The minutes inched forward.
Everything about the Plague Lord was disgusting, including his mana.
As it latched onto Iris' body and corroded her insides, she not only felt pain, but discomfort so severe it genuinely restricted her movements.
'Not good.'
She sensed its every movement.
She sensed it as it dug into her chest and disappeared into the ethereal plane, corrupting her soul.
'Dammit!'
It was happening much faster than she expected.
The Plague Lord certainly understood what Damien was doing on the surface. Since he would be at a disadvantage once his abscesses were removed, he must've put far more power into the mana he used to attack her.
If he could kill her, he could kill Damien!
Otherwise, he would lose!
This was the situation they'd come to.
'I have at most five minutes remaining.'
She couldn't see Damien's progress directly, but the fog in the atmosphere cleared considerably, and it didn't feel like she was being continually damaged with nearly as much rapidity as before.
This was good.
After all, just as the Plague Lord put her in a bad situation, she'd done the same for him!
There were thousands of rock golems flying in the sky, being controlled by her Divine Energy, attacking the Plague Lord without an ounce of humanity.
They were not living beings.
Whether he used his locusts or plagues, he couldn't destroy them.
He had corrosive tentacles, of course, but as the battle progressed, Iris realized that only his lower body could transform in such a way.
As long as the rock giants controlled the situation and made sure those tentacles couldn't form, he was defenseless!
The Plague Lord was already gritting his teeth.
He had to trust the mana he already spread into the atmosphere to corrode Iris, only attacking her intermittently.
Though he put a great deal of his Divine Energy into those attacks, he had to focus most of his attention on her army!
They weren't powerful individually. Aside from the rock giants, the rest had mediocre power.
But they were not made to attack.
They threw themselves on his body and allowed themselves to be struck by him. It didn't matter if they were broken, because each time they touched him, they exploded into bursts of Divine Energy that tore away several layers of his sludge!
He wouldn't mind much in a usual battle.
His sludge falling would only exacerbate the situation for his enemy.
But the presence he couldn't sense that was on the surface right now was destroying his abscesses and sludge as they fell!
No, it wasn't destruction, but complete annihilation.
They didn't even have the chance to accomplish their tasks before disappearing from existence.
That person was a far greater threat to him than Iris.
If Damien was a Divinity, the Plague Lord would've died instantly because of how bad their match-up was.
And though the Plague Lord didn't know he was still a lower existence, the fact that someone with such an advantage wasn't participating in a direct confrontation meant they were weak!
He would prefer to target that person, but Iris was getting in the way.
She was too troublesome for him to ignore, and the person on the ground was useless without her, so he had no choice but to keep his attention on her!
"GRAAAAH!"
He roared.
He was annoyed, and he was panicking just slightly.
His body seemed infinitely layered, but it wasn't.
Now that hundreds or thousands of layers had already been peeled off, he only had half his original amount.
If this continued…
It became a true battle of attrition.
A battle of whether Iris' golems could strip him first, or if she would die before accomplishing it!
Neither side was actively attacking with as much force anymore.
Since Iris had to use mana to control the golems, and load them with mana to fuel their explosion, she couldn't waste what she had remaining on anything other than protecting herself.
And the Plague Lord's situation was already clear.
Instead of main fighters, the two in the air became generals watching over their armies.
And Damien, well, he was blocking the flood caused by the enemy force, making sure it couldn't sweep their side into its midst!
"Khhh…!"
Iris gritted her teeth in pain.
It was truly agonizing.
The Plague Lord's energy was extremely complex. He never just used a single strain of plague mana, as a Demigod could easily understand its components in a few seconds and counter it.
He used complex combinations of countless plagues of his own creation, ones that hadn't been encountered by others before, and made their structures so intricately packed that it was impossible to understand them before they killed the target.
Iris was currently experiencing the effects of such a complex infection.
Her blood was boiling so hot that it could be used to smelt metal. Just this alone was enough to cause severe pain, but blood was only a single factor.
Her veins were touched by a separate nerve venom that froze her movements and made her feel agony throughout her entire body.
Her bones were calcifying, her muscles were atrophying, and her skin was filled with warts that compressed and enhanced the deadly viruses before injecting them back into her body.
To make matters worse, it felt like every organ was being targeted by a specific plague designed to cause the most pain possible.
Her body was already in a state that would drive a normal person insane. Not to mention her soul, which was also being corroded and causing pain that trumped everything she received from her body.
But despite all the things that should have broken her, Iris continued exerting precise control over her golems.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"GRAAAAAAAAAH!"
The consistent and uniform explosions were helping her keep her mind stable.
The Plague Lord's roars were like music to her ears, easing her pain.
They were proof that she wasn't the only one suffering.
In the minutes it took for her to reach a critical state, the Plague Lord was ruined beyond belief as well.
His head and portions of his extremities were still covered by sludge, but as the rumors suggested, a malnourished, ash-colored body revealed itself in his torso and thighs.
His sludge was the source of his power. While he had Divine Energy, he had to use it to protect the exposed areas of his body, or else even the explosions of the rock golems would be able to kill him!
That was the opportunity she'd been looking for.
Iris was able to barely crack her eyes open and see it, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't move!
"Ghhhhh…!"
She groaned as she tried her best, but the combination of bodily pain and restrictions and soul corrosion made it completely impossible.
In fact, if the Plague Lord didn't die and she wasn't treated in the next few minutes, she would die without being able to do anything!
They were both on their final straws.
A single move from either of them would completely uproot the situation.
However, with neither of them able to make that move…
Iris' eyes widened as if she didn't have problems opening them in the first place.
It was barely visible, and it traveled so fast it didn't make a single sound, but…
She saw it clearly.
An extremely thin and extremely sharp needle stabbing into the Plague Lord's chest…
…and exploding.
