“Sometimes, some things out there were indeed to die for.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

Deafening explosions echoed over the fighting at the frontlines as arrows propelled at speeds far beyond what should be possible clashed with others driven by force beyond human capabilities. Sometimes a deflected arrow passed through and found an unlucky victim by chance, at other times only a misshapen clump of metal that used to be the arrowheads and a shower of wooden splinters fell upon the soldiers below.

Both Salicia Adenauer and Leung Hua-Jeong used their honed archery skills in an attempt to kill the other party as arrows were launched from their bows one after another, only to be shot down in mid-air by the other as they retaliated. Both had gone through a quiver full of arrows each in short order and changed to second quiver, with no result as yet other than a few unintended casualties that fell as collateral damage to their duel.

The casualties were almost entirely on the Imperial side, as Salicia’s heavier arrows made it through the impact in one piece more often than Hua-Jeong’s lighter ones, which tended to fare much worse even if they were only glanced by one of her arrows.

Through the so far brief exchange of arrows, Leung Hua-Jeong was made well aware that his opponent was not one to fall for simple tricks. She took down his arrows with relative ease even when he used tactics that would have posed difficult choices for most opponents. He realized that he would have to truly go beyond his limits to have a chance against her.

His old fingers grasped no less than seven arrows at once from his quiver as he focused himself for a brief moment and circulated his magic to coat the arrows each in a specific way. He nocked and loosed the first two arrows simultaneously, shooting one at his quarry and the second at one of the targets she was protecting, then he repeated the shot with the second pair.

As for the remaining three arrows, he loosed them one after another in quick succession a mere breath after the second pair of arrows left his bow. The wind magic he coated the arrows with ensured that they flew with great speed and lethality, while the three arrows he shot last followed in the wake of one of the second pair of arrows like its shadow, and the shadows to its shadow.

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Salicia was just about to loose an arrow of her own when she spotted what her opponent had done, and immediately shifted her aim. Her opponent had just gone all-out so she was left with little choice but to use her trump card, the Space affinity magic she typically only used when it was truly necessary. She knew that she did not possess enough mana to use it many times, so she had to make every use count.

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She loosed the arrow that was already nocked to her bow after a minute adjustment and the arrow slipped into a tiny portal – just large enough for the arrow to pass through – around a hundred paces away from her location, only to reappear two hundred paces further away, at a different angle, as it flew from the side and took out both arrows from her opponent’s first pair.

A second arrow was sent out and similarly flew through a tiny portal, striking the second pair of arrows her opponent sent her way from the side. Only then was she made aware of more arrows flying in the wake of one of the arrows of the second pair, headed straight towards her. She quickly nocked a third arrow and loosed it in the direction of the incoming arrows. She absentmindedly noticed her arrow striking down first one, then a second of the hidden projectiles.

The last arrow in her hand, she left for an attack of her own.

This time the portal formed much further away, a good three hundred paces out, existing only for the brief moment that it took for the arrow to fly through it to the other side. The exit portal formed a mere hundred paces away from her target, at a greater height than where her arrow would have been if she had shot it normally, and the arrow came out at a downwards angle, the force of gravity adding to its speed, from the opening.

Straight towards her foe, caught unawares by the sudden development.

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Long Jiangjun Leung Hua-Jeong was focused on the traces of magic he could feel on the arrows he shot. Two of them vanished as the arrows they were attached to shattered, followed by another two, which was well within his expectations. Those first four arrows were decoys, things meant to consume his opponent’s attention and time, while the true killing stroke waited behind.

He frowned as he felt how another two of the remaining three arrows he shot were taken out of the skies, but his lips started curling into a smile as the last arrow went on unmolested. Another second or two, and it should strike where he aimed.

Engrossed in his own observations, he never noticed either the tiny portal that formed high in the air a hundred paces ahead of him, or the heavy arrow that fell out of it and accelerated further towards him with unerring accuracy. It was only at the last moment that he noticed the arrow’s existence as it flashed past his face.

The arrow struck the old general at the base of his throat, the downwards angle allowing it to slip directly past his armor and straight into his flesh. It pierced deep, slipping into his chest cavity from above and directly bypassing his rib bones, piercing through his heart before the tip was finally stopped when it embedded itself into his spinal cord.

Hua-Jeong stared dumbfounded at the arrow that had just taken his life for a moment, even as he felt the strength leaving his limbs and the world growing darker. He felt himself slipping off the saddle and toppling over to the side, though he could not feel the fall. The last thing he saw before his vision went dark was the sky over the battlefield, which just happened to start raining right at that time, a drop of rainwater falling right into his eye.

“Splendid…“ muttered the Dragon General with his last breath, his final word but a praise for the opponent who had taken his life and handed him a defeat.

The words, however, were fated to fall unto deaf ears.

For across the battlefield, a one-eyed woman was slumped down on the branch she had been standing on just moments ago, her back resting precariously on the tree’s trunk. She was silent, unmoving, and the reason for it was clear as day.

A single arrow with brilliant green feathers serving as its fletchings jutted out from the center of her stilled chest, embedded right between her breasts.