Regret could wait; the firebird wheeled and dove for Lucimia again, a comet of flame cutting the sky. She had to start dodging.

“This bird’s a problem. I need it gone.” Lucimia flew, circling the blazing predator like two leaves caught in a storm.

Bazeroth saw the firebird snare her and pressed the advantage. His magic flared, and a flock of ice arrows bloomed behind him like a winter forest.

He tapped his staff to the ground. Ice arrows surged in a cold squall, a rain that smothered the sky and pressed like a frozen tide.

Lucimia grimaced and used Instant Movement again, a white blink that put her behind Bazeroth like a shadow slipping past a door.

But Bazeroth had learned. He’d laced his back with ice magic in advance, a trap like hidden thorns. She landed, and Frost locked her calves in a biting sheath.

“Tch.” Her legs went numb, as if winter had seized her bones.

The firebird banked and screamed toward her, a blade of heat on the wind. Bazeroth flickered aside, avoiding friendly fire like a wary fox.

“Haha, let’s see you dodge now. I can’t use Instant Movement, but I know it can’t chain. There’s about a dozen seconds of dead time. That’s enough for the bird to hit you!”

Bazeroth laughed, the sound sharp as broken ice. Confidence thawed his earlier fear; her killing chill had spooked him into seeing a hidden master. In truth, she was just a girl to him.

All front, no force. He cackled.

Lucimia called fire, trying to melt the Frost, but the ice bit back. Bazeroth’s Frost had a trait—it hardened under flame, grew colder, like iron tempered in winter. Her calves tingled toward deadness.

What the—?

“Hahaha.” Bazeroth threw his head back, laughter like a crow in the storm. “Looks like you don’t understand traits. You’re one step short. Once that bird hits, you’ll bathe in fire and turn to ash!”

Fire was wasted. Lucimia cut it off, looked up through the wind, and flicked a glance at Bazeroth—cool as moonlight on water.

He had gifts she didn’t. She had gifts he lacked. The key was to play the blade you alone carried.

What did she have? Instant Movement—and Teleportation Magic.

Hmph.

A cold spark lit in her heart. A plan unfolded like ink in rain.

The firebird rushed in like a starving tiger pouncing a lamb, heat ripping the air.

At the hair’s breadth, Lucimia willed. White light wrapped her like a veil. At the same time, white light crawled over Bazeroth like frost on glass.

“Hm? What’s happening?” Bazeroth blinked, the world tilting.

“This effect… could it be? When did you mark me?!” Realization struck like hail.

Too late. Lucimia fired Teleportation Magic and swapped their positions, a door turning inside-out.

The first time she teleported behind him, that Wind Blade wasn’t meant to kill. It was a feint to mark him, so Teleportation Magic could anchor.

Hoping to one-shot an Eighth Rank Mage was fantasy. He was a Church executor and a devotee of Elyssus.

They switched in a snap. The firebird, all momentum and flame, couldn’t stop. It drove straight into Bazeroth like a falling star.

His eyes bulged like eggs. He slammed his staff, and a dull dong rolled through the air.

He summoned a Frost bird with a trait, a white hawk of winter. The two birds smashed together, a storm meeting a glacier, and a shockwave bloomed. In the blast’s heart, Bazeroth went tumbling like a leaf.

Lucimia was fine; right after the swap, she pulled away, a wisp in the gale.

She chased while Bazeroth tumbled through the air. She snapped out several Wind Blades to harry him, and drew black clouds together like a shepherd herding storm.

“Whirlwind Dance,” she whispered, breath like frost.

She had reforged this super-tier spell. Over the grassland, the sky sank like a lid; wind howled, and rain poured like a river spilling from heaven.

“Hu.” Lucimia hovered high, exhaled, calm as a lake before dawn.

The next beat—

Boom.

Thunder roared like a dragon in a cavern. Bolts flashed within the clouds, white teeth biting dark.

The storm turned from wind and rain to rain braided with lightning, heaven’s whip and water’s drum bound together.

This was the strengthened effect—wind, water, thunder, and lightning fused, Whirlwind Dance sharpened into a spear.

Bazeroth stared, eyes wide as moons, at the small figure above. Her long hair and cloak streamed in the gale, and behind her, clouds packed tight with strobing currents like veins of light.

It was grandeur he’d never seen. The girl hung like a deity, gazing down as if at an ant.

She raised her hand. Currents gathered in the clouds like rivers finding a sea. Bazeroth tensed so hard he forgot to breathe.

Not good. She was going to strike.

He braced like a soldier before a blade. A mage knew many arts, but flesh was fragile; a lightning strike could end any life.

This wasn’t a cultivation world. Mages didn’t temper bodies by walking tribulations. Flesh remained soft, no matter the rank.

Panic flicked through him. He lifted his staff and chanted a strange spell, words like smoke and iron.

The blue crystal orb on its tip darkened, black seeping in like ink through water.

Lucimia’s lightning was ready. She flicked her hand, and the bolt shot down like a spear splitting bamboo.

KRAK.

“Ha!” Bazeroth shouted. Countless octopi crawled from the crystal, mindless and glassy-eyed. They clumped together, and black mist boiled up, forming a shield over him like night unfurling.

Thump.

The bolt struck true, hammering the black mist shield. The mist writhed like a nest of snakes; the lightning held like a drawn bow.

They ground against each other for heartbeats stretched long. The bolt faded; the black mist burst apart like torn cloth.

Bazeroth had blocked Lucimia’s strike.

“…Stubborn.” Lucimia’s brows knit; gloom shaded her face like a cloud over the moon.

Bazeroth breathed again, chest tight as a drum. He’d stared down the bolt at arm’s length, watched it bite the shield, afraid it would punch through and carve him open.

He had no certainty—only luck. But it held.

“Hahaha…” He laughed like a man hauled from a flood, eyes alight with madness. “My Lord’s power is mighty!”

He steadied himself and floated, a black gull in the storm.

“Your lightning’s nothing before my Lord!” His taunt cut like sleet.

“Tch. Hiding behind your god.”

“Heh. Say what you like. My turn.” Bazeroth lifted his staff high. The black crystal orb vomited more octopi like a net cast from night.

They flailed and shrieked, charging at Lucimia with storm-born fury.

Lucimia snapped another bolt. Lightning cracked and popped, shredding the octopi like paper in fire.

“Hehe.” Bazeroth’s eyes gleamed wickedly. His chant rolled on, and black currents coiled around the crystal like snakes. The next octopi that crawled out wore black lightning like thorns.

“It can evolve?” Lucimia blinked, then threw another bolt, quick as a swan’s wing.

The octopus wreathed in current didn’t die; it surged. The lightning fed it like wine, its body swelling, currents raging, and its charged tentacles lashed for Lucimia like whips from a storm.

“Hahaha! Let’s see how you handle my Lord’s power!”