A dome of leaves and branches sprouted up around Dr. Myrden, smothering his protests in a cloud of leaves. Both forest magic and shadow magic excelled at silence, and the old wizard was still too weakened to break out of a spell like this.

He hadn't seen it. Hadn't even thought about it. She'd tricked him. She'd come off as so childish. So immature. So arrogant in her own power. It hadn't even occurred to him she would have a backup plan in case she lost.

Magical contracts were brutal, but fair. Kyle's actions couldn't count as breaking the contract, he wasn't aware of it. And she could break her contract to defend her own life. She'd made Kyle think she was going to kill him, Kyle wouldn't back down. He'd fight to kill her, or close enough that the oath wouldn't stop her from defending herself.

She would kill Kyle over a technicality.

Sylvanandra was having a little more trouble with her plan than she'd thought. The genie's master was PISSED. Maybe it was anime style power of friendship, how dare she touch his mentor kind of thing? That was definitely part of it, but there was something else there. Something beyond that.

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The point is, he was tougher than she'd expected. Kyle came at her like a bulldozer. He clearly wasn't an experienced fighter, but he had enough raw power to put her in the back foot. Especially when she'd used so much power on creating her duplicates. He was besting her back. But she still had a few tricks...

All of which she promptly forgot when a huge glowing dragon plummeted from the sky towards her face. It only took a split second for the memories of her duplicates to surface. An illusion from that blonde, who barely new magic. Not a threat. She let it pass harmlessly over her.

Something burning and covered with claws hit her in the face. The summoner's cat. It had been hiding IN the illusion. That was... significantly worse than she'd been prepared for. Sylvanandra slammed into the ground in a burning crater.

"You guys!" Kyle said. "You're all alright!"

As she got to her feet, Sylvanandra saw that they were. All of Kyle's little friends had shown up to the party. She was surrounded. If things continued like this, she would lose. A smile crept across her face, and power flared up inside of her.

All she had to do was get serious, and she could kill them all.