Hirrus realized his mistake before she moved another muscle. Orlina had taken the brief pause to use an Arcana, and he’d stood back and let her, thinking he solidly held the upper hand.

But she had the ability to restore her health. It would take away his advantage.

He had Arcana of his own that would heal him, but she had denied him that opportunity.

That wasn’t entirely true. He could have used the same time to activate an Arcana, but he hadn’t thought to. These powers were still unnatural to him. It wasn’t automatic, like for the adventurers.

Hirrus chided himself. He was being sloppy. He’d allowed himself to become distracted. That had to end.

If Orlina wanted to separate again to employ an Arcana, he would have to meet that threat in the same fashion.

Orlina’s blade whispered through the air, and the crescent blade of the icy greataxe met it halfway. A horrible scraping sound filled the empty street as metal and enchanted ice ground together. Hirrus forced his strength against hers, gaining ground with his superior BUR, but not as rapidly as he expected.

She led the standoff in an arc, stopping him from pushing her back against a wall. Once she had her footing she twisted her blade, breaking the lock and lashing out at him with a vicious stab at his face. He tipped his head to the side and brought the blade of his axe down. Rather than accepting the blow to follow through on a doomed attack, she backed off, turning her body to let his attack cut only air.

Hirrus briefly tried to focus on his Peppered Breath Arcana, but Orlina’s dodge wasn’t a long enough window for it. Her blade whipped in at his throat, forcing him to abandon the attempt and bring the flat of his axe up to parry the blow.

Their blades scraped together again. When they parted, her shorter weapon snaked through his guard and slashed across his forearm in the narrow gap between the sleeve of his armor and the bracer below. It was another one thousand five hundred and forty-eight damage, and while it felt a paltry sum, he was unable to land a blow in return.

As they struggled, the sun barely crested the horizon, painting the city in morning light. Early mist rose from the river, and at every turn, their blades met and filled the air with angry scraping noises.

Orlina’s initial clumsy rage had either subsided or been muzzled enough for her actual skill to show through.

She was a skilled fighter.

It took Hirrus a long time to land another blow, while her blade was constantly prodding his defenses at every turn.

As he felt out her style and speed, it went from one blow in every five cutting into him for just under two thousand damage, to one in every seven.

And then one in every ten.

But he couldn’t shut her out completely. She was too fast. And as he studied her fighting style, she was doing the exact same.

Hirrus reminded himself to be patient. He didn’t need to kill her with a hundred cuts. She would be dead on the ground after only four or five strikes. As long as he didn’t allow her to heal again.

At long last, he struck her once more. He turned a low feint into a true strike, taking advantage of her attention to his habits. The blow crashed against her knee, causing it to buckle under her with five thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven damage. She managed not to fall fully prone, and was able to brace herself for her blade to intercept his as it came down for a follow-up attack.

Orlina used the momentum the blocked blow imparted to her body to roll backwards away from Hirrus. As soon as she got to her feet she strafed around to the left, backing up farther. Hirrus charged, lunging at her, but she had the head start and was able to maintain distance. He had to pull up short or he would be forced to overextend, giving her an unacceptable advantage.

“You haven’t realized it yet, have you?” Orlina smiled. Her rage had melted away into a sense of undeserved confidence that Hirrus was eager to wipe off of her face. “This fight is already done.”

“Funny, that’s what your friends said right before I butchered them.”

“You think I can’t see through that?” Orlina laughed, the sound hollow and empty. “You think you’re the first asshole who thought he could bait me into losing my temper?”

Hirrus activated Split Second and lunged at her before she could activate an Arcana of her own. With it, he rocketed across the space between them and swept his axe in at her.

He was greatly gratified by the flash of fear in her eyes as he closed the distance. In response, she hurled herself out of the way before the blow could land, diving to the ground.

“And you think I can’t see through that?” Hirrus mentally ran through his list of Arcana. “Trying to buy time for another trick?”

He employed his other instant-cast Arcana, using Electric Field to give him a move speed advantage on her. His greataxe blurred through the air towards her, smashing down on her back before she could scramble out of the way.

The blow was a critical hit, smashing into her for over ten thousand damage.

Orlina cursed several times in very short order, rolling away from him to get to her hands and knees.

And then did something Hirrus could have dreamed to expect.

She hurled herself off of the street and into the river.

Hirrus bellowed wordlessly in dismay before rushing to the edge of the river.

As he reached the edge of the street, where it dropped down in a sheer surface to the river’s surface a few feet below, he saw Orlina. She was below him, not under the water, but kneeling atop it as if it was a solid surface. A light blue glow suffused the water immediately beneath where she was in contact with it.

She was breathing heavily, and a cloud of red was drifting down the river from where she knelt.

Hirrus considered his options. Given his stats, he couldn’t hope to actually kill her with any Arcana that did damage based on his ATT or RES. She was out of reach of the only two alternatives he had: Ascension’s Sands and Peppered Breath, which could only reach a few feet away. And if he leaped down to swim at her, she could probably just stand up and walk away from him. Or kick at his head until he drowned.

“Now your true colors show through,” he called down to her. “Not only are you a coward when destroying a town, but you turn tail and run when the consequences of your actions come to bite you.”

Orlina didn’t respond immediately, focusing for a moment before that same surge of green energy surged over her. The wound on her leg closed, but even as she relaxed and stood, Hirrus could see that the wound on her back still had a curtain of red running down from the wound.

“I’m not running,” Orlina said, her voice calmer than Hirrus expected. “I just need you to understand properly that this isn’t my final form. I’m not even Super Saiyan One right now. I just want to take a moment to be sure you understand the enormity of it as I jump straight to Perfected Super Saiyan Blue just to show you the futility of your fight.”

Her cockiness mixed with speaking total gibberish was not a surprise to Hirrus. Adventurers were just like that.

But that flash of fear he’d enjoyed was gone.

Now that she’d bought herself a moment, she seemed convinced that she was about to claim victory.

Before he could tell himself that all he could do was watch her actions, he instead employed Phrase of Luminosity and Ancient Stream to recover some health. With his low stats, he only regained a couple thousand hit points total with the both of them. But it was only the work of a second to employ.

There was little else he could do.

Down on the water, Orlina took a deep breath and brought her hands together. Her Arcana had a much longer cast time than anything Hirrus had, even RiesenFeuer. A blue glow spread down her left arm from the shoulder to her hand, while a red glow did the same down her right. They met in the middle where her hands were pressed together, but they didn’t blend and mix. Instead they formed a hard line in the air around her hands.

It only took a couple of seconds, but the red and blue glows wiggled and wavered along that line, and then Orlina shuddered violently. The red and blue swapped sides, and when she looked up at him, her eyes briefly glowed, red on the left side and blue on the right, before it faded as well. The glow lingered around her shoulders - an indication that told him this was a temporary effect - but as she strode forward across the water, there was nothing but fearlessness in her body language.

She was coming at him again, but not with blinding speed.

This time she was approaching with a predator’s lazy confidence.

Orlina was not looking to fight.

She was looking to win.

To kill.