Knowing that he’s running out of time, Stein wants to defeat Medusa quickly, but she’s hard to catch off guard. Medusa is simply fighting to buy time, and in order to beat her, Stein has to refocus himself. She tries to tempt him again to join her, but Stein lets himself go wild and explains the madness and fear inside of himself - what he needs is the order granted by an ego-less god. Medusa eventually stabs Stein in the gut, and from that, he counterattacks with his signature Kon-i attack. Though greatly injured, Medusa thinks she has won because she’s in position to cut off Stein’s head with her Tail Snake. She is thus surprised when she suddenly freezes in place, unable to move at all. The reason is because Stein had used one of his suture techniques on her entire body. Unfortunately, Stein can’t do anything else until he releases those strings, and Medusa knows that once that happens, her Tail Snake would behead Stein faster than he can kill her.