Narisva didn't even finish wiping the last line of blood from her jaw before Elyonari lowered herself onto the arena floor. Her bow had already materialized on her hand. Phaenora sat behind her, fully healed but she didn't dare say a word. Narisva didn't look tired. She looked annoyed that she had felt even a little fatigue earlier.
Elyonari rolled her shoulders with her fingers brushing the soft wood of her white bow. Narisva narrowed her eyes because this was the one opponent she never properly read. Elyonari rarely flexed her strength. She didn't spar much. She didn't show off.
Lysameria cleared her throat and repeated the rule:
"No Divine Transformation!"
Narisva subtly exhaled in relief. She knew she would win but she wasn't trying to fight an eighty to a hundred-meter elf giantess while preparing for Adelasta's nonsense.
Elyonari nodded once, then pulled back the bowstring. Lightning swirled around her arm as an arrow made of lightning appeared. The lightning arrow hit Narisva dead-center before she even thought about dodging. Spatial Severance should have cut it clean but the instant her glaive met the lightning, it simply phased through the slash like it wasn't even obeying her rules. The impact detonated across her ribs, hurling her across the arena. She skidded like a comet losing its trajectory, coughing up blood that sizzled from leftover static.
If she didn't have a Celestial's monstrous durability, she would be on the floor drooling and twitching like a fried insect.
"Don't look so shocked. I'm Mintherenia's Split of Life. You may manipulate space but my arrows do not miss. Your fancy severance tricks won't save you."
Narisva wiped her mouth. "You? Holding back? Cute."
Elyonari didn't entertain the bait. She lifted the bow again and the entire arena's atmosphere shifted like nature itself was leaning forward. Wind coiled around Elyonari's legs. Drops of water condensed around her. Earth rumbled underfoot. Fire ignited across the bowstring. Lightning crowned her like a feral halo.
Elyonari vanished in a blur of distortion and when she reappeared, five arrows were already in flight — wind, water, lightning, fire, and earth — each crafted with enough precision to cause serious injuries. They struck Narisva like a storm. Narisva twisted into Sight Teleportation but Elyonari's arrows curved mid-air in perfect harmony, correcting trajectories and racing towards Narisva.
Hyper Relative Velocity should have outrun all of them but it didn't even come close. Narisva was forced to shield her vitals, gritting her teeth as fire scorched her abdomen, wind sliced her cheek, water cracked her ribs like pressurized bullets and lightning crawled under her skin.
She lunged into Sight Teleportation again and Elyonari met her there with a fist.
Elyonari punched her across the jaw using raw strength. Normally, Narisva wouldn't even feel a hit like that. This one? She tasted iron, stars and pure disrespect. Before she could even process the insult, the ground vanished beneath her feet. She was pinned on her back because Elyonari was already above her with her bow drawn and thousands of sparks gathering at the string. Arrows blurred into existence so fast the arena floor carved itself apart from the shockwaves alone.
Narisva teleported left. Arrows followed. She teleported right. Arrows corrected their trajectory and followed her. She teleported upward and arrows followed her. She couldn't make a black hole or a miniature sun because that half a second felt would cause her to be struck by the arrows, giving Elyonari more leverage.
She gritted her teeth, waited for the arrows to catch up then warped directly in front of Elyonari, ready to ram her Spatial Severance into her stomach.
Elyonari had already aimed an arrow straight at Narisva's forehead.
Narisva saw it too late.
The arrow hit point-blank, detonating across her skull with enough force to make her stumble like a ragdoll. The homing arrows slammed into her from behind. She fell into the arena floor, causing a small crater.
Elyonari sighed, brushing silver hair behind her ear.
"Space doesn't work on everything, Narisva. Just like you manipulate the void, I manipulate nature and air exists everywhere. Unless you're fighting me in outer space, you'll never outrun my arrows."
Narisva staggered upright, sparks still crawling down her scalp from the last lightning arrow. She exhaled hard and thrust her hand forward as she prepared to summon a miniature black hole. But the instant spatial pressure condensed in her palm, a fire arrow shot straight through the forming singularity and slammed into her hand so fast she didn't even see Elyonari draw. Her skin blistered. Space destabilized. The black hole fizzled out like a candle in a storm.
Narisva hissed, shaking her smoking hand.
"What the hell? How are you—"
Elyonari was already lowering her bow, already charging the next arrow. The realization clicked in her head like a puzzle piece snapping into place:
Elyonari wasn't fast for an archer. She was fast. Her draw speed, her release, her aim, her elemental invocation, all of it was faster than Narisva's Sight Teleportation
and faster than her Hyper Relative Velocity.
Elyonari just asked casually;
"You finally noticed?"
Narisva clenched her jaw.
"Grandmaster. You're a Grandmaster in Archery."
"Oh? You can actually tell."
Narisva spat blood out of the corner of her mouth.
"Yeah. Believe it or not, I'm not stupid. Grandmasters are the highest level of weapon mastery. I'm only a Master in scythe combat. You're… bigger than me on the ladder."
Elyonari shrugged like someone confessing she could knit well.
"I've been training since before I could walk. Mintherenia's priestesses aren't allowed to be weak you know. And even if you did summon a black hole, I'd simply fire arrows faster than you could maintain it. You'd collapse from the strain before it became dangerous."
Narisva huffed a humorless laugh.
"Oh, you're smart. I'll give you that. But you forgot one thing."
Elyonari tightened her grip on the bow.
"Which is?"
Narisva raised two fingers.
"I haven't shown my hand yet."
Narisva vanished into Hyper Relative Velocity. Elyonari reacted instantly. A wind arrow screamed toward Narisva's outstretched hand. Elyonari planned to neutralize her again and stop the black hole formation before it began. But this time Narisva, wasn't trying to form one yet. She just needed Elyonari to aim for her hand because the second Elyonari committed to that shot, for that single micro-second, Her awareness shifted. That was all Narisva needed.
The Hyper Relative Velocity snapped reality like brittle glass. Her fingers on her other hand snapped. For a split breath, for the shortest moment a Divine mind could conceptualize, reality inverted itself.
Elyonari drew her next arrow and suddenly found there was no air to draw through. Elyonari froze mid-draw, floating weightlessly. Her eyes widened as the truth sank in.
There was no air. There was nothing to manipulate.
Narisva's laugh echoed like it traveled on nothing but arrogance and self-satisfaction.
'Of course she can talk in space. Celestials cheat.'
Narisva laughed, floating effortlessly across the vacuum.
"See, Elyonari? You said your arrows always hit as long as there's air. Cute. Really cute."
She held out her palm. A brilliant sphere of plasma flared into existence. It was a miniature sun, burning like the core of a star.
"But what happens when there isn't any?"
Elyonari's eyes narrowed, already calculating a counter that shouldn't exist. Narisva grinned wider, heat distorting her silhouette.
"This is gonna hurt a little."
She threw it.