Xavienne was flickered through the madness of her own twin brother as she battled her own opponent. Nobody dared to remain within the city, for her twin brother had already leveled it into nothingness, reducing it to ruins that belonged to him alone. What once stood as a thriving metropolis had been erased, carved into a desolate wasteland of shattered structures and scorched earth, a testament to the terrifying calamity he had unleashed.

The very next second, Xavienne and her opponent appeared atop a distant mountain. They immediately separated, boots skidding across fractured stone, only to tear forward yet again without a moment of hesitation. Their blades kissed with mad, thunderous impact as they collided at a single point in space. The mountain beneath their feet cracked violently, fractures spiderwebbing outward, before collapsing almost immediately, as though it stood no chance beneath the unbearable weight of their movements and power.

Even as they fell through the air, neither of them slowed. Both figures leapt from boulder to stone in rapid succession, chasing one another through the collapsing remains of the mountain itself, using flying debris and shattered rock as fleeting footholds. Stone crumbled and vanished beneath their steps. The moment they reached the earth below, they tore into one another with explosive force, the impact echoing outward like a natural disaster unleashed.

The ground beneath their feet sank inward instantly as an enormous ravine ripped open, carved violently by their brute strength alone. Xavienne burned with extreme madness, her Astra energy raging without restraint. Heat and flame roared around her, immense and feral, licking the air as though eager to consume everything in sight. Yet her opponent appeared to be the perfect counter. Around him flowed a shimmering curtain of water, a translucent sheen that wrapped his form like living armor, repelling the heat and flames that threatened to devour him whole.

They stared into each other's eyes.

One bore a mad grin across her face, wild and unrestrained. The other gazed back with a calm, calculating expression, eyes steady and devoid of excess emotion.

One embodied a fiery, explosive personality, burning with reckless intensity. The other possessed a composure like a still lake, tranquil yet unfathomably deep.

They were complete opposites in every sense, as though reality itself had pitted them against one another to determine, once and for all, which element reigned supreme, water or fire.

The next second, they disengaged.

The assassin casually waved his hand, movements smooth and effortless, and in the blink of an eye, he created a literal ocean from nothing but the motion of his arm and the flow of his Astra energy. With crushing, overwhelming force, the ocean surged forward, swallowing the forest in its path and threatening to crush Xavienne where she stood beneath its towering mass.

But Xavienne would never run from water.

She was heat incarnate, and she would embody that truth without compromise.

She raised a single hand and waved it forward, perfectly mirroring her opponent's motion. Her Astra energy exploded outward from her Astra veins, crimson flames erupting with savage ferocity. Burning waves surged forth, vast and raging, colliding head-on with the advancing ocean.

With a glorious, ruinous ramification, both waves slammed into one another, one a boundless ocean of water, the other a roaring sea of flames. A deafening hiss filled the air as violent vaporization occurred instantly. Steam surged skyward, blanketing everything for kilometers in thick, white clouds. Entire trees were reduced to cinders and burning embers in seconds, while hills shattered under the crushing pressure of the water's force.

The moment the white vapor completely obstructed the battlefield, the assassin moved, his steps were silent, precise, deadly. His blade tore toward Xavienne's neck with blistering speed, a lethal strike hidden within the chaos. Though Xavienne could not see and lacked true stealth training beyond what she had learned at the Star Academy long ago, she possessed something far more dangerous, raw, honed instincts forged through endless battle.

Without missing a beat, her axe flashed sideways in a burst of power, flames tearing forward alongside it. The assassin immediately sensed the danger and recalibrated his movement, his body flowing from attack to evasion in a seamless transition. He felt the axe cleave through the space where his head had been moments earlier, missing by mere inches, the intense heat scorching against his face.

Xavienne recalibrated as well, adjusting in real time as though she had predicted his evasion from the very beginning. Her axe shifted course mid-motion, a horizontal arc transforming into a vertical slash with smooth, linked finesse and terrifying speed.

The assassin's eyes widened in shock at the sudden change in trajectory. He couldn't help but curse the infamous talent of the Wargrave family. Yet despite the curse forming in his mind, his body and thoughts moved as one. He immediately transitioned into a defensive technique just as Xavienne's axe tore through his torso with madness brimming in her swing.

There was no blood. No resistance. No sensation of flesh being carved.

Her attack passed through harmlessly as the assassin phased through the strike as though it were nothing more than air. But Xavienne didn't react with surprise. She had witnessed more phasing abilities and techniques than she cared to count.

She simply willed it and her Astra energy boiled violently around her, heat and flames flickering with every passing millisecond. Then, with a single thought, an overwhelming concussive burst of fire erupted outward from her body as the epicenter. The flames were all-consuming, devouring everything in their path with ruthless intensity.

The assassin clicked his tongue in frustration as Xavienne nullified his phasing technique with a single explosion. His Astra energy coiled defensively around him, water bursting into existence and wrapping him in a protective cocoon. But the attack had been too close, too sudden, too precisely timed for him to fully compensate.

The impact slammed into him point-blank with the force of a sundering flame storm. The air exploded outward, water evaporating instantly as though it were nothing more than droplets meeting the heat of the sun itself. The sheer force hurled the assassin backward with violent intensity, inertia fulfilling its merciless duty.

With bone-crushing impact, the assassin tore through a mountain and two hills before finally coming to a halt. Pain assaulted both mind and body as burning agony spread across his form, his entire being screaming beneath the combined damage of flames and momentum. Yet even through the pain, his mind did not waver. He was an assassin, pain was his blood, pain was his breakfast, pain was his existence.

His Astra energy coiled tightly around him as blue water energy enveloped his body in a shimmering sheen. This was one of his personal techniques: the ability to heal using water as a medium. His body hissed in real time as smoke rose into the air, water colliding with smoldering injuries and rapidly restoring damaged flesh.

Before he could even blink, Xavienne was already in motion.

She closed the distance between them in an instant, her double-edged axe rising skyward as though she were a paladin blessed by the heavens themselves. Then, like a spear of judgment, her axe descended in one sweeping arc. The assassin had no time to react before his head was severed from his neck with ridiculous ease.

Xavienne felt it this time, the sensation of her axe cutting through something solid, but she was not fooled, her battle sense and instincts were far too sharp. Her axe had cut through something, but it was anything but flesh.

Before she could follow through, the corpse turned into a puddle of water that splashed harmlessly against the earth. The next instant, from another puddle behind her, the assassin emerged, having found what he believed to be the perfect timing for a killing blow.

Xavienne's mind screamed in warning.

She transitioned instantly into a movement technique. Heat surged beneath the soles of her feet, and in the next moment, she vanished in a flicker of ember. The ground where she once stood was left deeply imprinted with crimson, burning footprints.

In a blink, she appeared behind her opponent, her axe descended once more.

The blade cleaved cleanly through the assassin's neck with immaculate ease, only for the body to dissolve into another puddle of water before it could hit the ground.

The assassin had used his water clone technique in double succession, clearly anticipating that his previous sneak attack would fail against someone like a Wargrave.

Xavienne's eyes swept across the battlefield, blazing with burning gaze and battle intent. Though she often fought on pure instinct, it did not mean she lacked the ability to think when the situation demanded it.

Her eyes darted across the collapsed forest stretching for kilometers. Puddles of water were scattered everywhere. She needed no explanation to understand what was happening, anyone with a single functioning brain cell could deduce that much.

Without hesitation, she snapped her fingers.

At that sound, the air bent violently. The sky churned as heat and flame gathered within the clouds, forming massive, flaming crimson vortexes. From each vortex, pillars of burning destruction descended upon every water puddle throughout the forest, striking each one dead center with ruthless precision.

One puddle shifted and Xavienne moved instantly, not missing even a heartbeat. She appeared before it with her axe raised high, her intent clear, to end the battle once and for all.

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