I'll admit it, this woman was formidable. Up until now, I had believed the gap between us vast and insurmountable.
Now, I saw it for what it truly was: no gap at all.
She moved with precision, power, and conviction that mirrored my own.
And that stirred a gnawing jealousy within me. Jealousy, I reminded myself, is never a virtue.
I looked up and blew out a breath of air. Instantly, she was pushed back as a new ribcage of energy formed around me.
From the swirling winds of the world, a pale white serpent lunged toward her, coiling and striking with uncanny speed.
She swung her blade, splitting my Mythical Beast in two.
Pain lanced through my soul, leaving me reeling, struggling to keep my feet.
"That was… audacious," she said calmly, almost amused. "And surprising. I doubt I could do something so strange myself."
I scoffed and summoned the True Ancestral Spear of the Gale God.
Its forward thrust was terrible in its speed, yet she remained unbothered.
A flash of red light erupted as her blade tore through my defense once more, and our clash began in earnest.
Back and forth, strike after strike, our weapons met with such intensity it seemed to halt the very flow of time itself.
She burned me passively with her presence, holiness that weighed on my soul, an invisible searing that made even my existence uncomfortable.
Anything holy perceives the unholy, and it can leave its mark on those it touches. Even the most virtuous can be scorched by Heaven's light.
Yet she did not burn indiscriminately, these were flames of redemption, flames that could have consumed the world itself if untethered.
She was a monster, a force beyond reckoning, and the thought of her power made my chest tighten with fear.
"I felt it just now. The name of the spear I deflected… did it insult God?"
Such insight was insane. Just perceiving it, she could detect the blasphemy embedded in a name.
But I no longer cared. I had already decided to make God pay; this world had never been fair, and I would not forgive Him.
Yet this woman was a soldier of His will.
If I had not trained so long, I knew with certainty that the younger me would have been slaughtered within moments.
And that assumes she had paused to speak at all.
"I'm sorry I offended your savior," I said, voice suppressed in sanctity. "But to me, He is only a captor. He holds my happiness in chains."
She paused, and her gaze softened slightly, as if weighing the words themselves.
"Chains, you say? Do you truly believe suffering is His burden alone to bear?"
I laughed bitterly at her words. This was me, or maybe it was never me, maybe thats why I hate it so much.
"No, suffering is not a gift, it is a curse. It is mandated. And yet, men do nothing. God created this suffering, and man simply follows."
Her eyes narrowed. "You speak of His creation, and yet you rebel against it. Do you not see that suffering refines?"
"Refines? There is no refinement in the screams of the innocent. In the blood of those who die before their time. God's light is merciless."
I let my voice crack. "His justice blind, and His mercy a cruel joke. One he plays on the hearts of man."
"You see only the torment of the flesh." She said, voice calm like a sea.
"Yet the soul can grow through trial. Man is flawed, yes, but it is within these flaws that salvation is revealed."
"Salvation," I replied, teeth gritted.
"Thats nothing but a lie! The moment you are born, you are shackled to a world of pain, to a fate chosen by a hand you cannot oppose."
If there is a God, He has abandoned us, or worse, delights in our suffering.
That would be a most cruel creator.
I let go of my patience. "I reject Him, I reject humanity, and I reject the lie that endurance has meaning. I will kill God!"
She lowered her gaze, silent for a long moment, and the air grew heavy with the weight of my words.
"Then your will is set. You bear your suffering as both weapon and shield."
"Yes," I said, voice steady, trembling with fire, "I will not let it vanish. I will embrace it, hold it up, and make it shine in defiance of Him."
At that moment, her hand fell to her sword.
The world seemed to shudder with expectation, rain cascading like tears of light.
The heat of her presence grew infinite, primordial, and searing, wrapping itself around my chest and burning into my bones.
Everything in me screamed to run, to beg for mercy, but I did neither.
Her voice shifted, encompassing not just this world but all worlds, vast and infinite.
"Falter in the wrath of God, bask in His tears, and lay down in His mercy."
Heat, infinite and primordial, poured into my chest, burning through every fiber of my being.
"My gift is called Wrath of God: Ishā."
It was the fire of Heaven, unique, distinct from any hellfire I had known.
Wrath incarnate, it seared me, attempting to strip away my hate, my wrath, my suffering.
"No!" I screamed, even as pain and fury were stripped from me. I would not yield, would not relinquish what made me whole.
She looked at me, surprise flickering across her features as her form began to fade. "Why?" she whispered softly.
I stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I wish to grasp all my suffering," I said, voice steady despite the searing fire, "and make it shine."
Her form dissolved, returning to the world from which she came, leaving behind only the weight of her presence.
That monster would not die by any ordinary means.
Using all my power, I poured my jealousy into her essence, a dark gift she carried away.
I dropped to my knees, sheathing my sword, chest heaving, mind alight with the fire of defiance.
I laid back and whispered to myself, cold and unflinching: "Come, Nicholas, for I will take what is rightfully mine."
***
[Mirabel Anstalionah.]
Devastation. What came from his blade was nothing but devastation and ruin.
Once more I heard a heartbeat, and pain lanced through me as his sword pierced my chest.
A second beat landed and I realized he had struck my arms and legs as well.
Such a monster could not be allowed to live; I would not permit it.
I flexed and launched myself into the air. He sheathed his blade and leapt back as I hurled a scattering of spirit-stars toward him.
He deflected each one with bored ease and closed the distance while I brought my own blade down in answer.
A plane of mana dropped from my hands, a thin, ringing sheet meant to stop him, but his aura tore through it like wind through paper.
He swung then and a blue lightning ran across my skin like ice and fire at once, and a voice spoke the name of the storm.
"Stormy Night."
Bolts answered that summons, raining down and striking me with a force that unstitched time itself; each strike came faster, harder, without mercy.
I wanted to wait. I had hoped I would not have to use the thing tucked beneath my vows, but mercy is not given to those who face this kind of monster.
I let go. I surrendered peace, restraint, sanity, everything that had kept me whole.
My hair lengthened, darkening as if soaked in dusk; my skin took on a bruised shade, a halo of blood.
The lightning ceased to be vast; it became small and fragile beside the wrath that rose inside me.
"Fall of Wrath: Dedacar!" I cried.
Red flooded the world, and my blade plunged from the sky like a condemned angel.
It landed with celestial violence, only it did not strike Nathaniel.
Someone else bore the brunt of my fury.