The impact between the two presences was not accompanied by sound—not in the usual sense. There was no bang, no audible explosion. What spread was something deeper, more visceral, like a distortion in the very perception of space. The entire hall seemed to bend for a brief instant, as if reality had been pushed beyond what it was designed to withstand.

Kael’s energy advanced first.

Not like an uncontrolled wave, but like a directed force, precise, overwhelming in its intent. There was no waste. There was no excess. Every fragment of that presence seemed to know exactly where it needed to be, as if obeying a logic that transcended any conventional magical system.

The woman’s shadows reacted.

They did not retreat.

They expanded.

Like a living organism, the darkness around her rose in layers, forming structures that were neither completely solid nor completely ethereal. Blades emerged from within the shadow itself, curved and distorted, pointing in all directions, while the space around her seemed to deepen... as if looking directly at her was the same as looking into something bottomless.

The collision between the two was not a simple shock.

It was... a struggle for dominance.

The air between them began to fragment into invisible patterns, small ruptures that appeared and disappeared in fractions of a second, as if each side were trying to impose its own version of reality on the other.

Kael didn’t move immediately.

He just... held his ground.

His eyes were fixed on her, analyzing, but not as before. There was no more curiosity. Only execution. His presence pressed, not with anger, but with an absolute certainty that it had to yield.

And, for the first time—

Her shadow... hesitated.

It was minimal.

Almost nonexistent.

But it was real.

Exelia had already advanced.

While the center of the hall transformed into that clash of absurd forces, she moved along the edges of the conflict, her body shifting at a calculated angle, avoiding the zone of greatest pressure without even looking back. Her eyes were fixed on Vlad.

And now—

He was the target.

The aura around him still pulsed erratically, stronger than before, but also more disorganized. The woman’s influence sustained him, nourished him... but also consumed him. Small, invisible fissures continued to form within him, accumulating with each second that force remained active.

Exelia noticed.

And explored.

Her first move wasn’t a direct attack.

It was a cut.

Horizontal.

Precise.

Not to strike Vlad directly, but to test.

The blade pierced the air... and encountered resistance.

The energy around him reacted, forming an instinctive, dense barrier, like a compressed layer of raw power. The impact didn’t generate sound, but it did generate vibration, a wave that traveled up Exelia’s arm to her shoulder.

She didn’t recoil.

But she adjusted.

"So that’s how it is..." she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else.

And she advanced again.

This time, faster.

Closer.

Her movements were fluid, precise, each step calculated to exploit the growing instability of that aura. She wasn’t trying to force her way through. She was... finding flaws.

Vlad reacted.

Finally.

His eyes locked on her with renewed intensity, and this time, there was something more there. Not just control... but interference. His hand moved quickly, and the air around her seemed to compress, trying to hold her in place.

But Exelia was no longer there.

She vanished from the point of impact the exact moment the compression closed, reappearing beside him at an angle impossible for an ordinary person to follow. Her blade came from below, aiming not at his body, but at the junction of his aura.

And this time—

There was contact.

The energy around Vlad didn’t completely block.

It... yielded.

For an instant.

A small opening.

But it was enough.

The cut wasn’t deep.

But it was real.

And, the moment it happened—

The reaction was immediate.

The aura around Vlad oscillated violently, like a flame struck by a gust of wind. The connection that sustained him... failed for a second.

And that second—

That was everything.

Vlad recoiled.

Not by choice.

But because his body responded before his mind.

And, in that brief interval—

He lost his balance.

On the other side of the hall, Kael noticed.

Not visually.

But structurally.

The shift in energy was enough.

And he acted.

His presence ceased to press uniformly.

It focused.

Directly on the woman.

Like an invisible blade being sharpened.

The shadows reacted more aggressively now, expanding in a clear attempt to contain it. Structures emerged, distorted, almost organic, advancing toward him as if trying to engulf him completely.

But Kael didn’t recoil.

He advanced.

One step.

And the space ahead of him... yielded.

It wasn’t displacement.

It was imposition.

The shadows that touched that area simply... ceased to exist for an instant, dissipated by something that didn’t even give them a chance to resist.

The woman’s eyes changed.

This time, it wasn’t just a narrowing.

It was focus.

She raised her hand.

And the hall responded.

The shadows around her rearranged themselves on a much larger scale, rising up the columns, covering the ceiling, descending like a living tide that now tried not only to contain—it tried to consume.

The entire environment darkened.

Not from a lack of light.

But from an excess of presence.

Kael stopped.

And smiled.

Not with light amusement.

But with recognition.

"Now that’s more like it," he murmured.

And then—

He stopped holding back.

The energy around him exploded.

Not as before.

Not controlled in subtle layers.

But released.

Directly.

The surrounding magic circles spun simultaneously, their structures expanding, connecting more intensely, forming an absurd network of power that began to rewrite the space within the hall.

The floor truly cracked now.

The walls vibrated.

And the pressure—

Became unbearable.

The shadows advanced.

Like a wave.

Like an abyss trying to swallow everything in its path.

And Kael—

Advanced against it.

Without slowing down.

Without hesitating.

The two forces collided again.

But this time—

It was different.

It wasn’t balance.

It was direct confrontation.

The shadow tried to envelop.

Kael’s presence broke through.

The structures collided, crumbled, and rebuilt themselves in real time, each side attempting to dominate the other’s space on a scale that no longer respected the surrounding physical environment.

Meanwhile—

Exelia pressed on.

Vlad was no longer in complete control.

His aura was still powerful, still dangerous, but the instability was now clear. Each of his movements was accompanied by small flaws, small delays, as if his body couldn’t perfectly keep up with the force coursing through him.

Exelia exploited this.

Her attacks weren’t continuous.

They were precise.

Surgical.

Each blow targeted a specific point, each movement sought to provoke more instability, more wear and tear.

And it was working.

Vlad tried to react with brute force, launching a wave of energy directly at her.

She dodged.

But this time, not completely.

The impact grazed her arm, enough to displace her a few meters backward.

She landed.

She glided.

And smiled.

"Now it’s interesting," she murmured.

And moved forward again.

In the center—

Kael and the woman were no longer just testing.

They were... fighting.

For real.

And, little by little—

It became clear.

She was powerful.

Extremely.

But—

Not on the same level.

And Kael...

Had already realized this.

The realization didn’t come as a surprise to Kael. There wasn’t that classic moment of revelation, no dramatic flash of understanding. It was simpler than that—direct, almost banal within his logic. He already knew. From the moment her pressure responded to his not with dominance, but with adaptation. From the moment the shadows needed to grow to compensate, instead of simply existing above all else.

She was powerful.

But she was still... reacting.

And that, for him, already defined the outcome.

Even so, Kael didn’t immediately move to end it. There was a process there—not out of necessity, but out of precision. He wanted to understand its limit. Not the superficial, not the ostentatious, but the structural one. How far would it go before breaking.

The shadow came again.

This time denser, more aggressive, compressed into less dispersed and more defined forms. Blades emerged from nowhere, black arcs that cut not only matter but space, displacing the very air as they advanced. They came from multiple angles, synchronized, without obvious gaps.

Kael didn’t flinch.

He raised his hand slightly.

And the world... adjusted.

The nearest magic circles spun in unison, aligning in a formation that didn’t seem defensive at first glance—there was no solid barrier, no wall of energy. Instead, the space between him and the attack shifted. The shadow blades entered that zone... and simply lost coherence.

They didn’t disappear.

They dissolved.

As if the structure that held them together had been negated.

The woman’s eyes narrowed a little more.

Now there was no doubt.

She was being forced to... answer.

And that wasn’t what she expected.

Kael took another step forward.

This time, there was no immediate collision.

The shadow retreated.

Not out of fear.

But out of necessity.

Reorganization.

It moved sideways, not like a physical body traversing space, but like something simply ceasing to be in one place and moving to another. It emerged further away, the shadows around it slowly rotating, as if recalibrating.

Kael tilted his head slightly.

Observing.

"You rely on this too much," he said calmly.

It wasn’t provocation.

It was diagnosis.

The answer came differently this time.

Not as a direct attack.

But as pressure.

The darkness in the hall deepened once more, but now more intensely. It was no longer an expansive tide—it was crushing. It was as if space itself were being pulled inward, compressed around him, trying to reduce the field where he could exist.

The circles reacted instantly.

Some inverted.

Others disappeared and reappeared in different positions.

The structure changed.

Adapted.

Kael remained in the center.

Immobile.

For a second.

And then—

He released.

It wasn’t an uncontrolled explosion.

It was... vertical.

The pressure surrounding him was pushed out all at once, not like a wave, but like an absolute expansion, occupying space without asking permission. The woman’s compression broke at the same instant, as if it had never been enough to contain it.

The ground gave way a little more.

Now not in thin cracks, but in entire slabs that shifted under the released force.

The shadows receded again.

This time, faster.

More obvious.

And Kael... stopped smiling.

His gaze remained fixed on her.

But now there was something different.

There was no more analysis.

Nor curiosity.

It was... conclusion.

On the other side of the hall, the combat between Exelia and Vlad had intensified.

He no longer tried to maintain perfect posture.

The instability had transformed into aggression.

His movements were wider, more direct, charged with brute force that came in irregular bursts. Each of his attacks had weight, had impact—but lacked precision.

Exelia exploited every flaw.

She didn’t block.

She dodged.

She slid through the space between attacks, approaching only enough to hit specific points and retreating before a full response. Her blade had already marked Vlad more than once—non-fatal cuts, but cumulative ones.

And, most importantly—

His connection continued to fail.

Small lapses.

Small interruptions.

More and more frequent.

"You can’t take much more," Exelia said softly, turning to avoid another heavy blow that had split the ground where she had stood a second before.

Vlad didn’t answer.

But he advanced.

This time faster.

More desperate.

And that was exactly what she wanted.

In the center—

The woman finally moved differently.

She didn’t retreat.

She advanced.

But not directly.

The shadows around her compressed into a more defined, almost humanoid form, but larger, more elongated, with limbs that didn’t follow natural proportions. It advanced first, like an extension of her, traversing space with absurd speed.

Kael didn’t dodge.

He took a step forward—

And passed through.

Not physically.

But structurally.

The shadow shape collided with him... and shattered.

Not into pieces.

But into flaws.

As if it couldn’t maintain its integrity at that point.

And then—

They stood face to face.

Without distance.

Without intermediaries.

The entire room seemed to hold what little air remained.

The woman raised her hand.

This time, there was no subtlety.

The shadow converged directly on that point, condensing into something dense enough to distort the light around it.

Kael didn’t wait.

He raised his hand as well.

And, for the first time—

There was direct contact.

Not between flesh.

But between forces.

The impact wasn’t visible in the usual way.

But it was felt by everyone.

Like a rupture.

As if something much larger than the hall had been pressed inside.

For an instant—

Everything froze.

And then—

The difference appeared.

Her shadow resisted.

But... it began to yield.

Not all at once.

Not completely.

But enough.

Kael took another step forward.

Forcing.

Not increasing uncontrollably.

But concentrating.

Directing.

And, for the first time since she appeared—

Her body moved backward.

A single step.

Small.

But real.

And that—

Was decisive.

Kael tilted his head slightly.

"Is that all?" he asked.

There was no exaggerated arrogance.

Just observation.

The pressure increased a little more.

And this time—

She felt it.

Truly.

Behind them, Vlad failed again.

This time more obviously.

His body froze for a full second, the energy around him oscillating violently, as if he were about to collapse.

Exelia didn’t waste any time.

She advanced.

Quickly.

Directly.

And her blade came—

Aiming not at the body.

But at the point where the connection was most unstable.

And this time—

She didn’t intend just to cut.

She intended... to sever.