The mont that the word ’begin’ entered our minds, everything around us seed to slow down to a crawl as the incredible speed that both the Elf and the Demoness possessed were put on display.
How fast Jillian was definitely surprised a little as I watched the Elf surpass the speed of an arrow and instead attempt to match that of a bullet as she aid her blade straight at Jahi’s heart, hoping to finish this in a single stroke.
As for Jahi, the Demoness lacked in the agility departnt quite a lot, but she trained religiously with Anput and I - both of whom used speed and maneuverability to attempt to ’bully’ her into submission more often than not - so she was well versed in countering speedsters.
Because what she lacked in agility she made up for in raw, brutish strength that surpassed my own even without any additional mana pumping through her arms, and say what you will about the contest between speed and strength but strength still only needed that one, singular hit to end it all.
Speed could kill you through a thousand cuts and avoid your attacks, but in a confined space against soone who wielded a magic that was far faster than any others - albeit wielding it like a cudgel instead of a scalpel - speed alone wouldn’t guarantee you a win.
Least of all against a pissed off, bloodthirsty Demoness who had been itching for so long to unleash all of the violent urges inside of herself onto soone, let alone soone who truly warranted such violence.
In an area where we had already been dealing with ti distortions I couldn’t help but wonder if we were in one now as I watched Jillian’s blade lunge towards Jahi’s heart, a streak of cold silver shrouded in flat brown mana cutting through the air with a nerve wracking shriek.
It felt like everything was at ’normal’ speed, like we were seeing Jillian close the ten or so foot gap between herself and Jahi in maybe a second, and yet my heart hadn’t beat yet nor had I inhaled completely yet; idiotic asurents of ti, yes, but ones that I understood to be roughly a second to two seconds in length.
So for Jillian to close the gap that fast and stab her blade towards my lover’s heart before either of those things were completed was just... it was nerve wracking, but there was nothing I could do now that Jahi was in that arena while I was out here.
She had selfishly accepted this duel without consultation with any of us nor consideration for the imnse stress she was putting us under by going against an unknown opponent, so now I was clad in a deep rooted fear of what would happen while I was out here, unable to help her should anything at all happen.
I didn’t even want to breathe since it felt like I might distract her, that irrational fear that maybe she would make a mistake because of freezing my body in a way that simply wasn’t comfortable; and yet there was nothing I could do to help.
Her life was in her own hands as well as my own, because if she died here I would perish alongside her, sothing that was known to us and to Mom, but sothing that the others might have forgotten or simply never learned.
That was another point of fear for , though that opening attack being caught on the flat side of Jahi’s great sword gave the briefest amount of relief even if it had co a tenth of a second after this had begun.
Jillian twisted her wrist and rode the impact out as best she could, relying on the twist that Jahi gave her to flow off of the unmoved Demoness and off to the side, though in doing so she was imdiately confronted with a bash.
Pushed away from her target, Jillian used that montum as well to reorient and prepare herself again, bunching up the muscles in her legs and launching herself once more as she made sure not to waste any ti whatsoever.
With Jahi remaining as stable as a rock the Elf was given free reign over the arena at large, but the constraints of ti kept her from getting too creative with everything as she instead was forced into close quarters.
Not at all perturbed by that despite being outclassed, Jillian kept her blade wreathed in mana and stabbed it towards the Demoness again, but this ti the mana solidified into a pillar of rock that encased her weapon before exploding outwards with a pulse, showering shrapnel over the Demoness.
In rapid succession she used her sword as a detonator three tis, sending cloud after cloud of sharpened rock straight at Jahi and forcing her into an even more defensive stance; seeking out an injury but primarily disorienting her with the loud booms and the haze of dust showed relative quick thinking from the Elf, sothing I hated imnsely.
She didn’t need to be this smart after appearing so idiotic for so long, but that was the issue with Nobles that participated in a coup; yes they were stupid but they were still Nobles who had been given access to the best of the best everything their entire lives.
That made these initial seconds so stressful since I was made to watch as she obscured Jahi’s vision, leapt away and used a precious second to whip up a Ritual Circle that filled the entire arena with sand, further removing vision from herself and allowing her to slip into the sandstorm like a ghost.
No quippy one liner, no dramatic or arrogant monologuing, just pure silent lethality as she began to stalk her prey, sneaking up on the Demoness and aiming for a single blow to end this all.
I wanted to shout and warn Jahi about her position, to try and give her an edge to win, but doing so would only distract her and cause her to make a mistake as she stood there like a sentinel, her remaining senses strained to the limits as she waited for anything to clue her in on the Elf’s position.
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