After retreating several steps, Hoshimi Miyabi frowned, her gaze fixed on the "enemy" who had already taken position and held the advantage. The situation was becoming troublesome.
If they weren't inside the Hollow, things might have been easier—but right now, Zane wasn't entirely powerless. Strictly speaking, he controlled half of the Hollow.
Half a Hollow wasn't much, yet it was more than enough to give Hoshimi Miyabi a headache.
Her eyes shifted toward the spirit beast, and suddenly, inspiration struck.
The spirit beast was special. Zane had once mentioned that its nature was similar to that of a Hollow. Long ago, she'd heard him speak vaguely of something related to this.
If she could use it to create a false, simplified Hollow—one with only a single layer of shell...
The isolating nature of Hollows was undeniable.
If she could open another Hollow within the existing one, she could create a confined "vacuum" domain that repelled Ether energy entirely.
Inside that simple Hollow, there would be no Ether energy at all.
That meant Zane would have to rely solely on his own strength, drastically reducing the Ether energy available to him.
The solution was simple: he could just leave the simple Hollow. But Hoshimi Miyabi knew that Zane wasn't the true enemy—he was struggling against something else. So he wouldn't leave.
Of course, if she created the simple Hollow, she too would lose access to her ice-elemental energy.
But she still had her blade. Even without Ether, her strength was far from weak.
Zane, on the other hand, wielded an Ether longsword.
He would only find it harder and harder to fight...
In an instant, Hoshimi Miyabi had thought it all through. Now the problem was how to start.
How could she create a simple Hollow?
She leapt into the air, flipping aside to dodge an incoming fireball. Behind her, explosions thundered, and waves of heat rippled outward.
Keeping her eyes on Zane as she controlled her descent, she tried to recall her Master's teachings.
The Master mentioned it before—come on, thick skull, think!
Control the demon blade's power. Sense the flow of energy. The essence of the Hollow—the shell, the space...
Suddenly, the ground beneath her trembled. Hoshimi Miyabi's pupils contracted sharply as she leapt skyward once more.
A terrifying force detonated within the ice, shattering the thick, solid layer into countless fragments.
The shards shot outward in every direction. Though they carried no Ether energy, the sheer kinetic force made them deadly enough.
Still suspended mid-air, Hoshimi Miyabi swung her blade in rapid succession. Metal rang out sharply as she deflected most of the fragments.
Even so, a few shards grazed her, leaving small cuts that burned with a sharp sting.
Her eyes locked on Zane, who was already rushing toward her. She had no time to hesitate—she raised her blade once more, and the clash of steel rang through the frozen air.
Because time within the Hollow was frozen, only Zane and Hoshimi Miyabi could move. Everything else—untouched by their power—remained suspended in stillness.
The air was no longer empty but filled with shards of ice in all shapes and sizes, each one proof of their ongoing battle.
Amid the floating debris, the two of them darted and twisted through the air, launching into a new exchange of blows.
But Hoshimi Miyabi's situation was growing worse by the second.
Clang! Another impact sent her flying downward.
She didn't panic. In midair, she swung her blade sideways, shattering nearby ice crystals and turning them into ice blades that shot toward Zane.
Using the recoil, she stabilized herself on a chunk of ice below.
Seeing Zane shift his pursuit path to avoid the ice blades, Hoshimi Miyabi's eyes flashed with resolve. Then, at a precise moment, she shouted—
"Right here!"
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
In an instant, the ice shards surrounding Zane detonated one after another. The powerful blast spread outward, carrying a surge of icy dust in all directions!
This was the trap Hoshimi Miyabi had set earlier—an arrangement of energy left behind using the power of her demon blade.
"This time, I can finally—"
She barely had a second to breathe as she looked up into the snow-filled sky when, all at once, a familiar presence appeared directly before her.
Zane had arrived without warning, so close that she could see the lashes framing his eyes.
Between them, in his palm, a crimson-and-blue sphere of light began to bloom slowly.
Fire and lightning intertwined—
The instantaneous blossom of a concentrated explosion!