The arena we chose was not one used by the Divines but the Aeterium themselves.
Leones rolled her shoulder once with the chain coiling loosely around her forearm. The head of her massive mace rested against the ground with a dull, heavy thud.
"You're not holding back on me. Remember that."
I stood in front of her.
"I won't."
"Good."
She moved first.
The chain moved at incredibly high speed with Soul Energy igniting along its length in a violent surge. The mace tore across the arena in a horizontal arc that cracked the air apart. A wall of sapphire materialized from the ground in front of me. The mace collided with it and detonated the surface. Shockwaves nearly pulverized the arena floor.
Leones pulled the chain back with brute force as she redirected the momentum upward. The mace came down from above this time. Her Soul Energy was condensed so tightly around it that space visibly warped along its descent.
I raised my hand. Hundreds of massive crystalline spears materialized simultaneously in a dome formation and rained down on Leones. She twisted her body mid-swing. The chain whirled around her body in a defensive cyclone. Each strike shattered sapphire into glittering debris but the density was overwhelming. Every fragment that broke reformed mid-air under my control and attacked again from different directions.
"Large-scale materialization already?"
"Yes. You said I shouldn't hold back."
A surge of sapphire burst upward in pillars attempting to impale her from below. She leapt, using the chain to hook one of the rising columns. Using it as leverage, she flung herself sideways. Her mace crashed into the side of another pillar and obliterated it. The debris didn't fall. Thousands of shattered fragments condensed into rotating spheres around her the size of boulders. She saw it coming.
The chain snapped taut. Soul Energy caused the weapon to glow brighter as she infused it directly into the weapon's structure. The mace head glowed so much that it was literally blinding. Each swing was catastrophic. Every impact shattered sapphire and sent concussive shockwaves rippling across the arena.
Fortunately, I'm not limited to linear assault. Every particle of sapphire answered to me.
When she destroyed a projectile, its remnants reassembled behind her. When she defended her left, I attacked on her right. When she crushed the ground to disrupt my formations, I materialized a massive spear above her. She only scoffed and met it head-on.
The mace collided with the descending spear and the resulting explosion tore the arena's defenses apart. Shockwaves cracked the first barriers. Dust and sapphire mist filled the air. For a moment, she stood in the epicenter, breathing heavier now.
"You weren't exaggerating..."
"This is moderate output."
She narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, she stopped playing defense.
Soul Energy flooded from her body in a violent surge. The chain extended, creating phantom extensions that expanded its effective range. She spun once and the entire arena floor split in a radial pattern. The mace came at me with enough force to flatten several modern buildings.
A barrier of sapphire formed in the form of hexagonal plates with each denser than the last. The first layer shattered. The second cracked. The third shook.
By the seventh, the force had dispersed enough for me to redirect it. I rotated the outer plates and redirected the force, sending a spiraling wave of sapphire spikes back at her from point-blank range. The chain coiled around her waist as she drove the mace downward into the ground, releasing a burst of Soul Energy that vaporized the incoming spikes in a hemispherical blast.
For a split second, the arena was silent.
The very air was filled with crystalline particles so dense that light refracted into a thousand shifting spectrums. I condensed the particles into blades, all suspended and aiming at Leones. Her expression shifted from focus to realization.
"You're controlling all of it at once."
"Yeah."
The mace and chain blurred ever second. Soul Energy coated her skin now, acting as a secondary armor. Cuts formed along her arms regardless. Her wounds healed faster than I could form them. She leapt through the crystals and closed the distance between us.
The mace came for my torso in a short, brutal swing designed to test raw durability.
My hand closed around the head of the mace mid-swing. Fractures appeared for hundreds of meters. Sapphire crawled along the mace head, attempting to encase it. She reacted instantly, flooding it with Soul Energy to resist the encroachment. For a moment, blue crystal and gold radiance fought for dominance across the weapon's surface.
Unfortunately, she used the opportunity to kick me. The force launched me across the arena. I slid but did not fall.
She was breathing harder now. I wasn't.
"This is why," she said between breaths, "you're dangerous."
I tilted my head.
"I'm not exactly dangerous you know."
"That's not what I meant."
I raised both hands. The entire arena was coated with sapphire. Every surface was coated into an ocean of dense, radiant blue metal under my absolute control. She tried once — instinctively — to exert her Inanimate Control. The response was met with immediate resistance.
For a brief moment, a small patch of sapphire near her boots trembled under her influence but the density alone fought her. Sapphire at this scale was not exactly light.
She exhaled sharply and withdrew the attempt.
"So that's how it is."
The arena floor rose beneath her. She ran along them, smashing through incoming crystals. Her chain wrapped around crystalline structures to redirect her trajectory.
She's extraordinary. Her physical strength alone allowed her to survive output levels that would have crushed a lot of Divines instantly.
I condensed the sapphire into a sphere around her, compressing inward from all directions.
Her Soul Energy surged to its peak. The mace slammed into the forming sphere repeatedly. Fractures appeared from each impact. For a moment, it seemed she might break through. That's when I used Soul Energy on the sapphire for the first time, increasing my Divine Presence. This interrupted her attack pattern.
She dropped to one knee. Her mace was on the ground and her breathing was ragged now. I released the sphere, causing the sapphire to dissolve back into ambient particles and vanish. The original arena reappeared beneath us. The damage was already repairing itself.
Leones remained kneeling for a second longer before pushing herself upright. She looked at me steadily.
"You're far above the Fourth Enlightenment output."
"When you have someone like Darling, you kind of have to try to make yourself better."
A faint laugh escaped her despite the exhaustion.
"Yeah. I noticed. Again."
"You sustained internal strain—"
"I didn't say I was done."
And the arena filled with sapphire once more.