I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

Chapter 254: Witch’s Heartstrings

She didn’t let the flicker of disappointment linger.

Pandora snapped back into that high-focus, near-ruthless combat state just as fast. Two figures continued to blur and collide across the training ground. The metallic clanging was relentless. The Raider’s assault grew more and more savage.

The bright yellow energy lines inside its body, previously only barely visible, now burned white-hot, as if molten lava was coursing through them. Its internal output was clearly dialed all the way up to maximum.

After round after round of clashes, probing attacks, and offense-defense exchanges, its combat-born consciousness—simple but brutally efficient—had completely mapped out the logic of the human enemy in front of it.

By its “assessment”—

Target’s overall combat strength: high. But that “high” was the product of two separate extraordinary systems being flexibly combined and cleverly layered for a complementary effect. In isolation, each individual power was only marginally above a freshly minted Rank-3. Therefore, in certain areas, the target still had a weak point it could crack open.

For instance...

Its total output ceiling was, in real terms, higher than the target’s. If it could land even a single clean hit—just one—the resulting damage would be enough to significantly carve into the target’s combat effectiveness, and from there, shatter what appeared to be an airtight, seamless offensive!

From that moment on, it could topple the rest like the first domino in a chain.

An overly simple mind was not always a liability. In pure combat, specifically, it meant no concern for self-damage, no fear, no hesitation, no calculation of risk and reward.

Everything served a single purpose: bring the target down.

And that singular focus was precisely what let it, in certain scenarios, claim victory.

And yet...

“Purely a combat golem, then?” Pandora’s inner voice murmured, her eyes growing even sharper. “Then... what about this?”

A decision crystallized.

She abruptly abandoned the follow-up slash she should have delivered. Instead, she threw herself into an abrupt, off-balance stumble backward, staggering like she’d lost her footing.

For something fully locked into battle mode, running purely on calculation and established patterns, a sudden rupture in the combat rhythm was an irresistible, golden opening.

The Raider didn’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second. It seized it.

The massive dark-purple body launched skyward! The crescent blade came down with the force of a thunderbolt, tearing the air open, aimed to split the apparently stumbling girl below clean in two!

Right at that razor-thin edge.

Pandora stopped.

She didn’t parry.

She didn’t dodge.

She didn’t even adopt a defensive posture.

She just stood there. Tipped her chin up slightly. A microscopically thin, eerie smile curled at the corner of her lips.

In her eyes, the rapidly expanding, razor-sharp crescent blade was perfectly reflected.

And then—

The crescent blade froze, suspended impossibly in mid-air.

Less than a foot from her forehead.

And it couldn’t come a single inch closer.

Not because it didn’t want to fall. But because... it couldn’t fall.

You thought you were dancing with me.

In reality, you had already fallen into my web long ago.

A strange, absolute calm settled in Pandora’s clear eyes.

The next second.

HMMMM—

Countless threads of scarlet luminescence ignited throughout the air, all at once.

Not light. But... threads.

Dense, packed, crisscrossing in every direction. Like the most intricate, elaborate spiderweb imaginable, blanketing every inch of the space surrounding the Raider, completely enshrouding, entangling, and pinning its massive body.

These threads were so impossibly fine, so nearly transparent, that even the sharp-sensed Raider had never detected them through the entire brutal fight. Like a meticulously laid, patiently woven trap. Woven silently, beat by beat, through the rhythm of battle itself, through every movement, every exchange.

Just waiting for its prey to crash headlong into it at full force, at the very last moment.

And now it could no longer... escape.

A sliver of cold amusement glinted in the corner of Pandora’s eye. Along with something else... a faint, instinctual thrill that rose straight from the bloodline of a Witch.

With the barest flicker of her intent, a far more intangible, far more concentrated scarlet thread rapidly sketched a blurry, grotesque outline of a heart in the air—far more ethereal than the binding threads holding the Raider in place.

“Time to end this.”

Pandora raised her right hand. Her slender fingers curled toward that phantom crimson heart.

And gently squeezed.

SHRRRK!

Countless cutting sounds, almost inaudible individually but so densely packed together that they set the teeth on edge, erupted in perfect unison!

The impenetrable dark-purple skin. The black sludge capable of rapidly filling and regenerating any wound. The bright-yellow conduits pumping high-concentration energy, fueling all that terrifying power.

In that single instant, they all failed.

Thud.

The Raider’s massive body disintegrated silently in mid-air. Reduced to countless uniformly fine chunks of meat and scattered components, they rained down across the training ground floor with a chaotic, wet clatter. Like a sudden, localized storm of flesh.

Combat complete.

One-shot kill.

Pandora lowered her hand. The scarlet, phantom heart outline dissolved into the air, as if it had never existed. She drew in a long breath. Cold air, faintly tinged with blood and biological fuel, flooded her lungs.

Her Witch bloodline sent back a faint, pleased pulse of satisfaction.

This was her strength, right now.

Witch bloodline and Wizard path.

Dual Rank-3.

..................

The training ground settled back into silence.

The air held nothing but fine particles of dust drifting lazily in the columns of overhead light.

Pandora stood in place. Her chest rose and fell in a measured rhythm, a fine sheen of sweat beading along her forehead, tracing the line of her cheek on the way down.

The scarlet threads woven into their web-like lattice slowly dispersed, as if they had never been there.

She glanced down at the standard training greatsword still in her hand. The purple “blood” staining the blade was rapidly evaporating, leaving nothing behind. She reached up with her free hand and touched the modified Colt semi-automatic holstered at her waist. The barrel still held a faint warmth from the shots fired.

“Witch’s Heartstrings...” Pandora murmured softly, her voice carrying a faintly ethereal quality in the emptiness of the training room. “Even more useful than I expected.”

She paused, her gaze settling on the cold metal frame of the Colt.

“Still, the Colt’s damage output is definitely starting to lag behind.” “Against a target at this level, relying purely on the penetration granted by the micro-rituals isn’t enough anymore.”

“Looks like I’ll need to do some modifications on the ammunition side of things...”

At that moment, a clear, crisp round of applause cut through the silence.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Pandora looked up.

Elsa had long since completed her Reshaping. She stood at the edge of the training ground, clapping softly, a warm, satisfied smile settled on her face.