As Li emerged out of the Vukanovi, the first thing that immediately struck his notice was not Lira nor the Fthagguan corpse. No, it was the atmosphere around him. Tia was right. The air here was cold.

Not temperature wise, but in a way fundamentally deeper, beyond the physical, perhaps spiritual, perhaps even beyond that. There was a sense of coldness that leeched past the confines of his human meat puppet and into the heart of his being. 

It was one that was deeply familiar, chilling in a calming, soothing, comforting way. A pinprick numbing sensation he had not felt in quite a while.

Eldritch power. 

Lira's voice cut through the air. "State your purpose."

There was a slight hint of authority in her voice, but it was not an unfriendly one. 

Li hopped down from the Vukanovi, his feet landing upon the hard, cracked earth below. He was wary of Lira, for as he tried to scan her status, he realized he could not. She had anti-warding and magic resistance sufficiently strong enough to negate his status check spell which, though simple, was still B ranked, making it quite far above anything regularly known in this world. 

"I am only here to pass by," said Li. He could not afford a large-scale conflict here, not with the Vukanovi behind him. "Heading to the Hinterlands."

"The Hinterlands? I suppose that is fine. But I will have to take a closer look at you," said Lira. "It has been over a century since any have ever traversed this broken path, so you must understand my wariness."

Lira leaped up from the Fthagguan corpse. She soared high in the air, travelling forwards in a graceful arc and landing a few meters away from Li. When she stood up, she was slightly taller than even Li.

As their eyes met, he noticed her face. Conventionally pretty, as it were, yet a large burn twisted her right cheek and a long, jagged scar ran down from her forehead, past her eye, and down pat her mouth, warping the once shapely lips to an odd angle.

Most strikingly though, were her eyes that shone bright with the all the colors of the rainbow glimmering together in a gemstone like shine. Li did not recognize where those eyes came from or what kind of power they belonged to.

Nothing about Lira felt off in the sense that all her power seemed to belong to this world, so her eyes must have been blessed with a magic developed solely on this world. 

A few seconds after Lira's gaze settled on Li's eyes, her brow raised in surprise, then recognition, then that feeling traveled through her whole body in a current of action that had her switch up into a battle stance, feet square and spear-torch held with the sharp spear side thrust towards Li's throat. 

"No…," whispered Lira through her teeth. "You are one of them." She clenched her jaw not in anger, but in nervous worry. "Then I have failed," she said to herself. 

"One of what?" Li looked down at the spear point, knowing conflict was near. He mentally bid the Vukanovi to scramble back as fast as it could to make some distance. 

"One of them," said Lira with venom in her voice as her eyes flitted back, motioning to the Fthagguan corpse near the spatial flux. "And seeing you, the sheer amount of power flowing through you, I know you are more than a mere messenger or emissary. You are the real deal. An Old One."

"So what?" said Li, hiding his surprise. Precious few could ever sense that side of him for it was buried beneath both his human vessel and his more forward forest and life attuned side. To date, it had only been Zagan that had known quickly, and that was because he had exposure to eldritch forces. 

"So," said Lira resolutely. "You die."

"I assure you." Li shook his head slowly, each side-to-side motion a charged threat. "You do not want this fight."

"No. I do not want to fight. But I must." Lira saw through Li, behind him, but kept her spear point still inches away from Li's throat. "I will wait. Until that familiar and the mortal lives residing within are gone." 

"Then so be it," said Li. "Know that in the end, I gave you a chance to stand down." 

Lira did not speak anymore, honing her attention on Li as she kept the tense standoff between them, her spear near his neck and him standing tall, almost casually, his hands straightened, ready to cast magic or act at a moment's notice.

The standoff lasted half a minute, enough time for the Vukanovi to have covered significant distance, and at that moment, Li sensed a shift in the atmosphere and moved his hand to grab the spear. He did grab the spear, but not before it had sunk deep enough into his throat to have been a lethal wound for any normal human.

Li blinked in surprise as he immediately began to use more of his physical stats, breaking past the limiters he set on himself when fighting lower leveled mortals. He gripped the spear tight in his fist so that Lira could not withdraw it. 

From the speed at which Lira had thrust her spear, a speed unaffected by any skills or spells, he could estimate that her agility actually outstripped his at the base level when he did not draw on the stats given to him by the Elden Seed.

That meant that at the bare minimum, Lira had more agility than a level 100 mage. Not that mages were at all the type to devote points into agility - and in fact, it was Li's weakest stat that he barely invested into, but it did mean that at the least, Lira was a humanoid fighter far beyond any that Li had encountered so far.

He estimated her to be around level 70 if she was purely a physical fighter, though, considering her weapon of choice, she was likely higher. 

"Parading around in a puppet made of flesh, pretending to be mortal. What were you doing?" said Lira as she looked at the spear point buried in Li's throat, at how he stared back at her with ease even with metal sticking in his jugular. "Turning the masses into your mindless slaves? Toying with the heart of innocents?"

Li drew the spear out of his throat, and before even blood could spurt out of the hole, it filled up with green energy, regenerating in an instant. "You seem to be mistaken about my nature."

"Conniving. Cruel. Chaotic. Need I list more inherent to your ilk?" Lira tugged once at the spear, but realized quickly she would not win in a contest of strength against Li. 

Li noted that. 

As someone who was classified more accurately as a battle mage, he had far more investment in the strength stat than conventional mages that spread their stats across magic and agility for higher damage and accuracy. Higher level shapeshifting in lore required high strength because only strong bodies could shift to strong beings, and Li was quite adept in the field. If he had to estimate, his raw strength - his health and physical power - was around that of a level 100 warrior when fully using NG+ stats too. 

This meant that Lira herself was not a full warrior who invested entirely into strength and agility.

No, she very likely was either a battle mage herself or subclassed as one. Not to mention her choice of weapon was not a simple warrior's weapon, but primarily a catalyst for magic. 

Lira's figure glowed in a burst of magical energy, and the flame at her torch began to flicker once more, ready to build up to an attack. 

Li knew what that weapon was, and he knew that it was a legitimate threat to him. He struck Lira in the side with an open palmed hit before the torch flame could fully develop. A cracking boom of impact echoed through the air as she staggered backwards only a few meters away, but enough that the torch's flame dimmed down now that its owner was not touching it directly. 

Lira took in a breath but remained standing and rather unhurt. 

Quite respectable that Lira could take that hit so well. An ordinary human would have turned into bloody paste. A warrior of Leonid Drozdov's capacity, top among the mortals, would have flown back dozens of meters. 

"Quite interesting to see the Prometheas being wielded here. And here I thought I would never see a Divine class artifact ever again," said Li as he took the torch out of his neck. He was entirely prepared to throw it behind him, far, far away where Lira could not use it, but as he turned around, bringing the torch back to toss it like a javelin, Lira moved also.

Lira disappeared in a shower of sparks, her form dematerializing. Li instantly recognized this as [Fire Jump], a B ranked spell that allowed for nigh instantaneous short-range teleportation.

Li saw Lira appear from behind him, dropping from the sky and grabbing the torch by its neck. He already expected her to try and get her weapon back, and he was ready for it. During the short interval where he spoke, he had taken the time to cast [Heart of the Forest] on himself, heavily boosting his stats.

With the burst of strength and speed, he did not throw the Prometheas as Lira would have expected, but instead slammed it down in the ground, crushing her under it. 

A crater shattered open below Lira as she hit the ground in a rumbling echo, but she smiled at Li. Her hands were still on the Prometheas, surprisingly. 

Li immediately stepped back to make distance as the torch flame flickered again. He had miscalculated. He threw her down with enough strength, he thought, to severely injure but not kill her, wanting to question her and estimating her to be around level 80 at the high end with a strength stat lower than both her agility and magic, making her especially susceptible to direct hits. 

Lira stood up, pieces of shattered rock falling from her form, but she was essentially unharmed, the torch held at her side. The magical energy around her was surging at levels far beyond what they were before, manifesting in an aura of orange that began to melt the ground her, coloring the blackened earth back into liquid rock. 

"I expected nothing less of an Old One," said Lira. Her smile changed, her teeth becoming sharper. Her eyes became even brighter and from the sides of her head, two black horns striped in molten red emerged. Notably, though, one of them was broken in half, the breakpoint outlined in glowing orange energy. 

"I see. So you were holding back, dragon," said Li. "You should not have done that." 

"High dragon," corrected Lira as her rainbow eyes shone with an even further intensity. She wielded the spear side of the Prometheas back at Li again. "I may have failed my duty to guard this world, but if this flame of mine may purge even one of you monsters, then I will be satisfied."