Surprisingly, the fight started off quite physically. Rieren hadn’t been expecting that. Kalvia of all people ought to know just how outmatched she would be against Rieren’s swordplay.

But maybe that was it. Maybe she wanted to prove a point that she wasn’t going to be outmatched.

She certainly fought with a fury that proved her intentions weren’t lackluster. Kalvia managed to get in so close that Rieren wouldn’t be able to use her sword properly any longer. That was the one advantage of knives. Get in close, and then the longer weapon would become a detriment to the adversary.

Unable to counterattack at all, Rieren was forced to defend for the time. Earthfall Blade didn’t make things too difficult. Despite the sheer savagery of Kalvia’s swings, stabs, and slashes, Rieren was able to push aside and deflect all her blows. All her defensive skill needed was for her to hold her blade just so in the path of her opponent’s strikes.

But Kalvia’s intent had never been to land a direct hit. Not with her own strikes. Her skill—one Rieren hadn’t seen yet—activated a second later.

Every blow she had flung at Rieren reappeared around her in a frightening furor of ghostly images. A hundred attacks aiming for a hundred spots on Rieren. A barrage that would have been impossible to beat, deflect, and possibly even survive.

Unless one had Fray Passage like Rieren did to take her out of the danger zone.

Kavia cursed as Rieren came to a stop. “Almost.”

Rieren shook her head with a soft grin. “Not even close.”

“Want to try again?”

Rieren stood straighter, held her blade in an attacking stance. “Want to try my skill next?”

Kalvia threw her a lopsided grin. Then she began throwing out her Domain.

Roots and shoots burst out of the ground in an earthen storm, heading straight for Rieren. She responded by summoning her water, making it rise in stormy waves in response. Their Domains collided with a furious spray of surf and splinters, the water shredding through Kalvia’s trees and other plant matter in mere moments.

She had flung a great deal at Rieren, however. Tendril after tendril slammed in at Rieren with waves of wood that might have given her waterier Domain trouble if it hadn’t been infused with all her destructive Aspects.

But that was a distraction. Rieren had expected that Kalvia was planning something.

It became apparent what she was going for soon enough. Something tickled Rieren’s feet for a second. She ignored it, focusing on repelling back everything Kalvia was throwing up front. But then the sensation grew. It became unignorable. She was forced to split her attention.

Only to find Kalvia was doing the same already. Plants. Underwater plants. She had threaded through a flood of underwater plants to attack Rieren through her Domain.

Of course. Ingenious move, if Rieren was being honest. Kalvia must have taken inspiration from the swamp all around them to summon up aquatic plants to use Rieren’s Domain against her. And now Rieren had been locked into position by the tide of roots and shoots wrapping around her lower torso.

Her counter was easy. She could take out both of Kalvia’s attempts to overcome her Domain at the same time. All Rieren had to do was turn hers to steam.

Her whole Domain rose in a powerful geyser. Superheated water and steam erupted upwards, taking a chunk of the ground with it, ripping through all the plant matter. Both taking the underwear plants and the more solid wooden tendrils shooting over the water. All of it was destroyed.

Even better, the rising geyser prevented Kalvia from getting close to strike physically or attacking from range either. It was essentially the perfect defence for Rieren to use.

When Rieren called the rising column of water to a halt, she could see that Kalvia had chosen a different option. She had fallen farther back in the arena, surrounding herself with her own Domain in a small radius. Thorns and brambles ready to ensnare anyone attacking directly, roots and vines looking for opportunities to lash out should someone get close enough.

Rieren grinned. As all the water and debris she had thrown up now started raining back down, she rushed her opponent. Wrong move by Kalvia. Rippling Blade extended the Receptor Sword to an overwhelming length, and Rieren made sure to apply her stormy mixture of Aspects. Then—

She didn’t get the chance to strike. Kalvia’s Domain exploded outwards.

Rippling Blade was a great attacking move, but Rieren had much better defending options. She halted her momentum, resummoning her Domain at the same time. Her water accumulated almost instantaneously, thanks to all the rainfall around her.

Then Rieren set it to swirling, all the while expanding her Domain. It wasn’t enough to constantly counter whatever Kalvia threw at her. The battle would just go on like a stalemate situation. Rieren didn’t want to keep repeating the same motions. It wasn’t as though her Essence was inexhaustible.

So, her ever-expanding whirlpool would encompass the entire arena and destroy anything Kalvia tried to summon. She just had to put in enough rotational speed and ripping ferocity in it.

The eddy tore apart Kalvia’s attacks. Water rose in rupturing waves, twisting and turning to shatter all of the plant matter in an instant. The whirlpool was bounding outwards with ever increasing speed too. Even from this distance, Rieren could see the fear and alarm on her adversary’s face. She was learning that she would be outclassed in a direct matchup like this.

That probably explained Kalvia’s reaction. Dozens of tree trunks erupted out of the ground at once. They didn’t start off as shoots rapidly expanding to tree-size. No, she had summoned the trunks themselves, possibly making them grow underground beyond the reach of Domain’s reach.

Rieren smiled. Oh, her adversary was definitely smart, even in the thick of battle. Picking the right counters seemingly instantly. Maybe Kalvia had taken notes from Rieren’s stat growth as well, focusing a good deal on her Mind.

The whirlpool naturally found the trunks harder to destroy than all the smaller plants before. But the new state of Kalvia’s Domain was harder to attack with than her previous iterations. She had to wait until the trees grew tall enough, until branches started sprouting and shooting at Rieren’s direction. Too slow. All too slow. Rieren dodged them with ease.

But their real purpose had been to take Kalvia high into the air. She herself was beyond the reach of Rieren’s twisting whirlpool. Safe. For the moment.

Rieren dashed forward. If Kalvia thought she could get away that easily, could maintain distance between them with no trouble, she would need to think again. Rieren deftly avoided all overhead attacks, before getting into the right position. All she needed was a moment’s focus to draw in all her water under feet, calling her whirlpool to a halt. Then she used her geyser again.

Pressurized, overheated water burst upwards in a rocketing column. Rieren had wrapped herself in the boiling, blistering water as well, holding her breath as she crashed through the thicket of branches. Kalvia’s eyes widened as Rieren arrived far too quickly for her to react, especially when Gale Blade came into play.

Rieren struck. But her blade didn’t bash into flesh—she had angled it so that she wasn’t cutting down her opponent, just hammering with the flat of the Receptor Sword.

All she met was solid wood that exploded into a storm of splinters.

A distraction. It was Rieren’s turn to be surprised, to have alarm bells going cacophonous in her head. Where was the real Kalvia?

It was good to rely on her instincts. Rieren’s momentum was coming to a stop, slowing down now she had hit her target, but her senses went on high alert. Essence not hers was almost upon her. She instinctively used Fray Passage to continue her upward momentum, taking her well past the peak of her geyser. When she twisted, she finally found Kalvia again.

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Behind her.

The way she was positioned, she had clearly been trying to stab into Rieren’s back. Her eyes were screwed up in fury at the fact that she had missed. Or rather, that Rieren had dodged.

As much as Rieren had advanced her Mind, she certainly couldn’t tell how in the world Kalvia had ended up in that position. When had she switched herself with her wooden lookalike? The only time Rieren hadn’t had a direct eye upon her opponent was when Kalvia had been continuously attacking with her Domain at the beginning of the fight, when Rieren had first used her geyser.

That long? She had not only maintained a copy of herself but also controlled it for that long? Had her prowess with that technique advanced so as much as Ceraline’s had with hers?

Controlling a perfect replica of oneself in one’s chosen Aspect required insane amounts of power and proficiency. Rieren had known Kalvia had advanced tremendously over the course of the tournament, and before it too, but this sort of growth nearly rivalled her own.

For a second, they were perfectly positioned high up in the air. Reaching the peaks of both their arcs at the same time to freeze for just a few heartbeats.

“Get back here,” Kalvia said, grinning fiercely at her. The battle had lit up a ferocious energy, enhanced by the crowd’s roaring. “I haven’t stabbed you.”

Rieren returned the grin. “You should be proud you survived my burning water. That is how you nearly backstabbed me, yes? Hiding in my own geyser and using your concentrated Essence armour to protect yourself.”

Kalvia didn’t get to confirm. She began falling.

Rieren did too, but she decided to be a little more graceful about it. So, she used Enchant and turned her sword into the Floating Blade.

Kalvia’s eyes widened as Rieren arced through the air like she had wings. With Floating Blade, Rieren could control her airborne motion with much greater ease. All she had to do was swing the blade in the direction she wanted her momentum to change, and the legendary treasured sword allowed it.

Rieren curved herself through to hammer straight at her adversary. She considered using Gale Blade to seal the momentum, to hit Kalvia not only before she reached the ground, but also before she could use any of her nearby trees to assist her.

Too fast. There would be no time for her to come up with any further tricks.

Before she could decide, Kalvia pulled out her next technique. The plants erupting from within her held the shades of her fight against Ceraline and Rieren’s battle against Zhalen. Wings. She had created wings. As Rieren slashed in, the wings made of thin wood wrapped with thin vines flapped and bore her away. She dodged to land safely on the ground.

Rieren landed a heartbeat later as well. Kalvia could have tried using her birdlike Domain summons, but there had been no time. Rieren had counted on her trying that, which was when she would have used Gale Balde.

But then she had pulled out that little move from Zhalen’s repertoire. Rieren laughed a little. At least she wouldn’t be fooled again.

Kalvia raised one hand high. The earth trembled.

“Enough,” Rieren said.

She summoned her Domain at the same time the ground started splitting apart to shoot a hundred roots in Rieren’s direction. No need to go through the same motions again. Rieren knew how to end this, how to win.

It was time to pour the majority of her remaining Essence into her Domain. She used it to not only churn the water into a stormy current that tore through everything, then a geyser that columned into the sky again. This time, she was also applying all her Aspects on top of her main one as well. She wasn’t throwing up a burning geyser.

This time, Rieren made a storm erupt into the heavens around her.

The combination of devastating lighting, gale-force winds, and water churned into crossbow bolts, destroyed anything Kalvia might have hoped to throw at her. It was no contest at all. However strong Kalvia had grown, she couldn’t have claimed as many Aspects as Rieren had, nor could she have combined them into as destructive a mixture.

A second later, Rieren used Rippling Blade to cut a swathe through her own storm. She didn’t want to lose sight of her prey for long.

Kalvia was simply standing there, near the far edge of the battlefield. Rieren’s Domain was pressing her so far back that there was no space or time for her to do anything with her own Domain. All she could do was maintain as strong of a wall of wood a few paces around her as she could to prevent the rushing storm from destroying her too.

Rieren rushed over. The line she had cut through the storm using Rippling Blade let her reach Kalvia’s position in mere heartbeats.

She pushed herself harder and harder, reaching her opponent with such force that Kalvia had no time to react. To try something else. Not with the storm ongoing with such ferocity. When Rieren slashed down, Kalvia had no response. All she could do was dive to one side to evade the blow.

It meant crashing out into the stormy Domain. Not a terrible problem. Kalvia had her concentrate Essence armour to count on. When she applied the harder properties of wood Aspect to it, it was strong enough to withstand the pummel of the wind, rain, and the occasional bolt flashing down upon her.

Rieren didn’t care. Her real goal was at hand. Overwhelming Kalvia in direct combat. She continued striking, using her sword to slash, stab, and swipe over and over.

Kalvia had pulled out her knife to use the deflecting skill so similar to Earthfall Blade. She was quick and adept enough to meet wherever Rieren struck. No matter how fast Rieren hit, no matter how much she feinted and used as much power as he could summon, Kalvis’s knife was there to meet her sword with ringing clangs.

The storm was dissipating. That was fine. The distractions afforded by the storm were apparently not enough to make Kalvia falter in her combat.

So, Rieren focused entirely on overwhelming her opponent with sword strikes.

Of course, Kalvia tried to bring her own Domain to bear. She summoned out roots and plants to attack Rieren from underneath, to make her falter in her relentless barrage of slashes and stabs.

But Rieren could split her attention just enough to deal with those pesky interruptions too. She summoned her Domain to wash away everything trying to impede her from striking down Kalvia. In fact, it was her Domain that finally allowed her to get past Kalvia’s desperate guard.

A simple use of Tidal Simmons made waves erupt with her every motion. An upward slash was once more deflected away by the curved knife. But with that motion burst a wave. It came out from under Rieren’s feet, taking her above Kalvia while crashing into the imperial heir. Rieren jumped and hammered down, finally getting past Kalvia’s guard to strike her directly.

Kalvia screamed as she was flung back by the sheer power behind Rieren’s blow. Her Essence armour cracked, making blood spurt along her collarbone.

She recovered quickly, though. She was forced to. Rieren was already upon her, seeking to press her advantage.

Kalvi fought with greater desperation. She added dodging to the mix of deflections, though it meant she took some hits here and there. Rieren left Kalvia’s Essence armour cracked on her left arm, at her waist, and even on her temple. Glancing blows, but still. Progress. Rieren grinned. Victory was almost hers.

Of course, Kalvia tried to mix in her Domain. Even after it had failed the first time, she had various other ways to incorporate it.

The wings on her back expanded to get her away from Rieren’s more grounded reach, but one use of Floating Blade made that ineffectual. She tried pulling out that birdlike Domain Summons to harry Rieren, but it wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to pose any sort of threat. Rieren just continued swinging and slashing, at one point cutting through the wooden bird too.

When more roots and whatnot tried to get in Rieren’s way, she simply used a bit of her Domain to wipe them out. Nothing was stopping Rieren from beating down Kalvia.

She found the weakness in her approach a moment later. Since Rieren possessed Earthfall Blade, she knew the exact counter to the constant deflections Kalvia was using to safeguard herself.

When the time for their blades to meet again, Rieren held herself from hitting the knife. She paused her sword swing a hairsbreadth away from Kalvia’s blade. When she did connect, there was nowhere near enough instantaneous force to make her bounce off with the deflection skill Kalvi had been using so far.

Kalvia’s eyes widened. “What—”

Rieren grinned. Then pushed.

The weakness of skills like Earthfall Blade was that, for a successful deflection, strikes had to be fast and instantaneous. That was how the majority of blows one would ever face be. It was what made it such an invaluable, nearly invincible skill.

But that also meant that any continuous push wasn’t something the skill could simply deflect away. There was nothing to deflect. A continuous application was a pressure, not a force. Earthfall Blade couldn’t deflect wind, couldn’t deflect the tide pulling one into the ocean, couldn’t deflect the tectonic shifts of the earth beneath one’s feet.

Rieren channelled the same kind of overwhelming pressure behind her arms. She pushed and pushed, keeping the two blades connected, driving her opponent back.

The panic in Kalvia’s eyes was almost a victory in and of itself. She had realized she had no counter to what Rieren had opted to do.

With a grin, Rieren summoned all the force her Body could muster, then held her ground, swinging only her arm. Pushing only with her shoulders and elbows. It was much like grabbing Kalvia by the scruff of her neck and bodily flinging her back, so fast that it looked like she had been fired from a catapult.

Kalvia screamed as she flew at the arena’s wall. Just before impact, she managed to summon a wall of plants, soft enough to cushion her impact.

When she collided with a crush of trees and leaves, a cloud of dirt and dust occluded Rieren’s view for a moment. The crowd was silent, holding their breath to see if the battle was indeed over. But then the dust started to clear and Kalvia emerged, staggering forward a little

Her shoulder and left arm were entirely broken now, spilling blood. But… Rieren frowned. They weren’t flesh-and-blood anymore. Even as she watched, Kalvia wrapped vines and wood around them to retwist her shattered arm back into a regular shape, her face wincing with heavy pain. Blood spilled from the little gaps between her wooden cast.

Rieren hefted her sword and took one step forward, but then she paused. Kalvia wasn’t done.

The vines and wood continued to take over the imperial heir, claiming more and more of her form. They covered both her shoulders next, before spurting flowers. Brilliant red flowers with glowing petals, like a day’s dying sun.

Rieren’s eyes widened. “Wait, Kalvia.”

“I’ve waited for this victory long enough, Rieren,” she said, staggering one more step toward her opponent. She almost looked drunk. She must have lost too much blood. “No more.”

“You cannot—”

“I can.” She locked eyes with Rieren. “I need to.”

A second later, the wood covered her entirely, an impenetrable cocoon encasing her. One lone thread of pure gold light shot into the sky from the peak of the cocoon.

Then the sun started pouring into the battlefield.