The echo of their last weapon clash still trembled in the frozen air when both Vastarael and Elyonari let their weapons vanish into particles of sapphire light and emerald mist.
Feet slammed against the crystal frost, cracking it with each launch. In seconds, they had already crossed the field, trading punches, elbows, knees and aerial acrobatics so violently and so quickly that the sapphire fieldbecame an ever-shifting maze of shattered fractals.
To the outside eye, they were nothing but two comets colliding in a forest.
One second, Elyonari was ducking a spinning backfist. The next, she twisted her body mid-slide, slammed her heel against Vastarael's knee, flipped over his shoulder and attempted to drop an axe-kick onto his spine. He blocked it with both forearms but the force sent him flying back several meters, his boots skidding across the sapphire ice, sparks trailing around him. He barely caught his footing before she was on him again. Their fists met in the center, causing a shockwave exploding outward. Trees in the distance rattled.
Vastarael ducked under a right hook, twisted behind her and landed two solid palm strikes to her side. Elyonari winced but didn't falter. She spun around, grabbed his arm, and threw him over her shoulder like a sack of bricks. He slammed into the ground hard enough to leave an impact crater. But he rolled backward, using the momentum and popped to his feet without a word. Elyonari sprinted toward him again, fast enough to cause a thin sonic cone to form behind her. Vastarael met her charge.
She feinted a left jab, then twisted into a spinning elbow but he caught it.
His arm trembled from the sheer pressure. Her elbow was like a battering ram. He gritted his teeth, locked her arm, and headbutted her once. Elyonari staggered, more surprised than hurt.
"You... you really headbutted me."
"I fight to win," Vastarael panted, chuckling.
"And here I thought you were still a gentleman."
"I never said I was."
She laughed even as a bruise formed on her cheek. Her knuckles were scraped raw. Her white nightgown was tattered and dirt-stained. Then, she vanished.
Vastarael barely blocked the punch that followed. And even then, it hit his rib so hard it nearly knocked the breath from his lungs. For a moment, the world tilted. His vision blurred. Elyonari had hit him in the side so hard, his Divine Core shivered.
"You forget something about archers. For my arrows to move that fast, I have to pull that tight. And for that, I need strength."
Vastarael groaned, staggered back upright and rotated his shoulder until the bone popped back into place.
"Noted."
Then he kicked her. He did a roundhouse that landed full-force into her abdomen.
Elyonari flew back at least thirty meters before flipping mid-air and landing in a low crouch, panting. She was still smiling.
"You're getting violent."
"You started it."
She lunged again.
They met in a flash of fists and knees, their figures blurring around the sapphire field with streaks of emerald and blue. Every clash was a localized explosion. Every step was a controlled quake. They zigzagged through the kilometer-wide radius in seconds, covering hundreds of meters in a blur of martial fury.
Elyonari elbowed Vastarael's throat. He coughed but retaliated with a sharp jab to her side abdomen. She twisted his arm, tried to snap his elbow and he used the momentum to flip her over, only for her to grab his leg and slam him to the ground with her.
And then they rolled, clawing and punching and grappling. There was nothing elegant about it anymore.
Sweat ran down Vastarael's face. Elyonari's hair stuck to her cheek. Their bodies were covered in bruises and scrapes. Neither wanted to stop and the fight hadn't even reached the halfway mark.
They broke apart again, their chests rising and falling.
"I have to admit," Vastarael murmured between breaths. "This is the most fun I've had in well... seven thousand years."
Elyonari pushed her soaked hair from her face and laughed.
"Good. Because I'm not done yet."
He exhaled once and his expression, for the first time since the fight began, lost all playfulness. The smile vanished. His back straightened, hands relaxed at his sides.
His killing intent exploded.
Elyonari froze mid-step. Her body flinched.
Her knees buckled slightly. Her heart skipped and for a single instant, her thoughts blanked. It wasn't fear. And of course, it cost her. Vastarael appeared in front of her faster than her vision could track and drove his fist into her gut with a force so exact and terrifyingly efficient that her irises dilated.
Air exploded from her lungs.
She flew back like a ragdoll, tumbling across the field, bouncing three times before she hit the frost-coated trunk of a dead tree.
She slid down the bark, gasping. Her fingers twitched.
"Ggh... fuck," Elyonari muttered, blinking rapidly.
The world spun. Her ribs throbbed. Her eyes struggled to focus. That punch didn't feel like a strike. It felt like she got hit by a comet. Her stomach still felt inverted.
He got serious. He finally got serious.
Her feet touched the ground again. She raised her head and smiled through the green blood at the corner of her lip.
"So that's what it feels like when you stop playing."
Vastarael approached, his footsteps leaving quiet tremors behind. He was still calm but now he was alternating.
His right hand glowed faintly with ethereal sapphire light, the glaive Calimostria materializing in flickering bursts, striking precisely between hand-to-hand exchanges. One second, a strike to her shoulder with his elbow. The next, a glaive slash angled toward her ribs. Another second later, a spinning roundhouse followed by the glaive shifting form and jabbing like a spear.
Elyonari blocked with everything she had. Her arms were numb and her hands vibrating from the collisions. Her bow shifted forms into a short staff now and she did her best to match him blow for blow but it was like trying to catch a waterfall.
And worst of all. he was still holding back.
She knew it.
Even after that gut punch, she could see it. His breathing wasn't strained. His rhythm was relaxed. Elyonari shouted as she ducked another glaive swing and retaliated with a burst of strikes that landed on his ribs, collarbone, and hip.
"WHY? WHY ARE YOU STILL HOLDING BACK?!"
Vastarael blocked the last strike, twirled the glaive behind him and struck with a hook that nearly dislocated her jaw but stopped the motion and pulled the punch again.
Elyonari skidded away, panting now. Her blood dripped to the field. Her hair was messier. Her nightgown was half torn.
"Fine."
Her killing intent surged.
It wasn't the same as his. Vastarael's was sharp and honed. Elyonari's was feral. The trees wilted. Vastarael's eyes widened in thrill.
"You're mad," he muttered, letting the glaive dissolve into mist once again. "Good."
They clashed again, this time harder.
The sapphire field turned into a cratered battlefield, the clouds overhead beginning to swirl unnaturally from the shockwaves that followed. Her body now struck like a meteor and his defenses responded in kind. He was dodging by hair-widths. She was throwing punches fast enough to tear the air open behind them.
"I think we should end this. Sorry, Elyonari. If you didn't have a mage body, you would have handled this."