CHAPTER 126: TECTONIC SLASH... 3.O

She could create, manipulate, and control paper in ways that defied conventional magic theory. It was not a simple elemental talent; Yeah it was was the product of fusion of elements eith perfect perfect blend of earth, water, and wind.

She had been hailed as one of the empire’s most gifted mages. And yet, she had not been content with what she had been given. She had pushed it further.

She had broken the boundaries of her own talent.

Paper Transformation a skill she had invented and refined herself allowed her to alter the molecular and magical structure of any paper she created or controlled. She could reshape it into anything. The rarer or more magically potent the material, the greater the mana cost but the potential was limitless.

In simple terms?

If she knew the exact structure and magical composition of a substance, she could recreate it perfectly. Infinitely. Gold, platinum, mythril, adamantine materials so valuable entire wars had been fought over them she could produce at will, so long as she had the mana to fuel the transformation.

And if someone thought that was extraordinary...

They had no idea.

Selphira had taken this gift and combined it with something else something equally rare and even more dangerously convenient:

The Rune Language.

A structured magical script.

That was how the ancient scholars had once described Rune Language a system in which each individual symbol represented a fundamental concept, element, force, or command embedded in the fabric of reality itself.

Runes were not spells. They were the blueprints from which spells were born the bare, unfiltered commands that could shape how magic itself behaved. When woven correctly, they could channel, manipulate, and store magical energy in ways that even the most advanced incantations could never match.

To Razeal, it was eerily familiar. If anything in his past life came close to explaining it, it would be coding.

Just like a programmer in his old world could create entire systems by writing strings of commands, rune masters could create effects by arranging these symbols into functional sequences. Each symbol was like a command line by itself, too simple to do much. But when combined with hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of others, the result could be a qualitative leap in complexity and power.

Selphira had the perfect pairing for it: her Paper Magic served as the ideal medium, and her mastery of Rune Language served as the ideal tool.

If rune mastery was programming, she was not just a coder she was a full-stack developer, systems architect, and hardware engineer rolled into one. With paper as her limitless operating platform, she could literally write reality to behave as she wished.

And now, standing high above the arena she had just remade, Selphira was putting that mastery on full display.

---

Razeal narrowed his eyes. His curiosity finally outweighed his restraint.

"System," he said silently, "scan what she just did. I want the details."

The familiar blue notification flashed instantly in his vision.

[Scanning...]

[Results: The structure contains a total of 56,577 runes inscribed and combined across all paper components. Though appearing separate, they function as a single, unified magical circuit.]

Primary effects:

– The floor’s surface hardness is 19× greater than the average diamond.

– Structural resilience reinforced with multi-layered binding runes.

– Auto-repair: the arena can reconstruct itself within seconds after damage.

– Adaptive terrain shift: surface can alter elevation, slope, or texture on command.

– Integrated color-shift enchantment.

– Hidden Surveillance: The arena surface will record and remember every contact point every step, strike, or movement down to microscopic detail

– Water absorption capacity: total saturation immunity.

– Shock absorption efficiency: 707% above the norm.

– Vibration nullification to prevent resonance damage.

[Additional composite properties:] The surface mimics traits of multiple high-grade materials simultaneously, increasing durability and resistance to elemental damage.

[Final Effect: Using over 50,000 runes in combination, she has imbued the floor with autonomous mana absorption. It will continuously draw mana from the surrounding air and environment, sustaining all functions without cost to the caster after initial activation. As long as it is not destroyed beyond repair or cut off from ambient mana, it will maintain itself indefinitely.]

Razeal blinked. "So she basically pays once, and it runs forever?"

[Correct.]

[Overall Evaluation: 7.87 / 10]

[Comment:] Quite impressive.

The System’s report took less than a second to display, but Razeal still found himself blinking at it.

Over fifty thousand runes... just for this one stage.

His lips twitched upward. "Interesting. Very useful. She’s not just powerful she’s efficient. And if I remember correctly, she’s not completely insane like other heroines either."

He filed the thought away. If the day ever came when he decided to form a permanent power base for himself, people like Selphira Kane would be worth recruiting.

Her abilities might not have been given much spotlight in the original story, but

He remembered a scene from the novel. A rare moment where Selphira’s name took center stage. The "aura farming" Chapter, as readers had called it

A 8th-ranked dimensional portal breakdown millions of monsters spilling into the borderlands.

Selphira had been there. Alone.

With nothing but her paper, she’d built an entire functional fortress brick by brick, tower by tower reinforced with enough layered enchantments to hold back the endless tide. The fortress had stood, unmoved, for seven full days until reinforcements finally arrived. By then, the ground around her had been buried under the corpses of beasts that automatic functional shooting fortress had cleaned up.

Yeah she literally created mana cannons and even a giant fucking castle arms of mass distriction.

That was the level of resourcefulness she brought to the field.

Back in the present, Selphira was still working.

While Razeal had been mulling over her potential, she’d moved past reconstructing the arena floor and was now erecting the second layer of her preparations.

A protective barrier sphere of glass-like clarity rose around the entire coliseum floor to ceiling isolating the fighting grounds completely from the spectator stands. Its surface shimmered faintly when the sunlight caught it, and the hum of embedded runes was just audible if one listened closely.

To the untrained eye, it was a perfect, transparent dome. To anyone with magical perception, it was a wall of layered commands designed to stop, redirect, or neutralize any stray attack before it reached the crowd.

But she didn’t stop there.

Tiny paper constructs began to drift into place small spheres at first glance, but when they rotated in the light, they revealed themselves to be floating eyeballs, each made entirely of folded and layered paper. Dozens of them hovered at even intervals around the inside of the dome, their lenses tracking Razeal and Sylva with unwavering focus.

These were more than just cameras they were living scrying devices, each directly linked to a set of massive, transparent screens she conjured next. The displays materialized all around the stands, giving every spectator a perfect, zoomed-in view of the fight from multiple angles.

The crowd erupted in excited chatter, pointing at the new screens as they adjusted to focus on the two combatants.

And still, Selphira kept layering.

Razeal could see it in the way she worked how she shifted between conjuring new sheets of paper and inscribing different rune sequences onto them with almost unconscious precision. She was layering magic and chemical construction principles together, manipulating the molecular properties of her conjured materials and fusing them with enchantments, then "fixing" the command into the object as a permanent function.

Each paper creation wasn’t just an object it was a worker with a job. A glass panel knew it was a barrier and would behave like one. An eyeball knew it was to track and display movement. A piece of flooring knew it was to repair itself.

It was... manual programming, in the purest magical sense.

She finally lowered her hands, her work complete. The coliseum had been transformed in less than five minutes.

A flawless arena floor, harder than diamond. A full-protection dome. Surveillance and broadcast systems in place. Environmental enchantments to absorb shock, cancel resonance, and prevent elemental spread. All powered indefinitely by the mana siphon she’d embedded at the start.

The crowd didn’t just see her as a referee now. They saw her as an architect, a controller, someone who could bend the battlefield to her will.

Razeal tilted his head. "Shes not that bad ill give her that."

Selphira adjusted her glasses and looked down at him through the dome. Her eyes still carried that same glint of obsession she’d had earlier burning with the desire to understand his techniques.

Most of the crowd thought the floating eyeballs, giant screens, and layered protections were simply to keep them entertained and safe.

They didn’t know the real reason.

Every single floating eye was recording. Every angle, every twitch, every ripple of mana it was all being stored. Not in the screens or only public archive, but inside Selphira’s private collection. She would study it later, dissecting movements frame by frame until she understood exactly what had happened.

If there had been no need for her study, she wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of making this many recording constructs. The thought of missing a detail gnawed at her, so she overprepared. Always.

Now, however, the preparations were done.

The arena gleamed under the sunlight, reinforced beyond comprehension. The dome shimmered faintly, sealing the fighters in. The floating eyes locked on target.

Selphira spoke in a calm but authoritative tone, her voice carrying across the enclosed space.

"Now you can continue the fight. Please go all out, without any fear."

Her gaze shifted between the two below. She wasn’t asking. She was giving permission.

Sylva didn’t answer. Neither did Razeal.

The only sound for a moment was the quiet hum of the enchantments, the faint rustle of Sylva’s vine moving like a serpent beside her.

"Was that a physical attack just now?" Sylva finally asked, her tone as casual as if she were commenting on the weather. Thought her eyes tells different story.

The vine she had just fired earlier thick, green, and alive with a faint magical glow stood perfectly still beside her, waiting for her next command like a loyal beast.

"Maybe. Who knows?" Razeal replied with an edge of amusement. His eyes lingered on the vine. It looked untouched.

That should have been impossible. His earlier strike, casual though it was, carried enough raw force to shatter reinforced stone and crush through a fortress wall. Against a living construct like that vine, it should have exploded into fragments.

But it hadn’t. Instead, it had absorbed the blow, whipping back violently from the force, only to recover a moment later, as flexible and stable as before.

Razeal narrowed his eyes slightly. "Yeah... she’s such a cheater." He knows her abilities afterall.

Sylva noticed his gaze lingering on the vine. She tilted her head, smiling faintly, as if she could read every thought in his head.

The vine shifted slightly under her control, almost playfully. It coiled and uncoiled like it was alive, radiating a strange, contradictory mix of danger and charm cute, but lethal.

"Get ready," Razeal said suddenly, his voice low but carrying enough weight to cut through the stillness. "I’m coming. Don’t say I didn’t warn you."

Sylva’s smile widened just slightly. "Oh? Is that so?"

Razeal didn’t waste another breath.

He raised his hand into a sharp chopping motion, his stance tightening in a way that made the air feel heavier for anyone sensitive to battle intent.

Sylva didn’t react seriously. Not yet.

Then

Tap.

The sole of Razeal’s boot pressed against the marble floor, and a sound barely louder than a heartbeat resonated through. It was perfectly measured as how farr and to where will sound travel. Creating a perfect direction flow.

Traveling with speed of sound.

Selphira’s eyes narrowed sharply feeling something?

Razeal let himself ride this flow completely. He caught that pulse perfectly, his body flowing into motion as if guided by it. This was a technique he had honed until it was as natural as breathing in combat training inside system space.

And then

Swish.

His body blurred.

To the crowd, it looked like he’d vanished. To Sylva, it was like the air itself had shifted and spat him out somewhere else entirely.

Not even the selphira cameras flawless as they were could track the intermediate steps. His movement wasn’t simply fast; it was compressed, as though the space between where he started and where he ended had been folded in on itself.

In less than a fraction of a second, he reappeared right behind her.

His hand was already raised in striking motion. Now came down in one smooth, perfect arc, the strike already halfway to its target before Sylva even registered his new position.

She tried to react, her senses screaming danger, but there was no time to fully turn.

Razeal had chosen his angle deliberately. This wasn’t a frontal clash or a flashy strike it was precision. A diagonal cut aimed at her back shoulder, one of the most difficult spots to defend in close combat. No clean way to dodge or block.

His speed and positioning cut away her usual options. Ducking wouldn’t help. Sidestepping would only feed her into the path of the strike. Even her vine already slightly out of position wouldn’t be able to intercept in time.

His voice was calm as he spoke the name of the move, almost like those anime protagonists he seen in anime.

"Tectonic Slash... 3.O."

The words were swallowed instantly by what came next.

B O O O M.

The moment his hand descended, the world erupted.

----