Ch.43Words Over Actions – 2

Serena slightly bent her knees before launching forward at a terrifying speed. The efficiency of her body enhancement magic when used at full power was truly monstrous.

Even most metals couldn’t withstand such recoil, yet the floor of this strange space easily supported it.

Mana surged throughout her entire body. The distance between her and Charlotte closed several times faster than the blink of an eye.

Serena lowered the World Eater, gripped in both hands, to the side of her left thigh, then released her left hand and swung diagonally upward toward the upper right with just one arm.

It was a strike that truly deserved to be called swift. The mana that had been fully channeled into the World Eater erupted along the trajectory of the slash.

It was a simple diagonal cut without any fancy name. Yet its power surpassed the full-strength attacks of most ordinary knights.

Had this been swung anywhere other than this extremely special subdimensional space, it would have been a strike capable of cleaving through dozens of buildings and leaving deep gouges in the earth.

Any target would have been mercilessly cut down without even having time to react.

If only that target hadn’t been Charlotte.

In that brief moment as the sword swung, more than a dozen defensive magic circles appeared, intercepting the trajectory before her body.

The magic circles shattered one after another with thunderous sounds, but Serena’s slash ultimately failed to break through the final circle, its power spent.

Charlotte’s ability to block Serena’s strike was far from coincidental. Charlotte, too, could use body enhancement magic with exactly the same efficiency.

While she might not match Serena in swordsmanship, there was no way Charlotte would fall behind in magical prowess that Serena had achieved.

Ordinary mages rarely used body enhancement magic.

If they were going to use mana for direct combat, it was more efficient to let frontliners handle close combat while they comfortably chanted spells from behind, converting every bit of mana into offensive magic.

But conversely, this meant that if a mage had sufficient mana, there was no reason not to use body enhancement magic.

That’s why Charlotte naturally used body enhancement magic, and at the same level as Serena, allowing her to react to a strike that even the royal knights couldn’t respond to.

With her first attack blocked, Serena didn’t hesitate to leap toward Charlotte, pulling her right shoulder back.

Taking another step forward, she extended her arm and thrust the World Eater forcefully into the center of the defensive magic circle.

The defensive magic circle still glowing around Charlotte had cracked precariously after blocking the previous slash.

This strike targeted that very crack.

Charlotte didn’t dodge the incoming thrust. Instead, she created more than a dozen magic circles around Serena.

The circles flashed with light, and chains of flame shot out from their centers, wrapping around Serena and the World Eater.

It was a flame chain spell that could burn and melt even formidable magical beasts upon contact.

Serena swung the World Eater and moved her body with brute force, breaking all the flame chains. Not a single burn mark appeared on her body.

However, the brief moment her movement was halted was unavoidable, and Charlotte claimed that time as her own.

A magic circle that had somehow appeared beneath Serena’s feet emitted an ominous light. The thrust narrowly grazed past Charlotte.

Immediately after, a massive mountain of ice erupted through the ominous light.

“Such petty tricks!”

Serena exclaimed as she swung the World Eater downward.

Though it was an attack made from an unstable posture before her thrust was fully completed, it was enough to split the ice mountain.

Even as it was being cleaved by the World Eater, the mountain continued to surge upward without pause.

It almost seemed like the ice was deliberately offering itself to the World Eater to be split in half, rather than Serena actively cutting through it.

This was enough. Serena withdrew the World Eater and leaped backward, kicking off the ice. The ice mountain had already grown so large that one had to crane their neck to see its peak.

“Petty tricks? You’re a beast that doesn’t know its place.”

Charlotte snapped her fingers. With a crackling sound, Serena’s feet began to freeze. The source of the freezing was the sole of her shoe.

It was the leg she had used to kick off the ice spike. Serena quickly calculated. So the ice spike itself had doubled as a trap?

Eight ice whips shot out from the leather sole of her shoe.

After cracking through the air a few times, the ice whips immediately wrapped around Serena’s body, transmitting a numbing cold.

The areas where the ice whips coiled were rapidly freezing. Blue ice spread across Serena’s snow-white skin.

Though ice fell off in chunks whenever she moved her arms, more areas were being wrapped and frozen by the whips.

Serena’s body wobbled in midair. Charlotte extended her hand. Dozens of magic circles drawn behind her simultaneously erupted with brilliant light.

An enormous number of flame spears and ice spikes shot forth as if competing with each other. All these spells had only one target.

The flames and ice collided at their destination, causing a massive explosion. It was powerful enough that Charlotte’s silver hair, far away, briefly fluttered in the aftershock.

The thick mist that rose made it difficult to see what had happened to Serena, but Charlotte once again created dozens of magic circles around herself.

She wouldn’t be dead anyway.

As if to prove those words, a vortex swirled within the mist.

The vortex gathered all the scattered mist and swallowed it whole, then flew straight toward Charlotte.

A magic circle on the ground glowed blue. Another vortex of almost identical size appeared and collided with the first, canceling out their forces.

Then, a single flash of light pierced through the storm.

—Star Drop.

Serena softly uttered the technique’s name, and the two colliding storms that had been penetrated by her body dissipated powerlessly.

Only a single flash of light remained, charging toward Charlotte. It traced a path that might appear to be a simple mass of mana at first glance, as if it had become a massive meteor itself.

Serena’s eyes remained fixed on Charlotte, without a single wound visible on her body.

Whatever trick she had used, after being bound by ice whips and bombarded by flame spears and ice spikes, she was now counterattacking with burning determination.

Charlotte’s fighting spirit burned just as brightly. The source that fueled the battle will of these two women in this subdimensional space was simple, clear, and identical.

“A star must be countered with a star.”

No sooner had Charlotte finished speaking than a massive magic circle appeared on the ground.

It was so enormous that one couldn’t be sure if all the magic circles drawn until now combined would exceed its size.

A gigantic rock made of magical power emerged from the magic circle.

Its surface burned as hot as hell, repeatedly melting and solidifying from its own heat.

It was the Meteor Collision spell, which normally required three or four archmages working together to barely create.

Moreover, this wasn’t even how the spell was originally meant to be cast.

Typically, one would draw a magic circle in the air to create a burning meteor, and let gravity do the rest.

Rather than using mana to launch a rock weighing thousands of tons upward against gravity, it would be far more efficient to use that mana for other spells.

But Charlotte’s absurd mana capacity made such a feat possible.

The enormous mass of flame and stone, weighing thousands of tons, hurled itself toward the descending flash of light.

Serena didn’t dodge. Instead, she accelerated in midair, adding force to her movement.

The light and the rock collided with a deafening roar. A thunderous boom echoed through the space.

Though anyone could see that Serena was at an overwhelming disadvantage, Charlotte showed no change in expression and simply prepared her next spell.

Several more rumbling sounds followed. Then, not long after, with a final thunderclap, the flash of light that had shattered the meteor burst outward.

Behind Serena, fragments of rock that couldn’t withstand the impact scattered in all directions.

Serena’s thrust was undoubtedly an attack that could potentially kill Charlotte.

Well, the same could be said for Charlotte’s attacks, so there was nothing to complain about. Every spell she had cast so far had enough power to cause instant death if hit directly.

It was just that Serena had either neutralized them all or struck first.

No, would that beast-like woman even die?

Charlotte briefly reconsidered. She wondered if even a direct hit from the Meteor Collision spell could kill her.

Anyway, both of them were ridiculously tough.

Charlotte snapped her fingers with a sharp sound. Magic circles large enough for a person to stand in began appearing randomly around her.

The magic circles multiplied on their own, and by the time Serena had almost reached Charlotte, there were nearly thousands of them.

Feeling her skin tingle just from Serena’s approach, not even from direct contact, Charlotte activated a teleportation spell through one of the thousands of magic circles.

Immediately after, Serena struck down. It was a blow that shook the earth’s axis and made the heavens tremble, but the person who should have received it was already gone.

Serena accelerated her thought process.

Teleportation magic always required moving to a magic circle. That’s why Charlotte had scattered so many fake magic circles.

If she had set up only one, she would have been immediately counterattacked upon teleporting.

All thousands of magic circles glowed simultaneously. This meant the teleportation was almost complete. There wasn’t much time left.

She needed to choose quickly. Serena took a deep breath and thoroughly examined the flow of mana.

She eliminated magic circles with low mana density and weak light. Circles that quickly dissipated mana and those with undistorted mana flow were also not the target.

That left only one magic circle.

Serena finished her extremely accelerated thought process and darted sideways. She had completed her target selection in that brief moment before the shockwave from Star Drop had fully spread.

Arriving in front of the magic circle where Charlotte would emerge, she swung the World Eater—

“You truly are no different from a beast.”

The voice came from beside her.

Along with it came a tremendous impact from her side, sending Serena flying away. Charlotte appeared behind Serena with a mocking smile on her lips.

The development of the doppelganger spell had been completed long ago.