without constantly looking back.

While she took her eyes off the chakram, he flew off in a completely different direction, but as soon as she saw him again, her mind directed it toward the beast.

The Giant Seagull saw the chakram moving towards it, craning its neck and exposing its beak to the weapon. There was a clang of metal as they collided, sparks flew off, and the chakram was deflected in another direction.

"Tsk." Dai clucked her tongue and pointed the chakram in the right direction again.

The giant Seagull was still chasing after them, but its eyes never left the spinning weapon that flew around it.

Dealing with an intelligent beast was the worst thing that could have happened to Dai. With her bad luck, Devvil was probably waiting for her behind a nearby tree.

She sent the instruction to the chakram again and followed the flight path with her gaze. She was about to strike the beast from the side, but as soon as she turned the chakram in that direction, the Giant Seagull skidded to a halt until it was dusty from its feet, exposing its beak to the attack once more.

Dai understood that this wasn't going to work. She would have to take a risk and attack the beast from multiple directions.

She immediately decided to pull out a Blizzard, which she drank and spun the Stigma towards the Giant Seagull, which was once again charging in their direction.

Dai could see the evil glow in the beast's eyes. She gritted her teeth.

'Courage!' Dai ordered to herself.

She gripped Stigma's body tighter with her legs and pulled out Court and Sentence, letting the spiritual energy circulate through her body and channel it into her legs.

Focusing on more than one thing at a time was hard, but Dai didn't need to aim precisely right now. The Chakram chased the giant seagull from behind while she prepared for a more direct attack.

The Giant Seagull glanced back briefly at the weapon it was chasing before looking back at Dai.

'Damn, how smart is that thing?' Dai was starting to doubt it, but she was ready, and besides, now she had access to her shop again. If anything happened, she could teleport away.

They were only a few feet apart now; Dai kneed Stigma in the side a little violently, forcing her to change direction and dig her feet into the stirrups. Stigma made a disgruntled sound and did what Dai wanted.

"Stigma! Attack!" Dai shouted before lunging forward. The spiritual energy gave her legs strength, giving her bounce more momentum. At that moment, Stigma lashed out with her long fiery tail, which she swiped at the beast's head.

The Giant Seagull was still a beast more intelligent, so he twisted his head to avoid the fire that lit his vision. Dai thus avoided a possible impaling with her beak, flew just past its neck, and slashed at it without any grace or style.

Courz only made a shallow wound on the beast's neck, but it was enough to wake Sentence, who, despite Dai's poor positioning, the saber flew out of her hand and embedded itself in the beast's neck.

*Ghaaaaaiiiiiiih!!!* the beast screamed in pain and threw itself to the side, hitting Dai's legs with its huge body, causing Dai to spin on her axis and fly away like a living boomerang.

Dai got dizzy but luckily landed in the bushes. It still wasn't a soft landing, but it was better than if she had smashed into a tree.

Pushing herself to her feet, Dai admitted it wasn't the best attack, but it served the purpose, and she needed the combat experience badly.

She looked up at the beast as it pulled itself into the air, roaring and flapping its dwarfed wings in anger. From its neck, it has stuck a stabbed saber with blood slowly dripping down it.

Dai's eyes searched for the chakram, which she soon found lodged in the... ass of the beast.

The beast had every right to be upset.

But she wouldn't feel sorry for the beast; Dai took the Fog Fan she intended to use for defense in her free hand, clutched the Court in her other hand, and charged toward the Giant Seagull while it was distracted.

The beast didn't seem to lose sight of her because it immediately faced her, head lowered in hostility and beak wide open, a constant scream coming from it.

Dai's stomach clenched with fear, but she suppressed it for now as she continued her attack.

By the time she reached the beast, she had spread out her Fog Fan and activated the Fog Fan ability. Fog Fan grew larger and harder, setting it up for the Giant Seagull's attack, which tried to stab it with its beak.

It was only Dai's luck that the beast didn't possess an attack other than the physical one.

Fan Shield's encounter with the beak, however, was more powerful than Dai expected, and she gasped in pain. Still, she stabbed at the beast with Court.

She felt it hit a soft spot, but sensing another wound, the beast immediately turned its head and struck the blade with its beak.

Dai wasn't holding Coutr tight enough in her hand, and the weapon flew out of her hand.

"Shit!" Dai cursed and tried to back away.

The Giant Seagull didn't let her and pushed on her shield with its head, knocking her backward.

'That's not good! Guess I can't defeat that beast!' Dai wasn't satisfied, but she would have to retreat.

In her mind, she opened the System interface and pressed the button to enter the Shop.

Her mind froze as a notification popped up.

 

Dai's lips trembled.

'That bastard. Bastard! Bastard!' she screamed inside her head while staring at the beast before her.

She braced herself against the shield, which rumbled again after being hit by the beak of the enraged beast.

She furiously brainstormed what to do. Dai could only hide.

Dai activated her second Fog Fan ability and released a cloud of mist into the beast's face. Giant Seagull shook its head and lifted it.

She didn't wait for anything else and began to retreat while Fog Fan released more and more fog.

She retreated a few steps while Dai crouched under the protection of the mist, more than once feeling her breath somehow shorten.

To make matters worse, she was running out of spiritual energy. She immediately stopped and hid the Fog Fan before making herself as small as possible and using Camouflage.

The fog soon began to dissipate, and the Giant Seagull looked around; Dai could only pray he didn't see through her camouflage. She had relatively little chance, however. The beast had already demonstrated quite a bit of intelligence. That was why Dai was trembling in fear, thinking of every way to escape this.

Maybe if the Stigma came back, but... Dai had ordered her to stay away from the beasts until told otherwise. Now she regretted it.

And she regretted that even though she had told herself that many times, she still hadn't learned her lesson to trust the System.

The fog cleared, and Dai's heart stopped as the beast turned its beak toward her.

"I'm screwed." Dai didn't need the reassurance of being found out. She started to run.

Dai was running for her life. The thunderous footsteps of the Giant Seagull sounded behind her.

Her heart pounded painfully in her chest, and she could hear her blood rush in her ears. A ridiculous thought occurred to her; if this weren't the last time, she would feel all this. Maybe soon, she'd be a gnawed corpse, and part of her would become the excrement of the beast. Ha! Eventually, she will become food for the soil!

Dai didn't understand why she was thinking such foolish thoughts while trying to save her life. Perhaps her mind was already resigned to her fate?

"Gah!" She exclaimed as she felt a jolt in her back and fell forward. She rolled over a few times before quickly lifting her head to look up at the Giant Seagull above her. The beast caught up to her and knocked her to the ground.

Dai was breathing heavily, but it wasn't just from running; the fear tightened her throat.

*Ghaaaaaiiiiiiih!!!* The beast roared and threw its big head toward Dai.

Dai closed her eyes tightly and raised her hands above her head in a vain attempt to protect herself.

She felt a strange sensation in her arms, her imagination playing tricks on her, already picturing her being swallowed whole.

She waited for the moment. Then two. She heard the rumbling footsteps of the beast but felt no pain or pressure.

Slowly she opened her eyes; for a moment, she felt like something was wrong with her hands, but when she opened her eyes fully, they were perfectly fine.

Then she looked up at the beast, and her chin dropped.

The giant seagull was headless. Its body marched in confusion like chickens when you cut off their heads. But after a few steps, it rolled to the ground with a thud. It twitched before becoming completely still.

Dai didn't move. Her eyes darted around, but she saw nothing and no one to kill the beast. Finally, she stood up and walked cautiously over to the beast. She inspected the spot where its head should have been. The wound was strange. She saw no blood or flesh. It almost looked as if the head had never been there. The edges of the neck were perfectly healed and even had fine feathers covering it.

Dai frowned. Did she kill the Giant Seagull? She? How? And also unlocked a new ability? Could that be what saved her?

Dai didn't hesitate and opened her Status Window.

Dai noticed two changes. First, she got a new profession. Keeper... she decided not to comment.

Then she looked at the new ability called Deleting. Deleting? What does that mean? Plus, it's an S-rank ability. Where did she get it? From the System?

"Answer," Dai asked the System.

It took a while for the system to respond.

"Deleting is your innate ability, boss."

"Innate?"

"Apparently, it's one of the abilities you were granted at birth. Its use is difficult for even the System to understand. According to the scan, you can erase part of an existing object from reality."

Dai looked down at her hands; perhaps she hadn't imagined that her hands looked strange before.

Hesitantly, she reached her hands towards the body of the Gigantic Seagull and tried to activate the ability. But nothing happened.

"What now? Why isn't it working?"

"Researching... Boss, this ability can only be used once a week.

"Great. More limited-use stuff." Dai may have been complaining, but it was more because her stress was still draining.

She looked at her luck stat. She only has 3 points in it! Wasn't she a little too lucky?