Could the Flight Spell get her out?

Lucimia held her breath, weighing choices like a deer under a bowstring.

The Flight Spell needs lift, then displacement; even if she popped up and slid aside in a blink, some attacks would still tag her.

Because flight still traces a path, like an arrow’s arc; unless it’s near light or sound, which is impossible.

Then she had to switch approaches; could an earth wall block it?

Maybe.

Lucimia moved as soon as the thought sparked, drawing back the hand that cast earth spikes, and raising a wall between them.

Bang!

The wall had barely climbed when several cleaving sword aura slashed it to gravel, and the flying shards hammered Lucimia like hail.

…Looks like that won’t work either.

As Lucimia floundered, Cole spotted her slump, mouth curling into a wicked grin like a hooked crescent, and he shouted.

“Ahhh— Shadow-Cleaving Sword!!”

Cole burst again—a third surge—his sustained blasting pounded like drumbeats, worsening her headache.

Weren’t speed types bad at wars of attrition? Why could he keep swinging?

Fine—reality isn’t a manga.

After his shouted line, every afterimage, and the true body, twitched like struck strings, hacking out a dense storm of sword aura.

Sword shadows stacked like overlapping waves, dizzying to the eye.

At first it looked the same as before.

Then the change in the sword aura hit Lucimia like thunder.

The flying sword aura halted before Cole, clustering into a bronze wall, blocking her Wind Blades like reeds before a gale.

But Cole didn’t stop; half the aura kept firing, half gathered like swallows before him.

The number didn’t thin; too many afterimages—each cut birthed more shadows, and more shadows spat more aura, like sparks.

What was that, and why was it nesting in front of him?

Lucimia’s gut clenched like a net; whatever it was, it wasn’t good, and it had to be stopped.

But she had no spare breath to cast other spells; her Wind Blades were screened like rain against shields.

She couldn’t run either; she was pinned between ice and fire.

Cole, legs bound, moved like a free man, tossing sword forms like sparks; Lucimia, legs free, felt shackled, rooted like a stake.

Soon the sword aura gathered before Cole peaked like a swelling tide; Lucimia finally saw what it was.

Two colossal blades of sword aura.

They crossed in a great X before Cole, coiling power like storm clouds.

The vertical blade kissed the ceiling and speared the floor; the horizontal chewed through both walls like a saw.

One look iced her spine; if that cross hit, it wasn’t a scratch—it would quarter her like butcher’s work.

Even across dozens of meters, the wind off it cut like flying sand.

She had to dodge.

But how? The small, dense aura could still leave her broken; she might dodge the killer, then fall, and Cole would net her.

Was there a way to take the least wounds?

There was.

Instant Movement.

Instant Movement let her vanish into air and bloom somewhere else, slipping past every blade like mist.

After two rounds of study, she finally grasped a sliver of its key; she could cast Instant Movement now.

But she’d only learned half the art; she couldn’t steer the landing point, like a tossed leaf.

If the landing overshot this space, she could clip into the wall, trapped like a fossil—and die.

Or she’d move, yet the giant blades claimed the whole space in a cross; land beyond them, and she’d still be cut.

She wasn’t practiced; the mana cost bit like winter; one cast drained a third of her power.

All that made her wary of trying.

She didn’t want to hand her life to luck.

But with a blade already at her throat, luck was all that remained; use it or die.

She should’ve used Instant Movement before Cole finished gathering, and just fled like a startled bird.

Then she would’ve only feared clipping a wall, not landing inside the sword aura’s reach.

She’d trusted a stone wall, and handed Cole an opening like a doorway.

Regret pricked like thorns, but regret was useless; she had to choose now, because Cole’s sword aura began to move.

For a heartbeat, all the afterimages froze like statues, then, after a breath of charge, they sliced in unison—

Two colossal blades roared with force, carving a ripping air-scream, and streaked for Lucimia faster than hawks.

Too fast.

Lucimia got barely two seconds to react, a drop in a storm.

Her heart climbed to her throat like a choking stone; she swallowed.

“…Is this the only way?”

Lucimia drew a long breath, bit down, and willed like throwing herself into a river.

Right as the giant blades brushed her skin, Lucimia vanished on the spot.

The blades smashed into the wall behind; smoke fountained out; a thunderous report rolled; the sewer shuddered, and the ground lurched like waves.

Boom—!!

A glaring cross scarred the rear wall, rubble raining like gravel.

The sewer’s ceiling and floor, and both side walls, split into four vast cracks, three to four meters deep at a glance.

Beyond that, the whole space was veined with countless fissures, scraped by her Wind Blades and Cole’s small sword aura like claw marks.

The battlefield lay in ruins.

Lucimia reappeared in a safe spot, dozens of meters to Cole’s right, like a sparrow alighting.

She was outside the aura’s reach, and not fused into any wall.

Luck, for once.

“Ha… huh…”

Fresh from the cliff’s edge, Lucimia panted hard, cold sweat soaking her back like rain.

She’d escaped, but the scene kept ringing in her chest like a struck bell.

She recalled that instant; the blade-tip was less than a meter away, and even that gap felt suffocating.

Before the sword arrived, her skin already ached like split bark.

It was true, too; two gashes had opened on her arm, bright blood snaking down to the floor like threads.

If she’d been slower, the giant blades would’ve cut her; even with Instant Movement, she would’ve landed as chunks.