Vastarael did not hesitate.
The moment Diov stabilized himself after being sent kilometers away, she stopped holding back and activated her Divine Transformation.
A ring of sapphire formed behind her back with five elongated points extending from it like cardinal points. Her body ascended to seven meters tall now. Her silhouette was no longer humanoid so much as regal. Her skin was coated in glowing sapphire that refracted the artificial sunlight into prismatic lights. Her hair was glowing golden and sapphire at the same time, similar to her eyes.
This was her refined Divine Transformation.
Diov felt it immediately. His four crimson eyes narrowed and for the first time since revealing himself, his expression was full of shock.
"So that's how you fight."
Vastarael didn't answer. She raised one hand, making the sky light up.
Hundreds of Mystic Circles materialized, layered atop one another in perfect harmonic geometry. Protection Circles locked into place around her body. Plasma Circles ignited next, spinning rapidly as condensed arcs of sapphire-blue plasma formed and discharged in controlled bursts. Sapphire Circles unfolded last which summoned giant pillars and projectiles massive enough to destroy the ground below. She was flying using her Flight Circles as well.
Diov struck first.
Void tore through the sky, curving unnaturally as they zoomed in on Vastarael from impossible angles. Beams followed that erased light as they passed. She flew sideways, reappearing above Diov as Plasma Circles discharged simultaneously. Sapphire plasma blasted downward in a focused charge. Diov countered instantly, using his void barriers.
The explosion shook the realm.
Meadows rippled like water. Hills split and reformed. The artificial sun flickered.
Diov retaliated with a void wave so dense it bent gravity, sending Vastarael hurtling backward, only for her to catch her balance herself mid-flight using her Flight Circles, then reverse the force, using herself as a slingshot at absurd speed.
They collided.
Void and sapphire crashed into one another. Massive sonic booms tore through the fake sky every few seconds, flattening terrain before Restoration Runes forced it back into existence. They vanished and reappeared across the sky in blurs of black and blue,
Far below, Shimmer finished her fight.
Her Sound Divinity had reduced her Yrugua opponent to dust. She hovered for a moment using her dragon wings before she looked up.
The sky was gone.
In its place was nothing but sapphire and black moving at speeds her Divine senses couldn't fully track. Explosions bloomed like collapsing stars. Sonic booms rolled down moments later, slamming into her with such force that she was almost incinerated in midair. Her Draconic Energy acted instinctively as she healed her skin, tumbling back toward the ground.
"What the hell?"
She had never seen her father like this. She never saw him go all out.
Runner landed beside her moments later, dragging the broken body of her own Yrugua across the meadow with lotus petals still embedded throughout its form. The thing twitched once, then went still.
"Is it dead?" Shimmer asked, eyes still looking at the sky.
Runner nodded calmly. "Yeah. It was hard to kill but not difficult enough."
Another shockwave hit, flattening the grass around them.
Up above, Vastarael and Diov separated again, hovering at opposite ends of the sky. Vastarael's sapphire ring spun faster now. Her Mystic Circles materialized ever more faster.
Vastarael was calm. Every adjustment and recalibration of using her Mystic Circles and still fight was happening without conscious strain. The Mystic Eyes of Awareness had activated.
To most mages, Mystic Eyes were a last resort. They were devastatingly powerful but brutally drained energy at an alarming rate while overloading the mind with too much fatigue too fast. Even seasoned Ninth Star Mages risked mental collapse if they relied on them for more than moments.
Vastarael didn't blink.
With the Mystic Eyes of Awareness active, the battlefield unfolded into data. Trajectories, energy densities, void instability, Diov's casting latency, everything was visible, annotated and predictable. She saw her own movements before she completed them, corrected inefficiencies mid-action and optimized chain reactions on the fly.
And because her arms were prosthetic, bound directly to her Aeterium soul, she felt no nerve feedback or muscle fatigue. She was analyzing herself while fighting.
Diov noticed and he snapped.
The void around him thickened violently, abandoning finesse in favor of sheer brutality. Void constructs tore through the sky, slamming into Vastarael's defenses with enough force to shatter Protection Circles outright. Beams punched through her torso, erasing sections of sapphire crystal and tearing limbs free. One strike severed her left shoulder entirely. Another obliterated half her leg mid-motion.
She didn't scream. She didn't slow down.
The missing limbs regenerated in seconds as Soul Energy rebuilt structure and function simultaneously. Vastarael barely spared the damage a glance. Pain was familiar to her. Pain was something she had lived with long before he was born to Spheraphase.
Diov roared as he pressed harder, faster and more ruthlessly. He was trying to overwhelm her, to drown her in raw power and force a mistake our of her. Instead, he gave her an opening.
The Mystic Eyes of Time activated.
For a few seconds—only a few—the world slowed down. It was not stopped or frozen.
Diov's next attack shot towards her. Shockwaves destroyed all her other Mystic Circles. Vastarael moved through it all with precision as she raised both arms. A gigantic Plasma Array unfolded in front of her.
This one wasn't elegant. It was excessive.
Layer upon layer of plasma circles interlocked, feeding power into a central focus point that glowed white-hot with compressed Soul Energy. The air screamed as it was displaced.
Time snapped back to normal. The beam detonated forward.
It was plasma infused with Soul Energy. The beam carved through the sky, incinerating the newly forming Sucking Void in its path, leaving behind a momentary corridor of pure white nothingness where even absence had been erased.
The recoil alone flattened kilometers of terrain. Diov was hit head-on.
He screamed as he was driven into the ground. His body carved a massive crater into the forming meadows. The land around him vaporized, Restoration Runes struggled to rebuild what had just been unmade.
Vastarael exhaled slowly. Her eyes dimmed slightly as she assessed herself.
"That took the energy of six pseudo cores. That's annoying, considering that it didn't do shit. Just how durable is this Reniatsus?"
Diov got out of the crater. His body was cracked. Void kept leaking from fissures in his form. He was screaming in wounded pride and disbelief.
"You're just a stupid mage! You can't even fight like a man! Hiding behind a woman's body."
Vastarael tilted her head.
"I'm a woman. So I guess that explains why you're losing. So you are a misogynist, huh? That's not surprising, considering you let mothers stab their own children back in Broomshaven..."