Although Alexia had now reached another level of power, and her attack had dealt massive damage, Iralian had already healed completely. She was already charging toward Alexia, her four arms tense and ready. But Alexia's goal was simply to buy time.
The two of them rushed at each other, and their arm collided in midair with a sharp crack. The impact pushed both fighters back a step, their feet dragging across the air.
Iralian's hands moved back and curled into fists. As she rained down punches, her four hands became a blur of motion, each strike coming from a different angle. Alexia did the same, and even though she had only two hands, she met every attack. Woven into each of her blocks were the powers of light and fire, faintly glowing and crackling, lethal to the void.
Iralian moved back, and her tail swung to her side and released a beam of dark energy. Alexia didn't even bother to dodge. The beam hit the aura around her and stopped, scattering like smoke into the air.
Seeing that, Iralian only smiled, a slow, knowing curl of her lips. She moved her four hands back, and the aura around her began to grow even more, thickening and darkening like spilled ink spreading through water. When she was done, her figure was wrapped in a denser, heavier layer of void that seemed to drink the light around it.
By looking at her, Alexia could guess that she was pulling her inner mana inward and turning it into a more physical way of fighting, compressing raw energy into solid, bruising force.
Then Iralian moved faster than before. Her two right hands shot forward in a punch, cutting through the air with a low hum. The strike landed before the sound fully followed.
Alexia moved her hands up to defend, crossing her arms just in time. The impact slammed into her guard like a falling meteor, rattling up through her bones and pushing her back a few meters through the sky. The wind pulled at her hair and clothes as she fought to keep her balance.
When she lowered her guard, her eyes looked down at the small scar now marked across her hand, a thin, stinging line where the void's touch had bitten through her protection. Iralian's attacks were starting to take effect.
The two looked at each other for only a second, Alexia's jaw tight, Iralian's smile still in place, before charging again and colliding once more. Their hands and fists became a blur around them, striking and blocking in rapid motion, the air between them trembling with each collision.
Alexia gathered her power in her fist and threw a punch that was filled with the power of light. The force pushed the void host back a little through the air, but she regained balance fast and without any hesitation released a massive line of void from her mouth.
Alexia moved her power to her feet and vanished before the beam could reach her. A second later she was above Iralian with a condensed orb of light glowing on her right hand as she dove from above toward the enemy.
With a cracking sound, Iralian's neck twisted and her face turned upward, looking at the incoming attack. Then her mouth opened again and let out another beam.
The two powers clashed for a second before Alexia's orb was destroyed and she was thrown back through the sky. Just as she found her footing in the air, Iralian appeared before her with her hands already in motion.
But then a massive fist hit her from the side. Having already been attacked like this, her other hands moved forward to defend, resulting in her just being pushed back only a dozen meters without taking any damage.
Alexia glanced at Paul, and they both gave a short nod in unison. Then, without a word, they moved.
Iralian stopped the massive fist hurtling toward her left side, catching it with both hands pressed flat against the blow. The impact shuddered through her arms, but she held. At the same time, Alexia's hand, radiant and wrapped in a soft but fierce light, smashed across Iralian's face. The force threw Iralian backward, her feet skidding across the sky, and before she could even halt her momentum, Paul's enormous fist drove deep into her abdomen. The two S-ranks gave their enemy no room to breathe, hammering her from opposite sides in a relentless rhythm.
Suddenly, Iralian shot her left hand up and clamped it around Paul's incoming fist, stopping it cold. Simultaneously, she did the same to Alexia on her right, her fingers locking tight around the glowing hand. Her smile widened, stretching into something hungrier. Then, from each of her sides, two more arms tore free of her body, emerging with wet sound. On her left, the two free hands slid close together; on her right, the other two did the same. Between each pair, darkness began to pool, void, thick and dense, condensing into a small, hungry orb. In the same breath, she released both orbs at once. The entire sequence took no longer than a single second.
The orbs struck Alexia and Paul. They were thrown back dozens of meters before the spell detonated.
When the smoke cleared, their slightly injured figures emerged from the haze, still standing, though their clothes were singed and their breathing heavier.
Iralian's wicked smile was still there, wide and untroubled. Then she vanished.
Alexia had less than a second to feel surprise before something slammed into her stomach with brutal force. At the exact same moment, something struck Paul's back. Before the force behind the attacks could hurl them sideways, Iralian blurred between them, and landed hundreds of blows in a single, relentless instant.
She moved with speed far faster than lightning. Even under the barrage, Alexia tried to observe this new power, her eyes struggling to track what her body could not escape.
…
Back in Aclisa, within the floating city and in the Tower of Alexia, Elna and Selina were training in a vast open yard. Their movements echoed across the stone floor.
Klaus Moser, already returned from the north, stood watching from a corner. Beside him was the small red haired Katrine. She was awake now, but sorrow clung to her like a second skin. In a single night, she had lost everyone, friends, family, her entire city.
Elna and the others decided to give her time so that she could heal.
Then, without warning, the whole tower shuddered. Cracks webbed across the walls, and strange colors bloomed and bled across the sky above.
Katrine began to tremble, her wide eyes darting everywhere. Even the others stood frozen in surprise.
"What is going on?" Elna asked.
Selina a master in creating domains, narrowed her eyes and scanned their surroundings.
"This place is part of the Phantom Oracle's domain. Her domain would only react like this if its owner is truly hurt," Selina said, a hint of concern creeping into her voice.
"Then…?" Elna hesitated, as if afraid to finish the thought.
"Yes. Alexia Clayden is losing the battle."
Klaus's eyebrows drew together. "That's nonsense. Everyone knows Lady Alexia is undefeatable inside her own domain."
"That was a fact. Whether you want to believe it or not is your choice." Selina said.
Klaus turned with an angry expression and started walking toward the doors.
"Where are you going?" Elna asked.
"I have to do something," Klaus answered.
"With your power, you'd only get in their way," Selina said.
Klaus's fists tightened. "Do you have a better idea?"
"Yes. I'll go." Selina began walking.
…
Iralian was moving between two enemies when suddenly Paul grabbed her tail and shoved her back.
He pulled her to his side and struck her in the chest with all his might. The attack landed like an explosion, destroying Iralian's chest as she was flung backward like a rag doll.
Then, before she could recover and stop, Alexia appeared behind her with an orb glowing brightly. Threads of fire peeled away from the orb, the power within so immense it could barely hold its shape for long.
Alexia pressed the orb into Iralian's back, forcing her not only to stop but to be launched again, this time from the opposite direction.
Iralian shot through the air like a cannonball and slammed into the ground. The moment she hit, an explosion erupted. Fire consumed everything as a mushroom cloud climbed into the sky.
To see the result, Paul clapped his hands and swept the smoke aside.
In the middle of the explosion, a small part of void was trying to heal itself.
Without waiting, Paul pulled his fist back and threw a punch from a distance. The air exploded, surged forward, and struck the void, destroying it completely.
"Is it over?" Paul asked after a few seconds.
Alexia was about to answer when suddenly the void began to gather again from all sides and, in no time, formed itself into a human figure.
The figure moved without waiting to take full form. Paul saw it coming and tried to sidestep to dodge, but the figure was too fast, and Paul was nearly out of power.
In the blink of an eye, the figure was behind him. Blood surged from a large wound in Paul's body as he fall from the sky.
Alexia's face twitched, and her fist glowed with power. But before she could move, the flesh on her chest split open, and blood poured out as the void host passed her.
Iralian's eyes lingered on Alexia's falling body for a moment before she flew upward.
She stood a little away from Bernal, who was still in the middle of closing the portal. To keep him from continuing, she charged. But she hadn't passed more than a dozen meters before her movement slowed rapidly.
Behind her, Alexia rose back up along with Paul. The Timeworn Scepter was in her left hand, and a crystal in her other. The crystal shattered almost instantly.
"You could have warned me," Paul said, referring to Alexia's items of power.
She had used that crystal to heal herself and Paul.
"I had to make it believable," she answered, then raised her right hand as the void remained stuck in the space where time had slowed. "You should not underestimate one of the three archmages of the Kingdom of Magic."
In her other hand, a plain ring with a black gem above it began to glow. The ring was called Anchor, and it was the tenth legendary artifact. Although it was the weakest of the legendary artifacts, it was still a legendary item of power, and it could control gravity.
Circles of magic began to appear above Iralian one after another, each one generating gravitational force. In just seconds, she had created over a dozen circles. Their force also slowed under the Timeworn Scepter's power.
Alexia then raised the Scepter higher, and it began to glow. All of a sudden, its force disappeared, and all the gravity forces hit Iralian from above.
The force carved a circular pit into the ground a hundred meters deep, and Iralian was slammed down, crushed under that weight.
Paul watched from above for a few seconds. "It can't hold her forever." Then he moved above the pit and, with a little distance from the gravity field, began punching the air. The compressed air rushed downward along with the force of gravity.
Iralian, who had been trying to stand, was pushed down again under the new force.
But it only took a minute before her mana began to glow even brighter. Waves of mana rushed out of her body as she struggled to stand.
Seeing that, Alexia used the Scepter once more. The time around Iralian slowed again.
She was going to buy as much time as she could. But even with all her items, she couldn't hold Iralian forever.
Iralian's violet mana was moving out even with all those forces and the slowed time. It began to gather more and more in her core. And then, after a few more minutes, it detonated.
All the spells were destroyed, and Paul was thrown back. Smoke rose from the pit and hid what was inside.
Alexia aimed the Scepter toward the pit's entrance to create a slowed space there so that Iralian could not escape. But before her spell could even take shape, something came out of the pit and hit Paul so hard that he flew through the sky and vanished from their sight.
Instantly, Alexia raised her Scepter and created a line of slowed time in front of her. At the same time, she gathered all her power into her other hand and punched.
At the same time, the void host, which now was nothing like Iralian at all from all the damages, appeared in front of her, its hand already in motion. Even though it was stuck in the slowed time space, the massive mana around it bent reality and destroyed that spell in less than a second.
As Alexia's hand plunged into the enemy's stomach, Iralian's hand also pierced through hers.
Then the power around Alexia's hand exploded in a blinding light, and the void host vanished completely.
Alexia hung in the sky for a few seconds before her body began to fall and hit the ground. Her eyes were empty as blood poured from her chest. Her scepter was thrown from her hand.
Above her, the void was already reshaping itself back.