Returning to the battle between Csepel and Alara, Alara had just managed to avoid dying but lost her arm in the process.
"I'm impressed you were able to dodge that but you will soon succumb to your injuries." Csepel spoke after having just taken her arm.
"Blind arrogance." Alara said despite her injuries she was still confident in her ability to win as pillars of petals rose across the formation. She had been spreading her petals across the formation throughout the battle so that once she figured out to destroy the formation she could in an instant.
Alara had not been trying to fight him within the formation it was just too big of a disadvantage combined with the fact he was already stronger being a half-step immortal. The entire time she had been focusing on analyzing the formation to destroy it. While she did not specialize in formations she was a prodigy to the point where even the basic knowledge she had was enough to decipher the one she was in. Truly blessed to the point even amid battle she was still able to figure out how to destroy it.
"The type I hate the most prodigies." Csepel said seeing the pillars of lotus petals destroying the formation.
Now that the formation was destroyed Alara looked at Csepel before smiling and encasing herself in her black petals and began to heal her injuries. She grabbed her arm that hand been cutoff and using the lotus petals that were preventing the blood loss connected it back together. Once connected her body began to glow as she was healing her injuries.
Naturally Csepel wasn't just going to watch as she healed her injuries but before becoming an immortal without the aid of his formation his options were now limited. This was due to the space path being a weaker path due to the energy consumption but worse required a greater exertion of will onto the world for things such as instant teleportation. Even being a half step immortal would not be enough as it was that much of a qualitative change.
With this being the case he summoned a spear into his hands his choice of weapon and began to attack. Seeing her smirk had infuriated him causing him to relentlessly attack at the lotus petals cocooning her. Yet even as he persistently attacked only a few petals would break with each attack but hundreds protected her. This was due to the petals not being the normal ones she infused the elements of earth and darkness into them to both strength their defensive but also disperse attacks used between them. This did have its own weakness but made it perfectly suited to her current situation.
After attack non stop for over a minute Csepel decided to change his approach.
"If you won't come out I'll have to see how your friends are doing. Maybe I'll grab the head of a corpse on the way I'm sure your friends will be happy to see it." He spoke quietly but it would send chills down one's spine.
Hearing this Alara had no choice but to come out if she could use pills she would have been able to fully heal herself but since she couldn't she recovered to about 70%. Even still it was better than nothing as she began her attack.
The color of the lotus petals surrounding her faded to white before instantly exploding outwards like a spray of quills.
Csepel responded quickly to the attack and spatial locked the area in front of him. The rest of the petals quickly flew past him allowing him to move to the side removing the spatial lock where he began his attack on Alara and threw his spear.
Alara knocked it away with her petals but Csepel continued moving towards her until she was just a few feet away within the spears range. Despite not holding anything in his hand he attacked as if he was still holding a spear when the downed spear teleported into his hands as if it never left them.
Alara continued blocking Csepel's attacks with her petals as she waited for her an opportunity to get a decisive attack. Still each swing of his spear began to get closer and closer to hitting Alara's body as her petals were beginning to be to slow to respond to his attacks.
Unfortunately it seemed this was to the benefit of Csepel as an opportunity to pierce Alara's heart came. Moving even faster than before spear pierced through her robes before being stopped by black lotus petals over her heart. While they saved her life it did not stop the damage and only dispersed the damage into her whole body causing her to cough up blood but her opportunity had still come.
Her patience had finally paid off once the spear stopped Alara immediately grabbed it and activated the trap she had laid out. Above Csepel a rain of petals came crashing down into him. He immediately responded using another aspect of the space path known as spatial flow this allowed one to move through space uninhibited but at his current level this was a great risk yet he had no better choice.
Feeling that Csepel's energy had vanished Alara dispersed her petals only to see that he was gone. She was about to begin searching throughout the entire town when he reappeared a short distance away exhausted and a bloody mess with hundreds of cuts over his body. He had even been blinded and became unable to see Alara but unlike Alara he was still able to eat healing pills.
"You goddamn bitch I'll do whatever it take to kill you." Csepel yelled finally losing his calm demeanor as his injuries began to heal due to him having eaten multiples pills the moment he reappeared.
Once she saw him appear Alara immediately began attacking aiming to kill him. She didn't care for his reasons or if he had help, she would only be satisfied with his death. Petals surrounded the area around Csepel and were about to rain down on him once again when he preemptively spatial locked the area around him.
Seeing this Alara held out her hand exerting a strong force onto the spatial lock. She was not holding back any energy in her attempt to kill him.
Slowly her hand began to close into a fist as the frozen space began to distort. Even if took everything she had she wanted to kill him now in-case he still had more cards available.
Her Sencia quickly fell to 50%.
It continued down to 30%
At 20% her breathing grew incredibly heavy as she began having difficulties continuing.
She persisted down to 5% of her Sencia when the spatial lock finally broke and Csepel was crushed by the petals.
At this point she fell to her knee after heavily exhausting herself. Still she couldn't rest yet until she saw his body so she dispersed her petals to see his state. Csepel was covered in blood more injured than the last time but he was still alive and this time his eyes contained a hint of madness as he looked at Alara as a pool of blood began to form over him.
If someone was looking at the town from above they would see streams of blood all flowing in one direction leaving behind withered corpses.
"Blood path…" She did not feel the situation was hopeless but the situation had definitely turned for the worse.
Csepel had used half his power to seal his blood path abilities to further prevent his mind from deteriorating but now he was left with no choice. Alara was just that strong that he had to unseal it prematurely but as long as he could go through with his immortal ascension it was a necessary risk.
"HaHaHa I just realized who you are; you're her the one who was blessed by the world. Fuck you were right I was arrogant haha but that's fine you will still die here today I can see you are all out of energy." Now that he absorbed some of the blood to fully heal himself his mind began to deteriorate.
"All out? If I need more energy the world will supply it. It's a bit premature but it's time for my seventh core." Alara said as confident as ever in herself.
As if her body turned into a vortex all the Sencia in the surroundings began rushing in hoping to be part of her seventh core. It took only moments for her to do what others would take years to do as a purple seventh core was formed a space core. She did not originally plan on using space for her next core but fighting Csepel and watching his use of space had greatly increased her understanding of it.
Seeing this Csepel did not whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it. His seventh core had taken him years of painstaking effort and countless sacrifices but she did it with less effort than lifting a cup of water.
"I'd guess your quite hated being so monstrous that geniuses would feel like fools in front of you." He said those words feeling that way himself.
"Even if thats true so what? Why should I care about such weak minded people." Alara said fully believing such people were not even worth mentioning.
Alara began her attack having now recovered her energy. Her petals would have a faint purple hue around from the space path she chose to add until she fully mastered the space path. Until that was the case the energy usage of her petals would significantly increase but so would their attack power.
Alara created petals around Csepel and with the aid of her space core this had become far easier.
Csepel responded by creating spider like webs of hardened blood across the surroundings that were blocking the petals.
This put Csepel at an advantage because he was mostly using the energy already within blood for defense unlike Alara who was purely using her own energy to attack.
With this being the case Alara decided the patience was not to her benefit and decided to go for raw power as bow and arrow appeared in her hands. The bow and arrow were a pure white made from the wood of a now extinct tree dating back multiple Sencia cycles. It was so valuable their was only one arrow left in the world but she chose to use it now because he was that much of a threat.
Alara took a deep breath pulling back the arrow she carefully aimed at Csepel who was still gathering blood. Holding her breath she aimed for his head and let the arrow loose.
The arrow flew straight not being impeded in the slightest by the hardened blood easily destroying it on the way. Not only was its power strong its speed was just as great as by the time Csepel realized the arrow was coming he made the mistake of using his blood path abilities to block it. If he chosen to stick to the space path he could have at least avoided it but instead it easily pierced through the hardened blood he tried to use to protect himself and pierced right through his head.
After the arrow pierced through his head Csepel fell to the ground with his control over the blood path gone but as if it was alive it acted on its own and began trying to heal him. Despite this if he had enough time he would be able to recover with what control he had left but naturally the process was too slow as Alara appeared in front of him.
Seeing Csepel on his knees struggling to live Alara did not feel anything as she swung her lotus petals like as sword to take his head.
In his last moments Csepel acted out instinctively and just barely manged to send energy to his space ring pulled out his final trump card and upon seeing it Alara immediately tried to stop her attack and retreat but it was too late an explosion occurred sending her flying.
Her body was sent flying hundreds of meters and through multiple trees before a tree was finally able to stop her. The snow around her was dyed red as blood was pouring out of her wounds. Her right arm had been completely destroyed this time as she used it to try to reduce the power of the immortal talisman Csepel had used as much as possible. If it had not been old and decayed she would have instantly died regardless of what she did.
She began healing herself but the damage had already been done and she began to lose consciousness. She did not know how long she was out for but she was eventually awoken by the presence of another.
Standing in front of her was Csepel who had been able to heal himself with no one to disturb him.
"Did you enjoy your rest? No matter how talented you are it seems at the end of the day your still mortal. HAHAAHAA I've never felt so great you along with your friends will be perfect sacrifice to make up for my losses." Even in his current tattered state he still felt as if he was on top of the world.
After saying that he began to use his blood to wrap up Alara to drag her with him. Seeing this Alara would have no choice but to use her own trump card even if it hurt her pride to do so.
Just as she was about to use it she was surprised to see a hand sticking through Csepel's chest when she heard a familiar voice.
"Did you miss me, Alara?" Alrin asked with a grin.