Anselma took a breath, her chest shuddering as she felt a rush of power weave through her. The world shook as though bowing to the return of an Empress. The Imperatress. "Ah, it has now truly returned home. Now, let’s end this quickly, shall we?" Anselma took a step and appeared before Aina in a flash. She swung the ax with a single arm, its unruly and long polearm seemingly not much of a problem to her at all. Although the battle ax’s form was more than a head tall than her, she wielded it like a normal single-handed hand ax. Yet, the power behind it was so great that the body bent into a crescent moon, the laws of the world whining and then bending into obedience as well. Aina struck out with a palm. BANG! The wind shattered to pieces, or so it seemed. Volatile currents, spinning, churning, and thrusting in all sorts of directions made it confused, not knowing which ones to follow. But soon after this shattering, space quaked along with it. The two women, however, were unmoved. "Oh?" Anselma blinked. She was calm and casual, but her indifferent arrogance caused her to almost miss the fact Aina had followed up on her attack instantly. A second palm descended as though Aina didn’t fear the blade meeting her flesh at all. With how much she had been through her life, with how many weapons she had gone through, how much pain she had forced herself to endure… How was this worth much of anything? Anselma failed to react as a palm drove into her chest. Her ribs rebounded back, being compressed at an awkward angle before she was sent flying back. Aina took a step forward, her hips twisting slightly as her wings flapped a single time. All of her momentum transferred to her attacking arm. BANG! Anselma’s body shot out like a rocket, the air she passed through superheating as concentric circles of shattering wind rippled out. She tore a line so straight down and through the city one could have easily mistaken the streak of crimson for a laser piercing through the air. She crashed into several buildings, not slowing until she was embedded into the central castle. The earth rumbled so fiercely the skies quaked along with it. At the same time, the wall beneath Aina’s feet cracked down to its very foundation. This wall was one meant to anchor the earlier, large-scale formation. And yet now, it could hardly withstand the might of a single "light" step from Aina. Then Aina vanished. There was a rumble and the wall collapsed. As though a spherical bomb of energy had been set off, a perfectly smooth section was left behind. But Aina herself was nowhere to be seen. A beam of light passed through right where she had just been, and her figure itself appeared in the rubble along with Anselma. BANG! Another sphere. BANG! Another. BANG! Yet another. Anselma and Aina flickered around the city, their powerful strikes leaving smooth, almost too perfectly controlled pulses of destruction in their wake. And every time, Anselma found herself crushed. Her battle ax’s blade was blocked, her body was bombarded, her head was snapped to the side, her blood leaked from her lips and her wounds. It was a complete, one-sided, utterly contemptuous sort of battle. Aina flashed by the swing blade, her fist cutting across the side of Anselma’s face as sending one of her teeth flying into the distance. But before Anselma’s body could even head in that direction, a second fist came even faster, driving into her gut so far Aina almost felt her spine on her knuckles. Anselma keeled over before her body accelerated, shooting off into the distance and digging a deep trench into the ground. The Imperatress coughed off a mouthful of blood as Aina stood in the skies. The latter’s head turned, looking off into the distance as though she had sensed something. But even now, her expression was shockingly calm. Anselma slowly stood to her feet, wiping the blood from her cherry lips. It was an action that should have smeared that bright red lipstick she wore, but somehow, that color seemed infused into her very flesh itself. It didn’t fade even the slightest bit. If anything, it only grew brighter, sharper. The Imperatress didn’t seem to be distressed. There was a hint of shock in her eyes, but it wasn’t to the point that she had lost herself to despair. This was only to be expected. Even with the Founder’s Ax back in her hands, this body was too weak. She had planned to use the next few years to rebuild her foundation and return to her original strength slowly before the final battle, but Aina had come before she could do this. If she was honest, she thought it wouldn’t matter. The shadow she was chasing was that of the Demoness, not this child. So she thought that even without much effort, she would win this battle—especially after Aina lost her weapon. But it seemed that she had… underestimated this child. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Three auras appeared, each one just as powerful as the last. Explore stories on freewebnovel The Dreadarch Eryvon, a man wreathed in golden light. There was a sharpness to him and his yellowed eyes that exuded the air of a refined blade. Even looking into his gaze seemed to hurt. The Thronebearer Loryth, a woman coated in vines and poisoned buds. A crown of thorns wrapped around her head, piercing into her skin and leaving scars as it greedily drank her blood. The Regentrix Myxor, a man wearing… nothing at all. He stood there, almost too confident. He was offensive to the gaze, and yet it didn’t seem to faze him even in the slightest. The four didn’t say a single word as they moved. Loryth’s vines spread, Eryvon shot into the skies, drawing on air and pulling a bow and arrow from the light, and Myxor shot for Aina. All the while, Anselma watched in a calm silence, the gentle pitter patter of her own blood falling to the ground not fazing her in the slightest.