The needles were still falling, the desert air thick with black projectiles that whistled as they streaked toward the ground, but Helen did not wait for the next wave to land.

She planted her foot on a rising dune and launched herself forward, her body spinning through the storm like it was choreographed while needles rained around her, each one missing by inches.

Her rapier traced a circle around her, deflecting three in rapid succession, and she twisted mid-air to avoid a fourth that grazed past her cheek, leaving a thin line of red that she did not even bother to wipe.

She landed, slid under a cluster of descending spikes, and came up swinging, her blade catching the worm across the jaw in a clean arc that sent black blood splattering across the sand. The force of the blow snapped its head to the side, and she followed up by driving her heel into the same spot, the impact pushing her backward and out of range before it could react.

The worm recoiled, shaking its head as the wound began to seal, but it recovered fast and spat another volley of needles her way.

She ducked under the first, sidestepped the second, and caught the third on her blade before flicking it aside like it weighed nothing.

A fourth needle came from her blind spot, and she caught it with her free hand without looking, snapping it in half and dropping the pieces to the sand.

"Fast, fast, fast," the worm said, its voice carrying a note of irritation, "but speed alone will not save you from what is coming next."

The sand around it began to tremble, the ground splitting open in a wide ring as another wave of spikes prepared to rise, this time from every direction at once with no gap to dodge through.

"Maybe not," Helen said, rolling her shoulder like she was warming up, "but I was not relying on speed to begin with."

Her mana shifted.

The air around her grew damp, the dry desert heat giving way to a cool, heavy pressure that made the sand beneath her feet darken and clump together.

Moisture gathered from the air itself, thin strands of water coiling up her arm and wrapping around her blade like a living current, spinning faster and faster until the rapier hummed with a dense, compressed energy.

The worm’s eye narrowed, "Water mana?"

"I did not get to where I am by only swinging a sword," she said, and then she moved.

She shot forward, her body low to the ground, and drove her rapier into the sand beneath the worm’s head.

The water coiled around her blade surged downward, spreading through the sand in a web of pressurized veins before erupting behind the worm in a massive geyser that launched its body forward and off balance, its claws scrambling for purchase.

Before it could recover, she closed the gap and drove her blade upward, carving a deep gash along its underbelly from throat to mid-section. Black blood poured from the wound, but she was not done.

She spun and brought her foot down on a rising needle, using it as a platform to launch herself higher, her rapier trailing a stream of water that twisted and condensed mid-air into a solid spear.

She caught it with her free hand, pivoted in the air, and drove it into the worm’s remaining eye with both arms.

The creature let out a deafening shriek, its body thrashing wildly as it tried to shake her off, sending tremors through the dunes.

She pushed off its head, flipping backward and landing cleanly on the sand, her rapier dripping water and black blood in equal measure while the spear remained buried in its eye socket.

"Teleporting water like that should be impossible without a massive mana source," the worm hissed, its voice strained, black blood pooling beneath its head, "just who are you? No ordinary Vice Captain can manipulate water at that density."

"That is none of your business," she said, raising her blade again, the water reforming around it in a tighter, denser coil than before.

The worm’s eye flickered, something like uncertainty passing through it for the first time, but before it could respond, Hajin appeared beside Helen without a sound, his eyes glowing a bright gold that cut through the dust and sand like twin lights.

"I found it," he said, his voice low and urgent, "the real body. I know where it is."

She turned to ask where, but his chain shot out before she could finish the thought, wrapping around her waist.

He pulled his arm back and hurled her across the dunes like a projectile, her body cutting through the air at a speed that left no room to react.

"You son of a..." she started, but the wind swallowed the rest as she sailed over the desert.

She twisted mid-air, ready to curse him out properly, and then she felt it. A dense, concentrated mana source pulsing somewhere beneath the dunes ahead of her, different from the scattered energy of the puppet shell, deeper and more focused, pulsing steadily beneath the sand.

’That must be it,’ she thought, her eyes narrowing as she angled her body downward.

She raised her free hand, the moisture in the air responding to her call in an instant, condensing and freezing into a row of jagged ice spears that formed around her in a wide arc.

She grabbed the first one, then the second, the third forming in her grip as she lined them up and hurled them down at the source one after another. The ice spears streaked toward the sand, each one aimed at the pulsing core of the real body hidden beneath.

The worm’s head snapped toward the distant dunes, its eye widening as it felt the sudden spike of mana signatures where Helen had just landed, its realization hitting it a second too late.

"No," it growled.

It tried to move, its massive body coiling to launch itself after her, but Hajin’s chain shot out before it could leave the ground, the links wrapping around its neck and yanking it back with a sharp, brutal tug that snapped its head around.

"Where do you think you are going?" he asked, his voice flat.

A blur of silver shot past him, Juna appearing above the worm’s head with her claws extended. She drove both hands down in a vicious cross slash, her claws carving deep furrows across its face that sent black blood spraying across the sand.

The worm reeled back, letting out a pained roar, and before it could recover, another blur hit it from the side.

Loccy’s kick connected with its jaw, the impact sending the worm’s head snapping sideways and its body skidding across the dunes, leaving a long trench of churned sand in its wake.

Hajin walked forward, his chain unwinding from his forearm as Juna landed beside him and Loccy dropped into a crouch on his other side.

"You are busy with us from now on," he said, the golden glow in his eyes not fading.

The worm pulled itself upright, black blood streaming from the fresh wounds on its face as it fixed its eye on the three of them, its earlier amusement completely gone.