Iralian and Paul traded blows at close range, each strike forcing the other back a step. Alexia moved in to support them. She helped Osvald keep the tentacles from closing in, then shifted toward Paul as the fight tightened around him.
As Alexia flew closer, Iralian noticed. She snapped her left hand out and caught Paul's incoming punch. Before he could pull back, she seized his other fist with her right hand. For an ordinary fighter, that grip would have locked the fight in place. For a void user, it only opened new options.
A third arm pushed out from Iralian's side, formed from shifting void matter. The new hand extended a finger and aimed straight at Alexia.
Alexia stopped mid air and raised her palm toward Iralian. The air around them tightened. The ground, the dust, even the sound of the battle began to move in a slow, unnatural rhythm, as if the world itself had fallen out of sync.
In Iralian's vision, the world warped into the shape of a vast cylinder. The ground stretched and curved away from her. The sky slid to one side. Landmarks shifted position as if someone had twisted the horizon. The illusion pressed in from every direction, disorienting and precise.
Paul which used this opportunity and freed himself, appeared at her side again without warning and threw a punch. Iralian brought her arm up to block, certain she had the angle but the fist slipped past her guard and struck her across the face. The blow hurled her backward through the air.
She steadied herself, confusion spreading across her expression.
Then Paul attacked again, this time from one side while a bolt of lightning came from the other. She moved to block both, but each strike landed cleanly. She raised her spherical shields, yet the attacks passed through as if the barriers were not there. Blow after blow forced her back, each hit chipping away at her focus.
After several exchanges, another punch snapped her head to the side. Her eyes widened with anger.
Mana burst from her body in a visible surge. Void energy gathered at the center of her forehead, swirling and condensing. She tilted her head back and shouted. When she lowered it again, a new eye had opened between her brows.
The warped cylinder vanished. The sky returned to its place. The land settled. The world snapped back to normal.
Alexia showed a flicker of surprise, but her posture stayed relaxed and controlled.
Iralian did not hesitate. She lunged. In less than a second, she stood in front of Alexia, her hand driving forward toward Alexia's neck like a blade. Alexia raised her arm and caught Iralian's wrist with steady precision, stopping the strike in midair.
Iralian stiffened for a brief moment. Then Alexia's form blurred and shifted. Bernal stood where she had been.
Alexia appeared behind him. Her voice carried across the space between them. "Do you really think that eye can see through all my illusions?"
Iralian lifted her free hand and aimed at Bernal. A tight beam of energy burst from her palm, drawn at point blank, and shot straight at him.
Bernal raised his hand to meet it. The beam struck his palm and held there, crackling against an unseen barrier. The air around his hand shimmered from the strain. Seconds dragged on before the beam thinned and faded.
Bernal smiled. Black liquid coated his palm and dripped between his fingers.
"Lightning isn't the only element I use."
The liquid gathered into a compact sphere. With a sharp motion of his hand, Bernal launched it forward. The sphere slammed into Iralian's stomach. The impact hurled her across the field. She hit the ground hard and rolled to a stop far away.
Boom. The sphere exploded.
The explosion tore through the area with a deep, rolling blast. A column of smoke and dust climbed into the sky, rising higher than the clouds.
A few seconds later, Iralian rose through the smoke, unharmed. At the same time, Paul charged straight at her.
Bernal watched the exchange with a steady gaze. "She's healing herself with the void," he said. "Faster than we can damage her." He glanced at Alexia. "Do you want to fall back? She can see through most of your illusions now."
"Don't be stupid," Alexia replied, calm and firm.
Bernal raised an eyebrow. "You're not thinking of using that, are you?"
"You're using yours," Alexia said. "Why shouldn't I?"
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Bernal's mouth. "Then we'll see why the Phantom Oracle's domain is the strongest."
He didn't wait for a response. He moved at once, slipping behind Paul as Paul engaged Iralian at close range.
…
Iralian saw the enemies closing in and reacted without hesitation.
A fourth arm forced its way out from her side, shaped from dense, shifting void matter. Now she fought with four limbs moving in perfect coordination. Two arms intercepted Paul's relentless strikes, catching his fists and deflecting his blows with sharp, efficient motions. The other two launched spells toward Bernal and Alexia in quick succession. Dark flashes of energy streaked across the space between them, but the black liquid in Bernal's hand flowed and reshaped itself into curved shields and solid barriers, stopping each attack before it could reach them. Paul's constant pressure kept Iralian from pausing long enough to think.
When Paul charged again, Iralian thrust one hand forward. Void energy surged around her forearm and expanded outward, forming a massive spectral hand that mirrored her movement. It caught Paul's punch mid swing and clamped down around his fist with crushing force.
She twisted her arm to the side. The spectral hand followed the motion and hurled Paul away as if he weighed nothing. His body spun through the air, unable to regain balance.
Before he could recover, Iralian's tail snapped toward him. Void energy gathered rapidly at its tip, condensing into a bright, concentrated point. The energy discharged in a straight beam.
The blast struck Paul in the chest. The impact drove the air from his lungs and sent him flying backward like a cannonball.
Iralian knew Paul would recover quickly. She didn't wait. Void energy gathered in each of her four hands as she charged Bernal.
When she reached him, her arms blurred. She unleashed a rapid series of punches, each one driven by void enhanced force. In a matter of seconds, she threw hundreds of strikes at his guard.
Bernal's black liquid surged forward and spread into a thick shield in front of him. The surface rippled with every impact. At first, it absorbed the blows without yielding, but Iralian kept pressing. Fine cracks began to spread across the dark surface. A faint smile touched her lips when she saw them.
Alexia rushed in from behind. Iralian didn't turn to face her. Instead, another upper torso pushed out from her back, shaped from void matter. A second face formed there, smiling coldly as she drew her arm back, void energy pooling in its palm, ready to strike at Alexia the moment she came close.
Alexia didn't slow down. She cut through the air with speed and drove her leg forward in a sharp kick.
Iralian was certain she would land her strike first. Her void filled hand shot forward but Alexia's foot slammed into her waist before she could complete the motion.
Fire burst from the tip of Alexia's foot at the moment of impact. The flare shone like a fragment of the sun, blasting forward with her kick. The upper body growing from Iralian's back disintegrated in the blast, and the force hurled her across the field. She struck the ground hard.
The instant she landed, a black orb waited beneath her. It detonated on contact. The explosion ripped through the area, shaking the ground and sending up a towering column of smoke and fire. Bernal had placed it with perfect timing, as if he had known exactly where she would fall after Alexia's strike.
Iralian slammed her wings against the ground and swept the smoke aside. This time, the damage showed. A wide hole tore through her left side, and both of her left arms were gone. The wounds did not close at once.
She didn't pause to recover. She rose and flew straight to the portal, stopping in front of it as she spread her wings wide.
Inside the portal, the eye opened again. A dark, wicked aura wrapped around Iralian, thicker and stronger than before. Her wounds sealed in seconds. Void energy poured from her body, pooled on the ground and seeped into it.
From that energy, tentacles began to grow across the land, spreading in every direction and covering everything in their path.
Several of them coiled around Osvald, tightening and dragging him back, preventing him from reaching the portal.
Paul launched himself at Iralian with such speed that afterimages trailed behind him. He drew his fist back and drove it forward with enough force to punch through a mountain.
Iralian caught the blow with one hand. The impact stopped dead in her grip. With her other hand, she formed a blade of void and thrust it straight into Paul's chest.
"Paul!" Bernal shouted. He blinked, and Iralian was in front of him.
Before he could command the black liquid to rise in defense, the void blade swept across him in a clean arc.
Alexia raised her hand and aimed at Iralian, starting a spell but she never finished. A flash of motion cut through her guard. Her hands fell away, blood spilling from the stumps. She tried to speak, but the blade passed across her neck.
Iralian stood behind her, smiling.
Then she blinked. Her eyes widened as realization settled in. She stood in the same spot as before the attack. Bernal faced her. Alexia stood at his side. Neither of them showed a single wound.
At that moment, Paul charged from her flank, just as he had seconds earlier.
Iralian raised her hand to stop his punch, repeating the same motion, but this time Paul caught her wrist. His other fist drove into her stomach.
The blow knocked her backward through the air. She landed hard and clutched her abdomen, pain tightening her breath.
But the punch did not trouble her.
She had killed them. She was certain of it. She had seen the blade cut through flesh. She had watched them fall. Was it an illusion?
Her gaze snapped to Alexia. The eye on her forehead focused, searching for distortions. That eye could see through any illusions, even the Real Illusions.
She found nothing.
After a moment, her expression settled into calm.
It didn't matter. She would do it again. Iralian's strength had reached something close to a god's.
She moved faster than before, her body cutting through the air in sharp, controlled bursts. Bernal, Alexia, and Paul tried to respond, but she broke through their defenses with overwhelming speed and precision. She stopped their spells mid cast and cut through all three of them again in quick succession.
But the moment she blinked and everything reset, again.
She stood in front of the portal again. Paul charged in from her side, just like before. This time she reacted with both hands, ready to stop him.
Paul's body vanished from in front of her. An illusion.
He reappeared behind her and drove a full force punch into her back. The impact cracked through her defenses and sent her hurtling forward. A sharp sound of broken bone echoed as she was thrown through the air.
Before she could regain control, a massive stone like fragment like a floating mountain fell from above and crushed into her path. She slammed into it mid air. Inside the rock, a hidden black orb detonated on contact.
Boom. The explosion engulfed her.
She burst out of the smoke moments later, anger written across her face. Without hesitation, she charged again. She cut down all three enemies in one swift motion.
And again everything repeated.
No matter how many times she killed them, Iralian always returned to the same point. Each reset forced a new variation of the fight. Each time, her enemies adapted and struck from different angles.
It became obvious. Alexia was behind it.
Iralian raised both upper hands near her horns. Void energy gathered there, denser than anything she had used before. The air around her darkened as the power compressed into a single point.
She released it.
A massive beam of void shot upward and struck the tower in the sky. The impact cracked the sky itself like glass. The fractures spread rapidly across the illusion, widening until the entire world shattered.
The scene broke. Iralian stood free of the illusion.
She turned her gaze toward Alexia. Anger burned in her expression, but a twisted smile formed at the corner of her lips. In an instant, she vanished.
She reappeared directly in front of Alexia. Four swords formed in her hands. Without hesitation, she swung them forward in a blur of motion, unleashing thousands of slashes in a single instant.
Alexia's body was cut apart completely.
But the pieces did not fall.
One severed hand rose slowly and pressed against Iralian's face.
"Shifting realities. Swap," Alexia said calmly.
The wounds vanished from Alexia's fragments. At the same moment, they appeared across Iralian's body. Her own body broke apart and scattered across the ground.
Her expression of shock remained etched on her face as she fell.
Five black orbs landed around the remains.
They detonated.