“You’re out a sword, and you still think you can beat me, Medith? I always thought you were sharp, but you’re foolish past saving. If you had steel in hand, maybe you’d crack my plate. But now…
Do you know my epithet? Forgemelt Adjudicator. This form—my whole life, only two have seen it. One is dead, and the other is you. I’ll temper the Emperor’s gifted blade, Blaze-Flow Radiance, with your blood.
Die, Medith Waheit—”
Robert’s furnace-bright armor rippled like heat over desert stone. His scarlet blade bled light like sunrise on steel. A gust slammed outward; the air itself began to scorch like a kiln. Medith frowned, stepped back once. Robert strode forward, steady as a marching anvil.
He didn’t panic; he came on step by iron step, armor ringing like a forge bell. After his Magic Breaker, a burning aura spread like a fireline. Anything entering that circle blistered on contact. Grass crackled; trees flashed to flame, like autumn leaves caught in a brush fire.
Medith slid back a pace and drew in a deep breath, like a diver before dark water. Her emerald irises snapped wide; green washed to white, like frost over spring jade. Pale vapor gathered around her fists, a cloud-soft shroud that looked misty and lethal.
“Woo—oo—!” Her slim shadow vanished like a swallow into wind. A cyclone raked the grove; trunks bowed, nearly snapping like reeds in a storm. Robert brought his sword across his chest, head dipping, a guard set like a rampart.
With ghost-and-god breath, Medith bloomed into being above him like a wraith. She swung iron fists and crashed down from the sky like a falling star. Robert caught the motion late; he could only jerk his blade up to block.
Klang—!
Steel met fist; the ground beneath Robert caved like soft clay, a crater opening under his boots.
His red sword screamed with a crack-crack that sounded like ice under strain. Medith’s iron fists touched molten flow and came away flawless, the white vapor warding heat like a veil of snow. Her eyes flared wide; from overhead she loosed a rainstorm of punches, a monsoon pounding a tin roof.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—
Each blow landed like a piledriver. With every strike, Robert felt weight stack and crush, his stance sinking. In two heartbeats and a dozen hits, he’d sunk almost two inches into the mud, like a post driven by hammer.
Boom—!
Knowing he was outmatched, Robert barked a word. His scarlet sword detonated into a burst of fire, a nova rolling out like a desert sun. Medith took the blast head-on; her fists scythed, tearing the shockwave apart like hands ripping cloth. A lock of green fringe at her brow sizzled and went black, smoke curling like incense.
Midair, she palmed Robert’s fully armored, molten helm, flipped behind him like a dancer under a lantern, and hurled him—man and sword—over the cliff like throwing out trash from a balcony.
He hadn’t even processed it; he was already beyond the peak, suspended like a leaf caught on an updraft. One heartbeat of hangtime, then down he fell. A scream tore the valley, lonely as a wolf’s cry, helpless enough to chill the spine. A boom followed, echoing like thunder trapped in stone. Then silence, deep as night water.
“Heh. Guys named Robert really do fear cliffs, huh~” Medith stood at the lake’s center; the lakebed lay bare and cracked like old pottery. The water was gone; everything inside lay dead, a scene that pulled a sigh like seeing a garden after frost.
Collateral ruin for the pond’s fish indeed. She exhaled and eyed a strange many-legged creature the blast had exposed. A rich, savory aroma drifted from its body, like broth steaming in winter. Startled, she grabbed it and stripped it clean in seconds, hands working like a cook at a street stall.
She studied it for a long moment, a hunter weighing risk in moonlight, trying to judge if it was poisonous. Reason warned her off. But that fragrance battered her keen nose like waves on a dam. Temptation won; she bit into snow-white flesh, tender as tofu.
“Mmm…?! Wha—ish this… too good!” Medith’s words came out muffled, her mouth busy; she started devouring with no care for image, like a stray finding meat.
About five minutes later, Fangge arrived first. She took in the scorched earth and blackened trunks, shock rising like smoke. She scanned for an enemy, but saw only Medith with a few singed green bangs, sitting and crunch-crunching on something like a picnic after a fire.
Soon, Milia, Sais, and the others reached the ruin. They stared at Medith, faces twisted with odd looks, like witnesses at a play’s wrong ending. Milia reacted first; she snatched the remaining half from Medith’s hand like a cat grabbing fish.
“Medith, so bad! Hogging it all!” Milia’s eyes sparked like stars as she took a bite of the weird creature.
“Wait, wasn’t there an enemy… what is this…” Iling looked baffled, like hearing thunder in clear sky. There had definitely been a Magic Breaker here, and a high-tier one at that. But the scene before them…
“Oh, that? I took him out,” Medith said, calm as a windless pond. “It conveniently cooked some critters. Try them. I think they’re probably not poisonous.”
“Wait, but…” Everyone froze, minds blank like chalk wiped clean. Sais scratched his head, wandered toward the cliff’s edge, trying to get a look, caution moving like a cat’s paw.
“Ah—!”
A sky-splitting blast cracked the air like a whip. Sais jerked as if struck by an invisible battering ram and flew backward more than thirty feet, body tumbling like a leaf in a gale.
