Hellfire blasted through the fractured floor, painting the surroundings with flickering shades of red and orange. The atmospheric temperature rose, and the air itself wrapped, creating mirages of infernal scape.

Iris drew her hands to the side. In her chest, the demonic eye blinked and plunged forwards. It crawled out of her body and screamed. Its gaping mouth breathed yellowish gas that corroded everything it touched.

Gilworth took a step forward. His expression darkened but only for a moment. He whispered a tale of the ancient past, detailing a legendary sword whose wielder used it to cut through all malice. His sword glimmered; the runes engraved on it shifted their places.

He slashed his sword skyward. Behind him, the net of intertwining strikes shot for the demonic eye. Upon their clash, a sharp shockwave boomed. The ground shattered, the tall shelves shook, the ceiling crumbled, and the section quaked.

Iris held Olivia in her embrace and stooped down. A barrier of ethereal liquid enveloped her, pushing away all debris and stray magical explosions.

“Olivia, would you help me?” Iris said.

Olivia’s eyes shimmered. “Anything for you, Mistress.”

“You’re starting to sound like someone I know.” Iris smiled. “Capture those students. Test their limit, especially the girl in the back; she’s my lovely little pupil.”

Olivia quickened her breaths. She looked forward to learning about this girl who received her saviour’s grace.

At the impact site, the demonic eye grew a swarm of monstrous spiky arms from its mouth. They grabbed the net of invisible blades which rapidly encircled the eye. The net brightened, reflecting the oncoming demonic hands, and annihilated everything it touched.

Gilworth exhaled. His upward strike deflected all splinters and fragments heading his way. Though he and his pupils were unharmed, he remained uneasy. His enemy’s method was too cryptic and too casual.

He might be able to keep his life, but could he protect his students?

“You all will head to the fifth emergency exit. Understood?” he said.

“We won’t forsake you,” an undergrad said. “We can support—”

“Leave!”

The students rigidly nodded their heads and grouped together. They rushed away from their professor and to the designated exit. Their chaotic footsteps paled when compared to the explosions and earthquakes thundering after them.

Their leader, the senior undergraduate, raised his right hand and clenched it. Everyone behind him slowed their pace, confusion plaguing their nervous eyes.

In front of the group, the stone floor crackled and split open a hole. Crystal pillars sprung from it, towering over the ground. At the centre, a feminine figure emerged from the gems. Her gem-like eyes flickered when she blinked, and her mirror-like body shimmered when she moved.

 In her right hand held a white cane with a black diamond as its crown. She delicately caressed it as the greatest treasure she could possess.

“I am to stop you all from leaving,” Olivia said. “Please don’t struggle. I promise you no harm.”

“Your name’s Olivia, right?” the senior said. “Can you let us leave? We don’t have to fight.”

“We won’t have to fight if you don’t resist.” Olivia beamed. “Mistress Black Rose is kind; she won’t touch any of you.”

“You’re a student of our academy. Why must you do this?”

“I knew what it felt like; that’s why I must stop you.”

The senior gritted his teeth. The students behind him whispered among themselves. The explosions and trembling behind them reminded them that their mentor was buying them time.

If they couldn’t escape, his sacrifice would be in vain.

Olivia kissed the cane and drew her left hand to the front. Sparkling dust flowed from her arm and enlarged into thin films of fractal shapes. They hovered before her, shifting their places, blocking her silhouette, revealing parts of her beauty.

“We have our beliefs,” Olivia said. “Let’s see whose belief is stronger, whose conviction more intense.”

“You leave us no choice.” The senior looked at his fellow students. “We’ll break out of her entrapment. Focus on suppressing her, not killing her. Escaping is our objective.”

Everyone nodded. They readied their spells, their hands shaking. Their enemy, though alone, was a dreadful Monster Girl, a being of Corruption. She was also once a scholar of the academy, strong and knowledgeable enough to enter Mystic Tower.

Amidst the nervous students, Tundra kept looking behind her. The multi-coloured blooms and flashes concealed that mysterious lady, whose manner and aura intrigued her.

She found herself unafraid of the Corrupted Ones. This conflicted feeling squeezed her chest, but she couldn’t find a reason for it.

Though her mind was in shamble, she didn’t freeze. Her Pure Power rose to her hands and circled them. Along with her gesture, snow-white flowers materialised and bloomed. They fluttered, radiating chilly air, before they joined other spells in flying to their sole target.

Olivia, grinning, flipped her left hand. A floating crystal in front of her rotated along its axis, slid to before the rain of spells, and shone heroically. Its fragile structure shattered upon impact. Its fragments, each reflecting an individual spell, manifested within itself a phantasmal imitation of its target.

These phantoms broke free from the fragments, annihilating them, and met their counterparts. Bursts of colours dyed the surrounding with strong, contrasting hues like hard edges created by precise brushstrokes.

Many pairs obliterated each other, but a few potent spells emerged victorious, passing through the layer of fragments. They met another mirror, and their number reduced, and finally reached the last mirror, where all but two failed to penetrate.

A tattered white flower and a circular, recursive whirlwind blew through the defence. They headed for Olivia, who jumped backwards while shouting a single, mystical syllable.

A massive crystal boulder pushed through the ground in front of Olivia. Its structure fractured, turning from a sphere into a large hand. It clasped its fingers, trapping the whirlwind and the winter flower. A Series of muffled explosions erupted within its body. Blue and green lights flashed through its translucent, murky material. Its trembling intensified until it shattered.

Searing light blasted through Olivia, carving a hole through her chest. A part of her bright, colourful crystal core disintegrated. She covered her chest with her hands and lowered her head coyly.

“Please don’t stare too hard,” she said. “It’s . . . too embarrassing.”

The students held their breaths, unable to say anything. The senior Mage frowned. His strike did no substantial damage to his enemy. That crystal core within her body wasn’t her weakness but a mere decoration.

He glanced behind him. There was another strike rivalling his, and its owner was the quiet and earnest Tundra. He never knew she possessed such potential.

No matter. The more powerful his side was, the better the escape chance.

His eyes met Tundra’s. Their gazes connected, their thoughts exchanged.

While the students prepared their spells again, Tundra walked to the front, standing behind the senior. She took out an empty book and flipped through it. Sentences describing a cold-morning scenery manifested and rose from the pages. They formed a ferry of icy leaves, which revolved around the book, a bracelet for the winter fairy.

As her senior, using his flute, conjured another wind-type spell, she kept her eyes on the injured Monster Girl. She almost panicked when her spell punctured her enemy’s chest. She didn’t want to kill; she never wanted to kill.

That Monster Girl didn’t want to harm her. She didn’t want to harm that girl too.

She . . . was once Human, right?

Tundra inhaled, clearing her thoughts. Her senior rested his flute. Music notes radiating a soft song flowed forward. All other spells followed.

Olivia, still covering her chest with her left hand, held tight the cane in her right hand and closed her eyes. The floating pillars of crystal surrounding her accelerated. They spun around her, shuffling through each other, generating multitudes of reflections within which the original Olivia was lost.

Spells fell on her images. They shattered into mirror pieces, taking the strikes with them, yet the original Olivia stayed unharmed. Even the spells which penetrated multiple images failed to find the original.

“Such ferocious methods,” the myriad Olivias said. “Why do you intend on breaking my heart?”

“You can hide, Olivia, but you cannot outlast us,” the senior said.

“I only need to outlast your teacher.”

The senior, gritting his teeth, forcefully exhausted his Pure Power. Powerful winds erupted and rushed into the sea of mirrors. They disrupted and annihilated multiple imageries though found nothing but illusions.

Olivia chuckled, her playful tone echoing against the mirrors.

Tundra held her hands to her chest. Her fingertips glided her breasts and drew themselves apart. Her bluish Pure Power, trailing her movement, sprouted streaks of silvery dyes. They flooded the surroundings and painted a phantom of winter unto the air.

Illusory snow drifted, and false winds blew. Coldness permeated the atmosphere, which dampened and dried, stiffened and slowed.

Though these effects fell weakly on the battlefield, they gave everything a misty aura. With the sharp Wind Element slashing the mirrors, faint light sparked and flickered out of existence.

The flow of Corruption Power vaguely materialised, though it soon vanished. Only a pale stream lingered in its place.

Tundra traced this empty path to its endpoint. That Olivia moved out of sync with her afterimages. She met Tundra’s eyes and flashed a lovely, endearing smile, a smile that a big sister would give to her younger sister.

A thunderous boom rang. The Alchemy Warehouse trembled. Shelves and materials on them tumbled from their secured spots, their chains and storage devices crashing.

Ethereal light enveloped the building before shattering into fragments of starlight. Without the temperature-regulating formation, crimson mists outside invaded the interior.

Olivia and her illusions looked past the students and at the bursts of colours and bubbles and blood-like stains. Her gem-like eyes melted as delight welled within them.

Tundra didn’t dare turn around. She focused on the real Olivia and, pointing at her enemy, weaved her Pure Power around her arm. It assembled into an arm lace whose coldness fell refreshing on her skin.

At her fingertip, a sharp icicle manifested, morphing into a lifelike sculpture of a rose. Its condensed form stiffened the air and gripped space itself. The students near her shivered and retreated from her instinctively. Even the senior raised his eyebrows.

She cared not for them; only what happened next mattered.

With her heart shielded, Tundra shouted a word of an ancient language, whose meaning eluded all but her. The rose-shaped arrow dashed through the thin winter air, danced around the maze of illusions, and avoided all crystal hands which tried to catch it. Even the faint threads of Corruption Power failed to graze Rose of Stillness.

An omen pressed on Olivia’s chest. She closed her eyes and hid the cane behind her back. Her Corruption Power gushed out of the crystal core inside her body and into her left hand. She drew it forwards.

As Rose of Stillness arrived before Olivia, another figure stepped out from nothingness. Her appearance, shrouded in distortive darkness, illuminated the battlefield of snow with a presence holy yet demonic.

Iris reached for Rose of Stillness and grabbed it. Her Corruption Power enveloped the arrow and assimilated its all-dissolving power, which boiled in her palm and invaded her body. The distortive mist cloaking her beauty evaporated, revealing her unblemished body.

She snapped Rose of Stillness in half. Its concentrated power ruptured in a series of intense blue rays, which froze everything they touched. Lingering blue radiance, that of starlight, and shimmering snowflakes, mirrors to the soul, illuminated her face.

She looked at her hand, which had just touched Rose of Stillness, and smiled. The wickedness in her aura vanished without a trace.

Before Olivia could praise her mistress, Iris turned to her, staring at her with such tenderness that her words dissolved in her throat. She averted her gaze, but Iris grabbed her chin, forced her to look at her most beautiful mistress, and kissed her.