It had to be the worst night’s sleep of my life if I even considered it one. I literally slept sitting while resting my head on Yukina’s shoulder, waking at very irregular intervals at the slightest movement of her body. I had no right to complain because once or twice Yukina told me to lie down and sleep, but I refused. Yukina had it worse. I was sure she didn’t even get a wink of sleep. 

With my sleep-deprived eyes, I saw her cracking her neck. 

“Okay, it seems you are awake for good, let's go.”

I rubbed my eyes and clumsily reached for my backpack since there was nothing to pack.

“How is she even able to stay this active after having a sleepless night,” I muttered as I watched her stretch.

“I think we should say our goodbyes to Fio and his group before we leave,” I suggested.

“Alright, although I wouldn’t bother.”

Just as she finished talking, Fio and Crit came out of their tent and approached us.

“Leaving already?” Fio asked.

“Do your eyes usually deceive you?” Yukina asked him rhetorically, prompting him to let out a little laugh.

“You sure have some sense of humor,” he replied.

“Since you are here, as you can see, we are leaving. Hope you find whatever you are searching for,”  Yukina concluded as we made our way out of their camp.

“We should have been at least appreciative of the meal they offered us last night,” I whispered to Yukina.

“It doesn't matter, we won't be seeing them again,” Yukina replied nonchalantly.

Our walk was brought to a halt when we heard Fio's voice again, but this time was a scream followed by a long, painful groan. Turning around to see what had happened, I was left in shock. Vixra just pulled out a bizarre-looking sword from Fio's chest. It was average-sized and curved inwards. It didn't have any rain-guard as its false and back-edge were jagged. The blade was covered in what looked like black fire, although I wasn't sure of what it was.

Fio dropped down to his knees. I couldn't read his expressions as he looked at Vixra. She placed her hands on his shoulders and said something to him before he collapsed to the ground, and a pool of blood formed around him. I was astonished and perplexed at the same time.

“Did she just murder her party leader? What's with that sword and the black fire? Who, actually is she?”

I had a lot of questions, but I couldn't ask any. She locked her eyes on me and approached slowly with a sinister smile. She looked a lot different from the night before. Her loose hair that covered most of her face was enough to make a difference.

“Don't you think its rude to leave without saying goodbye.”

Still shocked from what she did to Fio, I muttered,

“W-why?”

“Nobody says goodbye to crazy people,” Yukina said as she stepped forward.

Vixra completely ignored Yukina, with her focus still on me,

“Oh, about him? It shouldn't bother you. I would have still killed him anyway. He was supposed to find us something here in Ausbane. We've been here for about three days and couldn't find it. He is no longer useful to me because I've found something better and that's you.”

I got the order completely wrong. Vixra was the boss, and Fio was just a disposable errand boy. Crit was even weirder. He hadn’t spoken a single word since we arrived at their camp. 

“It wasn’t enough. What she said wasn’t enough reason to justify what she just did or did she even need any reason at all? Did she just say she found me? There was only one plausible answer; she must be a crazed maniac, because that would perfectly explain her creepy behavior.”

Yukina unsheathed her swords and approached Vixra, curling her lip in disdain.

“Don't come any closer to Svan if you don't want to end up like him,” Yukina said, pointing at Fio’s dead body.

Vixra laughed hysterically,

“I will forgive this disrespect only once and if you are smart, you should know that I am not interested in you. I will give you this opportunity to leave else you will regret it.”

“You really are a clown,” Yukina replied.

Yukina didn't need a reason or care to understand what was going on. Her priority at that moment was to kill Vixra. She attacked first. Swift and instant as her swords reached for Vixra’s neck. I was only able to keep up, thanks to the grey domain. 

Vixra didn't flinch as rocks erupted from the ground, blocking Yukina’s strike. Yukina’s movement reminded me of the earth caster she killed days earlier. It was precisely the same, and I was sure she didn't even have to think before executing it, just like muscle memory. She anticipated her first attack would be blocked, so she launched a second one from behind in a swift manoeuvre. And just as I thought the fight was over, Yukina’s strike was blocked again.

The disbelief was clearly written all over Yukina’s face. She didn't expect her signature move to be countered so easily by someone who just saw it for the first time, which begged the question; how was Vixra able to do it?

“Crit, don't interfere in this. I'm just going to play a little,” Vixra instructed loudly as Crit stepped back in a bow.

“I see you are a stillbringer, but it doesn't matter because you will end up dead when I'm done with you,” Vixra said to Yukina. 

Those words sent chills down my spine. I looked at Vixra; she was so relaxed, beaming with confidence as though she was sure she would beat Yukina. She turned away from my direction and towards Yukina's, who was now at her back. Conjuring a fireball with her right hand and controlling small levitating rocks by twirling her left hand was the most shocking thing my eyes met. I looked at Yukina's horrified face, I don’t think I have ever seen her that startled, and by reading her lips, I was sure she said, 

“Impossible.”

No caster should be able to control two base elements simultaneously, but Vixra was doing just that. It was just unbelievable. Casters can be born of parents with different elemental affinities but can only manifest one attribute from either parent. Only casters of deviant or chaos-class could exhibit dual elemental affinity, but it was only possible in a fused form; a caster born of fire and earth parents could exhibit a deviant lava affinity.

Yukina seemed to have managed to overcome the fear that gripped her, pointing one sword in Vixra's direction, 

“This would be fun,” she said.

YUKINA AYLING 

Even though I expected I would come across strange people or events, I couldn't easily shake off the disbelief in what I was seeing. Not only did she fend off my attack, but it was also apparent that she had an unfused dual elemental affinity. I had to compose myself; any sign of weakness would be detrimental given the conditions. 

Vixra didn't hesitate as she simultaneously shot fireballs and rocks at me. I evaded everything thrown at me with a single diagonal dash using my stillbring. I didn't know what other tricks she had up her sleeves, so I had to be precise.

“Running away now huh? Where did all that confidence of yours go to?” she snarled at me.

I wasn’t going to fall for her mind games. My focus was on finding an opening to finish the fight as quickly as possible. The disturbing thing was the ease at which she conjured the elements. All casters, even at the chaos class level, needed a certain degree of body and hand movements to project or control an element and the form it took, but she didn’t. It was as though she was doing all of it with her mind. That was probably how she was able to block my strike from earlier.

“What in the world is she?” I muttered.

The ground beneath me cracked open and began to separate, prompting me to take a forward leap. While I was still in flight, a long spiked rock the size of an adult human erupted from the hollow, aiming to impale me. There was no way I could avoid it or cut through it mid-flight, so I immediately strengthened my body, bracing myself for the hit.

Though the rock didn’t cause any visible damage to my body, I was thrown up several feet, and this time, I had no control over my flight. While waiting for gravity to send me crashing, I saw smaller rocks approaching me with insane speed, like some metal balls hungrily trying to latch on a giant magnet. 

Her precision was top-notch. She wasn’t even letting me catch a breath. As the rocks hit, I strengthened my body with a stillbring, sending me crashing to the ground and the impact forming a little crater. 

“I expected you to at least put up a fight, you are going to bore me to death at this rate,” Vixra mocked.

She didn’t press with her attack. She waited for me to be on my feet like she was giving me a handicap. It felt like my pride was placed on a slab and crushed to a thousand pieces with some giant war hammer.

“You are so full of yourself aren't you?” I asked, wiping the soil off my face.

“Of course I am, given that you are having trouble with just a few rocks.”

As annoying as she might have sounded, she was right. If I was facing just any caster, it would have been a lot easier because I would have been able to capitalize on the little time expended on their movements to land lethal strikes. Those little harmless details gave me the upper hand of some sort during a fight. But at the moment, they were non-existent.

I dashed towards her with no clear plan, hoping she would get carried away and make a mistake. All I needed was to land a clean strike on her; just one strike was enough. On approaching her, she encircled herself with a firewall.

“I have seen worse flames,” I mocked as I charged toward her.

Fireballs shot out from the wall. They were all aimed at me, but they could only do so much. I was able to avoid every single one of them, and when I got within striking distance, I slashed across the firewall, hoping to nick her. I didn’t expect to land a successful strike; it would have been too easy, given the skill she displayed earlier. I expected a block or a counterattack, but one which would guide my next line of action.

Not so surprisingly, my sword didn’t go through the flame wall. It became thick, almost solid. Condensing flames until it was that thick required a sublime level of mastery. It became evident that I had to go all out if I wanted to even stand a chance. I shot myself backwards, assisted by the recoil from the impact with the flame wall and dashed towards her again, but this time at a much greater speed. The technique I was about to use was going to drain my mana a lot more quicker, but it was the best shot I had at it.

A while ago, while trying to figure out how to use all three stillbrings simultaneously, I tried to maximize mana output as much as possible. But as much as I tried, I couldn’t use two stillbrings simultaneously, let alone all three. Instead, mana seemed to leak out of my body. I noticed it because whenever I maximized mana output, my swords were always covered in lightning crackles. Although I didn’t fully understand the phenomena, I knew it attracted spells conjured by another caster, so I called it “phantom steal.”

On reaching her flame wall, armed with the phantom steal, I struck again. Vixra probably thought my effort would be futile once again, given the shock on her face as my swords got through. 

With my blades now wrapped with a fiery sheath, I hacked with abandon. I didn’t care about what she would do next or what spell she would cast. I just wanted to get to her as quickly as possible.