Crescencia buried her scorched boot beneath a small heap of snow.
"Just hold on, okay?" She murmured, placing the other boot over the mound like a grave marker.
Then, she dusted her hands and began approaching Milan.
"Do you even realize what you've just done?" Her lips quivered as the words left them.
Milan was taken aback. She took a step back and apologized. "I—I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" Crescencia's body stiffened, brows twisted inwards. "How is that going to bring back my thirty-thousand Rell boot?"
A tense silence erupted. Until Milan finally spoke again, hesitant.
"I—I can get you another one if you want."
"Yeah, right."
"No, for real, I—"
"Five-thousand more and that's my rent for two whole months," Crescencia interjected. "But I'm supposed to believe a girl your age has that kind of money?"
"…" Milan swallowed her words, realizing anything else she said might only make things worse.
"I thought so," Crescencia exhaled slowly. "Just hand god-boy over. I'm not in the mood to do this anymore."
Milan drew a soft breath. "Sorry, that's the one thing I can't do."
"I see. Too bad then." Crescencia stated, the calmness in her voice more terrifying than rage.
Everywhere went silent.
Then, her arm lifted, fingers angled lazily to her side. "Blink."
Milan stiffened.
Before she could gather prana, Crescencia had bolted to her front, seizing her hand.
No one needed to tell Milan to react. She lunged her free fist, wreathed in flames, aiming for Crescencia's crown.
But the Silver Slayer dodged, slipping behind her.
Milan spun into the air, swinging her heel—bad move. Crescencia still had her hand trapped and swung down hard, Milan thwacking the earth like a sledgehammer on stone.
The ground cracked. Dust rose.
And Milan hurriedly dived to the side as something sharp and invisible carved a jagged scar through the spot she was slammed into.
She rolled to her feet, heart pounding. But it was too late.
Crescencia had already gotten to Keres.
The young teenager trembled as the Silver Slayer loomed behind him with a firm grip on his shoulder.
Fear tried to overcome him. But he refused to let up easily.
"Go to hell!" Keres spat, his words laced with resolve.
He half twisted his torso, trying to lose her grip and break free.
However—
"Don't move," Crescencia commanded, her voice grim and foreboding.
"I've got my Flash Phantasm on her neck," she threatened, pointing in Milan's direction with her chin. "Try anything stupid, and I'll cut her down."
Keres froze stiff.
It wasn't a bluff. He could sense it—a shadow-thin blade of nothingness, formless yet undeniable. A second ago, it didn't exist. Now it hovered against Milan's throat, silent and unseen yet keen enough to promise blood.
Not even a muscle in his body dared to move an inch.
"You," Crescencia pinned her gaze on Milan.
"I'm letting what you did slide. You and your little archer can walk as long as you don't get in my w—"
She halted suddenly.
Huh? Her brows jerked.
A burning feeling seared into her right hand. She looked at it and some strange tattoo-like markings glowed faintly against her skin.
"You made one mistake," Milan smirked. "Bringing yourself to me when I couldn't figure out how to get close enough."
A red-golden light seeped from the markings on Crescencia's hand.
Milan had trapped her in a dilemma of two choices.
Attack and suffer lethal damage. Or withdraw and neutralize the impending explosion.
"So which is it going to be, Silver?"
The light surged brighter, heat flooding outward, devouring the cold. The air itself nearly cracked open under the pressure.
And then—
[Flare of the Fourth Star: Livewire]
The world flashed twice, mountains shuddering as a glass-shattering bang devoured everything.
—
Keres clamped his palms over his ears, eyes squeezed shut, hoping he'd still be alive after the explosion.
What was happening? He had deactivated the Seventh Dimension since it was always ineffective under conditions of intense heat.
Then, the thick stench of blood seeped into his nose.
His breath hitched.
When he thought about it, something sticky had splattered onto his shoulder just before the explosion.
Shuddering, he blinked twice, opening his eyes.
His path forward was drowned in dust and smoke so he turned—
And froze with shock.
Crescencia stood alert, her knees bent forward slightly. She looked almost unscathed. Except that her right arm was no longer there.
Next, she straightened herself, breathing slowly as blood squirted from her shoulder joint that looked as if it just lost its first kiss to the sharp edge of a butcher's knife.
And then, she smiled.
"They say a true punch never gets 'knocked out by their own fighter,'" she stroked her chin. "Hmmm, or was it the other way?"
"Whichever one," her grin widened, voice soft but steady. "I'm glad. I knew you could do it."
"Recall."
Prana pulsed. And Crescencia's arm was suddenly whole again.
Reason couldn't explain what Keres had just seen. But even he understood: in that split-second before the explosion, Crescencia sliced off her arm and tossed it at Milan.
"Milan!" He yelled, charging into the smoke.
His foot should've been broken, he should've been crippled in pain. But none of it mattered. That kind of pain was nothing compared to the thought of losing her.
"Milan!" He called again.
No response. His panic grew.
But he soon spotted her figure pasted against the sloping contours of a nearby mountain.
Steam curled from the charred edges of her sleeves, her boots nowhere to be seen. Blood darkened her purple hair, streaming down to her forehead.
"Damn it," Keres' jaw clenched.
When her eyes flicked down to him, he faked a smile and said— "Don't worry, I'll climb up there to get you."
He gripped a protruding rock, ready to pull himself. But she lifted her hand, signaling him to stop.
Then, she hopped down, barely managing to land on her feet.
"I'm okay," she breathed.
The smoke had cleared, the dust had settled.
Milan had used up the one shot she had to end the battle.
But ultimately, Crescencia was unharmed.
"She's a monster." Milan whispered, staggering forward.
She slipped out a narrow strip of paper, clutching it between her two broken fingers.
Her plan had always been to avoid unsealing it. But now, she didn't have much of a choice.
Crescencia began to speak. "I could kind of tell when we first met, but I'm sure of it now—"
"A dual-classed Ducer and Artist. You also move skillfully with a crazy fast reaction speed and all kinds of dangerous techniques,"
She paused.
Milan's eyes widened. Shit!
"You're one of them, am I right?" Crescencia pressed.
Milan squeezed her eyes shut, breath catching in her chest.
Her noble identity had been exposed.
She couldn't begin to imagine the consequences she'd face once her family heard of her involvement with Keres.
So she nearly froze into stone when she heard Crescencia's following words.
"You're one of those 'generational prodigies,' aren't you?"
Milan tilted her head, processing the Silver Slayer's words, to be sure she heard them right. "…Sorry?"
"You still have more fun tricks to show me, right?" Crescencia beckoned her with two fingers. "Bring it on, I'll be your opponent for today."
Milan released a soft breath, relief washing through her battered frame.
Her back screamed with pain. Her hands twitched, still recovering from containing the worst of the explosion.
She felt a troubling dizziness plague her skull. There was no sensation in her left ear and her vision was blurred by sweat and blood.
And yet, despite all of it. She was grateful Crescencia hadn't realized the truth of her identity.
A blue glow shone at the tip of her fingers as she fed her chakra to the small paper resembling a talisman.
She glanced at Keres. He didn't speak but frustration and hope warred across his face.
Milan smiled. Her plan to secure his escape was already in motion.
But Crescencia could smell that she was up to something.
"Rupture."
An unseen flash. And blood sprayed through the air.
Half of Milan's paper went crimson.
The other half was whisked away by the wind as three of her fingers fell to the ground.
Keres' face distorted with horror. "Milaaaan!" He yelled, lunging forward.
But Milan flung an arm out. "Stay behind me!"
"Do you not realize that you're in a battle?" Crescencia asked, voice flat and deadly. "Lose focus again and I'm gonna cut you dead."
Milan gritted her teeth. Of course, Crescencia wouldn't let her unseal a page so easily.
She cauterized her fingers, braced herself, and centered every sense. She couldn't let Crescencia gain a single opening. Otherwise her head would drop next.
[Prana Control: Flame of the First Star]
A gigantic ball of fire roared at Crescencia, boiling the air with intense heat.
The Silver Slayer didn't even flinch. She folded her fingers and the blazing sphere slammed into something solid in her front, flames bursting everywhere but at the target.
'An invisible shield?' Milan mused, retreating a few steps.
Then, her flames split into dozens of smaller orbs, brutal shards of heat that streaked toward Crescencia from every angle.
Crescencia weaved through them at impossible speed, debris flying around as they detonated against boulders and rock faces. Still no damage.
Milan's jaw tightened. This wasn't working. She needed to hold Crescencia down somehow.
And so, she shifted her approach. Prana gathered, not in her hands, but in the air behind her, swirling, splitting, burning brighter and brighter.
The Silver Slayer tilted her head, eyes widening with caution as the clusters of prana crystallized into seven spears of crackling, bright red beams.
Then—
[Prana Control: Blaze of the Third Star]
Milan spread her fingers. And all seven spears blitzed towards Crescencia, pursuing her like missile shots.
Crescencia grinned, blurring past the first and then the second. Both spears slammed into an outcrop, boring gaping holes through the stone.
Milan snapped her fingers.
A sharp detonation resounded as a whisper-thin shockwave ruptured through the third spear. Then, it curved around like a lightning-fast boomerang to cut down the fifth.
The fourth? Crescencia could barely dodge. It grazed her arm mid-air, singeing fabric. But she didn't seem to feel a thing, landing lightly on a boulder, her eyes steady, her expression unchanged.
She smacked the sixth one away with her bare hand. Tremors rang into the air. But she couldn't react in time for the final one.
A blaring shriek echoed as it struck her chin, throwing her off the boulder.
Golden metallic sparks bounced off her face, her Phantom Skin peeling under the heat like metal sheets.
Crescencia landed, one foot and a knee kissing the earth. She really wanted to focus on the mission. She really intended to.
But the longer the battle went on, the more her true nature revealed itself.
The blistering mark on her skin vanished as quickly as it appeared.
She rose smoothly, posture straight, gaze locked on Milan. Goosebumps rose, a curve forming at her lips.
And before she could restrain herself, words slipped through her mouth like prisoners eager to break free.
"…This is fun!"
—