[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: The Deathless Fortress]

A sound tore through the area, an immense, percussive blast, like a dozen cannons going off at once, each folding over the next before the echoes had time to settle. The fortress walls buckled under the force as Koschei's body was hurled through them, stone exploding outward in chunks that spun through the air beside him.

He didn't even have time to scream.

His body hurtled out of the corridor and into the open air of the courtyard. Blood geysered from his throat. He crashed down onto the cracked stone path with a nauseating crunch—an impact heavy enough that even the Deseruit Beast, raging not far from him, briefly flinched at the noise.

Then came the pain.

Koschei felt his ribs splinter, felt the sharp, intrusive wrongness of bones driven out of alignment, felt the wet, almost slippery tearing of tendons. And beneath all that agony, beneath the panic somewhere distant in his mind, he felt a familiar tug beginning to work—bones reversing their break, joints popping back into place, muscle rethreading itself.

It was slow, and sloppy, and excruciating. But it was happening.

("What… what in the dead lands was that? Pure force? She transmuted something into force? That shouldn't be possible—no, it is possible, but that wasn't equivalent exchange. How…?")

He tried to push himself upright. His arms shook. He tasted copper.

The Deseruit Beast milling around the courtyard seemed utterly indifferent to him—almost as if something was telling them he wasn't worth noticing. Or didn't exist at all. He didn't know which possibility unsettled him more.

Above him, framed by the broken arch of the shattered stone hallway, Gretchen stood perfectly composed, watching him coldly. Tamamo perched on her shoulder, smiled lightly.

Gretchen didn't walk down to him. She leaped, landing in a soft cloud of dust that barely even disturbed the rubble.

Koschei's mind still churned.

("She's not following any recognizable form. And yet the results… they work. This is impossible. Or she's doing something I don't understand. Which is worse.")

His face twisted, not in fear but in deep, frustrated disbelief.

("If she's not using equivalent exchange, how is the transmutation locking properly? She isn't paying the cost. She can't be. And yet the effect didn't collapse—didn't decay—didn't misfire—nothing.")

Before he could retreat into further thought, Gretchen's voice cut through the air sharply.

"What happened to all that confidence you had earlier, filth?" Her tone was colder than before—filled with disdain that left no room for mercy. She took a small step closer, narrowing her eyes as she noted how quickly the wounds were sealing across his skin. ("He heals nearly instantly… then I'll have to bypass that entirely. Transmutation directly on the flesh is still the best move. No matter how much mana he has, regeneration can't stop that.")

Koschei wiped blood from his mouth and forced himself upright with his staff.

"Hah," he breathed, throat still thick from the damage. "You merely caught me off guard, girl. That is all. Nothing more." The smirk that followed was ugly—something that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Your alchemy… it's fascinating. Wrong, even. But functional. I haven't seen anything like it in a century. You truly are a special one." His voice dropped, acquiring a sickening purr. "I'll enjoy dissecting you when this is over. After we've… shared a moment or two."

Gretchen's only response was a sharp exhale.

Tamamo hummed, brushing against Gretchen's neck as she settled more comfortably on her shoulder. Her nine golden tails fanned out lazily.

"You handle things here," she murmured suddenly, her tone shifting from playful to serious. "I have to take care of something."

Gretchen didn't even glance at her. "Not like I need help."

Tamamo laughed softly

"But of course," she said, leaping off and meeting Gretchen's eyes with a small smile. "You're much different from Alexander and Ivan. You understand the flow of this world. You understand consequence. You understand what needs to be done."

One of her tails curled, tapping Gretchen lightly.

"But don't waste too much time," she added, voice lilting. "Some situations worsen the longer you let them breathe."

A wink. And Tamamo was gone—leaping across the debris with grace, moving faster than dust could rise in her wake.

Koschei watched her leave only briefly before snapping his focus back to Gretchen as he prepared a spell.

The air trembled.

Five circular green glyphs spiraled into existence before him, each one rotating in a different direction, each inscribed with sharp, shifting sigils that never stayed still long enough for the eye to fully read. The glyphs aligned themselves in a precise formation—three in front, two behind, forming a shape reminiscent of a mouth pulling open.

Koschei tapped the staff lightly against the ground.

The glyphs pulsed.

His voice slipped into an incantation—practiced, his tone almost gentle despite its malice.

"Ventus principium… disrumpe… concide…"

A pressure built in the courtyard, it made the chest tighten and the ears ring. Dust and loose gravel began to rattle, trembling toward the glyphs as though drawn by them.

Then the wind came.

A wave—a violent, concussive blast of air that roared from the glyphs, tearing across the stones with enough force to gouge trenches in the ground. The initial shock of it curved the surrounding air, distorting light, bending sound.

It slammed straight toward Gretchen.

She didn't flinch.

Instead, she shifted her weight, tapping the toe of her shoe against the cracked ground.

The ground answered.

A deep pulse radiated from beneath her, like a heartbeat syncing with her own. Then, in an instant, the earth erupted upward—a wall of stone and compressed soil rising with such force that it cracked in places as it formed, thick enough to resemble a fortress battlement.

The wind hit.

The impact sounded like a thunderclap. The shockwave expanded outward in a ring, kicking up dust, splintering smaller rocks, and sending several nearby Deseruit Beast cartwheeling through the air like rag dolls caught in a storm.

But the wall didn't move.

Gretchen lifted her hand, brushing a strand of hair away from her face with annoyance, as if the spell had simply been inconvenient.

She placed her palm flat against the wall.

Another pulse—this one resonating through stone. Thick columns exploded outward from the face of the wall, forming with brutal speed. They weren't random; they were aligned in a precise grid, each one shaped to pierce, crush, or flatten anything in their path.

They shot toward Koschei with seismic force.

Koschei's eyes widened for a split second—not in fear, but in recognition of her speed. He didn't chant this time. He simply lifted one hand, fingers opening as though he were brushing aside something.

Two translucent violet barriers flickered into existence before him—hexagonal patterns rippling across their surfaces, overlapping like scales. They materialized with a deep hum, thick with mana.

The first column struck.

The barrier didn't shatter, but it bowed inward like a sturdy door bracing against a battering ram. The second and third columns followed, the impacts echoing through the courtyard, each collision throwing waves of force outward that cracked the ground.

The columns split apart, crumbling into chunks that dissipated into dust midair.

Koschei's expression settled into something more serious. His grin remained, but it tightened at the edges.

"Well," he said quietly, almost conversationally. "I see you've decided to take this seriously. That's good." His tone sharpened. "Because things won't be nearly as easy now."

Gretchen arched a brow, crossing her arms lightly as she stepped out from behind the wall.

"You say that," she replied, her voice unhurried. "Yet your spells feel standard. Predictable and old-fashioned."

Koschei exhaled a soft laugh through his nose. "Old-fashioned? My dear girl, these incantations were ancient before your ancestors even breathed."

"Exactly," Gretchen said. "You seem to be relying on history. I'm relying on what works. Do you really think time makes your magic superior?" She raised a hand, tapping her fingertips together thoughtfully. "But time only makes things predictable."

Koschei's grin sharpened. "We'll see if you keep that tone. Allow me to show you, girl... why I survived long enough to forget."

His knuckles tightened around the length of his staff, a ripple of dark mana swirled around his fingers, gathering. He was already halfway through forming the incantation, subtle glyphs coiling into existence.

Gretchen simply lifted her hand and dismissively snapped her fingers.

A crisp sound—almost rude in its simplicity—cut through the tension. Koschei blinked, a look of confusion crossing his features. The half-formed spell in his palm stuttered for an instant, the glyphs stalling mid-revolution.

"What was—"

His sentence never finished.

His head snapped sharply to the left—not by choice, or by impact, but because the world beside him had abruptly decided to rearrange itself. A chunk of broken column that had been lying harmlessly on the ground moments earlier now lurched and twisted, stone screaming against itself as it contorted. It stretched, split, then elongated terrifyingly fast, the surface smoothing into an unnervingly perfect sheen as it reshaped into a vicious spike.

It punched clean through his torso.

The world blurred. His breath hitched. Pain, sharp and white, flashed through his body—but what rattled him more was the impossibility of the act. His fingers tightened involuntarily. He could feel the spike inside him, feel the stone's weight embedded beneath his ribs. He stared down at it, the tip jutting out from his back.

She hadn't touched it.

She hadn't even stepped near it.

His mind recoiled at the violation.

("How—how did she transmute something she wasn't in contact with? What principle did she circumvent? What rule did she break? What did she—")

He didn't have time to finish the thought.

Gritting his teeth, Koschei swung his staff with a harsh, violent snap of his arm. The wooden shaft cracked against the spike, slicing clean through it and sending fractured pieces skittering across the floor. He coughed, spat blood that splattered darkly across the stone, and pushed the rest of the spike out through the wound with a wet, unpleasant sound.

His body shuddered—but the tremor lasted barely a heartbeat. Flesh rippled as threads of unnatural vitality stitched him back together, muscles knitting, bone resealing, skin reforming with smoothness. Within seconds, the injury had vanished as though it had never been inflicted.

He lifted his gaze.

Gretchen was walking toward him.

Not rushing or darting. Just advancing at a measured pace. Her expression remained calm, almost serene, eyes carrying a levelness that made the hairs on the back of his neck lift.

Koschei inhaled through his nose, planting his feet.

He raised his hand.

A muttered chant slipped from his lips, sharply, syllables clicking together. Two black glyphs spun into existence before him—larger this time, layered with intricate structures, rotating with precision. They pulsed, once, then twice.

Then they fired.

A concentrated blast of black mana erupted from the glyphs—compressing the air into a screaming vortex as it tore forward. The pressure cracked the ground beneath the blasts' trajectory, leaving a scar in its wake.

Gretchen didn't stop.

She lifted her hand again—palm open, fingers spread. A small gesture.

The blast collided with her hand.

Koschei's eyes widened. Mana didn't just stop. Mana didn't behave that way. Not raw, unfiltered mana.

But it didn't stop.

It changed.

Right before him, the swirling darkness crystallized—literally. It hardened into frost-blue ice, spreading outward like frost racing across the ground. The sudden structure redirected the pressure, forming a thick, expanding wall of ice that rose between her and the second blast.

The next eruption of mana slammed into the barrier and dispersed into scattered motes of black that drifted downward.

Koschei's jaw tightened. His shock felt physical, like something trying to claw its way through his throat. His mind raced.

"You…" He swallowed, voice roughening. "You just—mana—mana cannot be transmuted. That's not how—"

"It can," Gretchen answered softly.

Her gaze held his, Koschei realized that he was standing in front of someone whose understanding of transmutation did not run parallel to his.

It ran beyond him.

"All things," she continued, "can be transmuted with me."

The simplicity of her words only deepened the weight they carried. Koschei felt something inside him react—a thrill alighting beneath his skin. A break in the tension. A spark. His confusion did not fade, but something else began to expand behind it.

Excitement.

Slowly, a grin unfurled across his lips.

His staff lowered just a fraction, not in surrender, but in anticipation.

His voice was low, breathless for reasons he didn't quite care to hide.

"…I see."

Gretchen didn't shift or answer.

Koschei's grin widened.

"You have no idea," he exhaled, "how long it's been since something truly surprised me. And Gods," he added quietly, reverently, "you have no idea how excited that makes me."

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