"Alright then, let's begin. I am Serval Rulan, half Hi-Shin. Authority of Conservation, scalar translation."
Serval spoke as he slipped into a battle stance.
In response, Ally dashed forward, blade angled to spear straight through his head.
"Whoa!"
He deflected the strike by slapping the flat of her blade aside, then sprang backward.
"Girl, that was your cue to introduce yourself!"
She offered no reply, only rolled her wrist and prepared to strike again.
"Damn. Nobody's got the common decency to introduce themselves these days."
Ally wasn't surprised by his decision to reveal his hand so early. After all, the man had identified himself as Hi-Shin.
They were a race of warriors whose principle, "Authorities are bestowed for battle", had been proven when they discovered that by deliberately relinquishing certain tactical advantages, and allowing a fight to approach equilibrium, a warrior could invite a blessing from their Authority.
This granted one of three possible advantages for the duration of the battle.
The first was a simple amplification of one's existing abilities.
The second allowed the wielder to reach into the root concept from which their Authority was derived, temporarily altering its base nature.
And the third, the subconscious installation of intent that surpassed even the user's conscious capacity.
This phenomenon was commonly referred to as "Approaching the Playing Field", though its formal designation was "Parity".
The reason Ally wasn't caught off guard was simple.
While most Eminents used this method sparingly, the Hi-Shin themselves never strayed from the ritual of formal declaration before a duel.
Yet something felt wrong.
Judging by his appearance and the explosive pressure he exuded, she had expected his Authority to be straightforward, violent, and destructive. But when he approached parity, she sensed no shift.
That could only mean one of two things. Either he had altered the nature of his abilities, or he had established a rule she was incapable of perceiving.
Either possibility contradicted her assumptions.
Which meant she would have to proceed carefully.
With a launch that fractured the ground beneath her feet, she surged after him.
Her massive blade thrusted forward repeatedly, each narrowly missing as Serval slipped past them.
He countered with strikes of his own, yet she somehow managed to block each one. Intercepting them with what, to him, looked like a crude slab of steel.
It was a fighting style Serval struggled to comprehend.
Using such a heavy weapon, clearly designed to exploit raw strength, only to rely on precise, fencing-like thrusts felt counterproductive. Yet he never allowed himself to be struck. He knew better. Because Ally's thrusts carried lethal force regardless of form.
"Why do you think she fights like that? Doesn't it make things harder?"
"If I had to guess, it's a covenant of hers."
The others had retreated farther from the center, drawn back by how much of the hall the duel was disturbing, despite its massive scale.
"I wonder if she even has an Authority… or if that thing's just an artifact."
"Either way, it's insane that she can outspeed even Serval while maintaining that fencing style with nothing but physical strength."
Serval finally found an opening and drove a kick into her hip, but she caught his leg with her free hand and countered instantly, blade flashing toward his head.
At the last moment, he clamped his palms together around the blade, halting it in place, and shouted,
"Can you all shut the hell up?!"
"Come on! What's a duel without a little spectator commentary?!" Annabeth shouted back.
"I don't mind the chatter, but you're spoiling the thrill of the battle!"
"Thrill? All I see is you getting backed into a corner."
"Just be quiet and watch–"
Ally wrenched herself upward using Serval's grip on her blade and snapped a drop kick into his head, launching him backward.
He skidded across the floor, forced to release the weapon, yet somehow remained standing.
He clicked his tongue, then turned back toward her.
"You know… I thought we were similar. From the way you're built, and the way you fight. I thought we both loved a good battle."
His legs spread apart.
"However, you didn't bother to accept my offer to duel with full parity…"
His left hand hung forward–
"…then you snuck an attack on me while I was distracted."
–and his right hand reeled back.
"Alright then. I'll fight on your terms."
"I don't understand the things you keep saying," Ally replied for the first time since their duel began. "We're not fighting the same kind of battle."
"Is that so?"
"I'm fighting as an officer, not for the sake of it, as you are."
He's leaving himself wide open. He seems certain that whatever he's about to hit me with will land. We'll have to see about that.
She dashed.
So fast that she seemed to disappear from his sight entirely.
Then, as his eyes struggled to track her position, she appeared behind him and thrust her blade into his flank.
It surely hit, there was no doubt about it, but as she attempted to follow up the attack, a force suddenly rammed into her face, stunning her momentarily.
What? What was that?
He turned swiftly, unleashing the fist he had reeled back.
Fortunately, she had recovered just enough to place her blade between herself and the shockwave that followed his strike.
WHOOM!
The impact sent her flying, along with everything on that side of the building.
By the time the dust settled, nothing remained in that direction but an empty clearing stretching several hundred feet.
Within the aftermath, Ally was revealed with her blade pierced into the ground, using it to offset her inertia.
"That is my Authority," Serval spoke as he approached her once more. "Normally, it stores the damage I take and returns it to the dealer twofold. But the parity I offered at the start forces my Authority to offset most of the damage in exchange for halving the return. So you only take as much as you deal."
She pulled her sword free.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because, in addition to what I've just explained, revealing this allows me to add one more term. If your next attack differs from the original by more than ten percent, it is completely offset."
He rushed at her, clearly baiting a counter, and from then on, he dictated the rhythm of the battle.
Ally could no longer attack recklessly. Every strike had to be calculated in advance, rendering any physical advantage she might have once held effectively useless.
Not to mention, his ability did not explain how he generated the earlier shockwave. It could have been born of pure strength, but that did not seem to be the case.
When she finally landed a thrust similar to the previous one, he deliberately forced himself closer, worsening the penetration.
Immediately after, Ally was pierced from behind.
More precisely, the injury manifested there, yet no external force appeared to have caused it.
She gritted her teeth to suppress the groan that escaped, but did not loosen her grip on the blade.
"If it's any consolation, even if I don't take damage, it still hurts like hell," Serval whispered.
She raised her fist slowly and drove a weak punch into his chest, which in turn created a wound straight through her gut.
"Are you foolish?"
Serval raised an eyebrow as he watched her seemingly sabotage herself.
Then he watched her weakly strike him again, before sighing and ruthlessly kicking her away.
"That's five."
"Uh?"
CRACK!
"Gah!"
It felt as though a grenade had detonated at the core of his body, the force recoiling inward before blood spilled from his mouth.
"What the–"
Now it was his turn to stagger back, clutching his torso, utterly unable to determine where the force had originated.
"You see, I just happen to have a very taxing ability."
She drove her blade into the ground once more and this time, left it behind as she walked forward.
"My blade is indeed an artifact, but it's not something I can use against the likes of you. So for this one, my Authority, and my hands will have to read you your rights."
After wiping the blood from his mouth, Serval regained his composure and forced himself back upright.
And without another word, they crashed into each other.
Standing within the same area, neither spared any effort in maneuvering beyond its bounds. They maintained only a relentless flurry of strikes, relying entirely on their respective abilities as the deciding factor in their effectiveness. Even so, their surroundings were not spared, trembling violently with each exchange.
Serval was more consistent in the damage he dealt, having no reason to hesitate in his blows. His ability would return Ally's strikes back at her at times, while mitigating the damage he took at others.
However, at certain intervals–
CRACK!
His body would suffer that same recoil, granting Ally the opportunity to land a consecutive combo of hits that would not be canceled.
As the clash dragged on, the interval between the recoil manifesting in Serval's body grew shorter. Meaning that, slowly but surely, Ally was overtaking him.
"I've figured it out…" Serval suddenly spoke as they continued crossing blows. "Every five hits you land, five explosions rupture my body at five random points. And since they all carry the same potency, only one of those explosions affects you."
Ally's Authority was Criticality. Its function allowed her to stack a fixed number of critical points into a target, which would then burst without regard for physical defenses.
In fact, the only reason Serval had not been taken out by that point was that his ability mitigated the idea of damage, rather than its source.
It had initially been her intention to reserve her artifact's ability for the rest of the group, so it was not a major issue that she could not use it against him. Either way, she would have had to rely on her Authority to work around his defenses.
And it was working, eerily so.
At some point, it felt as though the only damage she was taking came from the first stack of her own ability. Instinctively, she knew a trap was being set.
Since she had no idea where it would spring from, she followed up one last criticality with an uppercut, sending him flying while she gained some distance. However–
CRACK!
Ally's body was suddenly ruptured by a multitude of attacks, tearing her apart both internally and externally in unimaginable ways, and forcing her to crash to the ground.
Serval, however, landed safely in front of her, though he did not appear unscathed.
"Did you forget I could always just revert my Authority to its base form?" he spoke as he finally tore off his blood-soaked shirt.
When Ally's Criticality had begun activating at faster intervals, interrupting any attempt at counterattack, all he could do in response was disable the alterations he had initially set for his Authority. In doing so, it lost the ability to reduce incoming damage, but regained its original function, storing and returning damage twofold.
"Since we're fighting on your terms… You won't accuse me of cheating now, will you?"
"..."
He then burst into hysterical laughter, seemingly at nothing, as he stared her down.
"Hey… I think I dig you after all. Want to be my wife?"
"..."
Ally remained on the ground, staring up at the now-open sky without a word.
Their battle had destroyed half the structure vertically, while the remaining half looked as though it stood only an inch away from collapse.
"Don't expect me to let this slide, Serval. Or are you going to claim you forgot my demands for this foolish assembly?"
Two women, seemingly appearing from nowhere, strolled past Ally's fallen body on opposite sides as they made their way toward the others.
"Ah, Cydra, sorry about this. But you have to understand, the lives of my men were in my hands. I had to return the retribution so that they may rest in peace."
"Alright. Now, once you're done feeding me that nonsense, please tell me why I just heard you propose to her… or at least whatever that was?"
"Er… I know they'd understand."
"Haha, freaking idiot…"
"Quiet, Stone!"
As if they had just finished enjoying a show, they drifted back into casual chatter.
"By the way, why didn't anyone think to stop that invisible little Veil mouse before he scurried off with the rest of our captives?"
The man who had been lying across the chairs finally sat up before asking.
"Why didn't you, boss? Sure, we sensed him, but the show was really good, so I kinda didn't care."
"Same."
"Me neither."
"Well, somebody's going to have to go after him after this, and you can't complain because that's an issue of procrastination."
Invisible? Collins… So you were here this whole time?
The words jolted Ally awake from her trance.
Then you must have seen what happened to your father. I'm so sorry, and thank you.
They were interrupted by the sound of shifting dirt.
Serval turned as he sensed his duel might not have been over, but a single punch to his jaw folded his body midair before he was slammed back-first into the ground.
"Alicia Damion, Earth Human. Authority of Criticality. Till death do us part."
So it began.
A barrage of punches drove him deeper and deeper into the crust while his body was ravaged from within at mounting intensity.
All she did was modify each of her critical points so they would consume the remainder of her Authority while sacrificing their strength and penetration factor.
In exchange, every critical point that triggered would count as adding another stack, with no upper limit.
From there, Serval's body was torn apart as both the damage of each blow and the speed at which she delivered them rose exponentially.
Of course, his ability attempted to offset the damage, but he could not prevent himself from being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of destruction inflicted upon him.
Forty ruptures… Six hundred and forty ruptures… Two thousand five hundred and forty… Ten thousand two hundred and forty… Forty thousand nine hundred and sixty…
Before her seventieth hit could land, however, she was suddenly riddled with holes.
Holes that pierced every organ and ligament she would have needed to move even a fraction more. Holes too clean and smooth to be made by bullets.
As for the one responsible, she saw the man they called their boss, the man who seemingly had no Authority, pointing at her.
When she felt herself pitching forward, she drew her blade, intending to impale Serval as she went down. But he was suddenly teleported out of the crater, seemingly by the youngest of the group, the boy known as Fiérre.
Unordinary perforations… is this what Cosmo was talking about?
After missing, she dropped to one knee, relying on her blade to keep herself upright.
"Damn it! Grand! How dare you?!"
Serval, however, roared at the man who had interrupted them.
"I would've won! I'll kill you!"
"Calm down, the duel's already over."
"What did you say?!"
"You would have been dead thousands of times over by now. Jane was healing you through the whole thing."
The girl named Jane gave Serval a delighted little wave.
"...she won, alright?"
Serval's fist clenched.
"Damn it!"
Then he hurled a shockwave beside Ally, narrowly missing her.
"Fine."