Lavana cancelled her invisibility and the woman could now see her ahead with the ice chain that Lavana held.


    “How does it feel, witchy?” she asked with a smile, pulling on the chain, resulting in the queen grabbing the chain wrapped around her neck, trying to free herself from its torment, but as she finally liberated herself and tried to exhale, another one wrapped around her neck. This one, and the former, weren’tunched from theke but her foe’s bare hands.


    ‘What kind of enemy did I encounter? Why can’t she just die?’ the queenmented in her heart. More chains,unched from theke this time, wrapped around her body and endeavoured to squeeze her. Another one from theke, a muchrger one wrapped around the sceptre again, using more force than usual, in an attempt to break it.


    The queen’s right eye turned sacramento too, and a ck hat appeared on her head, one of a high-ranked witch’s.


    “Break!” she hollered and all the ice chains squeezing her, and even the very one trying to snap her sceptre in two, scattered.


    “You are finished!” she yelled, taking out a huge ck book with vines sealing it from her spatial ring. She bit her right index finger and let the blood drop in the middle. The green vines glowed and receded, then the book opened to a page of her thought. She read out the words of the page in an ancientnguage, also making hand gestures that her foe’s eyes had a tough time keeping up with.


    Lavana subconsciously retreated, heading towards theke but giant ck vines suddenly shot out from the ground and wrapped around her legs, pulling her downwards. Sheunched fireballs at them and burnt them to crisps. Then she tried to get into theke, but another set of even stronger and bigger red vines shot out from the ground and pulled her downwards. She tried hard but couldn’t get out of the vines. Her gemstone appeared on her forehead and her eyes gleamed.


    She teleported out of the vine cage after turning her invisibility skill on. Only after the gemstone had retreated did she cancel it. The queen who was readying another spell to bury Lavana alive was dismayed to see her out of the cage.


    “You…”


    “You piss me off,” Lavana growled as she lunged at the bewildered queen. Thetter quickly gained herposure though, and the pages of therge book constantly flipped as she stared at it until it reached that which she was looking for. Then she read out the words on the page quickly.


    Her sceptre headed downwards and firmly struck the ground with its lower end thrice before returning to her. At this point, Lavana hadunched numerous chains heading for both the book and the opponent but suddenly ck shadows appeared, obstructing her way from all sides, releasing a gas of which its purpose she didn’t know.


    But after a minute, she dropped her hands and the ice chains vanished. She continued levitating but her eyes showed she was in some kind of trance.


    “Gosh! That bitch… Phoenix, take over!” River urged apprehensively.


    “No. Not yet. If she can’t break out of the trance in three minutes, I’ll take over,” Phoenix replied his wolf, leisurely eating the snacks.


    “You…” River was speechless.


    The shadows got closer to Lavana while she was still in a trance and the witch queen used this chance to take out a grey sword which she nned to use in ending the nuisance’s life.


    But just as she got a few feet closer to her adversary, Lavana’s eyes returned to normal. Her tails extended and tightly grabbed hold of the witch queen. One of her tails forcefully took the sword from her opponent and she used an ice chain to bring the damn sceptre into her hand.


    “Arcelina!” the queen called out and the sceptre left Lavana’s grip and levitated in front of its owner. The book also headed for its owner, levitating with the sceptre, side by side.


    “Break!” the queenmanded.


    Lavana’s tails quickly let go of the enemy. She wasn’t letting her precious tails get harmed! She turned invisible and retreated to levitate above theke.


    “I can f*cking see where you are. Your invisibility is of no use to me,” the witch queenughed evilly as the pages of her spell book flipped fast. After reading out some words, her sceptre glowed brighter, and the result was therge ck serpent that suddenly rose out of theke, hissing.


    Lavana was astonished.


    The queen mocked, “You think only you canunch things out of the water? Have a taste of my pets’ prowess!” after she said this, seven more snakes who looked more sinister than the first one came up out of theke, all heading for Lavana. They seemed to know where she was, even in her invisible state.


    “If you leave this vicinity, I will harm those weaklings,” the queen warned, cancelling Lavana’s thoughts of teleporting. She knew her mate was nearby and watching her, so if this evil queen decided to attack the defenceless Blood Stars…


    “You see how pitiful you are with these limited powers?” the opponentughed wildly.


    Lavana harrumphed, “It’s still too early tough at me, old hag,” she concentrated on dodging the unceasing attacks of the serpents that weren’t intent on letting her leave theke.


    “Well, if I can’t leave theke, I might as well get back in,” she said, diving headfirst into theke.


    “Idiot! You are finished!” the queen chuckled, amused at the turn of events.


    Now underwater, Lavana transformed into her mermaid form andmenced swimming, with the snakes in hot pursuit. She recalled Oceana telling her that the siren’s extraordinary voice wasn’t just to entice hearts, but could also attack and defend. With a sudden scheme in mind, she ceased trying to flee and rather, turned around to face the snakes who for a moment were stunned.


    Using the few seconds of them being stunned, sheunched several ice chains at them. While theyboured to break free, she began to sing.


    The snakes that were resisting soon stopped struggling and became interested in hearing her voice instead. Seeing this, Lavana put more effort into singing, pitching more ice chains at the snakes. When she was done with her song, the snakes were still in a trance for several minutes. She quickly swam forward and hid behind a rock. She altered back to human and teleported out of theke, appearing right behind the queen who was still intently staring at the water body.


    “Old hag, I’m back!” she said with a grinced on her lips. The stupefied queen turned around to look at Lavana.


    “You… how did you get out?”


    “As long as I don’t leave the vicinity, I can teleport,”


    “You…” the queen was so mad. So this is an added ability- teleporting. She was certain that Lavana wasn’t just an Olmpha at this point. Was she possibly a hybrid?


    She summoned the snakes from theke and saw that they were all in a trance, “What did you do to them?”


    “Nothing!” was Lavana’s simple reply. Without warning, she began to sing in a foreign tongue, doing a dance in mid-air.


    “Stop singing, you bitch!” the evil witch queen found this song horribly irksome and it made her constantly shiver. She now even had a hard time maintaining her bnce in mid-air, “Please, stop it…” she managed to say as her skin paled.


    “Shed tears of blood,” Lavana ended the song with this sentence and her opponent indeed started shedding bloody tears, blood was even flowing from her mouth. Seeing this result, Lavana sang another song that sounded eerie, making the queen quake and fall into theke. The snakes went back into the water with the queen shrieking.


    Lavana sighed after she stopped singing. Singing and dancing wasn’t an easy task but it’s worth it. She was about to call her mate’s name when the sceptre entered theke. Soon the queen flew out, her eyes now an ochre colour.


    “Die, you heaven-forsaken existence!” she yelled, as she pointed the sceptre towards Lavana,unching huge magic balls at Lavana. Once again, Phoenix’s mate had to dodge the seemingly endless attacksunched by the crazed opponent.


    “Want some assistance?” she heard her mate finally say through mind link.


    “No, not yet. I want to see how far I can go,” she replied telepathically with resolution.


    “Okay, but if I deem you’re in mortal danger, I’ming whether you like it or not,”


    “Deal,” Lavana replied, energetically eluding the now quicker attacks. When she got any opportunity, she’dunched fireballs at the queen, who dodged them easily.


    One of the attacks hit Lavana and pushed her into theke. The snakes were no longer in existence as the queen had destroyed them when she fell into theke earlier.


    The queen also entered theke speedily and red at the ‘weakened’ Lavana. As she nned tounch another attack on Lavana, she noticed a shocking thing. Light covered her foe and after a few minutes, the human had be a… mermaid?


    That exins why she has ice powers, teleportation and annoying singing skills. She’s a perfect hybrid- something rare!


    Regardless, this female must not live past today or she’ll perpetually be a threat to her, as long as she remains in existence. She saw the gemstone on the mermaid’s forehead glisten and the mermaid moved her lips, muttering words that she couldn’t hear. Then… whoosh! She was gone.


    “Damn it!” she cussed, using her sceptre to move faster in the water. Since that bitch’s still in mermaid form, it meant she was still in theke. That attack that hit her had weakened her a lot, she just needs to give Lavana a finishing blow.


    She soon caught sight of Lavana who didn’t look as vulnerable as before. Did she trick her into getting inside the water? If a mermaid was near a water body, they had a great advantage, and now, they both were inside the water.


    “Enjoy my performance,” Lavana said with a grin, her eyes glowing. She started swimming around the befuddled queen slowly and increased her pace while singing.


    “Stop it!” the queen let go of the sceptre and covered her ears. Now that it was no longer in her custody, Lavana grabbed hold of it and used it to hit its owner hard.


    ‘If I can’t break it, then I can at least beat you with it,’ she thought as she increased the force with which she thrashed the queen while singing. At a point, she halted and the woman’s knees gave.


    Lavana forcefully tried to pull out the gemstone in the sceptre, not minding the tingling sensation she felt in her entire body. After she pulled it out with the result being her vomiting blood, she turned around and swam forward towards the surface. Her tail reversed to feet and she flew out of the water, headed for the book which sheunched a fireball at.


    “Give it back!” a crazed shout was heard as the queen flew out of the water, her skin very pale. She was holding the gemless sceptre in hand. The book flew towards its owner and even the gemstone in Lavana’s hands eventually left her grip and assumed its ce on the sceptre once again.


    “Don’t tell me you’ll kill me. I’ve lost count of the number of times you said that, old hag!” Lavana said.


    “Curse you!” the woman read out from a page loudly. Several trees got uprooted and levitated horizontally.This text is property of N?/velD/rama.Org.


    “Go!” the queen yelled and the trees went after Lavana. Thetter couldn’t get into theke and it was toote to teleport again as all the trees in her way got uprooted and joined the others in chasing her. Turning invisible was useless.


    “Need my help?” Phoenix asked again telepathically.


    “Wait a bit more,” said Lavana with determination.


    “Sigh. Our mate can be obstinate,” River remarked.


    “Yeah. It’s almost time for me to take over…” he couldn’t finish his words as one of the trees hit Lavana in the shoulder, sending her backwards violently until she hit arge tree that also got uprooted.


    Lavana let out her dragon wings and turned around pping them at the trees heading towards her, sending them falling to the ground in a pile.


    The queen who was smug earlier, had her eyes and mouth wide open, “Tribrid?” she gasped at this revtion.


    “You’ve done your part. Let me do mine,” said Lavana as she cracked her knuckles.


    “You’re a tribrid!” the queen eximed, still not registering the fact that she’d been battling with a tribrid, her third form being a dragon at that!