There was a little difference between the girl he t at the foot of the mountain and the girl... no, woman at the final checkpoint. Warden could tell both were the sa person, though the one before him seed to be half a decade older, with most of her innocence gone.
A mature charm had replaced the innocence. So might say it was all worth it, considering how otherworldly gorgeous she was... Yet Warden couldn't help feeling a pang of sorrow looking at her.
"You promised to give your na after I catch up," Warden said, bottling up the unexplainable emotions growing inside of him.
"Who are you?" said the white-haired woman. "I don't rember promising you anything... I don't even rember ever eting you."
Warden frowned.
"Wait, don't tell ," realisation dawned on her face, as her eyes widened. "You're one of my fans, who even climbed the cursed Elysian to stalk ."
Warden was dumbstruck.
"While I do appreciate your enthusiasm, Mister," she said. "I'm not much into stalkers."
A silver blade appeared on her arm as she finished. She took a stance, looking as haughty as ever—perhaps she had not lost all of her innocence.
Warden could only comply, calling upon dozens of patterns of his own. His opponent, however, didn't bother to even manipulate the pattern.
"Ready?" she asked.
Warden narrowed his eyes, eting her gaze. He nodded.
The wind rose. A mont passed. Warden took a step forward, and his instinct flared up in an alarm. He saw a white flash of light approaching him at a trendous pace.
Warden lurched to his left. The figure of the white-haired woman appeared where he stood a mont ago, her blade flashing twice. Silver beams of light flashed out, though none of them affected Warden.
"You're better than you look," she said, turning to him. Her eyes were burning silver as her form flashed again.
Warden didn't dodge the attack; instead, he swung his spear to block her attack. Their weapons t in a resounding clash. Her agility was a notch higher than Ovium's, still, he didn't understand why Karim called her a monster. Maybe the fourth disciple didn't know how to appreciate a woman—
Her body flashed again, and within a millisecond, she was behind him, her blade plunging into his back. Warden lurched away; unfortunately, he wasn't nearly fast enough.
A cut appeared on his back as lightning flashed in the folded clouds. As Warden thought, there was a coercive power in her move, which slowed down his healing process.
His opponent didn't stop with her moves. Her form flashed unrelentingly, swinging her blade at him from all directions. If Warden blocked one of her moves, she succeeded with the next two... If he tried to create distance between them, she would simply flash in the blink of an eye and appear in his blind spot to deal a blow.
Moreover, with all the wounds appearing on his body, Warden was unable to reach the peak of the flow.
Ultimately, he could only do one thing.
Warden channelled the swirls of pattern in his control into the unnad spear move he had created with Karim. He didn't make it fatal; instead, he broke the move into swirls of a terrifying storm and shoved all that in her path. He only desired to slow her down, just so that he could withdraw from the area of the checkpoint.
The battle was lost before it began.
"Wait for my return," he shouted and flared the saved-up anti-gravity scripts. His body flew up as Warden didn't even look back.
He was successful in fleeing, of course... Though it didn't make him feel any better.
The woman didn't even let him bring out his best. Warden's ferocity rose the further the battle went on. Sadly, he didn't think he would last a couple of minutes at the intensity with which she dealt blows on him. On top of all, his void essence was suppressed by ninety percent at the very least, while he had mostly exhausted his light essence.
And it wasn't recovering all that much under the stress of the suppression.
In contrast, the woman seed to have more access over her essence. Warden had a suspicion about her origin, but he wasn't sure how that would explain how he felt familiar with her. She seed to have none of the familiarity with him. Hell, she didn't seem to have the mory of their eting on the first day either.
Could it an that the younger version was completely separate from her?
Warden rubbed his forehead, feeling a terrible headache growing. It wasn't simply because of the questions, all things considered... Sadly, he was in no mood to rest up.
Warden needed to devise a plan to defeat her. He was sure she hadn't shown all her cards, either. So, he couldn't leave any room for improvent.
Warden brought out all the stuff he thought he could use. First were the Attribute points enhancing elixirs. Considering the suppression of this place, enhancing his attribute points to the limit of the Iron rank would be of little help. Of course, if he could increase his Mind attribute, it would be the highest advantage, but Warden didn't see it happening with these Interdiate potions.
Still, he drank them all, reaching 150 points in all his attributes but Recovery and Mind.
Then there was the Gold-ranked quintessence of Light.
Warden stared at it for several seconds and brought out the device...
***
A couple of days passed, and Warden was back again to challenge the final checkpoint. He made all the preparations he could in the last two days. Perhaps he wouldn't win, but Warden would give her a good ti of the money.
"You again," the white-haired woman said. She was sitting in the inclined stairs of the sanctum, a bucket of orange in her hand. She seed to have eaten a couple of them.
"Good, at least your mory isn't all that bad," Warden chuckled.
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