The red-haired girl's attacks were suffocatingly fast, her sword skills exquisitely fierce. Every strike flowed without hesitation, carrying tremendous weight.
Aiden felt his hands go numb around his hilt, the webbing between his thumbs nearly splitting from the recoil. In pure status, he was at a complete disadvantage.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The flame-wreathed longsword blurred into a seamless barrage of thrusts, raining down like meteors. Even though Aiden blocked with everything he had, several bone-deep cuts instantly appeared across his body.
Her final strike landed perfectly on the flat of his horizontally raised blade. The flames detonated violently, and the intense shockwave sent Aiden flying backward.
"Gospel!"
Yet, even while airborne and tumbling backward, Aiden corrected his posture. Extending a palm, he fired a precise blast of flames right at the pursuing red-haired girl.
Sparks scattered as the girl burst out from the center of the explosion completely unscathed, her momentum only slightly checked.
"Gospel!"
This time, it was pure sonic magic, stripped of the added fire.
The girl's body jerked to a sudden halt, an unnatural flush rising to her pale cheeks, though she forcibly suppressed it a moment later. Her internal organs had taken a hit, but it wasn't a decisive blow.
Aiden stabilized himself. Watching the girl charge at him once more, he didn't retreat; instead, he stepped directly into her path and unleashed a vicious whip kick fueled by the explosive power of Everlasting Flames.
The air shrieked under the sheer force of the blow.
Arriving before him, the girl mirrored his exact movement, launching a kick of her own.
Their legs collided violently mid-air, kicking up a storm-like shockwave that ripped trenches right through the solid ground beneath them. Wrapped in a thin layer of black pantyhose, her elegantly slender leg contained a terrifying, resilient strength completely at odds with her appearance.
Aiden used the recoil to fall back, simultaneously unleashing a slash. A crimson arc of light shot straight for the girl's pale neck.
Tilting her head ever so slightly, the girl evaded it by a hair's breadth. She smoothly followed through with an upward sweep of her longsword, aiming straight for Aiden's abdomen to gut him open.
Forced to retract his sword to evade, Aiden inadvertently exposed a fatal opening. Seizing the opportunity, the girl spun around, delivering a punishingly heavy roundhouse kick.
Aiden could only cross his arms to block.
A terrifying force washed over him. He felt as if a battering ram had slammed straight into his arms. The air ruptured at the point of impact, and he was once again launched uncontrollably backward, smashing hard into a wall of thick, intertwined tree roots.
BOOM!
A second later, towering flames erupted from the crater in the wall, and Aiden stood back up.
Not only did the fire cloaking his body not wane, but it actually burned brighter and fiercer than before. Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, a look of extreme, battle-crazed excitement ignited in his eyes.
"Robin!" he roared.
"Understood."
Hearing his call, Robin gracefully raised her staff. She then glanced sideways at the utterly dumbfounded Daphne and Cassandra. "You must keep everything you're about to see a secret, okay~?"
With a playful wink, she closed her eyes and began her solemn chant.
Daphne and Cassandra still looked bewildered.
But soon enough, in tandem with Robin's chant, an ethereal and divine song resonated throughout the cavern. A massive magic circle, woven from countless stars and musical notes, slowly manifested beneath her feet.
"Listen, to the starlit aria that weaves fate!"
"Take melody as the staircase, and transcend the barriers of mortality!"
"Now, soar with me into the firmament—"
"—[Vox Harmonique, Opus Cosmique]!"
The magic circle flared brilliantly, and a resplendent beam of starlight plummeted from the heavens, directly blanketing Aiden.
In that instant, Aiden's aura skyrocketed madly. The crimson Everlasting Flames cloaking him instantly metamorphosed into a radiant gold. He looked like a humanoid sun, radiating light and heat so blinding that no one dared to look at him directly.
"Come on. Let's start round two."
Aiden beckoned to the red-haired girl in the distance, a provocative smirk painting his face, his eyes gleaming with combat fervor and frenzy.
The red-haired girl remained expressionless, but her lips parted imperceptibly. A fleeting glimmer of light seemed to flash within those hollow, verdant eyes.
BOOM!!
The two of them transformed into streaks of gold and red light, colliding ferociously once more. This time, the sparks showering from their clashing blades almost completely illuminated the dim cavern.
Seeing Aiden's strength, speed, and reflexes undergo a world-shattering elevation—effectively gaining a whole level out of thin air—Daphne and Cassandra's jaws practically hit the floor.
"Enhancement magic? No... that's not right. A boost of this magnitude... Could it be... Level Boost magic?!" Daphne muttered, her voice dripping with sheer disbelief.
"Shh. We can't go around talking about that, Daph-baby," Hyacine interjected, popping up out of nowhere. She pressed a finger to her lips, blinking playfully.
"I... I understand. Our lips are sealed, right, Cassandra?"
Daphne nodded vigorously. She was a smart woman; she knew what she should and shouldn't say. However, when she looked over at the totally composed Robin, it was as if she were staring at a walking cheat code.
Every single person in this Familia is more absurd than the last...
Cassandra nodded furiously like a pecking chicken, looking as well-behaved as humanly possible.
Under the empowerment of [Vox Harmonique, Opus Cosmique], Aiden felt like the entire world had changed.
The oppressive, mountain-like weight from before had vanished completely. Replacing it was an unprecedented sense of power, as if he could tear anything apart.
"Now this... this is what I call a real fight!"
Bursting into laughter, Aiden turned into a brilliant streak of golden light and charged forward, taking the initiative.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The two flame-wreathed figures—one gold, one red—clashed intensely across the vast expanse of the 19th Floor's Large Tree Labyrinth.
The deafening roar of grinding blades echoed endlessly. Golden arcs and crimson slashes painted deadly trajectories through the air. The escaping high-temperature flames instantly set fire to the massive root structures and pillars.
Soon, the entire battlefield was reduced to a sea of fire. The two combatants slaughtered each other within this blazing purgatory, the raging thermal shockwaves and blistering environment serving merely as backdrop to their stage.
But soon, Aiden noticed something amiss.
The red-haired girl before him was actually growing stronger the longer they fought. Her strength and agility were steadily climbing at a visible rate, and the potency of her enchantment magic was scaling ever higher—a fact made glaringly obvious by the increasingly terrifying temperature that threatened to ignite the very air.
She even has skills... and one that makes her stronger the more she fights, at that. Aiden clicked his tongue, feeling a mix of shock and exhilaration.
He fully understood now. This phantom resurrected by the Dungeon didn't just possess complete magic, transcendent combat techniques, and masterful swordplay—it perfectly replicated the core skills she had in life.
Aside from lacking a soul, she was practically identical to the real person.
The only thing perplexing him now was whether this girl, like those other bizarre creatures, was just an empty shell devoid of a soul. Logically speaking, once an adventurer died, their soul returned to Heaven. This was an absolute law of the world.
The red-haired girl's soul should have returned long ago, but Aiden couldn't shake the feeling that something unusual was hiding deep within her hollow eyes.
He brushed the fleeting thought aside.
An unprecedented surge of excitement washed over his entire body. It was the boiling blood of a deathmatch against a formidable foe, but even more so... it was the possibility of seeing Alfia again.
If the Dungeon could recreate a phantom of the "Crimson Flower of Justice," what about Alfia? She, too, had been a powerhouse who spent years conquering the Dungeon, ultimately meeting her end within it.
Could she also be recreated by the Dungeon from its massive database of memories?!
Even if it was just a phantom, even if it wasn't truly her, Aiden wanted to see her one more time. And then...
Defeat her head-on in a fair fight.
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