CHAPTER 1016: CLASH

Arty hovered above. Her chest rising and falling in controlled breaths.

From the very beginning she had been careful and holding back, measuring her power to not strike to kill.

Every blast she unleashed had been aimed to pressure him without really aiming at him.

But that boy... he just wouldn’t stop. Every time he got knocked down he came back clawing more vicious and more reckless, like a wild beast refusing the leash.

And now, after drinking whatever cursed vial he had hidden, his lightning flared stronger than ever, tearing the forest apart with each step.

His aura no longer felt human. It was violent like some kind of evil storm tearing itself free.

Arty’s patience thinned. Her heart pounded hotter. Her blood boiling at his stubborn defiance to keep making trouble.

"Is that what you want?" she whispered, her lips curling into something sharper and more dangerous. "Okay then."

She reached down to her wrists where the twin bracelets gifts from Sylmira glimmered faintly. They were a tool to suppress and stabilize her chaotic Magic.

For days she had worn them without question as a seal to keep her overwhelming power in check. But now? She didn’t need control. Instead she needed release.

With a flick, the clasps snapped open and she put the bracelets inside her pouch.

The effect was instant. Her aura erupted outward like a tidal wave, fire and wind surging in unrestrained violence.

The air howled around her. The flames roared to life at her fingertips. Her power was no longer a calm flow but a raging storm inside her body.

From below, Renard roared back, lightning splitting the ground in jagged bursts and the arcs crawling up the trees until they exploded into cinders.

His strength had grown monstrous and Arty could feel it. Whatever he had consumed it made him more than before.

"Fine," she muttered, fire circling her body in blazing orbs, wind sharpening into a crown of invisible blades. "I won’t hold back either. If I do, I’ll lose."

She thrust her arms forward sending fireballs screamed downward like meteors, followed by lances of wind that cut the air apart.

But Renard didn’t dodge at all this time.

His body that wrapped in violent lightning blurred upward. Instead of weaving between her attacks he drove his fist forward.

BLAM!

A fireball detonated against his knuckles, flames scattering like shattered glass under the raw force of his punch.

His arm burned and his flesh sizzling but the lightning wrapped tighter, smothering the fire until it vanished.

SWISH!

A wind lance cut down toward him.

But he slammed his forearm against it, the air shrieking as powerful lightning ripped the gale apart.

The impact shredded his skin, blood spraying, but the wounds closed already under the vial’s unnatural Magic.

And he kept going.

Every spell she hurled he smashed through like a possessed madman.

Fireballs burst into cinders under his fists. Wind blades shattered against his forearms.

He took those attacks and it’s only fueled his frenzy. He continued to roar as lightning crackled from every pore of his body.

"IS THAT ALL?!" he bellowed, his figure blazing like a storm juggernaut climbing the heavens and ripping her attack apart with his bare hands.

Arty’s eyes contracted slightly, then narrowed, her lips parting into a sharp grin.

"Huh, this fucker don’t know when to stop," she whispered.

Her hands spread wide, fire and wind gathering into a single colossal sphere between her palms, a fusion so dense of Magic power that the air around her screamed in protest.

Renard was still charging at her, punching apart everything she threw in his path, lightning blazing brighter with every step closer.

The sphere in Arty’s hands continued to condense. Its surface swirling in a storm of molten fire and razor winds, pulsing like the heart of a sun about to collapse.

Her attacks at Renard ceased altogether. No more fireballs and no more blades of air. She was done testing.

Renard cut through the gap between them in an instant with his incredible speed. His body tearing the air as lightning poured from him in blinding arcs.

His eyes were wide and manic with excitement. His lips pulled back in a snarl of triumph as he closed the distance for the final strike.

But then, as his gaze locked on her face, his grin faltered.

Arty’s expression was cold, sharp as a blade drawn against his throat. No hesitation and no mercy shown in her eyes. Just a hunter waiting for the kill.

And then he saw the sphere in her hands. The fire and wind fused into one unstable orb that was dense with Magic. It shrieked with power so intense that the air seemed to warp around it.

Renard’s instincts screamed. His pulse jolted with alarm.

He moved faster, lightning detonating under his feet as he launched himself forward with desperate speed, thrusting both arms out.

From his palms surged a colossal lance of lightning. Every last shred of power the vial had forced into his veins bursting out in a single blinding strike of lightning lance aimed at her.

Arty didn’t flinch. With a sharp exhale, she hurled the sphere.

The world split apart when fire and wind met the lightning lance.

BOOOOOOOM!

The collision exploded in a cataclysmic blast of raw elements, shockwaves tearing outward in concentric rings.

Firestorms and arcs of lightning intermingled, ripping through the forest with apocalyptic force.

Trees flattened in every direction, shattered into splinters, their trunks snapping like brittle bones. The earth itself heaved. Dirt and stone flung skyward as if the ground rejected the violence unleashed upon it.

At the epicenter, the storm roared and raged, swallowing both fighters in a blinding chaos of fire, wind, and lightning.

The sky lit up as if the sun had descended into the forest. A glowing dome of destruction expanding outward before finally collapsing inward with a deafening crack.

Silence followed after all that. Only smoke and the hiss of burning cinders remained in the scar of devastation left behind.

From within the haze, something stirred.

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