Joan’s attention was on Karina, but only in name. With the corner of her eye, she scanned the battlefield, and her frown deepened immediately.

Most of the evolvers under her were either dead or captured. She thought as long as she had evolvers by her side, Aiden couldn’t stop them.

However, the modern weapons Aiden’s forces carried gave her a reality check.

"I haven’t lost yet..." she mumbled. "I still have a chance!"

The evolver she had awakened just before departing the base. An assassin. Aiden’s entire force was focused on the ones they could see. However, Rina was someone they couldn’t.

As long as Rina sneaked past the enemy lines, Aiden was as good as dead. With him gone, the women fighting for him should stop. In the end, whatever he had amassed, it would all belong to her!

Just the thought of ruling over Aiden made her smile.

"You’re smiling while your people get slaughtered? Did you lose your mind?" Karina growled, raising her fists before her.

"Not yet," Joan smirked. "But someone will soon enough."

Saying so, she launched herself at Karina. Instead of taking her down with one blow, Joan began striking her at blurring speed. Each strike pushed Karina back another step.

Joan was no longer trying to hit clean blows, she just wanted to overwhelm Karina so she wouldn’t notice Rina slipping past her.

Yet, no matter how hard she tried, Karina managed to block all her attacks with just a gauntlet.

"How are you so fast and resilient?" Joan panted.

Even the generals of the demon army hadn’t made her break a sweat, yet a random woman from an abandoned world was going toe-to-toe with her?

An absurd thought entered her mind. Could it be that Karina was a native of another world, like her?

"This is getting annoying..." Joan clicked her tongue and charged again.

This time, she went for Karina’s thighs. Noticing her gaze, Karina dropped her hand to block it, only to see Joan smile. She turned her blade to go upwards, right towards Karina’s lower jaw.

"Fuck!" Karina cursed, tilting her head at the last second for the blade to pass harmlessly away.

Joan didn’t stop. She used the momentum of the redirected swing to spin her body fully, coming around with her elbow aimed at Karina’s temple.

Karina was off balance and got hit with an elbow. She stumbled backward as Joan kept on the offensive. She drove her knee upward into Karina’s midsection.

Karina grunted and bent forward slightly, only for Joan to grab her hair with her free hand and force it down to meet her knee strike.

Karina’s head snapped back from the force as her broken nose began to bleed. The pain she felt was even worse because she got hit in a sensitive place.

Karina’s vision got blurry as tears welled up in her eyes. Meanwhile, Joan raised her blade for the next strike and jumped into the air, aiming for Karina’s neck.

As much as she would have liked someone like Karina to be by her side, Joan knew her mind had been poisoned by Aiden for so long that she was beyond saving. Killing her was the only mercy she could have offered.

"Die!" Joan screamed.

However, as soon as her feet were in the air, Karina’s hand shot out and grabbed her ankle mid-swing.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Karina growled. "But I have no intention of dying here. Aiden would be sad if his bride didn’t make it to the wedding."

With that, Karina yanked Joan down. The swordswoman hit the ground on her back hard enough to knock the air out of her. Still, Joan didn’t sit still and rolled away before Karina could capitalize on her situation.

Karina was also back on her feet, but showed no interest in attacking Joan. Instead, she grabbed her own nose with two fingers, took a deep breath, and snapped it back into place.

"Son of a—" she hissed through her teeth.

A jolt of pain exploded across the bridge of her nose and up into her skull.

A fresh stream of blood poured freely down her upper lip and chin, coating her mouth in red before dripping off onto the ground. She wiped her mouth with the back of her gauntlet and looked at the smear it left behind before staring at Joan.

"You’d better hope it heals before my wedding day," she growled. "Or I’ll swear I give you a makeover that even the goblins wouldn’t want you."

"You would have to give me a makeover for that to happen, I don’t," Joan chuckled. "You look ugly enough just as you are."

Joan wasn’t just smiling because of how Karina looked, but also because she knew Rina had to have made it past Aiden’s forces by then.

It was only a matter of time before she heard Aiden’s bloodcurdling scream, or better yet, before Rina brought his severed head to her.

"You should stop saying things like that," Karina replied, spitting a mouthful of blood. "It just makes me want to end you sooner."

Although she said that, she knew she couldn’t kill Joan. Not because she lacked the strength, but because Aiden had told her not to. After all, Joan had something he wanted.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t punch her into oblivion!

Karina raised her fists and charged at Joan. Not one to back away, Joan charged in as well. The two kept fighting head-on.

By the time they pulled back, Joan had a split lip and one of her eyelids was swollen like a golf ball. As for Karina, she had a bleeding shoulder and a cut thigh on top of her bleeding nose.

Despite the new injuries, Karina kept smiling.

"What are you smiling at?" Joan snapped.

"You’ll know soon enough..."

Joan licked her bloodied lips and rushed at Karina again. However, she had only taken two steps before stopping abruptly.

"What the...!?"

Karina was growing in size.

It started at the shoulders. Her shirt got torn apart first, then the rest of her clothes followed as her frame expanded. Her spine curved forward, and her hands grew to hit the ground as red fur covered her entire body.

Joan took a step backward in disbelief. Why was there a werewolf standing before her?

Karina, now in her werewolf form, rolled her shoulders, smiling at Joan.

"Do you still want to know why I was smiling before?"