This clash unfolded as Edgar confronted his first Omicron Dragon.
Electromagnetic forces flung Thessa and Eleanor apart, their trajectories diverging mid-air. Crashing through canopies, they endured a series of agonizing impacts against branches, slowing their descent before striking the undergrowth with muffled thuds.
The valedictorian wobbled toward an adjacent tree trunk, gritting her teeth. She used it as leverage to wrench her dislocated shoulder back into place, biting hard to silence a scream of agony.
An acute rustling of leaves instantly snapped her to attention.
The Magister’s training took over. She rolled, narrowly evading her opponent’s devastating haymaker. Eleanor swiftly regained her footing and widened the gap between them. Their brief clash had revealed a chilling fact: this Exo's mastery of close-quarters combat eclipsed even Evanescence's formidable prowess.
"Quite an escape artist, aren't you?" The Keeper's taunt barely masked her attempt to lure her opposition closer. Her fist splintered the tree, yet she showed no sign of pain. "Where's that earlier bravado now?"
"Crushed under your bulk," Eleanor retorted, aiming to destabilize her opponent's composure.
A vein pulsed on Thessa's forehead, but she refused to rise to such obvious bait. Instead, she issued a cold promise: "I'm going to break your spine."
"You're welcome to try," Eleanor replied, thoughts racing through her options and everything she knew about her adversary.
It was common knowledge the days where two brawlers could duke out a winner using raw muscle had ended. In this age of advanced weaponry and physics-defying magic, information reigned supreme. Every detail, scrap of intelligence and misdirection, demanded scrutiny. Victory favored those who could conceal flaws, weaponize strengths, and exploit the crucial "win condition".
The licensed Wizard assessed her situation, weighing each combatants' key differences. Range favored her specialization and Black Jasper, her custom plasma handcannon. Her foe, however, excelled in close quarters.
Defensively, the Light Clan noble held an upper-hand. Her Fairy-Wood armor had shrugged off a direct plasma blast, outclassing the human-made Carbonite-lined uniform. Yet the valedictorian found solace in one fact: her opponent had lost her energy-deflecting glaive.
Through those assessments, a strategy crystallized: exploit range and wear down defenses through attrition.
However, she'd overlooked a critical third factor: their differing Wizardry.
This oversight became glaringly apparent when lightning-speed bolts were evaded with fluid grace, an impossibility without technological or mystical aid.
Adapting swiftly, the Wizard in red and black unleashed a wide-area lightning salvo, a crackling net meant to snare her elusive foe. To her mounting bafflement, Thessa glided through the deadly matrix untouched.
Changing tactics again, Eleanor channeled a colossal charge to crack her adversary's secret. Air stung with ozone as a blinding assault tore through the vegetation, igniting carbon-rich soils and choking atmosphere with thick smoke. Noise of fleeing lizards flooded the forest floor.
In spite of these efforts, Thessa vanished, vaulting into aquamarine shades with inhuman speed and agility. She tracked each shocking attack, savoring her pivotal edge: a deep familiarity with her opponent's tactics, while the Magister remained blind to many arcane intricacies of Fae Garden Wizardry.
As she watched her foe prepare another barrage, the Keeper's mind drifted to her instructor's incessant lectures about their glorious history. To an untrained eye, all space magic looked the same—a deadly assumption for many non-Wizards. But she knew better.
Vichaya the Conqueror first created Wizardry to conquer old Earth, enabling brainwave control over physical phenomena. Since then, the craft has split into specialized Schools, linked only by their use of mental "spell-slots" as fuel.
In this context, understanding an opponent's School down to its pinpricked detail equated to half the battle won: a weapon Thessa already possessed.
She smirked as the visibly perplexed Eleanor readied another storm. Her School clearly revolves around electron manipulation. Potential difference and electromagnetic fields - unmistakably the human Electromaster School.
The Keeper effortlessly avoided another incoming volley. Unlike her adversary, her School of Wizardry was Fae Garden's exclusive invention. Unless her opponent lived in the library, Thessa was certain the black-cladded human had no knowledge of the Adept Warrior School of Fae Garden.
Unlike Electromaster, whose charge manipulation could be identified from sight, Adept Warrior was infinitely subtler. Practitioners of this School manipulated their biology, mostly the brain, to perform superhuman feats. With a right equipment, like the Fairy-Wood armor, an Adept Warrior could overclock their body beyond biological limits and maintain peak fighting strength for days.
Humid air clung to Thessa's skin as she vaulted through the shadowy overstory, mossy scents filling her nostrils. Under the boon of her overclocked senses, she could track trajectories of her opponent's bolts before they flew. Using another tree-branch as a rough foothold, the blonde Fae skipped into another patch of shadows and frowned.
The electrical attacks posed no problem; she had already adjusted her equipment's insulation properties to deal with that voltage. In fact, the forest's humidity and stench annoyed her far more than her Eleanor’s attempt electrocution. Her face scrunched in bafflement as she evaded another sparkling javelin, using the scent of ionized air as a guide. A new puzzle emerged: her adversary should have run out of spell-slots ages ago.
In duels, Wizards shouldn't burn through their limited spell-slots by spamming spells. While these mental resources could regenerate, running out immediately left any practitioner immobile. The skill of each Wizard, and each School's tier, was judged on how they dealt with this limitation.
Given this, the Magister should have long since fainted, having employed none of Electromaster's classic conservation techniques so far.
The Adept Warrior processed this peculiarity, her enhanced brain racing. The cry of aggrieved animals, the glow of voltaic discharge, all became drawn-out, giving her precious seconds to think. At last, she arrived at an answer so ridiculous she couldn't stay silent.
"By Luna, are you some freak of nature!?" Thessa shouted, her voice a mix of awe and indignation. "You're nowhere near running out of spell-slots, are you?"
"Oh, I'm running low." Eleanor's bald-faced lie fooled no one as she casually summoned another giant lightning spear.
"You liar!" Thessa screamed as she twisted away from the searing bolt, its heat singeing her hair. This realization slapped her harder than any physical blow.
Spell-slots were a birthright, unchangeable by effort alone. If nobility were judged by magical potential, Eleanor would be a demi-goddess among mortal monarchs. Her spell-slot count left even Prime Magister Wonderweiss in the dust; an obscene peak that Magister Evanescence couldn't overcome in 1378 desperate duels.
Had Thessa known the river of salt Eleanor inspired in her peers, she might have just quit right there. Blissfully unaware, she pressed on in disbelief down a more academically tragic angle.
"This is beyond insanity!" she exclaimed, half-lamenting. "Why in Luna's name would you choose Electromaster? With your reserves, you're born for burst magic! Sure, lightning's cool--" she winced at her cringy statement "--but it's a spark compared to the Torch Bearer's stellar plasma. Forget being a star pupil, you would have outclassed even the founder!"
Caught off-guard by her opponent's honest outrage, Eleanor let slip a truth that felt hollow even to her: "My instructor said Electromaster is more efficient."
"Efficiency?" The fellow Wizard mentally cracked with vitriol. " Wars could be won with just ten of your casts! I should have been vaporized by now!" Her words dripped with ire at this waste of natural treasure. "What crime against Wizardry is this? Who in their right mind designed your curriculum?!"
She forced her brain chemistry to calm down through sheer Wizardry. This revelation shattered her focus, obliterating every advantage. Normally, Adept Warriors could outlast opponents through efficient spell-slot usage. But the unnatural freak’s bottomless reserves upended that logic.
I can't spend a day wearing her down, she thought frantically. I need a new plan. Close combat? No, she'd have an electricity shield. I need to slow her reactions and scramble her senses. But how?
Her eyes caught the treetops, alight with heat and choked with smoke. A strategy formed instantly, and she sprang into action, darting toward the burning trees. The Magister, noticing her movements, resumed her attack.
This time, Eleanor's aim had improved. The Keeper hopped, dipped, and skipped between thunderbolts, but the final one missed her nose by mere inches.
She's learning my moves, Thessa realized, gritting her teeth. Refocusing on her plan, she snapped burning branches from nearby trees and tossed them into the undergrowth. Black fumes billowed up, but she knew it wasn't enough.
She set another forest cover ablaze and leapt between trees. One of the faux Electromaster’s flurry vaporized the rustling leaves above her, and elicited more angry sound from the wildlife. But Thessa’s luck soon ran out -- the second shot caught her mid-air. Her armor absorbed most of the voltage, but the onslaught still sent her crashing into a tree and to the ground.
Dazed, she heard angry cries from the Nest's animals. The forest was now a haze of pitch-dusk clouds and dull orange flames. Her makeshift torches and Eleanor's lightning had done their work. The Keeper's grand play was almost ready.
But consolation prize didn't exist for "almost."
The Magister approached, crackling with energy. Charged particles danced around her, ready to unleash their full voltage on the downed Adept Warrior.
Suddenly, a swarm of enraged winged serpents had enough and burst from the scorching forest, straight at the black-cladded woman. Thessa silently thanked her lucky stars as she rolled to her feet. Eleanor, caught off guard, reduced her ambushers to fried carcasses and pursued her fleeing opponent.
The Keeper dove into the inferno. Her armor's life-support system protected her from the toxic smog. The licensed Wizard gave chase, flinging more lightning strikes. Ozone's scent filled the air.
The armored warrior ducked one blast, but another stream forced her to block in a clearing. Embers floated around her as the ecosystem burned with sizzling light. Her opponent caught up, channeling a river of charged particles at her opponent, determined to crack her armor's defenses with this bottomless amperic river.
"Give up, Exos," the Magister in black and red huffed, exhausted but confident. Flames cast hypnotic shadows in her rose-tinted eyes. "I have to admit you're lucky, but--"
Suddenly, the faux Electromaster's world went dark for a second. Her concentration broke; scorching current barely contained by the Fairy-Wood armor fizzled out. The Adept Warrior didn't waste a moment. She barreled into her adversary, locking her in a chokehold.
"W-What did you..." Eleanor gasped. The sizzling canopy above her swirled into surreal patterns. Her arms weakly battered against her foe’s iron grip.
"Carbon monoxide poisoning!" Thessa declared triumphantly. "That and all the ozone you've been throwing around. You did yourself in, idiot."
"D-Dammit," the losing maiden cried in frustration. Her fingers fumbled at her belt, desperately searching for a way out.
Unbeknownst to both combatants, a black ring -- the Magister's graduation gift, Elvaine's Blood -- waited in her pouch. It had slept there since Edgar Shin accepted the Pioneering Commandment. But sensing its mistress' distress, it stirred, ready to awaken a shadow from the century past.
Elvaine's Blood snapped onto its master's finger to end this crisis. Ritualistic power surged through her, flooding her mind with memories of fire. Her mouth curved into a smile as hormones flooded her system. As a greeting, the awakening demon converted the air into a soup of fully-ionized electrons and ions, blowing her opponent off her back.
The armor maiden hadn't expected this. The unnatural freak shouldn't have possessed consciousness to cast a spell, much less unleash a torrent powerful enough to overwhelm her armor's energy nullification. Worse, this wasn't just a movement of electrons, but genuine ot plasma of a star's core; something her electrical insulation couldn't handle.
Breaking through a tree, she caught sight of true terror. Only then did she understand why someone had prevented this being from becoming a Torch Bearer.
“Eleanor”, or perhaps someone else entirely, levitated to her feet. Plasma of various colors, mostly settling on purple and red, crowned her with a coronal halo, casting her shadow out in a hellish celebration. The temperature skyrocketed past the surrounding blaze, making the ground itself bubble. Her lips curved upward in demonic, playful joy.
A thunderous crash came from the canopy as several enraged Omicron Dragons burst from burning foliage. Driven by survival instinct, they flew at death like moths to a flame. Their fangs and spear-like heads aimed at the continent-razing queen, absolute fear flashing through their glands and musk.
Armed with Elvaine's Blood, the emerging shadow in red responded with a flick, calling forth stellar fire in a massive ejection of power. The poor creatures didn't even have a second to cry out as a wall of ionized fluid plowed through them with mighty kinetic and internal energy. Rendered into disintegrated and scorched chunks, Omicron's apex hunter got slaughtered like farm animals.
That terror was how Thessa found herself sprinting through an inferno of aquamarine leaves. "How did it get like this?" she cried, her life hanging by a fire-lit thread.
Barks and scorched earth blurred past as she burst out of the forest. A familiar scent -- salt and sand -- tickled her nostrils, a fragrant reminder of safety. Overwhelmed with relief, she leaped from burning treelines, tumbling onto the beach. As she raised her head, she found herself confronted by the most bewildering scene she had ever witnessed.
The peaceful shoreline had transformed into a battlefield, albeit one that had died down into an uneasy lull. The Keeper's jaw dropped at a sight of her crew sprawled on the sand alongside a couple of wolf-like subhumans, and countless dead flying snakes. To her dismay, the last man standing on her side, First Mate Varashad, received a devastating three-hit combo from the enemy leader and crumpled, unconscious.
The Adept Warrior drafted a new approach. She recalled the blonde man who had knocked out her First Mate being close to the flaming demon. In a desperate gambit, the armored Fae rushed at her newfound lifeline, aiming to capture him as a hostage against the walking fiery death.
Despite using her Wizardry to simulate her approach and amp her speed, her target's superhuman movement caught her totally by surprise. A simple leg movement stuffed her foot, and his hand flipped her effortlessly into the ground.
Thumping into the sand, the forsaken virgin looked up at the human standing above her, more shocked than hurt. Worse, she caught sight of a dreadful violet and crimson crown of plasma approaching. Her heart immediately plummeted into her stomach.
"Stop, I don't want to die!" the blonde beauty screamed. There, before death itself, her fondest desire leaked out in full force. "Why do I have to suffer like this? I just want to get married to a nice guy and get spoiled rotten! Is that too much to ask?"
Caring nothing for the Exos noble's wish, the burning entity funneled forth a ray of superheated plasma upon her enemy like the sun’s disinfecting light.
Thessa’s elevated perception allowed her to see in excruciating details the plasma blast roaring to swallow her. Her facade of strength was stripped clean by the cleansing glow. But a shadow she would never forget fell upon her tear-stained face.
Edgar Shin stretched out his hand, overriding reality with his ruling right. Raw force surged from his body, parting the previously unstoppable torrent of plasma like a cosmic curtain.
For Eleanor, a metaphysical realm unveiled itself. She glimpsed a beautiful star where her childhood crush stood. Her heart, swooning in delight and nostalgia, placated the shadowy instinct within. As if commanded, the influence of Elvaine's Blood vanished. She fell towards the ground, barely conscious enough to save herself by manipulating her own electric field.
While her rival hit the beach, Thessa gazed up feverishly at the man, her hero. Meeting Edgar's beautiful eyes, backed by otherworldly power, the noble-born Fae felt her heart had done a somersault up into the clouds. Despite her Adept Warrior’s skill, her neurochemistry started tap-dancing and refused to stop. The sprinting pulse and tingling skin, reeling from her brush with death, transmuted terror into a sticky, intoxicating new sensation burning bright with every second near her savior.
As for the heart-stealer, he sank to one knee. With the threat past, every supernatural power left his body, and Edgar finally felt the weight and consequences of everything he had done.
Seeing her savior knelt, the love-struck Thessa hurried to her feet and to his side, "Hey, are you okay?"
Like an answer for Keeper, a small boom belched from the longboat. To add further insult, wind swept over the battlefield. The First Rogue’s shaking vessel lifted skyward, commanded by Erika, and sozzled out into Omicron's horizon guided by Kirby's trembling hand.
The Leviathan Nest Kerfuffle finally ended, and they were not okay... at all.