Seraphina stopped the flow of time.
[SFX: KRRR-CHHHH — Time Shatters.]
The ground trembled — not with fear, but with recognition.
Every root, every leaf, every crystal vein beneath Sylvanyr's physical body began to glow.
The World Tree's eyes half-closed.
> "This realm will not survive what's coming," she said. "So I'll take it somewhere safer."
The World Tree lifted her hand, and the roots of Sylvanyr answered.
A pulse spread across the land — not a quake, not a sound, but a command.
Every elf, every stone, every river simply vanished into light.
In a single heartbeat, the entire nation was gone.
The sky rippled like water as reality folded. In the next instant, Sylvanyr reappeared in another dimension — a vast pocket world of silver clouds and mirrored seas, untouched by mortal time.
Rin and Rose stood in the middle of it, barely breathing.
The city was whole, the people safe, but the air itself shimmered with the Tree's law.
> "She moved the entire world… in a second," Rose whispered.
> "Yes," Rin said softly.
The World Tree turned toward them. Her expression was calm, but her body began to blur with divine light. Her skin turned translucent, her veins glowing with green-gold sap.
> "Stay back, because I wouldn't be able to protect you," she said. "The next part is a Sylvanyr at full power — so watch and learn."
Then she stepped forward — and merged into the roots that wrapped around the capital.
The enormous trunk of the World Tree shuddered once, and the entire structure began to change.
The bark turned to crystal.
The leaves became endless blossoms.
A storm of petals erupted upward as the World Tree itself transformed into her true form — radiant, godlike, the embodiment of creation's first bloom.
A clone stepped from the base of the trunk, her presence vast enough to rival suns.
> "I'll hold this space," the clone said lightly, smiling toward Seraphina. "You handle the visitor."
When the light faded, only Rin, Rose, the Queen, the World Tree's clone, and the man in black stood in the hollow of what used to be a world.
The air here was weightless, shaped from pure mana; below them lay only silver mist and the reflections of stars.
The clone turned, her expression serene but her eyes hard.
> "Now you can fight at full power."
The air split again.
The Queen took a step, and every petal in the sky began moving toward the colossal tree — transforming into a humanoid creature.
> "Now," the Queen murmured, "we won't break the real Sylvanyr."
Her coronation gown flickered—then time froze.
[SFX: TCHK-KRRR-TSSSHHH — Time Cracks and Halts.]
Wind halted.
Flames paused mid-flicker.
And in that silence, she vanished.
When time resumed, she stood in the same place… but different.
Her hair was tied high with a band of silver frost. Her dress had become armor: black frost plating curved like petals across her form, a half-cloak of ice feathers trailing behind her. A sword of pure crystal rested in her hand, its edge faintly singing.
Rin blinked once. She hadn't transformed — she'd simply stopped time, changed, and returned before the next second began.
> "Much better," she said quietly. "Now… let's dance, void."
---
The two figures blurred from sight.
They clashed in the center of the frozen sky with a sound like ringing glass.
Each swing carved ripples through the air — waves of cold and shadow colliding in patterns too fast for mortal eyes.
Void fought with cruel simplicity — each motion precise, efficient, without waste. His swordsmanship carried the same authority as his erasure — each strike decided reality, forcing the world to agree that his blade had already won.
But the Queen's rhythm was alive, fluid, unpredictable.
She turned with the grace of snow in the wind, then struck like lightning — her fighting style an elegance blended with explosive speed. Her footwork left frost in midair; her slashes burst into white shockwaves that cracked the ground and froze time itself for a blink.
Void's blade hissed through her shoulder — and nothing happened. The cut simply refused to exist.
> "Did you forget that I am Indestructible?" she said, twisting behind him, her breath cold enough to ring. "My body, soul, and will are beyond your reach."
Her counter came from nowhere — a low sweep, then an upward slash that split the dimension into multiple pieces like shattered glass.
Void blocked, but the impact drove him through three layers of frozen air before he stabilized.
He smirked.
> "Interesting. I totally forgot you were invulnerable. Let's see who has been slacking after all these years."
They clashed again, faster — sparks of black and white racing across the arena.
When Void swung vertically, the ice floor below them turned to vapor from the force; she met it with a sideways parry that launched a crescent arc of frost behind him. The arc struck his blindfold, cutting through darkness itself and scattering motes of erased energy like fireflies.
He reversed his grip, appearing behind her with no movement in between, blade descending toward her spine. She spun, catching the strike between two fingers of her off-hand.
The blade stopped cold — literally encased in unbreakable ice.
> "Tch." He flicked his wrist; the sword dissolved into nothing and re-formed in his other hand. "You don't die easily."
> "I don't die," she corrected.
---
Their fight filled the dimension with collapsing light.
Every clash shredded layers of space; every breath redrew the battlefield. They moved like mirrored storms — he of void, she of frost — each testing the other's rule.
At one point, she forced him back with a spiraling kick that broke the sound barrier, her movements a blur of martial grace.
At another, he erased the space between them entirely, appearing mid-strike — only for her to meet him halfway, her sword already where his neck would be.
> "So this is what a Queen of Indestructible looks like," Void murmured. "If Sylvanyr is a transcendent god pretending to be a spirit guardian, I wouldn't be surprised if you're a goddess pretending to be an elf."
> "Pretending to be a goddess?" She smiled faintly. "You sure love to flatter."
The next exchange split the horizon. The entire dimension shook.
Rin, watching from below, could barely keep his eyes open — but his vision kept adapting.
The speed, the power — each strike was enough to annihilate a moon. Yet the Queen moved like she was dancing.
She ducked a thrust, spun, and unleashed a sweeping frost arc that filled the sky.
Void countered with a single horizontal slash, cutting her attack in half — but the shards re-formed mid-air into a flurry of spears, chasing him relentlessly.
He erased them one by one, but each erasure bloomed into another wave of petals — faster, sharper, smarter.
The fight turned into rhythm:
Erase. Bloom. Erase. Bloom.
Until finally, all three paused.
Steam rose from the air itself. The arena was nothing but shattered light and floating petals of ice.
Void chuckled softly.
> "You're wasting eternity on this, Sylvanyr and Seraphina."
> "Then I'll waste it beautifully," she replied, raising her sword again. "Because I wouldn't send Rin to die before he's ready to kill you."
Void came down on Seraphina with a powerful slash, only for her to push his sword arm aside and cut through the side of his neck.
Momentarily fazed, Void quickly regenerated and attacked once more.
The death match became more intense.
Even without Sylvanyr's intervention, Void's clone was pushed back as a result of Seraphina's time stop.
Void swung his blade — she vanished.
[SFX: KRRR-TCHHHHHH! — Time Fractures Again.]
When time resumed, she was already on the blunt side of his blade.
She performed a slash of her own at point-blank range. The slice split Void cleanly due to its indestructible nature, yet Void simply regenerated, spun, and kicked her in the side of her sword arm, sending Seraphina flying back.
She crashed against a pillar she created mid-air, rebounded off it, and sprang back into the clash, shockwaves bursting outward with each collision.
[SFX: TCHHHHHH! — Time Stops Once More.]
In the next instant, when the world moved again, her blade was already buried through the clone's throat.
The battlefield went silent.
Petals drifted down through frozen air.
And above them, the World Tree's eyes slowly opened.