In an instant, as the blue light of the ring faded, a fan appeared in Yllara’s hand. She hadn’t even opened it yet — rely allowed it to exist, as if summoning this weapon marked the end of so illusion. The fan was light, yet its presence stirred the air with such force that a cloud of dust was blown off the arena.
At that sa mont, the wound on her body began to reverse.
Literally — as if ti had turned back. Skin, muscle, and blood returned to their place, vanishing beneath her robes in the reverse order they had been damaged. Burns disappeared, steaming blood retracted into her body, and the sll of charred flesh dispersed into the air.
Veynessa stared in disbelief. This... was familiar. Similar to what she had seen from Kaen when he healed Calista.
Yllara, as if reading her thoughts, smiled faintly.
"I may not look like it, but I was the one who taught Kaen the Law of Ti," she said, her voice soft but filled with bitterness. "I was proud when he grasped it. And then... that monster surpassed so effortlessly, I began to wonder who was really the teacher."
She raised the fan.
"To reach the eighth stage, one must at least partially understand one of the Laws. Most comprehend a shard, a fragnt, a vague idea. I managed to grasp the Law of Gravity. And in its shadow — to a certain extent — the Law of Ti as well."
The audience held their breath.
The elders leapt from their seats.
"That... that’s Yllara’s fan..." Elder Maerion whispered, his voice barely a breath.
"Magnificent..." added Fenthar, his eyes sparkling like a child’s. "It’s been decades since we last saw ti techniques with our own eyes."
"Mhm," Theron agreed. "If even a fragnt of what we’ll witness helps refine my own understanding of the Laws, then it was worth coming today for that lesson alone."
"Maybe I’ll finally find a way for my shadow to move independent of the light," Maerion added with a quiet smile. "If I understand how ti bends gravity, maybe I can break through my own stagnation."
Beside the elders, Calista clenched her hands around the railing. Her gaze was locked onto the arena, filled with tension and growing unease. Yllara’s fan, now in her hand, stirred sothing deeper than re worry — it was a mixture of fear and awe. Nothing had happened yet, and Calista already felt sothing imnse approaching. She glanced at Veynessa, as if trying to silently warn her to stay alert.
Yllara spread the fan open. On its surface, constellations glowed — as if she held a piece of the night sky in her hands.
Veynessa instinctively raised her sword and activated — a slash from Astralis Vow.
"Mont Lock ," Yllara whispered.
Everything froze.
The technique Veynessa had activated — a slash from Astralis Vow aid at Yllara — halted in midair. Literally. Suspended halfway, as if torn from reality.
"Fan of Reversed Flow," Yllara said, her voice like a tiless truth, known by only a few.
Veynessa trembled. She tried to comprehend what had just happened — only monts ago she had launched an attack, and now... now the world looked familiar, but sothing had changed. Panic flickered in her eyes when she noticed a subtle, trembling distortion in the air over the sa arena spot.
She had been pulled back a few seconds in ti — to the mont when she was just about to attack. But sothing was wrong. This ti, when she took her first step, her foot fell into an energy vortex that hadn’t existed in the previous tiline. A spiral-dense gravitational field yanked her violently to the ground.
Yllara must have prepared it in advance — precisely where she knew Veynessa would be sent back. She wasn’t just manipulating ti, but gravity too, synchronizing both Laws like a master pianist rging sounds into a chord of death.
Veynessa struggled to draw her sword, trying to cut through the vortex, but each strike from Astralis Vow scattered uselessly, as if sliding along invisible layers of reality. Her knee trembled, and her back arched under the crushing pressure.
Gritting her teeth, she gathered her remaining strength. With one determined strike, she slashed through the center of the vortex, dispersing the gravitational anomaly. She rose from her knee, her body shaking with exertion, but she didn’t stop. She lunged forward, trying once again to attack Yllara.
Astralis Vow sliced through the air — but before it reached its target, Yllara raised her hand and uttered the familiar words:
"Mont Lock ."
The strike froze mid-flight. Just like before. History repeated itself with brutal precision.
Veynessa stood motionless, eyes wide in disbelief.
"No... impossible..." she hissed through clenched teeth, realizing her attacks were now futile.
Yllara watched from afar, her fan spread, her gaze as impassive as eternity.
Veynessa clenched her jaw and changed tactics. If ranged attacks didn’t work, she had to close the distance. She dashed forward, accelerating over a short range and aiming a strike directly at Yllara’s torso.
The slash sliced through the air — but Yllara was no longer there. The fan twitched subtly in her hand as she turned her hips and slipped out of reach with almost dance-like grace. Another swing — again, nothing. Yllara’s movents resembled a shadow — always one step ahead of the blade, as if she knew the sequence of attacks before they happened.
Veynessa struck from the left — Yllara vanished from the path. A downward strike — it t only air.
Her opponent moved smoothly, calmly, effortlessly. Veynessa’s breath grew heavier, and her attacks beca more frantic. Each move was t with a response — and Yllara’s answer always ca first.
Then Veynessa saw it.
The air around Yllara shimred unnaturally.
Ti.
Ti around her flowed more slowly. From Yllara’s perspective, every strike looked like it was happening in slow motion. She could analyze everything before it happened.
In one motion, Yllara spun in a half-circle, using the montum of her dodge. Her fan turned into a sharp line of Qi, and with a sweeping motion amplified by gravity, she struck Veynessa in the side.
The younger warrior’s body was thrown into the air, flung several ters away. When she hit the ground, her body slid across the cracked stone of the arena. Veynessa reacted at the last mont — she plunged Astralis Vow into the ground so forcefully that the blade pierced the stone plate, halting her montum. Her entire body tensed like a bowstring, and the strain nearly dislocated her shoulder. But she stopped. She gasped for air in shaky breaths, barely able to stay upright on one knee.
The audience followed every movent without blinking, as if even breathing could disrupt the rhythm of the battle. The elders stood in silence, their gazes filled with awe and calculation. Calista didn’t move a muscle — her fingers gripped the railing until her knuckles turned white. Only Kaen’s eyes shifted slightly, tracking trajectories most couldn’t perceive. His face was expressionless, but the golden glow in his pupils revealed total focus.
Veynessa tightened her grip on her sword’s hilt, but her arms lagged behind her commands. She saw Yllara’s fan slice through the air. She heard the whistle of energy. She even felt its weight approaching her skin. But when she tried to dodge, her body reacted too slowly — as if reality flowed slower for her than for her opponent.
Before she could take a breath, ti around her trembled again. A pulse of energy rippled through the arena, and a familiar feeling of dislocation overwheld her senses.
She was pulled back — again. This ti, the energy vortex awaited right beside her. She was dragged into its epicenter with such force that her body scraped across the ground like a rag doll. The crushing pressure tore open the skin on her back, and a scream burst from her throat — not of pain, but from the sheer, brutal force she had gathered within.
Astralis Vow flared again and cut through the vortex, dispersing it with a powerful, violent slash. Veynessa stumbled out of the gravitational field, bloodied, arms trembling, and chest rising unevenly. She gasped for breath, her hair plastered to her forehead, legs barely holding her up. But when she raised her head, there was no desperation in her eyes — only pure fury and unyielding determination. Her gaze, locked on Yllara, burned with a promise of victory, no matter the cost.
In the stands, Sylphia struggled to contain her emotions. The sight of the bloodied, shaking Veynessa stirred sothing deep within her. She clenched her hands on her knees, eyes fixed on the arena, her heart pounding wildly. She knew her mother as resolute, composed, always smiling — but now her body was battered, and her eyes were filled with fury and fire.
Yllara lifted her gaze. Her eyes t Veynessa’s for a mont, and though she said nothing, the corners of her lips rose ever so slightly. That fire — that fury shining in the younger woman’s eyes — deserved respect.
She sighed quietly to herself, letting her fan drop slightly.
"I would have liked to fight a bit longer," she thought. "But this Law... it’s terribly demanding. Ti devours Qi like a bottomless well."
She glanced at her hands, feeling the familiar tremor of exhaustion. The fan still glowed, but its light was slightly dimr than at the start.
"Ti to end this."
Yllara narrowed her eyes.
"Out of respect for you... I’ll show you what the eighth stage truly ans."
She raised the fan above her head in a slow, ceremonial gesture, as if summoning sothing ancient, older than the arena itself. Its edges glead like blades suspended between dinsions, and threads of broken light shimred in the air.
Yllara took a deep breath, as if closing a Chapter — and spoke in a low, resonant voice:
"I shouldn’t have treated you like a student. Now you’ll get a lesson as an equal."
"Decree of the Frozen World."
In a single instant, reality shattered.
Ti stopped.
Waves of air froze in place. Sparks of Qi that danced in the air ceased to flicker. Every breath, every thought, every fragnt of motion — was trapped in tilessness.
The stands fell silent. Sylphia had her lips parted mid-breath. Calista — her hand clenched on the railing. Veynessa — with sword raised and gaze burning with determination.
But only one person moved.
On his throne, Kaen tapped his finger lightly on the armrest, once, then again — a subtle rhythm of anticipation. A faint smile appeared on his lips, and his eyes glead with a dim light.
Yllara took a step forward. Her fan dipped slightly to the side, and her movents were so quiet and precise that it seed she was walking across the surface of frozen ti. She did not rush. Every motion was deliberate, as if she were celebrating her absolute dominion over reality.
She walked toward Veynessa like soone who had no need to hurry. Like soone who had already won. Her gaze was calm, confident — the gaze of one who had beco the ruler of this world.
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