Whoosh!
The wind swept over the large stone field as some guards and men begun to march in and clear away any harmful debris. The air was disolent and a slight breeze blew away dust.
Though it was autumn, it felt like standing in the middle of a desert. The air was thick, and with nearly no moist.
Aefia raised her hand up to the barrier that cast over the amphitheater. Her hand could feel that this was the reason the atmosphere differed from inside-out.
"What a strange kingdom... Really."
"Your Highness," a guard echoed from one side. "Are you sure about this? You... Aren't wearing any armor."
Truly, the only thing Aefia was relying on was her powers.
Hmph. I guess they really won't believe me after all that explaining. But I am not answering anymore.
The dry heat inside the barrier clung to Aefia's skin like an unwanted mantle, but she remained motionless. Her red eyes calmly trailing the dust motes dancing in the heavy air.
A long time had passed, when a sharp clatter of iron boots heralded the arrival of the King of Mides.
Kazimir stepped into the arena, flanked by four senior officers whose faces were drawn tight with sheer dread. He had discarded his heavy royal mantle, wearing only a fine tunic, yet his eyes immediately locked onto Aefia's simple attire—a long coat that reached her knees over a pinafore, dark trousers, and no visible armor to speak of. She looked exactly how she would dress normally if she were at the palace.
He stopped a dozen paces away, his eyebrows twitching upward in genuine surprise.
"No armor, Your Highness?" Kazimir chuckled, a dry, grating sound that barely masked the nervous flutter in his chest.
He gestured toward his own leather-trimmed doublet before ostentatiously unbuckling his reinforced gauntlets and tossing them onto the dusty cobblestones.
"Well... to keep things entirely fair and square, I suppose I shall forgo mine as well."
The lead Mides guard behind him gasped, his face draining of all color. "Y-Your Majesty! Please, reconsider! The battle is already more than fair—Her Imperial Highness possesses—"
"I don't require your opinion." Kazimir snapped, throwing a venomous glare over his shoulder. "I do not require a lecture on chivalry from a guard who flinches at his own shadow."
The soldier clamped his mouth shut, though his eyes darted toward Aefia as if pleading for her to end the madness before it even began.
Every guard in the courtyard knew the terrifying truth: stripping away armor did not level the playing field against a walking cataclysm. It only guaranteed that any blow dealt would be fatal.
Kazimir turned back to Aefia, his lips curving into a calculating, desperate smile. He was trying to corner her mentally, trying to project absolute confidence while secretly clinging to the artificial vigor coursing through his blood.
"You know, Aefia..." Kazimir began smoothly, taking a slow step forward while spreading his hands wide. "It isn't too late to reconsider this barbaric display. We are reasonable monarchs, aren't we? We could sit down right now, draft a comprehensive peace contract, and settle our territorial disputes like civilized rulers. Smod receives its reparations, Mides retains its dignity, and no blood needs to be spilled on these stones."
Aefia slowly lowered her hand from the barrier. She didn't flinch, nor did her expression shift even a fraction. She simply stared at him, her garnet eyes cool and completely unimpressed.
She shook her head softly.
"I would rather settle it this way and end things once and for all," Aefia said, her voice dropping into a low, smooth cadence that carried through the heavy air. "A peace contract is just paper, Kazimir. Paper can be burned, rewritten, or forgotten the moment you think you have found another advantage."
She stepped forward, her heels clicking against the stone with terrifying precision.
"Besides... isn't this what you wanted?" She asked while folding her arms and tilting her head to the side. "This way, even if I were to die, you could use this opportunity to take your revenge and kill me with your own hands. No armies, no politics—just you, me, and the consequences of your choices."
He smirked, taking a step forward. "Consequences? Is that how we are putting it?"
"Did you honestly think that everything will be alright when you have laid hands on the Guardian of Death? Not to mention, you raised your voice just to inform the entire courtyard on the day you took the throne, that I am the Third Aethalgard. Normally, this should have caused me penalty by the Guardian Realm and I would have lost my authority there and then." She explained, turning on her heels to walk right.
"But recently, there had been a meeting held to judge my actions and yours. The conclusion that was drawn, clearly stated that you were guilty and I was given the right to take down Mides without any boundary stopping me. As a Guardian, I could say this is a revenge. However, I am being more then merciful and taking over Mides politically just so you can save name if only you manage to avoid death."
Her steps abruptly halted, as she turned her head back towards him. "Although... I doubt I can even let you go after whatever I have seen and heard of your doings." She fixed him a glare. "It honestly offends me as the Guardian of Death, to know you how you have been treating the humans of your own nation. Cutting them up? Gutting them? Are you even human at this point? No wait... You did say you were a devil."
Kazimir stood standing frozen, bucketing every single one of her words. "You know... You really are very fearless. I didn't know someone like you would ever speak like that."
She offered a smile, but didn't say anything.
"You really think I even care about what the Guardians do? They don't know what is happening down here, and you say that they allow you to use your authority to take down Mides. You even said that because of my actions, you nearly lost that same authority. How is this even possible?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Hmph... Well you do have a point. But you are also forgetting that I have four authorities. One as the Archduchess of Trinvina, another as the Crown Princess of the Smod Empire. The third as the Guardian of Death, and my most powerful one as the Third Aethalgard. The one you almost made me lose, was the Third Aethalgard. Because I hadn't even taken reign for a decade and my authority was already in a reckless position.
"But given that my findings of those decomposing bodies on the basement, I was allowed to justify for the death and have you punished. Which now leads us to the conclusion... Your actions had brought such big consequences, that you can't escape them anymore. Now what are you going to do?"
Her eyes drifted to all the ministers and guards who had heard the entire conversation.
"You have a habit of taking out whenever knows the Mides family's darkest secrets. Are you going to wipe out everyone over here as well? Then that also gets me wondering... How many dolls would be sent to the orphanage this season?" She asked.
He flinched—hearing those words said out loud by the person who had a potential to end him, made him want to violently throw up.
This... is the end... Of Mides' dignity. He thought to himself, his hand flying to the sword at his side. He lifted his head, glaring at her with his blazing golden eyes.
"You have quite the nerve, you know? I am surprised no one has ever tried to end you before. Honestly, why can't you shut your mouth before you go all out like that?"
Aefia's eyes narrowed down. I already knew I was going to cross the line saying all that. But I wasn't expecting it to be this fast. Though I can't help thinking I just did the right thing. Whatever... Killing is what we are here for anyways.
Her hand travelled to Spectrum's hilt. "It is because I like to see everything in a justifiable manner. After all, I was assigned the duty to protect the population of this world from getting destroyed because someone decided to embrace their ego."
Kazimir smirked at her words. "You say you like being justifiable, but the battle is not even balanced to begin with."
"But weren't you the one who said you didn't need it?" She asked.
"But how else can we make it justifiable? I am not putting my armor back on," he replied.
She smiled, her eyes glowing a bright red. "Then I am dropping my blade."
She unstrapped Spectrum and dropped it into the air beside her. It immediately dissapeared.
"I will be using my raw powers." She calmly said after that.
"Fine. Your choice." He said, pulling his sword out and immediately lunging towards her. She took a leap backwards, pointing her hand to the ground.
Liquid, molten magma burst out from below the stones and immediately turned into pitch-black spikes that pointed towards him. He broke through them. The edges of his blade releasing dark smoke that was too heavy to mix with the air.
He landed a few paces away from her, swinging his sword at her direction. She planted her heel onto the ground and turned herself away from the blade.
As soon as his arm was down, she fisted her hand and drove her knucks into his jaw. Then took multiple steps back.
The dry air whistled sharply as Kazimir reeled back, wiping a smear of dark blood from his cracked lip. His jaw throbbed with a dull, sickening ache where her knuckles had connected. But the healing crystal essence in his blood granted him its ability, and stitched the torn skin back together.
"Is that the best the Third Aethalgard can muster without her sword?!" Kazimir roared, his eyes flashing with fury.
He lunged again, the heavy steel of his blade slicing through the thick air in a wide, sweeping arc. She raised her hand again—blood-red wires zooming out of the open and blocking his trajectory. In that split second it took for him to slice through it, she dissappeared from view.
He turned around just in time to find her lunging for his neck from behind. He thrusted the hilt of his sword towards her head, but she immediately shifted away with surprising agility.
Kazimir pivoted instantly, thrusting the tip of his sword toward her solar plexus.
The razor-sharp edge grazed past her clothes by a fraction of a millimeter, cutting only the empty air behind her.
Before he could pull back, Aefia's palm shot forward, slamming directly into the center of his chest.
A localized burst of energy erupted on impact, blasting Kazimir backward across the arena. His boots tore long, jagged grooves into the dusty cobblestones as he skidded to a halt thirty paces away, his lungs burning and his velvet tunic singed black.
He was breathing heavily now. Sweat poured down his temples, mixing with the thick dust clinging to his skin. The concentrated potion in his blood was fighting to keep his stamina peaked, but every hit from Aefia felt like being struck by a collapsing mountain. She wasn't just hitting his body; her raw power was rattling the very anchor holding his soul to his frame.
Is this... The power that a Guardian possesses? Was it really alright to pick a fight with someone so powerful?
Kazimir pushed himself upright, his sword trembling slightly in his grip as he stared at her. Aefia stood completely unbothered, her clothes spotless, her garnet eyes narrowed in focus at his face.
"This..." Kazimir rasped, his voice cracking with a mixture of sheer exhaustion and bubbling rage. "This is still not fair!"
Aefia folded her arms, tilting her head to the side with a faint, amused smirk playing on her lips.
"Oh?" she asked smoothly, her voice carrying effortlessly across the dead silence of the courtyard. "And what, pray tell, feels so unfair to you now, Your Majesty? You requested no armor. I obliged. I even dropped my weapon to fight bare-handed against you. What else could you possibly complain about?"
Kazimir bared his red-stained teeth, pointing his trembling sword directly at her face.
"You aren't taking a single hit!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the barrier walls. "I have taken every single blow you have thrown, while you just glide around like a ghost! How is this a duel if only one of us is bleeding?!"
"Ah! So that is why?" She chuckled. "I thought for a short time that you were the one holding back. Alright, I won't use all of my powers."
"This still isn't fair!" He shouted, standing up despite the way his body swayed.
Aefia let out a soft, low sigh, her garnet eyes narrowing with an edge of quiet amusement. She stepped forward.
"If you want absolute, undeniable parity," Aefia said smoothly, her voice dropping into a register that brook no argument, "then the only way left to make this justifiable is for you to use your all... while I use my bare minimum."
She paused.
"While also..." Aefia continued, her hand reaching toward her inner coat pocket.
Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the star-steel dagger, drawing it into the open air.
The weapon flared brilliantly, the Sunstone, Void-Quartz, and Astral Core humming with a fierce, concentrated pulse of raw energy that cast long, multicolored shadows across the dusty arena.
Kazimir's eyes bulged, his jaw dropping in sheer astonishment as he recognized the very conduit he had kept locked away as his ultimate backup.
Before he could even draw breath to speak, Aefia didn't hesitate.
The star-steel sank deep into her flesh with a sickening echo, piercing cleanly through her side. A sudden wave of intense, blinding heat erupted from the wound, accompanied by a sharp gasp that rippled through the watching crowd of ministers and guards.
Dark blood welled instantly around the edges of the blade, staining her pinafore and dripping down onto the grey stone.
Her expression remained entirely blank, save for the smirk.
With her hand still wrapped around the hilt protruding from her side, Aefia lifted her gaze to meet the slack-jawed, terrified King standing ten paces away.
"There," Aefia whispered, her voice echoing in the dead silence of the amphitheater.
"Now we are both more than even."