Chapter 323: The Moment Selene Realized How Dangerous Brynessa Was [GOLDEN TICKET BONUS]

He couldn't help complaining internally that Selene had somehow managed to keep such a terrifying ability hidden from him.

[Don't worry. You've already earned her anger, so you'll get to experience it soon enough.]

The System immediately delivered its usual punch line.

Luke's face paled.

'Right.'

'She saw me sitting with Alia, Isaria, and Estelle, and she probably thought I was enjoying myself with them.'

He slowly began accepting his fate.

'Now I'm dead.'

At the same time, his already-defeated little brother twitched faintly, almost as if it were trying to remind him of something.

"That's your karma for not letting me complete my mission."

"The mission to enter a hole! ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ"

Luke, fortunately, couldn't hear any of that.

And even if he somehow could, he definitely wouldn't want to.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the arena, both Mella and Marrec's expressions had changed as they looked toward Brynessa and the crimson domain surrounding her opponent.

"Can she handle this?"

"Miss Brynessa is very strong, and she will be able to!"

Mella immediately rebuked Marrec, clearly displeased by the implication that Brynessa might be unable to handle Selene's power.

Marrec immediately stopped speaking.

He simply kept his eyes fixed on the battlefield, waiting to discover what the outcome of the confrontation between the two powerful women would ultimately be.

---

Selene looked toward the still-floating thousand-foot-long serpent and narrowed her crimson eyes.

"I have to bring her down."

As she muttered those words, she slowly raised one hand, and Brynessa immediately noticed the movement, her serpentine eyes narrowing as she prepared herself for whatever Selene intended to do next.

"CRIMSON THRONE'S JUDGMENT"

The moment Selene activated another authority of her Crimson Throne, the entire throne began glowing with a deeper crimson radiance, and directly above Brynessa's gigantic serpent body, an equally gigantic crimson sigil suddenly manifested in the air.

Brynessa barely had enough time to look upward and understand what had appeared above her before the Crimson Throne pulsed again, this time releasing a far stronger wave of authority.

The crimson sigil immediately descended with tremendous force.

"This!"

Brynessa's eyes widened as she suddenly felt something deeply wrong happening within her own body, because the blood flowing through her veins no longer seemed to obey her completely.

Her blood began behaving strangely, as though an unseen force were attempting to pull it out of her control, and that interference spread through her entire body, causing unusual spasms to run through her muscles.

The effect was subtle at first, but with every passing second, it became harder for her to maintain complete control over her body, and even keeping herself suspended in the air began requiring more concentration than before.

Brynessa understood that she needed to act.

She immediately invoked another one of her curses.

"F̷a̷l̷s̷e̷ ̷P̷r̷o̷p̷h̷e̷c̷y̷"

Another incomprehensible phrase escaped her lips, yet unlike the strange words that had previously seemed to produce no visible effect, the result this time was immediate.

Selene suddenly discovered that the gigantic crimson sigil above Brynessa had disappeared.

At almost the same time, she looked down and realized that one of the solid blood hands belonging to her Blood Sovereign form had also vanished.

Selene's expression changed.

'What?'

She couldn't understand what had just happened.

She had never seen Brynessa launch an attack, yet her Crimson Throne's Judgment had somehow disappeared, and one of the part manifested by her own Blood Sovereign form was gone as well.

The more Selene tried to recall exactly what had happened, the more confused she became, because she couldn't remember what Brynessa had actually done during that final instant when the serpent had been trapped beneath the crimson sigil.

While Selene was struggling to understand it, her Blood Sovereign body began glowing intensely from within.

Something was happening inside her.

Whatever Brynessa had done was being actively resisted by Selene's Blood Sovereign form, as though the power inherited from her Demi-God ancestor was attempting to remove the foreign influence that had entered her body.

That resistance, however, came at a price.

Because Selene's concentration had shifted toward dealing with the foreign power, her control over the Crimson Throne weakened, causing its crimson glow to become noticeably dimmer, and as the throne's authority fell, the crimson sigil above Brynessa also lost much of its previous suppressive power.

From the outside, the change left everyone confused.

"What's happening? Why did Selene suddenly stop exerting pressure on Brynessa?"

The question spread among the spectators, but there were only a few beings who truly understood what was happening.

Peiro knew.

The System knew.

Brynessa knew.

None of them had any intention of explaining it to the others.

Before anyone could make sense of the strange situation, a sound suddenly came from Selene's body.

Krrk!

Crack!

The sound resembled glass breaking under pressure, and the instant it echoed through the arena, Brynessa released a painful, serpentine cry.

"HISSSS—AAARGH!"

Everyone became confused again.

The attention of the spectators immediately returned to the arena, where Selene's Blood Sovereign form could be seen taking a deep breath, almost like someone who had just awakened from an incredibly realistic nightmare.

'Huff... huff... I am out.'

Selene inhaled deeply as she tried to calm herself, because for what felt like an agonizingly long period, she had been trapped inside an illusion so realistic that she had experienced the sensation of her body being cut apart piece by piece.

She had never seen what was cutting her. And never understood how the attack was happening.

She had only experienced the pain. Yet now she was free.

Selene slowly lifted her head, and her eyes immediately fell upon the gigantic crimson sigil from earlier, which was now glowing once again above the battlefield.

Brynessa's enormous serpent body had shifted slightly from its previous position, almost as though she had attempted to escape the area beneath the sigil, yet she had once again been forced underneath it, and now her body was trembling as painful cries escaped her throat.

Brynessa was clearly suffering from something else.

'A curse-break backlash.'

Selene's expression became heavy as she finally understood what had happened, and for the first time, she truly began to grasp the terror of curse magic.

She had been affected without even realizing it.

That was what made conceptual curses so troublesome to deal with, because their effects didn't always announce themselves through visible power or straightforward attacks, and by the time the victim understood what was happening, the curse might already have fulfilled part of its purpose.

Selene sighed internally.

Within her domain, she could overpower ordinary elemental abilities through the authority of her Blood Element, but conceptual powers were different because they were based on principles she couldn't simply dominate through greater physical force, especially when she wasn't yet at a level where she could freely perceive and interfere with such concepts.

Yet before she could think about it any further, a small hiss came from behind her.

"Tsss..."

Selene immediately became alert and turned her head. But what she saw caused her pupils to widen.