Randidly found it odd the way that Nether was surging toward the arena as Azriel and Alana faced off against one another. The significance deepened each second that the two stared at each other. Even he felt the tug of the intensity that both of them had brought. It rushed around their feet, pooling and slowly filling the bubble he had created.

Soon, the intensity of the Nether chamber would be intense enough that it would suffocate an average person.

He rubbed his chin and looked at the shape of the patterns in the Nether flows. The confrontation was a monumental moment for Expira, that much was clear. But for the life of him, Randidly couldn’t figure out why. Was it just because the round of 16 would determine who would challenge him after the tournament?

Especially because when both released their image, the power both held was not equal.

A pillar of gold-orange fire erupted from Alana’s body. Her dripping radiance made it difficult to look directly at her. Sunbursts of light settled onto her shoulders and arms like a cloak. Beyond that, the pillar extended into the sky and ripped open a jagged hole in the drifting clouds. That light seemed to connect heaven and earth, creating a bridge down which holy light could flow to the mundane realm. The Nether bubble Randidly made to protect the audience strained to contain her power.

She raised her spear, which had grown almost a full meter of searing orange flames on top of the metal shaft. Her eyes glowed with golden righteousness underneath her powerful Fate helmet. Those wings grew and flexed, sending feathers as white and delicate as snow swirling around her. She was an intent valkyrie, prepared to ride to war.

Azriel settled into her stance with much less fanfare. Her image spread to fill the sky and conjure a crimson moon, but its light felt feeble compared to Alana’s and was quickly suppressed out of existence. The bloody radiance couldn’t get a word in edgewise before that harsh and holy gold-orange light. More concrete energy sizzled around Azriel’s limbs, but even that seemed wan next to Alana’s display.

Randidly’s eyes narrowed. Yet the significance is still swirling so tightly around her… interesting. These patterns… something peculiar is at play here. Some deep lines about the fate of the Alpha Cosmos are coming together to fuel this.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 913!

Once her superior grip on the area was established, Alana leaned forward and spoke. The air hummed with her image, making her words incredibly clear. “The First Revelation: Advance.”

Randidly felt the audience sigh in anticipation; already, they knew that this would be the spectacle they had so long wanted to see.

Alana’s words opened an invisible door behind her, releasing a surging torrent of holy force following her in an eruption of movement and violence. She became a single entity with the attack, charging forward with her spear paving the way for her assault. Against that overwhelming front, Azriel seemed incredibly small.

Randidly observed the ways she twisted and folded her image energy to generate something more concrete. At a scale on which Alana could operate, her crimson moonlight couldn’t manifest. Orange fire lay across the entire sky. But when Azriel’s image was tightened and whetted and folded until she held an incandescent, sizzling spear of ruby power-

Azriel accelerated briefly sideways, out of the direct path of Alana’s onslaught. Then she rapidly shifted her direction, lancing in sideways at Alana’s massive manifestation. Her spear screamed as it pierced through the image aura and began to pry into the holy wave. For a brief moment, Randidly felt the shiver of Nether as the two foes clashed against each other.

A fissure of normal air opened up; Azriel had landed a blow on a weakness in Alana’s movement.

It seemed like Azriel was going to pierce through and strike at Alana, but then… the holiness pulsed with energy. In a way that made Randidly recall training Helen’s Tides of Blood Domain, the golden light stretched and healed. The flaw vanished, leaving Azriel with her attack spent standing before the whole of Alana’s fury.

The Revelation’s renewed desire to surge forward was emotionally shouted, spreading to fill the entire arena. And before that wave of image force, Azriel’s second attack was deflected. Alana’s spear pivoted and the attack slammed into Azriel’s side.

The woman cracked against the ground and skidded several meters. Alana’s continued to advance in a landscape devouring wildfire, while Azriel flipped up to her feet with her usual preternatural grace. Blood dripped a bit from a cut on her forehead, but she seemed otherwise alright.

But as Azriel settled into another stance and charged forward, her spear began to crack and flake away at the edges, burning off small bits of metal and leaving molten drops on the arena around her.

Azriel’s agility was impressive, but none of it mattered before the churning, galloping charge of Alana’s attack. It was golden light and holy radiance fashioned into an avalanche. Before that natural force, Azriel’s spear could accomplish nothing. It stabbed several times, lightning-fast. Yet never again could its pressure open up a weakness.

Alana’s light spun and flowed, shifting its structure and keeping the flaws of her Skill unpredictable. Randidly knew from experience the extra sort of mental effort it took to accomplish something like that, but also understood the relative advantages of the method. It was a method he utilized quite often, after all.

Alana caught up with her opponent again and this time Azriel was much less prepared to disperse the force. The impact kicked Azriel off the arena and made her body into a blazing comet that crashed and sprayed dirt in every direction. Randidly used the Nether orb to suppress most of the dangerous image fragments careened out with Azriel’s form, but did nothing to disperse the physical force.

The ground met her without sympathy. The impact was audible even across the arena.

To Azriel’s credit, she quickly returned to her feet and leaped back up onto the stage. Alana allowed all of her powerful Revelation to disperse, standing with her arms folded while the ivory wings on her helmet flapped softly. The grip her image possessed tightened even further around the area.

“I will not concede.” Azriel’s voice was furious and cold in the face of Alana’s heavy stare. Randidly’s eyebrows drifted upward at this unsolicited statement. Especially from the usually so controlled Azriel. But her emotions began to surge erratically as she mobilized her image again. The bleeding edge of her emotions sharpened the potency of her strike, but meanwhile, her spear cracked and fractured even further.

Alana didn’t respond verbally. She simply twirled her spear, the movement drawing a swaying ring of orange fire around her person. Azriel clenched her fist around her sizzling crimson spear; even that shift in force was enough to send another few metal fragments tumbling off her weapon. Without any massive displays of power, both surged toward each other with gleaming spears.

Alana’s style came from Randidly by way of Shal, which can be considered a variant of Tellus spearmanship, even then. Aemont, Shal’s father, had been a lowly soldier that had used the war against the Wights to polish his Skills to the limits. Which meant that while Alana struck decisively when she had the opportunity, but created those opportunities with basic and reliable moves. She stepped aggressively forward and used thrusts with kicks, elbows, and whipping blows with the but of a spear to keep the opponent off their game.

Meanwhile, Azriel was Tellus elite through and through. Each attack was designed to follow a perfect angle, a line that would invalidate the opponent’s attack and put them on the defensive. It’s logic stemmed from the near-religious belief that the Spearman could find an absolutely flawless move in every situation.

The other advantage that Azriel possessed was her speed; Randidly began to suspect that she must have an evolved form of Agility or Reaction because her slippery movements were noticeably more concise than Alana’s.

Yet in the actual conflict between these two religions-

Alana’s elbow crunched Azriel’s nose in an abrupt strike. Azriel spun away but an unassuming thrust from Alana, empowered with Sun Strike, forced her to dance backward another half meter. Azriel adjusted her vector so many times she threw off phantasms with each feint that she made. Yet when Alana shifted into the motions of attack her power scorched the air. Underneath that belch of high temperature, burns and blemishes opened up on Azriel’s arms.

“Demonstrate your revelations,” Azriel’s voice cut through the roar of flame and the crash of spears colliding. She hopped several steps backward, spinning her spear, which at this point was held together with more emotional intensity than metal. Her eyes blazed. “Let me prove-”

“The Second Revelation,” Alana didn’t even let the other woman finish. She settled down into a fighting stance. Golden light rotated around her, a prelude to the explosion that would soon be released. Azriel seemed shocked by the acquiescence. She barely had time to resettle herself before Alana finished the careful intonation. “Struggle.”

The orange tint to the flames sifted almost entirely to rays of radiant gold. Alana blurred in a vicious incarnate of violence, her previously steady thrusts becoming a tidal wave of flame-kissed blades. Azriel gripped her spear a fraction too tightly, pushing the metal past its limits. Huge chunks of melted steel splattered on the ground.

It was with a weapon entirely composed of emotional affect and barely contained image that she met Alana’s assault. Yet to Randidly’s surprise, she torqued her shoulder and whipped that sizzling bolt of crimson light and there was a shrieking grind as she cut into the fabric of Alana’s Skill. Underneath the pressure, the Skill collapsed, golden light exploding like glitter in every direction-

One of the large, pearly wings from Alana’s helmet caught Azriel’s thrust and knocked it to the side. The emotional weapon ripped out several pristine feathers but inflicted no serious damage. Azriel began to shift back, but Alana was already there. Her fist bulldozed into Azriel’s gut and bent the white-haired woman over.

Graceful as a dancer, Alana spun on her heel and brought her left leg around in a whirling roundhouse kick. Azriel’s jaw shattered on impact. But Alana wasn’t finished.

Dropping her spear entirely, Alana hopped off her one leg, the other leg still hanging in the air. She then brought that hopping leg up in the air and then cut down with it, slamming into Azriel’s back and bouncing her off the ground.

The crowd went wild, the noise and rising excitement finally forcing its way back through the images that clashed in the arena. After rolling for a bit, Azriel settled and struggled to push herself up onto her hands and knees.

Her eyes were still bright and violent as she looked over at Alana. “You’ve made adjustments.”

Alana snorted.

Azriel clenched her broken jaw, seeming to fracture it even further. Then she forced her up to her feet, swaying. “I will… concede. I suppose this is my limit.”

Weirdly, what Azriel felt in that moment wasn’t a disappointment, but a vast and paranoid sorrow. To complicate this weirdness, as the crowd heard her words and redoubled their noise-making, Azriel looked up and stared at Randidly for several seconds.