A thunderous impact echoed as a black sphere shattered into fragments.

Leaping back to avoid the rising dark smoke, Nia prepared a portal to envelop her.

“Repeating the same move so many times only makes you expect your opponent to adapt, doesn’t it?” A disinterested voice resounded through the skies.

With a single push of his feet, the demon’s body surged forward, his fist cloaked in black miasma as it shot toward the girl’s face.

“-!?”

A grunt of surprise slipped from Nia’s lips as her back arched away, barely avoiding the fingers that scraped past her forehead by mere millimeters.

Enclosed by the portal that snapped shut around her, the metamorph reappeared several meters away from Drelkos.

“As a warrior, I only use magic when I deem the one before me worthy of being devoured.” Adjusting his stance atop the black platform beneath his feet, his indifferent voice now carried a trace of amusement. “Feeding on the souls of those I defeat is my way of showing respect for battle. After all, it has also made me stronger.”

“Respect…” the girl murmured, pressing the palm of her left hand against her face.

She could feel her hair slipping between her fingers, the messy violet strands soft as silk entwining in her touch. She could smell the faint, familiar scent of her own skin, always tinged with that of her wife.

But something was wrong.

Her eyes were open. Nia could feel her damp eyelids blink, feel them resist against the wind. But there was no light.

She could no longer see.

“It was just a graze, but my soul definitely touched yours.”

Slowly, Drelkos opened his outstretched hand. A faint purple smoke flickered in his palm before vanishing into the black eye that encircled him.

He would not give her time to recover. In an instant, the demon dashed across the skies.

“This method won’t be effective,” Nia muttered softly—not for the demon, but for herself.

Reforming the barrier around her, both of her eyes—once gleaming like precious gems—slid shut. There was no reason to keep them open anymore.

Drelkos weaved through hundreds of ice shards without the slightest effort, closing the distance. Mana erupted around his body like a waterfall, the smoky eye coiling about his arms. His clenched fist shot forward, now aiming straight for her chest.

And in that fraction of a second before his strike could crash against her barrier again—

The world froze.

(Mana concentration in the stomach’s core shifted seventeen percent toward the left ankle and tendons. The punch is a feint—he intends to strike with a kick.)

Once again, the girl began to rethink her strategy.

Only the part of her body inside Lily remained active when the girl stopped time. Though this meant she could not move that part independently and could not fully exploit her wife’s magic, the metamorph felt no disappointment at all.

For it didn’t matter whether she could move or not. In her own unconventional way, she had entered the static world.

In the stillness of the gray world, Nia stood frozen—yet with her mind, she assessed the situation she was in.

(Evasion methods must remain the top priority after running over a hundred thousand simulations.)

The smoke with the eye was fast, but not fast enough to reach her on its own. Drelkos had to weave it into his attacks to combine with his speed.

(The attempt to apply simulation number eight hundred thirty-eight thousand five hundred ninety-seven has failed. No law applied to gases or liquids can be applied to a soul.)

Failure after failure, her mind recalculated, processing the endless stream of situations that could follow.

(Simulation eight hundred thirty-eight thousand five hundred ninety-eight will examine the sensation of the soul’s movement and how it interacts with the barrier.)

Each time, it felt as though a fragment of her very existence was being stripped away. Nia had no clear grasp of what was striking her, but the pain building within her was finally beginning to show signs of wear. She couldn’t comprehend how Drelkos was projecting his soul and using it to wound hers, nor even the foundation of his spell.

(But… is that really necessary?)

The thought surfaced.

(Maybe preventing his soul from touching mine isn’t the answer…)

Whether four or eight seconds passed—it didn’t matter.

(Simulation eight hundred thirty-eight thousand five hundred ninety-eight will be discarded. Initiating simulation eight hundred thirty-eight thousand five hundred ninety-nine.)

For a girl capable of casting spells across two battlefields at once while maintaining every function within her wife’s body, just a few seconds were no different than being handed hours—if not days.

---

When Lily tried to push the limit of how long time could remain frozen, a searing pain tore through her mind, threatening to crush her. The same happened whenever she cast the spell repeatedly. Without a few moments to ease the burden of having used it, her mind would recoil, leaving her unable to invoke it again for a while.

It wasn’t something she could rely on consistently in battle. It put her own life at risk.

But none of that mattered to the monster—after all, this was a fight to the death.

“Nia, are you okay?” Lily whispered softly, watching the black sphere form around her once more before it turned transparent again. A tentacle brushed against her cheek with gentle insistence, letting her know the metamorph was fine.

Lily didn’t fully understand Nia’s new barrier, but she knew her wife had to constantly analyze the incoming attacks to counter them so effectively. The part of Nia within Lily’s body was unaffected by her temporal magic, which allowed Nia to sustain Lily’s vital functions even in frozen time. However, if time were to stop for Lily as well, then Nia would also become powerless, and the barrier would no longer pose a threat.

“Akasha won’t hold out much longer alone.”

The fairy’s cry of agony made Lily rush across the lake, the beating of her storm-black wings resounding behind her.

Unlike the new Torment, Akasha couldn’t improvise a way to walk on water. Fighting while swimming, the five-meter wolf with more than a hundred spectral blue eyes did everything they could to buy time for their master to recover.

“Come, Akasha!”

A single shout was enough. Transforming into a bluish-purple light, the massive black wolf dissolved just in time to avoid the monster’s snapping jaws.

Cutting through the air, the wooden staff flew perfectly into Lily’s hand.

“Good work. Thank you,” she whispered softly, slipping the staff against her waist beneath her cloak.

Lily knew Akasha still hadn’t recovered from their injuries in the labyrinth. By choosing a reduced form, they had managed to keep fighting by her side despite the wounds, but the moment they were forced to awaken their full monstrous form, the strain on their body worsened.

Channeling a portion of her mana to feed her fairy, Lily faced the monster, whose bloodlust had once again turned fully toward her.

She didn’t know how long Torment could keep time frozen, but she doubted it was much longer than she could. Even if the creature recklessly pushed beyond its limits, if it truly had the ability to stretch that far, neither Nia nor Akasha would have had enough time to react to the last attack and save her.

“Two seconds… no, maybe three more at most.”

Without using Akasha as a catalyst for the spell, Lily didn’t dare push beyond the barrier of four seconds. The pain of doing so was overwhelming, as though she were being ripped apart alive. She could barely imagine the torment the monster must be enduring now.

Flying swiftly around the lake, Lily watched as the burning, corrupted mass of flesh surged through the bubbling waters, charging directly toward her.

She had to maintain enough distance to prevent the monster from using the difference in duration of their spells to land a strike. But that presented another problem.

Aside from her most powerful spells—which took far too long to prepare—the only thing that had inflicted real damage on the monster so far was her sword.

At that moment, Lily only had one of her two stardust blades. Her full strength was diminished, but she would have to manage.

Tightening her grip on the weapon’s hilt, Lily leaned forward, her wings carrying her swiftly through the cold mist.

The creature wasted no time in taking a battle stance.

The world turned gray.

A colossal surge of water erupted upward as the monster slammed both hands into the lake’s surface. A wall of water, more than twenty meters high, surged forward like a high-pressure jet aimed straight at the girl.

But Lily did not dodge.

One second.

Trusting in her wife’s barrier without a heartbeat of hesitation, she pierced through the rushing wall. The torrent didn’t even scratch the transparent surface. Waiting on the other side, five blazing claws of flesh and shadow reached out for her.

Lily drew her sword, but she didn’t raise it to block.

The sound of a heavy impact burst out as the barrier clashed with the claws, orange sparks crackling in the misty air. Torment poured all its weight forward, trying to pierce the shield as it had before—but the thin translucent layer that separated it from its enemy did not yield even a fraction of an inch.

Two seconds.

Purple blood began to seep from dark veins. Each of the monster’s fingers twisted at grotesque angles under the pressure holding them back.

Unable to withstand Lily’s advance, Torment—his weight thrown completely off balance—was shoved backward and crashed into the lake, sending waves rippling across its surface.

Three seconds.

The pressure of the surroundings shifted, the air turning frigid.

Lily hadn’t been able to trigger her spell moments earlier, but that didn’t mean all of her ice crystals had been destroyed.

A violent tremor ran through everything.

As though winter had descended upon the forest, much of the lake’s surface froze solid. In an instant, bursts of blue and black detonated across the waters, jagged glacial pillars rising like spears toward Torment’s body.

Four seconds.

Sweeping across the frozen battlefield on storm-forged wings, Lily seized the hilt of her sword more tightly.

Her wings surged, propelling her forward as she closed the distance.

Her black blade hissed, cleaving through the air with a flick of her wrist and slashing into the side of the monster’s neck.

Five seconds.

Her eyebrows shot up, heterochromatic eyes locking onto the purplish gash that had sunk only a few centimeters deep.

It was far too shallow.

A tense groan slipped from her lips. No matter how much force Lily poured into it, she couldn’t drive the blade deeper, not even enough to reach the bone.

Six seconds.

Thrashing in pain, the monster let out a guttural cry as the agony spread across its neck.

As its heat flared, the ice crystals binding its body began to shatter, melting under the searing waves radiating from its flesh.

Seven seconds.

Lily was reaching her limit. She couldn’t remain this close any longer.

Wrenching her sword free from the monster’s bleeding neck, Lily shot backward, her body quickly wrapped in a sky of shimmering starlight.

Eight seconds.

Color bled back into the world, and the icy breeze swept over Lily’s body.

“Good choice of ground, Nia.”

Tilting her head slightly, Lily caught sight of a small cloud mingling with the mist that surrounded her.

It didn’t matter if the monster managed two or three more seconds within frozen time. There was no way Torment could reach her if she was soaring as high as the World Tree itself.

Now, floating gracefully in the skies above, Lily wiped the purple blood from her weapon before sheathed it once more.

If they repeated this process, victory would eventually be theirs. No, not even that was necessary.

Gazing down upon the monster from the heavens, Lily clenched her teeth.

The fae’s body convulsed again and again, a roar of pain escaping its jaws and echoing like a symphony of agony. Portions of its flesh had already lost their flames, beginning to sink into the lake as it failed to sustain the vapor. Its trembling golden eyes rolled frantically backward, struggling to stay focused. It was shrinking. Something deep in its core was breaking.

If Lily simply bought time, it wouldn’t take even minutes for it to collapse under its own exhaustion—or the toll of its own magic.

But she couldn’t allow that.

Closing her eyes, Lily steadied her breath.

“Nia, Akasha… I know what I’m about to do is selfish, but please… lend me your strength.”

Her whispered words dissolved into the breeze, yet both who stood with her answered her call.

Nia was fighting as well, but that never meant she would abandon her beloved. The black wings thundered once again, channeling even more dark mana into the lightning.

Akasha, burdened with sustaining the halted flow of time for so long, was also at its limit. Wounds that had yet to heal tore anew, making every instant of freezing the world itself a torment, but it would never forsake its master. A bluish glow seeped from the staff, the butterflies bound by ethereal threads swaying around the girl’s waist.

Clinging to seconds now would only waver her resolve.

The precise count no longer mattered.

“I just gotta do what I gotta do.”

Her eyes opened—Torment had already found her.

The world turned gray.

With a beat of black wings, Lily dove, her body plummeting from the sky.

Dozens of vines whipped toward her.

Each blazing tendril fired in her direction intertwined with the others, weaving into a colossal fishing net that shot upward, sealing off a wide space.

Realizing it couldn’t shatter her barrier unless time itself was stopped, Torment devised another plan. It didn’t matter that its net couldn’t cause damage—just like a fisherman pulling prey from the current, it would drag the girl along with her shield.

That is—if she were alone.

Without even gathering mana for a spell, Lily pressed forward without hesitation—and simply slipped through the net. Or rather, she passed beyond it.

The instant the starry-sky portal vanished, the black blade, speckled with tiny white particles, shone blue as it left its sheath.

She had already stopped time countless times that day. Her mind was on the brink of collapse, and both she and her fae could feel their thoughts crumbling under the weight of the strain.

Would she even last eight seconds this time? That no longer mattered.

Sheer strength alone was not enough to achieve this.

Lily needed to accelerate.

She had to be faster.

Faster.

Faster than she had ever been.

Her wings were no longer mere appendages on her back—they were extensions of her will. With one brutal surge, she tore through the air, launching herself forward.

Terminal velocity was the maximum speed an object in freefall could reach against air resistance—if there was air resistance. The wind pressing against her barrier, once just a whistle in her ears, became a deafening roar. The wings that unleashed thunder beat with violent force, their acceleration fusing with the planet’s pull, weighing her body down and forcing it into even greater momentum.

Even her mind, accelerated by dark mana, struggled to process the blurs rushing past her. The lake, the forest—everything had become a smear of color.

Soaring through the frozen world, her body resembled thunder tearing the heavens apart.

Her silver hair whipped uncontrollably, the unbearable speed doubling, then tripling again.

Her vision blurred to everything but her goal.

More than anything, Lily did not want to keep striking Torment at random.

There were countless races, cultures, customs, and peoples across the world. Every society was different, every individual unique. Yet one factor bound all living beings together.

No one chose to be born.

From the moment that creature gained awareness, all it had ever known was suffering.

Love, joy, empathy, goodwill—none of these had ever existed in its world.

Its existence was born of malice. Forced into being before its time, its body absorbed a dense torrent of dark mana, turning it into a monster brimming with agony, one whose body could shatter at any moment under the weight of its own chaos.

There was no way Lily could save that fae.

But she could end its suffering.

Neither Nia nor Akasha could infuse mana into her blade—its signature belonged to her alone.

This strike would be hers.

What had once been only a distant point became a sharp silhouette—the fae’s form directly before her. Golden eyes locked onto hers.

Instinct urged her to fold her wings, to evade—but instead, she leaned in deeper.

Her sword, now wreathed in a dense azure aura, blended with the howl of the wind.

Lily stretched out her arm. Every vein, every drop of blood, every fiber of her being molded itself toward one purpose as more mana flooded her existence.

The blade’s tip met Torment’s neck.

And in that moment…

There was nothing her sword could not cut through.

Silence fell over the world.

A single stroke—so flawless that not a drop of blood lingered on the blade.

A girl stood upon the lake. A colossal shockwave erupted with her at its center, all kinetic force dissipating in the span of a millisecond, birthing a tsunami that surged outward in every direction.

Color returned to the world.

And at last, Torment’s body fell.

Sheathing her blade, Lily seemed to walk upon the lake as her wings carried her toward the sinking corpse.

On that mass of shadow, where not even a single flame remained, her hand reached for the creature’s forehead. In her palm rested a small, colorless sphere, cracked through and through.

Crossing to the isle where the World Tree stood, Lily walked over damp grass, her black wings unraveling with each step.

Carefully, she knelt, placing the fractured sphere at the roots of the great tree.

“No child should be torn from their family.”

She whispered—and though no rain had fallen, a single drop slipped onto the sphere.

She had been the victor, but this was no victory.

In the silence that now reigned, the silver-haired girl let out a long sigh.

“Are you coming?” Lily asked.

Without needing to turn, she felt the presence approaching from behind—the sound of wet, metal-clad boots pressing into the grass growing louder.

“In this state, if I went any farther, I’d only slow you down.”

Letting out another weary breath, the woman in an emerald dress beneath an almost shattered suit of armor stepped up beside her.

Rising and subtly rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, Lily turned to face the elf, a faint, tired laugh slipping from her lips. “You’re a wreck, Elarielle.”

“Not everyone can fly or teleport, Lily.” With a shrug, Elarielle tightened her grip on the amber axe in her hands, then allowed a small laugh of her own.

An alarming amount of sweat ran down her face and body, dark bruises and crimson blotches scattered across her battered armor. With no magic for mobility, the queen had sprinted through the entire forest on her own legs.

“Are you going to help Thelira?” the silver-haired girl asked, resting a hand on her hip.

“My little sister has grown more than I’ve ever seen… no, far more than I ever allowed myself to see.” A smile touched the queen’s face as she adjusted the golden crown upon her head. “Our Sage is capable of commanding the army and looking after the city on her own. Besides, there is still something only I can do.”

Both of them lifted their gaze to the storm-shrouded sky.

It was time to bring an end to the tragedy.