Volume 4—Chapter 113: The Battle of Concept (2)
The spear shattered before it reached the sphere.
Fragments of light scattered and froze midair.
Emilia steadied her breath. She stopped forcing Creation. Too costly.
Golden light faded from her veins. Instead, a magic circle formed beneath her feet. Dark blue. Complex. Layered.
She switched methods.
A chain of runes shot toward Aria, not to bind her body, but to distort perception. Illusion folded over space. Ten Emilias appeared at once, each casting from a different angle.
Aria did not move. The illusions cracked.
“Magic bends reality,” Aria said. “You are bending what I hold.”
The runes flickered and dissolved.
Emilia clicked her tongue and shifted again. Wind pressure gathered behind Aria. A silent blade of compressed air sliced forward.
Aria tilted her head.
The blade passed through the space where she had been.
She was already elsewhere.
A hand struck Emilia’s shoulder. Bone cracked. She staggered but forced herself upright.
Another circle formed. This one smaller. Tighter.
Gravity twisted around Aria, pulling from multiple directions at once. Not forward. Not backwards. Just inward.
For a second, Aria’s movement slowed.
Emilia saw the opening and dashed toward Caroline.
Three steps.
That was all she managed.
Aria appeared in front of her again.
A palm to the chest.
Emilia flew back, crashing into the inner wall of the sphere. The mirrored surface rippled with scenes of different outcomes, all showing her falling.
She coughed, blood staining her sleeve.
“You’re relying on Authority too much,” Emilia muttered.
“I’m not,” Aria replied.
She vanished.
Reappeared above.
A downward kick sent Emilia to the ground. Concrete lifted but never fully broke, suspended in sideways tension.
Emilia rolled away before the next strike landed. A quick chant under her breath. Flames spiralled up, not ordinary fire but layered magic, designed to bypass direct resistance.
It wrapped around Aria.
For a moment, it held.
Then the flames split.
In one adjacent possibility, they burned.
In another, they never touched her.
Aria stepped out of the second.
She grabbed Emilia by the collar and slammed her down again.
The sphere trembled.
Emilia’s vision blurred. Her left arm no longer responded properly. She forced magic into it anyway. Ice formed along Aria’s wrist, creeping upward.
Aria looked at it.
The ice stopped growing.
“It’s not useless,” Emilia said through clenched teeth. “Just limited.”
Aria nodded once.
“Correct.”
She tightened her grip.
Emilia gasped as the air left her lungs.
Still, she formed one last circle beneath her feet. Small. Hidden. Not aimed at Aria.
A displacement spell.
The ground under Caroline shifted slightly.
Aria’s eyes flicked sideways.
That small shift was enough to make the sphere vibrate.
Aria released Emilia and appeared beside Caroline instantly, reinforcing the violet barrier with one touch.
Emilia collapsed to one knee again, breathing hard.
“You’re persistent,” Aria said.
Emilia laughed weakly. “I’m a witch. We’re annoying like that.”
Aria walked toward her slowly.
Emilia tried to stand.
Her legs shook.
Another step from Aria.
The mirrored walls showed countless versions of this moment.
In almost all of them, Emilia was losing.
Aria stopped in front of her.
“Struggle if you want,” she said quietly. “But you are inside my rule.”
Emilia glared up at her, blood at the corner of her mouth, magic circles flickering weakly around her, fading one by one.
The air does not move.
Spells hang half-formed around Emilia’s hand. Ice blooms, then stays unfinished. The edges never sharpen.
Emilia let the unfinished ice fade. She stopped trying to complete it. Aria watched her without blinking.
“You’ve run out of options,” Aria said.
“Not yet,” Emilia answered softly.
She closed her eyes.
No large circles. Just a low chant under her breath.
A thin blue line appeared beneath her foot. It did not reach outward. It reached down. Aria’s gaze shifted. The line spread across the ground like a crack in glass. Not breaking it. Just tracing it.
“You’re changing targets again,” Aria said.
Emilia did not respond. She pressed her injured arm against her chest and fed magic into the circle. Slow. Careful. The sphere did not react. Caroline remained suspended.
Good.
Another line appeared. Then another. They formed a pattern across the floor of the sphere. Not attacking the barrier. Just mapping. Aria stepped forward. The ground beneath her foot shifted slightly. Not enough to throw her off. But enough.
“You’re measuring,” Aria said.
Emilia opened her eyes.
“Yes.”
Aria moved. She struck Emilia across the face. Emilia fell to the side, skin tearing against suspended debris. The blue lines flickered. But they did not vanish. Emilia pushed herself up again.
“You can choose outcomes,” she said, breathing hard. “But the structure still has balance.”
Aria’s expression remained calm.
“There is no imbalance here.”
“We’ll see.”
Emilia slammed her palm onto one of the blue lines. Pain shot through her arm as the circle deepened. A low sound spread through the sphere. Caroline’s body tilted slightly. Just a few degrees. Aria vanished and reappeared beside her, stabilising the violet shell.
The tilt stopped. But this time, the vibration did not fully fade. Small ripples moved along the mirrored wall. Emilia saw it. Every time Aria corrected Caroline’s position, she had to focus.
Emilia forced herself to stand straight.
“You can hold her,” Emilia said quietly. “But you can’t ignore me while you do.”
Aria looked back at her.
Silence.
Emilia drew one more line across the ground.
“If I can’t break your rule,” she said, “I’ll make you spend all your attention maintaining it.”
The sphere trembled again.
Aria looked at Emilia with open disdain.
There was no urgency in her eyes. If anything, she seemed content with how things stood.
A stalemate suited her just fine.
As long as Caroline remained suspended and the sphere held its shape, Aria did not need to win quickly. She only needed to maintain control. Time was not pressing her. Nothing inside this space was moving unless she allowed it to.
This battle had never been her first choice.
It started because Emilia didn’t want to hold a conversation.
So if the fight dragged on, if it settled into a slow struggle of strain and endurance, Aria did not mind.
She could wait.
Emilia was the one burning through her own body.
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