Mei Ruan May 1st, 20XX

In my moment of distraction, Jaya lunged at me again, taking another slash at my face which I just barely dodged and returned with a cut to her side.

Her torso twisted unnaturally as she dodged but I didn't dare let her rest and spun the glaive around, slamming the blunt edge into the ground to propel myself above her.

The glaive was quite a bit larger than me, which made it a bit more difficult to use and downright impossible to use elegantly but elegance was the last thing on my mind at the moment.

I took the glaive with me as I flew into the air, using myself as a counterweight to spin around and aimed the sharp side of it down at Jaya, aiming to at least pin her to the ground with the force behind the hit but she hadn't had the seat of the duchess of the Ruan duchy for so long for no reason.

She dodged just enough to avoid the blow being fatal and grabbed the base of the blade, completely ignoring gash that the rest of the blade imprinted onto her arm yanked the weapon and therefore myself closer to her.

Her other arm held the knife and prepared to use the impact to stab me but I wasn't as patient as to let it happen. I twisted away as much as possible, Closing my wings into myself to reduce the drag and tightened my grip on the glaive as I landed on the ground.

I slammed the end of the glaive that Jaya, in her barely conscious state still held onto, into the ground.

She let go in the nick of time and rolled away from me to lessen the impact of being slammed into the ground and was back into the air before I could continue the offensive.

“ What's wrong with you Mei? are you purposefully restraining yourself to physical techniques to even the playing field between us? I'm flattered.”

It really would have been the best tactic to use magic against her, seeing how wild her magic state was. Any spell she would try to cast would have a 50 percent chance of backfiring on her anyways but the same applies for me.

The prince was moving around because my magic perception kept on waving from near nonexistent to operating at full capacity. I couldn't take the risk of starting a large spell and having my perception cut out halfway and smaller-scale spells wouldn't do much against Jaya.

I chose not to respond and instead chose to lunge at her again, this time aiming straight for her heart instead of her limbs as I had before.

She instinctively began to dodge and held up her knife to defend the blow which was why she was caught off guard when I shortened the Glaive to a sword, immediately shortening the range and landed a large slash on her arm, practically rendering it useless.

She was ambidextrous so it didn't matter that I had cut what she used as her ‘dominant’ arm but the other was the one she had all but sacrificed to land a blow on me previously.

The knife fell out of her hand and her blood, now a dirty bronze, began to drip down onto the floor and started to dissolve the hard marble that had been used to make it.

The contamination had gotten a lot worse.

“ Jaya, that’s enough. It's already too late to reverse the contamination but at least we can restore you to your right mind so you don't have to die like a beast. I don't want you to die like this.”

Instead of panicking at the sight of her two arms being all but disabled she instead ripped off the bottom part of her shirt and began to tie the knife to her palm with a chilling smile still on her face like she didn't even recognize the injury.

“ I don't know why you get the idea that I'm going to die younger sister. There will be a death here but it won't be my own.”

She grabbed a vial from an invisible pocket in her waistband and yanked the top off with her teeth, letting the vile smell permeate the area and threw it back like a hearty jug of alcohol despite the repulsive stench.

I expended a bit of magic to shield my nose as my eyes watered and blinked the tears away in time to see the sinews and muscles on her arms knit themselves back together and the knife seal itself within her skin.

The clunky hilt protruded through the flesh on her palm and looked like it would break out at any moment but she showed no concern for that and took off towards me.

I narrowly dodged her, taking a slice at her undefended wing as I did so. She kneeled over at the point of it but got up just as quickly as the skin at her side knitted itself back together.

She grinned as the repulsion showed itself on my face, taking a perverse joy in my discomfort.

“What's wrong dearest sister? aren't you happy for me? now we can play without you worrying about hurting me.”

I flew back before she even showed an intention to move and shortened my glaive back to a wand.

“ Jaya, I'll ask you once more. stop this and we can both leave here alive.”

She began to cackle and took a stance once more, preparing to throw herself at me.

“What's the matter, Mei. Finally decided to stop underestimating your elder sister and use magic?”

“ I’ve never, not even once in my life underestimated you. I've hated you, looked down on you and even wished to kill you but I've never even once underestimated you.”

I started gathering magic as quickly as possible despite my rapidly decreasing magic perception. The prince was growing closer to us at a ridiculously quick pace. Almost faster than flying even.

It would be impossible to simultaneously gather magic as I cast the spell as I usually did and casting the spell purely from my inner reserves would effectively drain me of everything I had and I wouldn't even be able to fly afterward.

I would only have one chance.