The reddish-black void stretched out into an infinite, suffocating horizon, a realm where the very concept of distance felt like a lie. Every breath I took was heavy with the scent of ozone and the metallic tang of blood. I gripped the hilt of my black katana and the cursed dagger, my knuckles white, my body vibrating with the raw energy of the God of Spirits hovering behind me. Across the invisible floor, Tokine stood with her scythe, her silhouette a jagged tear against the crimson mist.
We kept exchanging attacks and she kept laughing maniacally and seemed extremely happy.
The sound of her laughter was a jagged blade, cutting through the low hum of the dimension. It wasn't the laughter of a friend; it was the ecstatic, high-pitched peal of someone who had found a toy that wouldn't break. Clang. The katana met the scythe. The impact sent a shockwave through my marrow, but I didn't flinch. I twisted my wrist, sliding the blade down the length of her weapon, aiming for her fingers, but she danced back with a fluid, unnatural grace.
She dashed forward and attacked me and I dodged and sliced her but she regenerated.
Her movement was a blur of violet light. One second she was ten paces away, the next, the cold edge of her scythe was whistling toward my ribs. I threw myself to the side, the air from the weapon's passage chilling my skin. As I moved, I pivoted on my heel, the cursed dagger in my left hand flashing as it carved a deep, jagged line across her midsection. I felt the resistance of her flesh, the spray of blood—but before the droplets could even hit the ground, they vanished. The wound closed instantly, the skin knitting back together as if the steel had never touched her.
And she sliced me but I got regenerated.
In the same breath that her wound closed, her scythe arced back in a counter-rotation I couldn't fully evade. The blade bit deep into my shoulder, a searing line of agony that threatened to drop me to my knees. But the Crowned Spirit behind me flared with a brilliant white and black light. I felt the warmth of the RSA flooding my veins, the tattered muscle and bone fusing back together in a heartbeat. The pain was gone as quickly as it had arrived, replaced by the cold, mechanical focus of the battle.
The stalemate was beginning to wear on the environment itself. The reddish-black sky flickered with every clash, the mana density rising to a point where the air felt like liquid. I needed to shift the momentum. I looked at the God of Spirits, the crown upon its head glowing with an ethereal authority.
My crown spirit attacked her.
The spirit didn't just move; it expanded, its light lashing out like spectral chains. It lunged at Tokine, its white-and-black aura clashing against her dark violet mana. She was forced to bring her scythe up in a frantic block as the spirit unleashed a barrage of ethereal strikes, each one carrying the weight of a mountain. She skidded back across the invisible floor, her boots sparking against the nothingness.
She said that it's cheating 2v1.
She shouted the words through a grin, her eyes wide and dancing with that same manic joy. She didn't sound angry; she sounded thrilled, as if the unfairness of the fight only added to the stakes. She parried a strike from the spirit, the force of it blowing her hair back, her laughter never once wavering.
My spirit kept attacking her buying me time while I used my grimoire magic.
I stepped back, centering my focus as the spirit occupied her. I could feel the grimoire at my side pulsing, its pages fluttering as if caught in a phantom wind. I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly as I channeled my intent into the book. This wasn't about physical strikes anymore; it was about the absolute authority of the written word.
I wrote on the grimoire for her to stop moving.
The ink seemed to burn into the parchment, glowing with a fierce, undeniable light. As the final stroke was completed, the command echoed through the dimension like a gavel hitting a block of stone.
She suddenly stopped moving.
The effect was instantaneous. Tokine was frozen mid-laugh, her scythe raised, her body locked in a position of combat that defied gravity. The violet aura around her flickered and died. The silence that followed was absolute, a vacuum of sound in the wake of the chaos.
My spirit stopped attacking and floats on my back.
I let out a ragged breath, the God of Spirits returning to its position behind me, its light steady and watchful. I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, my heart hammering against my ribs. It worked. The grimoire's magic had overridden her physical autonomy.
I stepped near her.
I moved slowly, my boots clicking on the invisible floor. I wanted to look her in the eyes, to find some shred of the person I thought I knew. I stopped just a few feet away, my katana held at my side. She looked like a statue, a perfect, lethal carving of betrayal. But as I opened my mouth to speak, the air around her began to vibrate.
But suddenly she unleashed her spirit.
A cold, ancient pressure exploded from her center, a force so immense it pushed me back several steps. Behind her, the mist coalesced into a towering, terrifying figure. It was an entity of shifting gears and stardust, its face hidden behind a veil of falling sand, its presence radiating a sense of primordial power that made my skin crawl.
I realized that her spirit is Chronos the god of time and suddenly she moved again.
The weight of the dimension shifted. The gears of the entity turned with a grinding sound that echoed in the very marrow of my bones. Tokine's hand, which had been frozen in place, twitched. Then, with a casual elegance, she lowered her scythe. The command of the grimoire had been severed as if it were a mere cobweb.
She just laughed and explained that since she can't move she summoned her spirit to use time magic to put her in a time where she was never stopped by my grimoire magic.
She stepped forward, the sand from her spirit's veil swirling around her feet. The mockery in her voice was sharper than her blade. And if it's not obvious she said that her spirit also has RSA.
The revelation hit like a physical blow. A spirit like Chronos, possessing an RSA, meant she could manipulate the very fabric of our encounter. She wasn't just fighting me in the present; she was operating on a plane where cause and effect were her playthings. I'm not phased. I tightened my grip on my weapons. If she was a god of time, then I would have to be the one to break the clock.
Tokine just looked at me and said that "I'll keep you alive don't worry cause you'll be my pet cause you're interesting."
The condescension in her tone was nauseating. She looked at me not as an opponent, but as a specimen, a rare find to be caged and studied. The "pet" comment hung in the air, dripping with a dark, possessive intent.
I just laughed and said that I'll never be her pet.
My laughter was short and sharp, a cold rejection of her twisted offer. I didn't care about being "interesting." I didn't care about her games. I was a student of the academy, a wielder of dual spirits, and I was going to end this.
She just smirked and attacked me.
The smirk was the last thing I saw before she became a blur again. The speed was different now, bolstered by the presence of Chronos. I kept defending and my spirit blocking her attacks and attacking. The God of Spirits moved with a desperate urgency, its ethereal arms meeting her scythe in a flurry of sparks. Every time she swung, I felt the temporal pressure trying to slow my reactions, but my spirit acted as a buffer, pushing back against the distortion.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The sound of the combat was a rhythmic, violent song. I stayed low, my katana parrying her overhead strikes while my dagger searched for an opening in her guard. And it seemed like she isn't using her spirit. Chronos hovered behind her, its gears turning slowly, but it wasn't launching its own attacks. It was as if she was using the god only to maintain her own temporal stability, to stay one step ahead of my grimoire and my foresight. She was testing me, pushing me to the brink using only her physical skill and the passive support of her RSA.
We kept exchanging attacks.
The void was a kaleidoscope of violet and white light. I lunged, my katana aimed for her throat; she vanished and reappeared behind me, her scythe sweeping toward my legs. I jumped, the blade passing inches beneath my boots, and used the momentum to drive my dagger toward her chest. She twisted mid-air, her laughter echoing once more, and our weapons met with a force that sent a ripple through the reddish-black sky.
My muscles were screaming. The mental tax of tracking a time-manipulator was starting to take its toll, even with the enhanced vision granted by my spirit. I could see the potential paths of her attacks, but she was moving with such chaotic fluidity that every path seemed to shift the moment I committed to a defense.
She was faster. She was stronger. And she was enjoying every second of it.
I pushed forward, the God of Spirits roaring behind me, its light flaring as it tried to pin her down. We were a whirlwind of lethal intent, two sparks of light in an endless, dark universe. I could feel the distance between us and the others—Sogha and Euphyne—closing as the sheer force of our duel moved us across the invisible landscape.
Tokine's eyes locked onto mine, a flash of violet madness reflecting in the steel of my blade. She leaned into a clash, her face inches from mine. "Is that all?" she seemed to ask with her gaze, her smirk widening into a jagged line of teeth.
She didn't wait for an answer. She shifted her weight, the scythe glowing with a concentrated burst of time-warped energy. The pressure increased tenfold. I raised my katana to block, my spirit moving to support my arms, but the blow carried a weight that defied physics.
And she kicked me to the direction of where sogha and Euphyne are having their battle.