The road fell silent after Taiyor disappeared into the distance.
Aisha adjusted her stance, her feet planted firmly on the uneven ground. Fire no longer roared around her; it clung to her like a living exoskeleton, compressed and controlled, every ember a pulse of restrained strength. Her chest rose and fell steadily, eyes sharp and calculating. "You think i can kill you without my comrade," she said calmly, voice cutting through the haze. "But this ends here."
Lancelot stepped forward, his eyes cold, unwavering. He did not summon clones. No invincible tricks. Only his body. Only precision, only steel, and magic essence at the edge of control.
The first collision was abrupt. Fist met palm, forearm met elbow, knees and shins clashing in rapid, violent succession. Each strike was meticulously calculated; each movement meant to destroy balance and break defense. Aisha's movement, the subtle shift of weight, every action optimized for counterattack and efficiency.
Lancelot countered with the same expertise, redirecting force rather than blocking, using Aisha's momentum against her, twisting her balance, and striking at points that destabilized her stance. Sparks of compressed energy, the faint residue of magic essence that flows through every part of the body, flickered off their bodies with every collision, dissipating into the air.
The ground beneath them cracked and splintered. Dust rose in dense clouds, obscuring their lower limbs as fists, elbows, and knees struck in rapid succession. Neither combatant yielded. Aisha staggered back, her eyes narrowing. "You're not a knight i get it now you're a demon," she murmured, awe and irritation mingling.
Lancelot did not answer. He studied her movements, noted the patterns in her weight shifts, the micro-expressions in her eyes, the way her energy flowed from her core into her strikes. Each detail was recorded in his mind as if the battlefield itself were a library of combat data.
Aisha lunged, her fist extending in a spinning arc aimed at Lancelot's head. He tilted back, allowing her momentum to carry her past, and then countered with a sweeping low kick. Aisha twisted mid-air, her feet landing softly but precisely. Every step she took was a controlled attack and defense simultaneously.
They moved faster, faster than any ordinary human could perceive. Their bodies blurred, limbs extending in arcs that would have shattered bone if caught cleanly. Lancelot's strikes carried the density of magic essence, compressed and hardened into invisible force. Each blow he landed was measured—enough to destabilize without overcommitting.
Aisha's eyes flickered briefly, and fire leaked from the corners of her fists. The energy was restrained, compressed, deadly, but not yet unleashed. She adjusted, focusing on grappling and redirection, integrating every movement into a continuous stream of offense and defense. Lancelot mirrored her, striking, redirecting, using minimal openings to push her back slowly.
Minutes stretched into a tense standoff. Each breath was deliberate; each micro-shift in weight was a calculated decision. A faint ring of scorched dust marked every impact point on the ground her fists moved with fluid precision, striking at angles and joints, creating openings that vanished almost immediately. Lancelot's counters were seamless; he flowed around her attacks, each movement neutralizing energy rather than confronting it head-on.
They collided in mid-step, both spinning in a deadly dance. Aisha threw a high kick while striking with her elbow. Lancelot blocked the elbow with the flat of his palm and caught her leg midair, redirecting the force and pushing her back. She landed with barely a whisper, pivoted, and countered with a series of rapid punches aimed at his chest.
He twisted, the punches grazing but never fully connecting. The energy of her strikes dispersed across his form like water over stone. Each block, each deflection, consumed a minimal energy.
They separated briefly, circling. Dust fell from the broken rafters of Stonecliff's mountains. Shadows flickered. Lancelot's eyes glimmered faintly with yellow light magic essence the first subtle signs of the magic core preparing to synchronize with the body in the next phase.
She stepped forward suddenly, closing the gap with a sprint so fast it kicked up debris behind her. Lancelot responded instantly, his body reacting before thought could register. The two collided again fists and elbows clashing violently.
He moved into a hold, attempting to grapple, but she twisted violently, spinning free, her leg snapping out in a powerful sweep aimed at his torso. Lancelot jumped, countering with a strike to her side, magic essence compressing around the strike, reinforcing it. She grunted, staggering back but quickly recovered.
The fight escalated. Lancelot shifted strategies, using magic essence to subtly enhance muscle density, amplifying force without visibly increasing energy output. Each strike hit with almost imperceptible weight, enough to disrupt. Aisha's body tensed, adjusting constantly, the fire in her core now flaring more aggressively, a defensive reaction more than offense.
Lancelot landed a palm strike that sent Aisha skidding across broken stone. She twisted in midair, somersaulting to her feet, barely breaking her rhythm. He followed immediately, ducking and weaving, striking and redirecting, forcing her to adapt faster than she expected.
"You…" she said between breaths, voice sharp with exertion, "…rotten blood and tainted blood just die already."
Aisha dropped low, sweeping, forcing him to jump, and immediately launched a flurry of elbows and knees. The battle had become a conversation of bodies—a deadly, silent language where a pause or hesitation could be fatal.
He caught her mid-flip, absorbing the momentum, compressing energy in his palms and knees to redirect her force outward. A faint shockwave exploded as he slammed her to the ground but she rolled, spinning up, using momentum to launch herself toward him again.
The two moved as if dancing across the battlefield, leaving arcs of dust and faint traces of compressed essence in the air. Both were sweating, panting, yet neither yielded. Lancelot reading her movements, adjusting reflexively, learning patterns. Aisha's fire, now tightly controlled, reinforced muscle impact without wasting energy outward.
"You did well i am sure your corpse will be of great use to me," Lancelot said, his voice low, almost a whisper over the rising wind. "I have already seen all of your move i don't have to waste time and spirit essence to practise after taking your spirit core, you manage to survive this long you better kill me before my spirit core essence recoverd because if you don't you won't have a corpse left to buried once am finished with you."
Aisha responded not with words, but with a surge of fire. The air between them ignited. Spirals of fire shot forward, twisting through the dust-choked air like serpents of molten light. Each was aimed with precision, forcing Lancelot to move immediately.
He did not dodge conventionally. Instead, he shaped magic essence into armor-like projections, deflecting the first wave of fire with the barest flick of his hands. Sparks erupted as it collided, the pressure radiating through the ground beneath his feet.
The first wave shattered into shards of burning light, scattering in all directions, forcing nearby debris to ignite spontaneously. Lancelot's eyes narrowed.
He extended his hand, drawing magic essence from his magic core fire forged into a solid medium that rippled outward in shockwaves. Lancelot launched it in a straight line, invisible until it collided with the incoming fire. The force crushed the fire spirals in mid-air, extinguishing the first assault.
Aisha's expression sharpened. "you're only using magic essence against a expert like me are you mocking me," she said. Her next assault was more methodical spinning orbs of fire erupted simultaneously from both hands, moving like tiny suns, twisting toward Lancelot in unpredictable arcs.
Lancelot raised his arms. The air above him shimmered as hundreds of clones flickered briefly into existence, each acting as a deflector. The mini sun collided with the clones, which disintegrated instantly. But the real Lancelot hide within the clones remained untouched, watching the scene.
Aisha narrowed her eyes. "Coward using dirty tricks," she muttered. She compressed her essence further, sending a concentrated beam directly at him. Lancelot didn't dodge. Instead, he formed a blade of fire that cut through the heat beam in mid-flight. Sparks and residual fire rained down around him, scorching dust into blackened ash.
"if you're willing to tell me where you came from and how you we're able to cross the sea then i will let you go," Lancelot observed. "only twenty minutes left for my spirit core to recover you better talk now."