He looked amused. "Is that all?"
Then he added with a mocking smile, "To think Valaross would harbor a species that nearly wiped out the human race three years ago."
Rin’s expression darkened furiously and her eyes flared red.
She lunged at him with a roar, closing the distance in almost the sa instant.
But he blinked to the side in a flash of lightning, and she crashed into empty air.
He reappeared high above her, hovering with crackling blue energy around his body.
"You’re predictable." He said, "but i’m done having fun now. This is the end."
Then Niji stretched both hands forward, and a large sphere of blue lightning ford between his palms. It radiated with raw power, growing larger and brighter with each second.
Then he released it.
The sphere shot downward and struck Rin directly, and that impact sent shockwaves outward. Smoke and debris exploded into the air and blue lightning crackled across the ground in all directions.
Rin scread as the electricity tore through her body. Her muscles seized and her skin burned.
Niji watched from above, with his arms crossed and a look of concern on his face. For an attack of that magnitude, she should have been eliminated by now.
But when the smoke began to clear, she was still standing.
His eyes widened. "How are you not eliminated yet?"
Rin slowly raised her head. A grin spread across her face, revealing her clawed teeth. Then her body began to emit blue lightning.
Sparks crackled along her arms, her legs, her entire fra.
The two Jogunmount giants watching from the side stared in shock.
"How is that possible?" one of them muttered.
But the answer was this; it was Rin’s power as a demon. Her body could absorb and take on the magical attributes of any magic she interacted with.
This was exactly why she didn’t bother to dodge the attack in the first place.
Rin’s grin widened. "You just fed my power."
Then she disappeared in a flash of blue lightning.
Niji’s head lifted upward, but it was too late. She reappeared directly above him and drove her foot down his head with lightning-enhanced speed.
CRACK!
The impact sent him hurtling toward the ground. He hadn’t expected that to happen, and it caught him completely off guard.
He crashed into the dirt with a heavy thud, the wind knocked out of him.
But Niji pushed himself up quickly and thrust both hands forward, releasing twin bolts of lightning at Rin as she descended.
The bolts struck her in midair. She took the damage, her body jerking from the electricity, but she didn’t stop. She kept coming.
Her grin was still there.
She landed on the ground and dashed toward him at lightning speed, now holding down her sword, as she swung the blade at him in a horizontal slash.
He leaned back, and the blade passed inches from his face.
She swung again. A vertical cut.
But he sidestepped and avoided it
She swung a third ti, a diagonal strike from below.
He twisted his body and avoided it.
The two Jogunmount giants could barely follow what was happening. Their eyes tracked the flashes of movent, the bursts of lightning, but the speed was too much.
Rin kept pressing. She moved with him, matching his rhythm, her sword dancing through the air in relentless sequences.
But he was still faster. He weaved through every strike with precision, keeping his body always out of reach.
After their last exchange, Niji outpaced himself away from Rin and landed several ters apart. His boots skidded across the ground as he ca to a stop, and he gritted his teeth as he watched her.
This was genuinely annoying. Having to deal with soone as fast as he was, soone who could match his speed blow for blow, was not sothing he had expected.
Rin then stretched both arms out to the side.
Multiple magic circles opened up around her, glowing with a tallic silver light. From each circle, different blades and lances of steel magic materialized in the air beside her.
So were short swords. Others were long spears. A few were daggers. All of them hovered in place, rotating slowly.
Niji’s eyes narrowed in anticipation.
Then, from her fingertips, cracks of blue lightning extended outward. The electricity arced through the air and passed into each of the weapons, one by one.
The blades began to crackle with energy and lightning sparks.
Niji’s eyes widened in shock. "Did she just transfer the lightning from her body to those swords?"
Rin’s grin widened. "Let’s see you dodge this."
Right then, the swords launched.
Several of them shot forward, all aid at Niji. They moved in rapid succession, one after the other, each one trailing blue sparks as they cut through the air.
Niji blinked to the side in a flash of lightning, avoiding the first blade by inches.
The second one ca imdiately after. He dashed out of its trajectory.
The third blade ca from a different angle and he leaped backward in avoidance.
But they kept coming.
More and more blades shot toward him in relentless waves. He avoided one attack after the other, his body moving in bursts of blue light as he blinked across the battlefield.
But they were overwhelming.
And due to the lightning properties they had assud, each blade moved as fast as he did. They didn’t slow down nor miss by much. Every ti he dodged one, another was already there, forcing him to react again.
His breathing grew heavier and movents beca more frantic.
Niji blitz to the left, narrowly avoiding a spear that grazed his shoulder.
Then blinked upward, trying to gain height and distance, but a lance was already there, cutting through the air toward his face.
He tilted his head to the side at the last second, and the lance passed by.
Niji was slowing down. His lightning movent was starting to lag.
He had just successfully dodged one blade when another that followed in rapid succession slashed past him as he attempted the next dodge, almost in the sa tifra.
The edge of the sword caught his side, tearing through his robe and drawing blood.
He gasped, his concentration broken for just a mont.
And that mont was all it took.
Three more blades shot toward him at once. He avoided the first and second, but the third struck him in the chest.
The impact drove the air from his lungs. The lightning crackled across his body, locking his muscles in place.
He looked down at the blade embedded in his torso, his eyes wide with disbelief.
Then his body flickered.
And he disappeared in a flash of light.
Eliminated.
-
Modetha floated back to Rin’s side, and she grabbed the hilt with one hand.
She looked at the empty space where Niji was initially at and muttered, "Predictable"
Behind her, the two Jogunmount giants stared in silence.
The stone giant, the one who had talked back to Ursula that morning, looked at Rin with a mixture of awe and grudging respect.
Rin glanced back at him and smirked again. Then climbed back onto Silverwing’s back and took off into the skies.
——
Back at the Citadel, in the room where the Dragon King’s family watched, Laela and Arianna were overjoyed.
Laela clapped her hands together, her face bright with excitent. "Did you see that?!"
Arianna nodded, her eyes still wide as she watched the replay on the screen. "She’s incredible. I can’t believe how much she’s grown."
They were both genuinely happy for Rin.
She had co so far since the war against the Demon King. Back then, she had been strong, but now she was a true fighter.
She had turned into soone who could hold her own against the best.
Uriel stood nearby, watching the sa screen. A smile spread across her face as she watched Rin fly away on Silverwing.
She didn’t say anything, but the pride in her expression said enough.
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