Ti had frozen.
Every speck of dust hung in the air like stars in the night sky. Waves of Qi were locked mid-pulse, petrified echoes of life. Sylphia, Calista, the Elders, the rest of the royal family—all remained motionless, halted by the rciless Decree of a Frozen World. Even the light itself seed reluctant to move, trapped in the glass-like structure of a mont.
Only one figure moved through this dead universe.
Yllara walked slowly, her fan lowered at her side. Each step was placed with the precision of ritual, as though every movent was part of an ancient rite. She approached Veynessa, who stood frozen in an offensive stance, ready to strike with her sword. Yet the blade didn’t tremble, and her hair remained still, as if she were a statue carved in the heat of battle.
Yllara stopped before her and stared in silence.
"What a sha. You had so much fire," she whispered.
She lifted her fan, turning it in her fingers. Pure energy swirled around the blade, forming a gentle aura of judgnt. She assud a combat stance and began a slow swing. The strike was ant to end it all—to slice through Veynessa and bring the duel to a close.
On his throne, Kaen stirred.
One finger tapped the armrest.
"Ho..." he murmured with a smile. "So sothing interesting did happen during my seclusion."
His eyes glead with radiant light.
"The first in our family... to form a pact."
At that exact mont, Veynessa’s eyes snapped open.
Their azure depths shifted into sothing inhuman. Across her pupils appeared two crossed swords—slender, perfectly symtrical, resembling symbols of an ancient vow. The blades shimred with starlight, as if forged by forces beyond this world. Runes flickered in their glow, unreadable by any mortal being.
Ti shuddered. And then... it was cut.
Veynessa moved.
Astralis Vow tore through the air with such force that a wave of energy split the barrier of ti. Yllara’s fan never completed its arc—the blade slashed across her torso, and blood splattered into the frozen world.
Yllara froze, her body stunned, as if she had lost connection with her own center of gravity. Her fan dipped lower, and her eyes widened in absolute shock. She stared at Veynessa in disbelief, unable to comprehend how soone had moved in a world that should have belonged solely to her.
"How...?!"
The Elders gasped as one—but not just at the sight of Yllara’s wound. Their eyes searched the arena, trying to grasp what had occurred. One mont, they had seen Yllara activate the Decree of a Frozen World. The next... everything had changed. The positions of the duelists were different, and it was Yllara who bled, not Veynessa.
"That... can’t be," Elder Fenthar muttered.
"And yet... sohow, she broke through Yllara’s frozen-ti technique," Elder Maerion whispered, as though speaking blasphemy.
Beside them, forr king Theron sat silently. His unblinking gaze remained fixed on Veynessa and Yllara, as if he were unraveling every thread of energy around them.
Sylphia stared at her mother, mouth agape, breath forgotten.
A short distance away, King Aldrich remained silent, his fists clenched, lips pressed into a thin line of disbelief and awe. A faint smile tugged at his lips—subtle, barely visible, as though it surprised even him.
"She has it..." he whispered. "She might actually surpass the Eighth Stage."
In the center of the arena stood Veynessa.
She no longer looked like a warrior.
Behind her floated eight swords—each unique, each as majestic as if forged by the Heavens themselves. The first was made of pure light, glowing like a sunrise over a dead battlefield. The second was etched with runes carved into eternal ice, steaming upon contact with air. The third pulsed with darkness, its blade absorbing light around it. The fourth burned crimson, as if the blood of ancient beasts coursed through it. The fifth resembled a phoenix wing. The sixth was transparent like glass, yet every swing echoed with the sound of steel. The seventh shimred like a starry sky, and the eighth—the most powerful—seed composed of symbols and laws, as if it were a manifested principle of existence.
The swords slowly orbited Veynessa, forming an aura of impossible harmony and destruction. The air trembled with each rotation. On her head rested a crown of essence—eight curved blades arranged in a circle, between which danced microscopic lightning and glowing runes. Each segnt of the crown pulsed with its own light, as though each represented a primal law.
On her skin, just beneath her eyes, new markings erged—spiral runes and geotric tattoos that shimred with each breath. They were no decoration; they looked like seals for sothing far greater—a power just beginning to awaken.
Veynessa raised her hand to the sky. Astralis Vow dissolved into a streak of light and returned to the ring on her finger. At the sa mont, one of the floating swords—the seventh, shimring like starlight—halted in the air and flew into her hand. As her fingers closed around its hilt, reality trembled.
Yllara stared, wide-eyed.
"You... really ford a pact with Spirit."
Veynessa gave no reply.
She looked at Yllara with her new eyes—still bearing the crossed swords, glowing with the light of stars. The reflection of the entire world shimred within them, as if her gaze could cut through the soul itself.
Yllara stepped back, raising her fan.
Her wound vanished—ti rewound with a crack, sealing flesh and blood. But before she could utter another word, Veynessa’s sword tore through the air toward her.
Yllara lifted her fan and invoked the Mont Lock technique. For a fraction of a second ti froze around the blade.
But Veynessa’s sword did not yield. As if sensing the stillness, its edge flared, then sliced through Yllara’s technique like a knife through frost. Mont Lock shattered into radiant dust, and the sword continued its path toward her.
Stunned, Yllara opened her mouth, but no words ca. The blade pierced her shoulder clean through, blood trailing in its wake. She gritted her teeth and imdiately rewound ti—the wound vanished, her body restored.
But the sword... remained. It spiraled back, looped around, and flew toward her once more—as if fate itself refused to let the strike be denied.
Yllara trembled. For a mont, she couldn’t understand why her techniques failed. The thought of defeat flared, but she quickly suppressed it. Her mind, honed over decades, steadied.
"It cuts... ti," she realized. "That’s why it pierced Mont Lock. That’s why it hurt during frozen ti."
She stepped back, analyzing.
"But it’s not her. It’s the sword. She still can’t do it on her own."
Her eyes lit with cold calculation.
"Then... I’ll let it hit . I’ll keep healing by rewinding ti, and anwhile..."
Raising her fan, she ford a seal. Gravitational vortexes twisted in the places where Veynessa had stood just seconds earlier—Yllara intended to force her back into those zones.
Veynessa lunged forward, ready to strike again—but her body trembled and snapped backward, pulled into the exact epicenter of a vortex.
Gravity exploded around her, crushing air and hamring her form. Veynessa grunted in pain as her body was pinned to the ground. Yet before the vortex consud her entirely, she raised her hand—the ring on her finger flared, and Astralis Vow returned in streaks of energy.
With a wild cry, she slashed the space, tearing the gravitational field apart.
Yllara narrowed her eyes. "Why use Astralis Vow again? Why not one of the other seven swords?" she thought feverishly. But the answer ca swiftly: perhaps she couldn’t use them all at once. Or... hadn’t mastered them yet.
And in that instant—while she was still thinking—the next sword strike pierced her side. She hissed in pain but did not retreat.
She clenched her teeth and rewound ti again, restoring her body in a single, fluid wave. Simultaneously, her fan flared—activating the Reversal Fan technique. Veynessa was dragged back in ti, straight into another vortex.
Seconds passed in a loop of horror. Veynessa was pulled again and again into the sa points—the cores of Yllara’s vortexes. Each ti, her body endured pressure, distortion, and pain, yet she endured, tearing apart field after field.
At the sa ti, Yllara continued to suffer wounds. Veynessa’s sword struck with the rhythm of a ticking clock, punching through her over and over. A mont later, blood vanished, flesh restored—the effect of ti reversal.
It looked like a dance of two deities trapped in a spiral of oblivion—one striking, one rewinding, both bleeding, both consud by pure focus.
"This is no longer a duel," said Elder Fenthar, his voice rough with awe. "It’s a war of attrition. A battle of who will exhaust their Qi first."
"At first glance, it seems Yllara has the advantage," Maerion added. "But her ti techniques... they burn through terrifying amounts of energy. Reversing injuries every few seconds... it’s not just mastery, it’s madness. Her Qi is burning faster than we can asure."
Theron watched Veynessa silently. Her body was bloodied, one arm mangled by gravity, deep wounds across her skin. Yet in her eyes there was no pain. There was fury. There was resolve. There was certainty she would win.
"It all depends," the forr king muttered, "on whether she can maintain this state. We don’t know how much energy this form consus... but it clearly isn’t eternal."
Calista watched in silence, lips pressed tight, hand clenched on the railing. Her heart pounded.
And Sylphia? Sylphia watched as a mortal watching gods clash. Her eyes darted between bursts of energy, blades, and frozen waves of ti. She tried to comprehend—but couldn’t. She simply... absorbed every breath of this impossible scene.
The sequence repeated for minutes. Each loop drained Yllara more. Her breath grew shallow, her fan trembled in her grip. Veynessa’s sword still pierced her with terrifying regularity—its shimring form, reminiscent of starlight forged into a blade, continuously circled the arena like a predator. It did not wait for her to breathe. Each ti Yllara healed, the sword adjusted its path, launching itself anew. It tore into her shoulder, her thigh, her side—always with a ruthless precision, aiming for another weak spot. Though its speed began to fade, its force waning, the relentless rhythm of pain continued. Even so, Yllara clenched her teeth, rewound ti, and created new gravitational traps.
They both looked like shadows of themselves, yet neither would yield.
And then... it all began to collapse.
Yllara exhaled a trembling breath. Her fan dropped lower, knees buckled beneath her. She fell to the ground, bracing herself on trembling hands, panting. Sweat poured down her face, her hair clinging to her skin. Her aura still flickered, but it was torn and chaotic—like the dying light of a star.
Yllara was the first to fall to her knees...
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