[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: The Deathless Fortress]

Koschei did not rush the spell.

The glyphs above him rotated slowly, their black rings layered. He raised his staff and began to chant.

Gretchen felt it before the air reacted.

Pressure gathered overhead as the glyphs merged and vanished. The air suddenly felt dense and suffocating, as if the sky were being compressed into a single point. Heat followed as her eyes lifted just in time.

A massive red glyph tore into existence above her, its geometry odd and aggressive, lines cutting across the air.

"So that's your answer," she murmured. "Merely another flashy spell."

The glyph collapsed downward.

Fire followed.

Not a wave—too unfocused for Koschei's taste. Not a blast—too wasteful. This was a column. A vertical torrent of flame driven straight into the ground with enough force to pulverize stone into fragments. The impact cracked the earth apart, fractures racing outward as the heat distorted the air.

Gretchen was already gone.

She did not choose to flee blindly. She merely shifted her weight cleanly as her heel brushed the ground. That single point of contact was all she needed.

The ground beneath her foot softened, then surged upward in a violent bloom. Layers folded over one another as a thick wall rose between her and the fire, its surface rough and uneven but dense. The flames slammed into it head-on.

The wall held, but barely.

Its outer layers glowed white-hot, cracks spiderwebbing under the sustained assault. Gretchen didn't wait for it to fail. She rolled away as the wall began to collapse inward, heat licking across her back as she landed hard and slid across scorched stone.

She was already turning—

—and Koschei was there.

He appeared behind her in a burst of speed that defied his apparent age, robes snapping sharply as if the air had been displaced. His staff ignited with a brilliant blue glow, mana condensing around it in thick arcs.

The light elongated, flattened and then sharpened until a massive translucent blade extended from the staff's tip.

Koschei swung without hesitation.

Gretchen reacted on instinct.

She lashed out with her bare hand, palm open, meeting the blade head-on, her transmutation seized control immediately. The blade froze mid-swing, its ethereal surface snapping into rigid crystal as her alchemy forced structure onto it.

The crystal collapsed.

The blade liquefied into water, falling around her hand before surging outward again, reforming mid-motion. The liquid hardened, elongated, and lashed back toward Koschei in a storm of solid spikes. He leapt away, feet barely grazing the ground as the spikes shredded the space he had occupied a heartbeat earlier. They embedded themselves deep into the stone behind him, vibrating violently with residual force.

Koschei landed lightly, staff spinning once before he steadied it.

Then he laughed.

"Oh, that is clever," he said, voice bright with genuine appreciation. "Turning my spell against me that quickly?"

"Stop spouting nonsense," Gretchen replied, pushing herself upright. Her breathing was steady, but her eyes tracked him carefully. ("That speed… it seemed so sudden. I didn't detect any reinforcement magic either. Was he holding back before?")

"You adapt fast," Koschei continued. "But adaptation alone doesn't win wars."

He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.

The impact boomed outward, a shockwave rippling through the area. An enormous glyph flared to life beneath them, its circumference expanding rapidly until it encircled the entire area. Swirling patterns locked into place along its edge.

Gretchen felt it immediately.

The air thickened as the mana density spiked. Space felt tighter, more regulated, as if invisible hands were pressing inward from all sides.

Koschei began chanting again, louder now. The glyph responded, lines brightening as the spell neared completion.

"Your efficiency is impressive," he said between syllables. "You waste almost nothing. But you rely on reaction." His eyes narrowed slightly. "I wonder how long that holds once the field itself works against you."

Gretchen glanced down.

A pebble lay near her boot, half-buried in dust. It was of course unremarkable and very easily forgotten. But that was more than enough. Before Koschei could finish the chant, she kicked it. Not hard. Just enough to send it skittering forward.

Mid-flight, her power snapped onto it.

The pebble expanded violently, its mass multiplying as its structure rewrote itself. Stone became metal—dense. It elongated into a massive spike, tearing through the air with a shriek of displaced wind.

Koschei's eyes widened.

He broke his chant and twisted aside at the last possible instant. The spike tore past him, shearing off part of his sleeve and gouging a deep trench into the ground beyond.

He landed, breath hitching once.

("What a bother.")

The thought came to Gretchen with a small exhale rather than irritation. Not frustration, not fear—just the weary annoyance of someone who had already solved a problem and now had to wait for it to finish pretending it was complicated.

("His magic isn't terribly complex or powerful.")

She watched Koschei from where she stood, her eyes tracing the way his staff angled, the cadence of his breathing, the tension in his shoulders as he prepared another spell. There was nothing sloppy about his casting, but there was nothing inspired either. Every movement followed a familiar grammar.

("If I had to guess, he's only using magic from the Scripta tier of the Lex Caelorum.")

That alone should have been reassuring.

Of the four tiers of magic that stemmed from the First Tree, Scripta was the foundation—structure without nuance, rules without interpretation. The language novices learned before they were allowed to ask why magic worked. It was the tier of diagrams etched into stone, of circles drawn carefully and repeated endlessly until the caster could recite them without thought.

Reliable and very predictable.

But deadly, in the wrong hands.

It seemed to be Koschei's preferred tier. His comfort zone. Gretchen couldn't yet tell whether that was by limitation or by choice. Either possibility carried its own implications, neither especially comforting.

("I don't know if he can even use magic from the second tier.")

That uncertainty lingered longer than she liked.

She narrowed her eyes as Koschei straightened, his staff lifting once more. The mana around him thickened—it was not refined or elegant, but heavy, like wet clay forced into shape through sheer insistence.

("What makes his spells lethal isn't their construction,") She continued her internal assessment calmly. ("It's the excess. He's pouring far too much mana into them.")

That was the true danger. Not finesse, not hidden complexity—just overwhelming volume. Like using a hammer where a blade would suffice, trusting that enough force would eventually break anything placed in front of it.

Her gaze sharpened.

("So what are you playing at?") She could feel the direction of the fight trying to shift, could sense his intent even if she didn't yet see the mechanism. ("You say you want a battle of attrition, yet you burn through mana like this.") It didn't add up. ("Are you trying to force this into a physical exchange?")

That possibility made her shoulders tense slightly. Not because she feared close combat—but because it suggested something she hadn't yet seen.

Koschei's voice cut through her thoughts, smooth and unhurried.

"Why aren't you attacking, deary?" He smiled as he spoke, that same infuriatingly calm grin. "Do not tell me you've already grown weary," he continued lightly. "I haven't even begun to show you what I'm truly capable of."

Gretchen scoffed, the sound sharp.

"Do you enjoy running your mouth that much?" she shot back. "For someone who insists on calling himself a sorcerer, your spells are… underwhelming." She tilted her head just slightly, eyes never leaving him. "I'm hoping you don't honestly believe any of them are going to so much as nick me." Her words were crueler than necessary. She knew that. But cruelty, she had learned, was often the fastest way to provoke truth. ("Still,") Her thoughts ran beneath her expression, alert. ("Why only offensive spells?")

She had seen no hexes layered into the air. No lingering curses woven into the ground. No charms, no misdirection, no interference gnawing at her mana flow.

("Does he truly lack them? Or is he waiting?")

Koschei hummed softly, as if amused by her skepticism.

"Who knows," he said, spreading one hand in a mock shrug. "Perhaps I'm simply not a very versatile sorcerer."

The way he said it—the ease, the lack of defensiveness—made her frown despite herself. He didn't sound offended. He didn't even sound challenged.

He sounded entertained.

("I see,") Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. ("So you're trying to take me off guard.")

Her eyes turned outward, scanning the terrain again. The ground. The air. The remnants of previous spells. Every shadow, every crack in the stone.

Nothing.

No hidden glyphs. No delayed incantations. No telltale disturbances.

("Tch.") The absence bothered her more than any obvious threat. ("Fine. It doesn't matter.") Her stance shifted subtly, weight settling, fingers flexing once at her side. ("I'll reach you long before you reach whatever you're preparing.")

She met Koschei's gaze again, her expression resolute.

"Keep smiling," she said quietly. "Whatever trick you're relying on, you're betting too much on me hesitating."

Koschei's grin widened just a fraction.

"Oh, I'm not betting on hesitation," he replied.

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