An Aura Farmer's Guide to Another World
Chapter 74: Evelyn Wood

Chapter 74: Evelyn Wood

"You’re doing better than I anticipated," Lana said, her gaze sweeping over the fallen trees.

"I never thought it would be this easy," I replied, raising my sword and inspecting its blade.

Evelyn approached me from behind, wrapping her arms around me. She traced two fingers from my shoulder to my wrist. "This technique takes a year to master at the academy. Calling it ’easy’ is a massive understatement."

"Is that true?" I asked Lana as she drew closer.

Lana sheathed her sword. With a gentle touch, she lifted my eyelashes, her fingers brushing my blue eyes. ’Your eyes indeed belong to the Demon King,’ she murmured. Pulling her hands away, she then, unexpectedly, took my tongue, scratched it with her nail, and licked it. ’You smell human, and you taste human.’

"Do you believe I’m the Demon King?" I asked, bewildered by her actions.

’The Demon King cannot be human,’ Lana replied, her voice thoughtful. ’But your eyes... they’re the real deal. I lied about my heart glowing green, about my arteries. But when you believed you could see mana flow, your eyes made it real for you. People can only sense mana, not see it.’

Lana approached Evelyn, gently pulling her wrist from my shoulder. "It’s your turn to show me your mana control," she instructed.

After a few steps, Evelyn yanked her hand away. "I’m a healer. I heal people with a kiss. Care for a demonstration?" A mischievous grin spread across Evelyn’s face, her eyes twinkling with playful expectation.

Lana turned to face her, closing the distance between them. She gazed directly into Evelyn’s purple eyes, then reached out, moving Evelyn’s silver hair away from her long elf ear.

"Don’t forget," Lana said, "I can become invincible. I saw what you did during your final battle on Devil’s Island."

Evelyn’s smile faded, replaced by a stern expression. A beat of silence stretched between them before she spoke. "If you already saw what happens when I activate a skill, why bother asking?"

Lana placed her hand on Evelyn’s left chest, listening to her heartbeat. "Trust me. Just do as I tell you: activate a skill."

Evelyn glanced in my direction, and I quickly looked away. She shifted her gaze back to Lana and took a deep breath. ’Once half of my body turns to wood, you must sever it. Otherwise, I will become a tree.’

’Don’t worry,’ Lana assured her, her tone firm. ’I’ve brought a first aid kit, just in case.’

Lana walked to me, a hand settling on my shoulder. ’Everything that happens from now on is classified,’ she asserted, then turned back to Evelyn.

The two stood five meters apart. Lana drew her sword, and Evelyn extended her palm toward Lana.

"Activate your basic skill," Lana instructed.

Evelyn clenched her fist, then slowly extended her middle finger towards Lana, a smirk playing on her lips. ’Your sword won’t be of any help; you’re better off standing behind my attack.’

Lana dug her boots into the snow, adjusting her stance. ’There’s something I want to confirm. This is the perfect spot to stand.’

"Here I go," Evelyn said, closing her eyes and taking a long breath.

"Blood Art Technique: Rose Garden."

Milliseconds before Evelyn could finish her chant, Lana dashed forward and stabbed Evelyn’s heart. Her blade pierced through Evelyn’s chest and emerged from her back, black blood oozing from the blade, staining the snow.

"It’s of no use," Evelyn whispered.

Without delay, over a million vines adorned with beautiful red roses erupted from Evelyn’s fingertips. They surged forth like a tsunami, spreading in all directions.

The vines overwhelmed the entire horizon, engulfing Lana. The sounds of trees cracking and the earth splitting under the weight of the vines echoed throughout the mountains.

In a heartbeat, everything ahead of me transformed into a vivid scene of green and red. The vines continued to grow larger and larger, eventually forming a mountain-sized boulder.

I watched as Evelyn began to turn green, matching the hue of the vines. Her entire right hand was enveloped by the vines, and rose flowers blossomed upon her body.

Evelyn drew a sickle from her waist and attempted to cut her shoulder, but failed; the vines relentlessly extended from her shoulder and slowly began to transform her right side into wood.

She glanced back at me and shouted, "Hurry up and cut my hand away! Lana is taking too long!" Before I could even move a finger, Lana’s voice roared through the eerie atmosphere.

"Sword Art Technique: Eyes of the Midnight Sun."

From the center of the mountain-sized boulder covered in red roses, a ring of green fire blazed like the sun.

It didn’t merely glow; it pulsed, compressed into an impossibly sharp, shimmering disc of emerald energy that rotated with terrifying speed.

In a flash, faster than the eye could follow, this luminous disc expanded, cutting through Evelyn’s monstrous vine creation with surgical precision, cleaving the mountain-sized mass in two as if it were fragile silk.

The sheer force of the technique did not stop there. It continued its relentless trajectory, slicing through the very peak of the colossal mountain we stood on, carving a perfectly clean, straight fissure from its summit down to its base.

The power surged even higher, piercing the dense, snow-laden clouds that had blanketed the sky, incinerating them into nothingness and leaving a vast, circular void directly overhead.

Through this sudden, impossible opening, a brilliant, unobstructed pillar of direct sunlight streamed down, illuminating the newly bisected mountain and the steaming remnants of Evelyn’s vines, now bathed in an unblemished golden glow.

Before the light could even fully settle, Lana dashed forward from the very heart of the destroyed vines, appearing in an instant directly before Evelyn.

Her sword, still faintly glowing with green light, moved with precise, blinding speed, delivering a swift, clean cut that severed Evelyn’s entire vine-transformed right hand at the shoulder.

The grotesque green tendrils and red blossoms instantly withered, recoiling from the stump as the life drained from them.

In the very next breath, before the severed limb touched the ground, Evelyn’s arm began to regrow, her bones and flesh knitting into a wooden hand, replacing the lost one.

"Hurry up, bring the first aid kit," Lana instructed, gesturing toward a white box covered in snow.

I rushed and took the first aid kit to Lana, kneeling beside Evelyn.

"I’m fine; my body will heal in a day or two," Evelyn said. I could already see that her entire right chest had turned into solid wood.

"Remove her shirt," Lana said, glancing at me while she opened the kit.

Swiftly, with my hands shaking, I tore Evelyn’s shirt off and cut her bra, pushing it away from her chest.

’You’re overreacting,’ Evelyn said, a hint of frustration in her tone. ’I have too much mana. Even at ten heartbeats a second—the lowest I can go—the mana bursts out, turning a basic skill into... well, into that monstrosity you just witnessed.’

Lana took twenty-one needles from the kit and surgically inserted them at different locations on Evelyn’s upper body.

"Your mana flow is messed up. I have to shut it down for your heart to reconfigure itself back to normal," Lana said, placing her palms on Evelyn’s temples.