[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: The Deathless Fortress]

Gretchen leapt backward, boots scraping against ground, her dress snapping sharply behind her as heat surged along both flanks. The mana signature hit her a heartbeat later—dense and aggressive, shaped without elegance. To her left and right, fire coalesced mid-charge, forced into bestial forms.

A boar, large and wide, tusks blazing white-hot as it tore forward with a guttural roar. An ox, taller, heavier, its shoulders rolling as it thundered across the ruined ground, hooves leaving melted impressions behind it.

They weren't illusions and they weren't summons either. They were but crude constructs—fire given form and more velocity, sustained by output.

("Predictable again,") Gretchen thought calmly, even as the heat licked her skin. ("And much too linear.")

Her foot tapped the ground once.

The earth to either side of her surged upward in thick slabs, stone folding and stacking as if pulled by invisible hands. Two walls rose in perfect timing, dense and wide, their surfaces still rough with fractures as they locked into place.

The fire constructs hit them a fraction of a second later.

The impact was deafening. Flame exploded outward as the boar and ox collided headlong with the stone, heat blooming violently before collapsing in on itself. The walls blackened, cracked, and held—just long enough for the constructs to lose cohesion and disperse into roaring bursts of embers and smoke.

Gretchen didn't wait for the aftermath.

Both hands pressed flat against the stone at her sides.

Stone softened, edges rounding as solidity gave way to fluidness. The mass peeled away from her palms and surged forward, no longer walls but twin columns that stretched outward like waves. They moved with terrifying speed, surfaces rippling as if liquid despite their weight.

Koschei leapt back just as the columns reached him, feet skidding as he twisted mid-air. The stone waves collided where he had been standing, crashing into one another with a thunderous crack that sent shards and dust exploding outward.

But Gretchen was already advancing.

She launched forward, feet barely touching the ground as the ruined terrain beneath her reacted instinctively. Stone bulged upward in a violent swell, lifting her higher before losing cohesion entirely. The earth liquefied beneath her step, the mass breaking apart into a thick surge of water that followed her arc through the air.

Koschei planted his staff and snapped it upward.

A barrier bloomed above him—a large, hexagonal plane of violet light, layered and rigid, stacking and locking into place. Water hammered against it in a relentless torrent. Droplets struck, flattened, and splashed harmlessly at first. Then they stopped, suspended mid-impact.

Gretchen's eyes narrowed.

("There.")

The water detonated.

The explosion wasn't fire—it was pressure. Compressed mass releasing all at once. The barrier shattered in a burst of shards, violet light splintering as the force slammed directly into Koschei's center.

He was sent flying.

His body tore through the air, robes snapping violently as he struck the ground hard enough to gouge a trench through stone and debris.

But Gretchen was already there.

She closed the distance in a burst, boots striking down as her hand reached out—not clenched, not poised to strike, but open, fingers spread as if to seize something intangible.

Koschei twisted at the last second.

He rolled, momentum carrying him backward as he forced himself upright. His staff swung in a sharp arc, mana condensing instantly at its tip. Lightning tore through the air in the next instance. A brilliant bolt screamed toward Gretchen, splitting the space between them—

—and missed.

She shifted her head a fraction, her body angling just enough for the bolt to pass harmlessly by, tearing into the ground behind her and leaving a smoking crater in its wake. Koschei landed lightly this time, staff scraping against stone as he regained his balance. The grin remained, though it had tightened at the corners.

Gretchen reached up. Her fingers slid into her hair with casualness, pinching a single strand between thumb and forefinger. She tugged once and let it go.

The strand didn't fall, it was caught in the wind and stretched. Metal crept along its length in a rush, the filament thickening, hardening and elongating. In less than a second it had become a long, gleaming pike, surface smooth, its weight warping the air around it.

Koschei scoffed.

"So you resort to theatrics now?" he said, already stepping aside.

The pike screamed past the space where his head had been, close enough to stir his robes. He didn't even flinch. His confidence didn't waver—if anything, it sharpened.

But the weapon didn't stop.

Mid-flight, the shaft widened abruptly, metal blooming outward as if unfolding from itself. The head split and curved, forming a rotating circular blade that spun with a high, cutting whine, its edge flashing as it curved back toward him.

Koschei clicked his tongue.

"Expected."

A translucent violet barrier snapped into place at his side, angled just enough to catch the spinning weapon. The blade struck, shrieking against the barrier in a storm of sparks, rotation slowing before it skidded away and buried itself into the ground beyond.

At the same time, mana surged above him.

A large circular black glyph blossomed into existence overhead, lines layered with secondary rings that rotated in opposing directions. Koschei raised his staff and began to chant, voice steady and resonant as the glyph responded.

Flames answered.

Not a simple jet or burst—it was a wave, wide and consuming, rolling outward in a roaring wall of fire that devoured the ground as it advanced. Stone blackened, cracked, and exploded under the heat as the air screamed.

Koschei finished the chant and smiled—

Then blinked.

The space where Gretchen had been standing was empty. The fire surged on, consuming the ground and scattering debris, but there was no resistance. Just absence.

"What—"

Pain answered him.

Two columns of stone erupted from the ground behind him brutally, spearing forward and through his abdomen. The impact lifted him off his feet, breath tearing from his lungs as blood sprayed forward.

"—ghk!"

The columns were not jagged or crude. They were clean and shaped to pierce and hold. The stone around them flowed like liquid, rippling as it stabilized, locking him in place. Koschei coughed, blood staining his beard as his vision swam. He twisted his head just enough to look back.

The stone parted.

It peeled open smoothly, as if drawn aside, and Gretchen stepped through the gap. She was close enough now that he could see the beauty of the calm etched into her expression.

She reached for him.

Her fingers extended, slowly, brushing just barely against the fabric of his sleeve as he forced himself to move. With a grunt and a surge of mana, he tore himself free, leaping back as the stone collapsed inward where he'd been pinned.

He landed hard, feet skidding, staff striking the ground to steady himself.

And then he noticed it.

His right sleeve had gone rigid.

Gold crept across the fabric in spreading veins, it overtaking cloth, crawling up his arm. The transformation was slow enough to be seen but fast enough to be fatal if left unchecked.

Koschei stared at it for half a heartbeat—

Then acted.

Mana flared along the edge of his staff, condensing sharply. Without hesitation, he swung. The strike was clean. His right arm severed at the shoulder, falling away and hitting the ground with a heavy clang, already fully transmuted into dull gold as it rolled to a stop.

Blood followed a moment later.

Koschei staggered, teeth gritted, breath sharp and shallow—but then he laughed.

It was hoarse but genuine.

"Well," he said, voice uneven as he pressed a hand against the bloodied stump, the healing already beginning. "That is unpleasant."

Gretchen didn't move despite his injury.

"You didn't hesitate," she said. "At the very least I commend you for not being a coward."

"Most people die because of hesitation," Koschei replied lightly, despite the blood still staining his robes. He straightened, shoulders squaring as if he hadn't just lost an arm. "Your alchemy is absurdly dangerous, my dear. Truly. One brush and you rewrite the world." His grin returned, thinner now, and much sharper. "But did you really think," he continued, eyes locking onto hers, "that I was simply throwing spells around at random?"

The ground pulsed.

Gretchen's eyes widened a fraction as mana surged beneath her feet.

Before she could move, a massive glyph ignited beneath her—a complex array expanding outward in perfect geometry, lines locking into place as it spread far beyond her immediate position. The ground seemed to accept the pattern, glowing as it completed.

Walls of translucent hexagonal light rose around her in an instant, snapping together overhead to form a sealed barrier. The air inside thickened, pressure building as the structure stabilized.

Gretchen struck it once with her palm.

The barrier didn't budge.

Koschei exhaled slowly, triumph bleeding through his exhaustion.

"There," he said softly. "That's the answer." He looked at her through the barrier, one arm gone, bloodied and battered—yet smiling all the same. "It seems," he continued, voice carrying easily. "This was never about speed. Or power. Or even attrition." The glyph beneath her pulsed again, tightening. "It was merely about positioning."

Gretchen's jaw tightened as she assessed the barrier, fingers brushing the glowing surface.

("Rejecting my transmutation? But how?") Her eyes narrowed as Koschei's smile widened.

"I've won."

The light intensified.

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