With everyone locked in battle, Moxie stood on a distant mountain, observing the chaos unfold. He didn’t wish to interrupt the battles, knowing the others needed to face their challenges head-on. However, his quiet watch was interrupted by a blinding pink light just ahead.
Before he could react, Ashlyn appeared behind him, throwing a swift punch. Moxie caught it effortlessly, his calm demeanor unshaken. "I don’t like fighting girls all that much," he muttered, looking at her with a slight frown.
Ashlyn spat on the ground, her face twisted in annoyance. "Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean you have to be a gentleman!" she snapped, launching a flurry of punches at him.
Moxie deflected her strikes, noting her speed with mild surprise. "You're fast," he admitted, "but are you fast enough to break through dimensions?"
Ashlyn smirked and shook her head. "Not yet," she replied.
Before Moxie could respond, he suddenly dropped to his knees, his eyes closing involuntarily. Ashlyn laughed, stepping back as she watched her power take effect. "Falling asleep already?" she teased. "I guess you weren’t ready for my sleeping manipulation."
A second figure stepped forward—it was a duplicate of Ashlyn. The clone smirked and disappeared, leaving the original to strike Moxie while he was down. However, as she swung her fist, her body froze mid-motion, and she was forced to step back, a feeling of dread washing over her.
Moxie's eyes snapped open, glowing with intensity. He rose to his feet, his aura exuding a suffocating force. "Why didn’t you fall asleep?!" Ashlyn demanded, panic creeping into her voice. "You should be trapped in a nightmare so powerful it affects your real body!"
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Moxie glared at her, his presence now overwhelming. The ground beneath her trembled as a massive surge of Essence energy pulled her down. Ashlyn fell to her knees, unable to resist the crushing weight of his power.
The others, spread across the battlefield, felt the sudden shift in energy. Insanity, locked in combat with Judas, paused for a brief moment, sensing the intensity of Moxie’s rage. He had never felt this from Moxie before—not since the battle with Wrath. Auforus, still clashing with Taleb, momentarily turned his attention toward the overwhelming pressure. Even Judas, with his calm demeanor, spared a glance in Moxie's direction.
Ashlyn, for the first time, felt true fear. It clawed at her heart, a feeling she couldn’t explain. Her body trembled as she coughed heavily, blood spilling from her lips. "This... this isn’t possible..." she muttered.
Moxie’s voice roared through the air, filled with fury. "You think playing with people’s dreams and pasts is fun? You think toying with others makes you powerful?" His words were like daggers, piercing Ashlyn’s resolve. "Then consider yourself already dead."
He pointed a single finger at her, and the energy around him began to condense, a massive surge of Essence focused into one singular point. The sheer force of it caused the ground to crack and crumble beneath him.
Ashlyn tried to move, to escape, but her body refused to listen. Her fear paralyzed her as Moxie unleashed the compressed energy.
From a distance, the others could only watch in awe as a blinding explosion consumed the area where Moxie and Ashlyn had been. The land itself seemed to vanish, erased in an instant by the sheer destructive power of Moxie's attack.
As the dust and light cleared, the battlefield fell silent, save for the faint echoes of the explosion. Moxie stood at the center of the devastation, his aura still raging, his eyes locked forward. Ashlyn’s fate was unknown, but one thing was certain: this battle had just shifted dramatically.