The bow shattered upon releasing the lightning arrow. The arrow sliced through the air, crackling. Streaks of flashing blue light flashed in its wake. Its shockwave shook the surroundings and toppled decorations and furniture.

Using the shockwave to her advantage, Iris leapt toward the formation core. Her human disguise melted under the intense speed, revealing her melting slime membrane. Her liquid body bubbled and boiled, but she cared not for the heat searing her. Only the core reflected in her blurry pupils.

The lightning arrow split its path into two, one filled with electricity ionising the air, the other with plasma searing its atmosphere. It cut through the all-freezing tide, whose struggle fell like a drop of water against the flaming star.

Kradios raised his head and, widening his eyes, placed his right hand on his right eye. His fingernails pierced his cornea and pressed lightly upon his iris. Purple glyphs manifested on his right eye and rotated like gears of an invisible, extensive machine. His Pure Power stirred within his body, rustled his robe, and quivered the fifth floor itself.

The subtle quake vanished as quickly as it came. Not even the sound wave could travel forwards, for all things halted their vibration, flow, and rotation. Absolute silence swept through the sea of glowing plasma, which yielded its reign, and stilled everything it touched.

Pervasive rifts connecting Elemental Plane with Main Material Plane collapsed unto themselves. Their energetic Elements ceased moving, and their chaotic turbulence calmed into oblivion.

The atmosphere-rending arrow of lightning penetrated the membrane separating the field of nonmovement and the outside, meeting viscous air and stagnant space. Its electric arcs liquefied the ice-covered floor, but no smoke or flame manifested; only emptiness akin to the void interacted with it.

Lightning arches blindly whipped, but their destruction fell as lightly as feathers, damaging not even the unmoving dust locked in the air. They fizzled as they forced their way to Kradios, who disregarded them.

Only the cunning Iris deserved his attention.

He drew his right hand away from his face and, with a wisp of pink magic concentrated at his index finger, struck at the air between him and Iris. Geometrical patterns spilt out of his figure, twirling around randomly yet gushing on steadily.

It curved and curved until its head met its body. They crashed and sprouted more fronts, which recursively spread, creating a spiral of entrapment.

This prison of fractal patterns swallowed the arrow, which ruptured into a thunderous burst of light and sparks. Countless strings of electricity jumped between empty spaces, igniting the void itself, and fused the fabric of reality with one another.

The patterns shook, their structure flickering, swaying. Their stable geometry crumbled, and their vibrant colours leaked into the surroundings. Like a supernova, glowing blue shades spread from the centre of the impact. They tainted everything in their paths, and those things, mundane or magical, dissolved into soft radiances composed of multiple types of Elemental particles.

Space between Iris and the patterns twisted. A vivid current of fractal shapes rushed to Iris.

She ignored it and reached her right hand forward.

Her spattering slime rained behind her. These droplets suspended in the air, flattened themselves into thin films, and superimposed to form a reflective mirror. Its murky surface reflected the oncoming tide, yet this reversed tide was pink, gentle, and orderly.

At where the two tides met, the mirror splintered. The pink flow flooded the fifth floor, fighting back the blueness with uniform pink. They imitated each other, annihilated each other, and blocked each other.

Iris flashed a smile as she clenched her right hand. An invisible string wrapped around the Formation Core and tucked lightly.

The geometric patterns reached the mirror. Their well-defined lines grabbed the slimy mirror frame and crushed it. The portal into the opposite realm caved in. Cut from its source, the pink tide vanished beneath its nemesis.

The Formation Core flew into Iris’s hand. An all-consuming wave reached her. She raised her left hand, which held a dagger decorated with multiple dark-colour gemstones, and swung it at the core.

Infinite shapes pierced Iris’s back. Their sharp yet fuzzy edge cut through her membrane and infiltrated her body, growing mathematical expressions on her flesh. She winced though uttered nothing.

Her blade fractured the outermost crystal layer. The Formation Core trembled. On its inner surface, lines of indecipherable symbols continuously flashed and disintegrated and reassembled into more sentences.

Her eyes narrowed, Iris let go of the Formation Core and tensed her feet. The floor beneath her split open, revealing a gaping hole from where metallic claws emerged.

They seized her limbs, sealing her movement with restrictive magic formations etched on them. Their firm grips held her in place, preventing her from dissolving or slipping away.

“It seems I’ve—” Iris’s voice got cut off as the claws crushed her torso, arms, legs, and neck.

Her silhouette splattered into a film-like wave which soaked the chains and the floor. Her core fragmented into shards, whose glows faded like dispersing ashes.

Kradios gave her no time nor chances to play any trick. The magic formation in his right eye shifted its gears. His Pure Power scanned her remains, a puddle of sluggish liquid mixed with broken crystals.

Amidst the vapours, a translucent string traced its path from the puddle to behind Kradios. He spun around and forced his hand forwards.

A hazy figure flickered in and out of existence, holding a scythe made of dark clouds. She raised her weapon and plunged it down. Her distortive smirk widened as her blade fell upon her enemy, and her silent giggle echoed only for her victim.

From her figure, blackness spread. The air surrounding her turned stale, the wooden floor beneath her decayed, and the spell formations malfunctioned.

As his sleeve rustled, and his fingers almost touched the scythe, Kradios retracted his hand and turned around. Lightning emerged from his cloak and struck the reaper, but Kradios paid no attention to that disappearing figure.

His Pure Power burst forth at a particular spot near him. Space broke into pieces, revealing Iris in a green oriental dress. She sprang up and thrust her wooden sword at Kradios. Wood Element overflowed from her figure, painting greenery onto the nearby bookshelves.

Kradios laughed. His right eye burned, releasing smoke from the overdrive. Magical symbols on his cloak shimmered, their colours shifting from golden to blue and red. Fire and Ice Elements surfaced from his clothes, morphing into crystals.

They shot at Iris, meeting the green blast she unleashed. The Wood Element, from where vines and leaves and flowers manifested, danced with its adversaries. Their crashes erupted high like waves of two raging oceans, dividing the fifth floor into two fronts.

The power of frost and flame overwhelmed the power of nature; the greenery infesting the floor and the air burned to a crisp, frozen and shattered by the intense pressure.

Iris let go of her sword but couldn’t dodge in time. Her body, cleanly split in two, tumbled on the floor. While the gleams in her eyes were dimming, she glared at Kradios, who gradually relaxed his guard.

His wave annihilated her dress, shredded her membrane, and pierced through her core. Its cracks magnified until its structure fractured.

From within, a tiny doll emerged. Its tattered appearance, filled with messy threads, resembled that of Iris’s dying visage. Its lifeless eyes fixated on Kradios as if mocking him.

Previously dissipating, the reaper reformed her body. The lightning scars engraved themselves on her membrane, yet they failed to kill her. She tightened her grip on her scythe and once more swung it.

Electricity awakened within her body. Its intensity shook the fabric of reality, destroying Iris from the inside yet also accelerating her motion. Her Shadow Heart Core radiated black light which bound her membrane into her shape, stitching her rupturing silhouette.

The scythe stabbed Kradios’s back. An aftershock punctured Iris, but she regained her humanoid form the moment after. Her weapon disintegrated into dust while Kradios’s cloak fluttered with red marks illuminating its surface.

They grew distortive, repetitive, and incomprehensible, but their surface, the defensive Legendary Artefact, withstood the assault without collapsing.

Kradios’s expression darkened, blood seeping from his mouth. He clenched his left hand. An ashen wooden staff manifested.

Mystic Tower itself stiffened.

An invisible bubble emanated from the staff and permeated the fifth floor. Every spell formation and magical construct broke down, and every living being except Kradios himself vanished. A dismal world of never-ending storms phased into existence, overlapping with Main Material Plane, consuming everything within its Domain.

Endless black clouds obscured Kradios’s vision. He strengthened his back, his hands gripping his ashen staff, Nature’s Fury. Sweats tickled from his forehead to his brows, though he couldn’t feel them.

The paleness in his face spread to his neck and his ears. The tightness in his chest magnified, squeezing his lungs, straining his heart. His Pure Power, once luminous like shooting stars, grew meek and insignificant.

Nature’s Fury, his most precious Legendary Artefact, possessed the ability to imitate the Thunderstorm Domain, a glimpse into the power of a True Master.

Kradios’s hands shrivelled. He winced, blood seeping from the corners of his eyes. His Nature’s Fury gradually dimmed; the blackness vanished. The world of eternal downpour and thunder returned to zilch, and the fifth floor regained its tranquillity, now without the Elementals, the rifts into Elemental Plane, the misty warriors, and Iris.

Kradios supported himself with his staff. His mystical eyes swept the premise and found no trace of Iris or anything of her possession. Only echoes of immense tempests persisted through the obliteration.

He kept still until his corneas cracked, until blood blinded his vision. He stopped his magic formation and let go of his staff, which merged with the world, returning to his interdimensional storage.

The once orderly fifth floor was now in ruin. Bookshelves tumbled, scrolls shredded, and magical equipment destroyed. Even the defensive magic array embedded in the floor and walls and ceiling fractured into countless flickering, dying runes.

Only the ruins of Elemental constructs and faint mists lingered as a reminder of that diabolical Monster Girl.

Kradios sighed. Today was the first time Royal Magic Academy suffered such a terrible siege. A single Monster Girl almost breached Mystic Tower’s fifth floor.

Such a talent, from where did she hail?

As Kradios contemplated his earlier battle, his Elementary Disassemble Cloak quavered. Brilliant hieroglyphs sprouted from its ancient fabric, rushing around as if swept by an invisible storm. These impossible gales touched nothing but the flow of magic, yet its implicative presence suffocated all.

An incomprehensible existence cast her gaze upon Kradios. His essence froze; his heart ceased pulsating. The world caved in unto his vision, enclosed his being, and crushed his mind into oblivion. His cloak alternated its colours, turning bright and dim and bright and dim before its runes disintegrated, its fabric torn asunder.

Kradios fell on the floor. Countless wounds ripped open his body. Colourful, Elemental blood gushed out of his injuries. His right eye inflated and exploded as an invisible force pulled apart the magic formation etched on it.

Before him, a lady draped in a pale white dress manifested. Iris held out her right hand, and the cloud-like bracelet on her wrist gradually rotated.

Kradios blinked. His injuries vanished, though the mental pain persisted. That terrifying presence shocked his mind, giving an opportunity for an illusory spell to take hold of him.

Nature’s Fury once more appeared in his hand, but he was too exhausted to evoke Thunderstorm Domain again. He could only set up a series of Elemental barriers, which combined into a white barrier.

Iris’s cloud bracelet dissolved. All vibrations ceased. Air molecules, solid structures, energy fluctuation, everything halted. Stillness reigned supreme, nulling forces which coupled matters.

The barrier, touching nothing and feeling nothing, shifted its structure, revealing tens of finer barriers, each made up of specific Elements. One by one, they lost their binding energy and dispersed like ashes blown by a soft breath.

Elementary Disassemble Cloak violently trembled, rapidly losing its structural integrity. Kradios could only channel his dwindling Pure Power into the cloak to fix any emerging splits.

Though her enemy was not unable to retaliate, Iris retracted her hand. She rushed to the end of the fifth floor and reached for the floating scroll beside the Formation Core.

Infernal flames burst out of the scroll’s surface. They clung to Iris’s fingers and infected her hand. She smirked and mimicked the Evil Power of the imprisoned Demon King she met before. Her Corruption Power ignited itself, becoming hellish crimson.

Met with its master’s power, the infernal heat waned. Iris grabbed Infernal Star Path and extended her left hand to a puddle made from her punctured clone. A teleportation scroll rose above the slime before tearing itself apart.

A torrent of radiance enveloped her. She vanished from the fifth floor.