Vila stood beneath the filtered light, her stance elegant and unreadable. One foot slightly forward, knees relaxed, fingers curled around the hilts of her twin blades. A faint breeze tousled her hair, but her eyes didn't blink.
Across the clearing, Team Mika faced her like a line of glass traps, glittering and deadly.
No one moved.
Until Mika spoke, her voice low and velvet-smooth.
"Hey, Will. Quick question."
William Haldecrest turned his head slightly. Calm. Ready.
"How many blades do you have stored?"
He blinked.
"Currently? Around... thirty? Maybe forty?"
Mika's lips curled, slow and deliberate.
"Great. When I give the word—throw them all. And I mean all."
William didn't ask why.
He just nodded.
"Understood."
Rei flicked her eyes between them, hands still poised at her sides, threads coiled like lazy vipers. She didn't speak—but she was watching Vila's legs, Vila's balance, Vila's weight shift. Waiting.
Mika lifted a hand.
Summoning glyph flared.
"Auren Cavaliers. Go."
The glyph split open and two Auren Cavaliers burst into form—astride spectral warhorses, wielding tower-length lances. Their forms pulsed with ghostlight, hoofbeats shaking the dirt as they charged forward.
Straight for Vila.
She didn't flinch.
The moment they were close, her body blurred. One blade swept left—carving through the first rider's spine in a clean arc. The second swung at her—
She ducked low, slashed upward, and severed its lance-arm mid-charge. Both constructs burst into shards of fading magic behind her.
"Now!" Mika barked.
William raised his hand—his Astraga-fused storage glyph flaring like a cracking sigil.
From the space beside him, dozens of swords appeared.
Different shapes.
Different sizes.
Daggers. Shortblades. Bastard swords. Long-knives. Falchions. A spinning, deadly rain of steel.
He threw them—not one-by-one, but in waves. As if commanding a living wall of cutlery, all aimed at one girl.
The sky above Vila became metal.
She moved.
Leapt.
Turned.
Danced.
Every blade missed. By inches. By instinct. By elegance.
She landed in a slide, dirt trailing behind her boots.
Mika narrowed her eyes.
"Rei!!!"
The glint of steel hadn't even settled when Rei moved.
She didn't wait for a signal.
The moment Mika shouted her name, Rei's threads surged—not to bind, not to trap, but to catch.
And she did.
With the elegance of a puppeteer, her fingers danced once—just once—and the invisible lines hooked into half a dozen of William's fallen swords, still scattered across the ground like forgotten teeth.
They lifted. Twitched.
Then spun mid-air with a screech of metallic tension.
"Redirecting," Rei whispered.
Dozens more rose.
Arcing like birds disturbed mid-flight.
In a breath, they surrounded Vila.
A sphere of spinning, levitating, hovering blades.
Pointed inward.
Every angle closed. Every route blocked.
Rei's threads shimmered between branches, stones, and tree trunks—anchored in places Vila couldn't reach. It was a zone, a trap disguised as chaos. Even Vila's evasive footwork found no exit.
"...Tch." Vila's breath hitched—not in fear, but calculation. There was nowhere left to dash, to dive, to slide. The second she committed to a direction, she'd get skewered.
Then—
All at once, the swords jerked forward.
Every edge.
Every arc.
Toward Vila.
Straight-line bursts—too many, too fast. Though Rei's manipulation didn't allow full mid-flight redirection, they didn't need to curve. Just strike from every cardinal point.
And for one terrifying second—
Vila couldn't move.
Too fast. Too wide. Too complete.
But the impact never came.
A deafening BOOM hit the field like thunder through bone.
Earth cracked.
Vines surged.
And then a dome—towering, bark-skinned, moss-lined, thick with glowing glyphs—rose between Vila and the blades.
Gaia's Shield.
The swords slammed into it like a hurricane of knives crashing into bedrock.
Nothing broke through.
Behind the dome, Vila stood frozen, eyes wide—but alive.
From above the dome's crest, Blanche stepped forward, her boots silent on the vines that held her aloft. Terranova loomed behind her, glowing with golden runes, its colossal arms extended in protection.
She exhaled sharply.
"I'm sorry," Blanche muttered, eyes locked on Vila. "I should've been faster."
Vila didn't answer at first.
Then—
"You're not late."
She turned her head slightly.
"You're just on time."
The shield still stood.
Cracked in a few places. Chipped. But holding.
The field had quieted for a moment. Arrows no longer flew. Threads no longer lashed. The storm had paused—but only to inhale.
From within the moss-veiled roots, Blanche stepped down slowly. Her breath was steady, but her mind wasn't.
Too many moving parts.
Too little time.
And too much pressure.
Her eyes locked on Vila, who was still adjusting her stance from the prior volley. Calm, but not unwounded.
Blanche drew a long breath, then called out—low, but clear.
"Vila. I need you to buy me time."
Vila didn't turn around. Her eyes stayed forward. Still tracking Mika, Rei, and William.
"…For what?"
"I'm going to use it," Blanche replied.
"Use what?"
A pause.
Then Blanche said, quietly, but without hesitation:
"The Possession."
Vila finally turned, just slightly. A flicker of surprise crossed her otherwise motionless face.
Vila stared for a second longer.
Then gave a barely audible sigh.
"I don't know what that means. But fine."
"I owe you one," Blanche added.
Vila turned fully, flicked both blades into her hands, and walked back toward the battlefield without another word.
Blanche stood alone now, hiding behind layers of stone and root and fractured energy.
The world around her dimmed.
She closed her eyes.
Her breathing slowed.
"I need clarity. Balance. No doubts…"
She could feel them.
The Spirits, all three.
Terranova—calm and unmoving, protective and grounded.
Luminara—glowing bright with judgment and compassion.
And—
Glacielle.
A chill slid over her spine.
A presence stepped forward inside her mind—cold, precise, and utterly composed. No chaos. No mercy. Only strategy.
She felt the instinctive pull to defend, to retreat, to choose Terranova again. It was safer. Familiar.
But this moment?
This battle?
It called for ice.
Not just for its power, but for its symbolism. This wasn't about brute force or radiant justice.
It was about freezing the battlefield. About control.
Blanche opened her eyes—now glowing a faint, frigid blue.
"…Glacielle. I'm ready."
But she wasn't done yet.
Possession was not a flick of the wrist.
It was resonance. Melding.
She knelt, one hand pressing to the cracked earth. The sigil beneath her boots began to bloom, crystalline and cold, frostwebs crawling outward from the center.
Inside, her emotions pulsed—calm, cold, aligned.
Too much fire, and Glacielle would reject her. Too much fear, and her body would break.
She had to be—balanced, controlled.
Ready.
Vila moved like a shadow between trees—silent, fluid, inevitable.
She didn't speak.
Her eyes were locked on the enemy across the clearing: Mika, Rei, and William. Three pillars in perfect spacing. Arbalists shimmering faintly behind them. Threads still woven around the field like invisible boundaries.
But even perfect formations—under pressure—begin to shift.
And Vila was pressure incarnate.
She didn't need to overpower them. She only needed to disrupt their rhythm.
With one silent leap, she emerged from the brush—low, fast, sudden—slashing toward Rei with a feint that forced her to reel back her threads defensively.
"She's testing our spacing!" Rei warned, snapping her left palm to anchor a new tether mid-air.
William moved to cover her, shifting left Mika stepped slightly inward, keeping her line of sight a flicker just a flicker and that was enough.
Vila vanished again, blending back into the branches, blades still clean. She hadn't hit anyone but she had achieved something.
Their spacing had tightened.
Their vision now overlapped.
A single gloved hand brushed her braid behind one ear as she whispered to herself.
"One more minute…"
Far behind her, deep beneath vines and frost-glass glyphs, something began to change.
The wind felt colder.
The earth, still and the air—thinner, sharper like the breath before a storm in the stillness behind the shield, Blanche Van Equinox stood alone she wasn't breathing heavily she wasn't trembling.
She was—becoming.
The circle at her feet had now bloomed into a lattice of frost and runes, etched in silver-blue light. Crystals bloomed from the earth like slow-growing flowers. Her hair stirred, though there was no wind. Her eyes were closed.
But within, she heard her name.
Not from the forest not from Vila but from Glacielle herself a voice like the edge of winter's breath on a mirror, calm. Pure. Infinite.
It was not a demand It was not rage.It was invitation.
Blanche exhaled once a sigh—not of fatigue, but release she opened her eyes and in that instant—snow fell.
Not from the sky, but from the very air around her. Frost spiraled outward in soft spirals, delicate and haunting. Her cape unfurled, lined now with shimmering frost that glittered like stars on silk. The sigil below her faded into her steps as she walked forward—each footfall leaving ice blooming on the ground, yet never cracking it.
Her eyes were pale-blue now, glowing faintly—like the horizon before a blizzard.
The Possessed of Glacielle.
"Terranova," she said gently, glancing back once to the elemental still standing guard by Yuxin. "Thank you. You may rest."
The earth spirit nodded once, slowly vanishing into root and stone.
Blanche continued forward every step refined every motion composed her voice echoed like chimes against crystal:
"I am done waiting."
The battlefield fell into momentary stillness even the trees seemed to hush.
Across the frost-kissed clearing, Blanche Van Equinox stood like a vision carved from snowfall—shoulders back, arms at her sides, her white and sapphire coat now lined with glinting frost. Her presence, once noble and formal, now radiated a new weight. Not menace.
Just—inevitability.
Soft flakes swirled around her ankles. The wind bowed to her. The ground itself dared not crack beneath her.
"Is she… glowing?" Mika muttered, eyes wide.
She took a half-step back without meaning to.
Then another.
"Why is she glowing, William?"
William, still standing with his usual relaxed posture, blinked slowly. Unfazed.
"Possession Mode."
"…Excuse me?"
"It's in her file. Blanche Van Equinox. Pacta type: Invocation and Possession."
"It's in her file? It's in her file?! Why didn't you tell me something like that before now?!"
William looked at her like she'd just asked if fire was hot.
"You never asked."
"WILLIAM—!"
Before Mika could finish verbally strangling him—
FWOOOSH—!
The air cracked.
A javelin of solid ice surged forward with blistering speed, sharp enough to whistle, cold enough to freeze breath mid-sentence.
"Incoming—!!" William shouted.
But it was Rei who moved.
She threw herself forward, twisting her body between Mika and the oncoming attack. In a flash, her twin daggers unsheathed, forming an X-shaped parry just in time—
CLAAANG—!
The frozen spear slammed into her blades with a shockwave of frost and force that shook the dirt around her feet. Her arms buckled. Her threads snapped taut. The impact sent one dagger spinning out of her hand, flung into the air like a loose tooth.
Rei stumbled back, landing in a crouch.
Eyes wide.
Hand tingling from the impact.
"That was—owwwww..." she winced, shaking out her wrist. "Okay that was—really heavy. She throws like an avalanche with manners…"
She looked up at Mika, puffing her cheeks a little.
"I wasn't built for tanking royal death icicles, Mika..."
Mika's jaw tightened Blanche hadn't even moved from her position she just stood there.
Another spear already forming in her hand, conjured from vapor and light.
"She hasn't even started yet," Mika whispered.
The second ice spear in Blanche's hand hadn't even fully solidified before she noticed it—
Mika, stepping back. Then further. Then—
"New plan," she declared aloud, voice rising with a sudden shift in tone—not panic. No, no.
Something worse.
Imperial determination.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder like a crowned empress, eyes sparkling with theatrical defiance.
Then raised her hand.
A trio of Auren glyphs bloomed behind her—three circular rings etched in gold, brilliant with prismatic light. From them, Auren Cavaliers burst forth again—sleek, armored riders on ghostly horses, glimmering like stained-glass statues come alive.
One trotted obediently beside Mika.
Two more moved to Rei and William like loyal mounts awaiting command.
Blanche remained silent, her glowing eyes following every step—ice magic still humming faintly in her palm.
Mika swung onto her steed like an irritated crown princess being dragged away from a banquet she didn't get to finish. Once seated, she pointed her finger dramatically across the field toward Blanche, cape fluttering behind her like a judgmental banner.
"This isn't over!" she shouted, voice proud, indignant. Extra. "We'll meet again—in the top sixteen. And I swear by every crest and sparkle in Aurenwave bloodline—I will get my revenge!!"
Her voice cracked slightly at the end.
Not that she noticed.
"Come on, team," she huffed, turning the horse sharply with a hyaa! as if she'd ridden since birth. "We ride!"
The Auren Cavaliers surged forward in sync, light trailing behind their hooves as they galloped down the overgrown path, magical sigils dissipating in their wake.
From behind Mika, Rei turned in her saddle, facing Blanche.
She smiled.
Bright. Cheerful. Almost sweet.
And gave a small wave.
"Thanks for not freezing us solid~!"
Then she zipped out of view with a whoooosh.
William, last to leave, paused briefly. He gave a polite nod toward Blanche and Vila, voice calm as ever—even while riding a light horse mid-battlefield exit.
"Apologies for the attack. Wasn't personal. Just leadership pressure."
Then he too turned and vanished behind the trees.
The sounds of galloping faded.
And the battlefield returned to quiet.
Cracked earth. Dissipated threads. Melting frost under soft snowfall.
Blanche remained where she stood, still glowing faintly with Glacielle's power, a sigh slipping between her lips like winter wind through glass.
"…Royalty these days."