Mallory said, his smile stretching into something that had lost any trace of humanity.

"And do you know what’s funny? The concentration of the bloodline in you is even higher than it was in your mother."

Luna’s expression remained unmoved.

"Are you done?"

She had already known all of this for some time. How could she not, she had Evangeline with her, and who better than an ancient being like her to identify the precise nature of those experiments?

Learning the truth hadn’t saddened her. If anything, it had simply added more fuel to the rage that had been building inside her, rage that was already in the process of becoming something else entirely.

Mallory didn’t seem particularly concerned with her state of mind. Without wasting another moment, he opened his palm, and a long staff materialized within it, constructed entirely of green-violet mana, terminating in a serpent’s head from whose open mouth a razor-sharp blade extended.

The shape of that weapon alone carried enough pressure to make a B-rank stiffen and a A-rank fear for their life.

"Burning the bloodline normally carries severe consequences afterward," he said, already moving toward her. "But in this case, I already have what I need to recover once I’m done with you. And after that, I’ll finally obtain what rightfully belongs to me."

He charged forward.

One moment he stood dozens of meters away. The next, he was already in front of Luna.

The green-violet staff came at Luna at a speed that was barely perceptible to the naked eye. The serpent’s head at its tip opened wide, and the pressure radiating from the blade that extended from it cracked the stone of the manor below them.

Luna deflected the blow to the side. Her black blade absorbed the impact without trembling.

But the force that propagated from the collision sent her sliding back several meters through the air.

She registered the difference in power from that single exchange alone.

Mallory didn’t give her time to steady herself. He pulled back and struck again, a rapid sequence this time, vertical, horizontal, thrust, each strike was accompanied by an explosion of green-violet mana that left glowing trails in the surrounding air, trails that struck everything they touched.

Trees. Buildings. People.

Screams erupted from the city below.

The one responsible, suspended above it all, couldn’t have cared less.

"What’s wrong? Not attacking anymore?" he sneered. "What happened to that arrogant look you had earlier? Come on, show me how you plan to survive this."

Luna parried, deflected, gave ground.

Each exchange pushed her back a few more meters. Not enough to lose control, but enough to make the gap between them unmistakable.

Mallory’s mana was raw and unstable, like a dam failing under pressure it was never built to contain, but the sheer volume of it was overwhelming. The amount of energy he poured into every strike was simply too much.

Luna dodged a thrust that nearly bisected her and countered, black blade cutting a wide arc through the air, loaded with compressed void energy.

Mallory angled the staff and redirected the strike upward. The void energy dispersed above them in a dark cloud that dissolved slowly.

"Tch. Still using that energy. It won’t save you today."

He tilted his head, his voice taking on the tone of someone who had grown tired of toying with an inferior opponent.

"For someone at your current rank, you’ve done well to survive this long. But this is your limit. Stop resisting and accept your fate."

Luna didn’t answer.

She pushed forward, no elemental energy this time, just raw speed and physical pressure. Her blade came down three times in rapid succession, each strike aimed at a different point, forcing Mallory onto the defensive across multiple angles at once.

For a moment, he gave ground.

Just a moment.

Then the mana detonated from him like a shockwave, and Luna found herself thrown back thirty meters before she could stabilize.

Her left arm was completely mangled. Not broken, but close.

Mallory lowered the staff slowly. For the first time, his breathing carried the faintest irregularity, not from exertion, but from the body beneath him beginning to fail. The dark veins along his neck had widened. The green-violet eye pulsed unevenly.

He understood that his body could no longer sustain that level of power much longer.

"Time to end this," he said, and all pretense left his voice.

He raised the staff with both hands. The mana around him condensed into something, a column of green-violet energy coiling up from the base of the weapon toward its tip, compressing until it was nearly solid.

The technique built slowly. Each second of charging added another layer of pressure that made the air around them heavier and heavier.

The ruins of the manor beneath them began to creak.

"Let’s see how you survive this attack."

With that, he unleashed the attack.

The column of energy descended like a verdict, carrying with it everything that remained of his borrowed strength.

The impact swallowed what was left of the manor, tore through the hill beneath it, and drove itself into the city below.

Mallory coughed a mouthful of black blood as he steadied himself. It was clear his body had nearly reached its absolute limit, it could no longer bear the weight of that power.

But it didn’t matter.

With that final strike, the girl was finished.

Or so he believed.

He lowered his head, expecting to see the miserable state she had been reduced to.

Instead, he found nothing of the sort.

She wasn’t on the ground. She was still suspended in the air, exactly where she had been standing when the column of energy came down on her.

Her clothing was torn in several places. Blood ran from a cut along the side of her face. But her sword was still in her hand, undamaged, and her eyes were fixed on him.

Empty. Unreadable. Not pained, not panicked, simply devoid of anything at all.

"Did you really think I came here unprepared?"

Her voice was calm. And the moment the words landed, an involuntary chill moved through Mallory’s body.

He didn’t understand why, not immediately. But something in him registered it before his mind could. Something was about to go very, very wrong.

High above the city, far from the battlefield, Evangeline watched from the sky and smiled. It was the expression of someone who had been expecting exactly this.

"Let’s see how much of that power she can actually release," she murmured, her tone carrying the quiet satisfaction of someone watching something interesting unfold.

The air across the entire city seemed to thicken, an invisible, imperceptible change that pressed down on everything beneath it.

Not gradually.

Not with the controlled progression of someone deciding to stop holding back. No. It simply exploded.

B-Rank (Advanced-Stage).

Peak.

Within seconds.

Luna’s strength, which had already stabilized around B-Rank (Mid-Stage), surged upward without showing any signs of stopping.

And in an instant it reached A-Rank. Still it didn’t stop.

Mid-Stage. Advanced-Stage. Peak.

In the span of a single second, her power crossed from B-Rank to the peak of A-Rank.

Mallory felt the weight of that pressure like a physical blow, and for the first time in the entire battle, his body reacted on its own. The ancestral bloodline within him, that minuscule remnant of Aurora Couatl he had burned almost entirely, trembled.

As if it recognized something.

As if it was afraid.

Then he saw it.

Behind Luna, in the air above her, something was beginning to take shape.