Lucifer parried the downward swing of the incoming axe with contemptuous ease. The heavy axe head sailed past her head, unbalancing Asha for a moment.

Yet before she could capitalize on the opening, a bolt of orange lightning arced through the air, aimed squarely at her midsection.

Lucifer had almost no time to react. The moment she sensed the lightning bolt enter her aura, it was already almost upon her.

With a heave of effort, Lucifer moved to the side, adding a bit of kinetic energy to the movement to go faster. Simultaneously she tried to deflect the bolt of lightning with her manipulation.

Despite lightning being made from pure energy, something about lightning always threw Lucifer off. With an effort of will that was more of a shove than a well executed maneuver, she managed to push the bolt to the side, causing it to barely miss her torso.

Turning her attention back to asha, Lucifer kicked the unbalanced womens thigh with a well practiced muay thai kick leaving asha to stumble to the ground with her balance destroyed. In the next moment Lucifer whirled around and cut through a barrage of fire bolts with lightning fast cuts.

Instead of dispersing like spells usually did when their structure was destroyed, the destroyed fire bolts froze in the air, only to gather along the gleaming metal edge of Lucifer's sword.

With a look of strained concentration on her face, Lucifer slashed downward, causing a crescent of orange mana to shoot at an unprepared grommash.

The young man managed to barely deflect the slash in time by coating his right hand in similarly colored orange flames.

Once the crescent disappeared, Grommash sank to his knees, the tiny flame in his empty socket flickering out.

Lucifer took a moment to bring herself back to the present, exhaling a deluge of black smoke through many discrete mouths placed along her body.

She turned to her onlookers and tossed the steel blade she had just fought with, its edge still glowing faintly.

Hogarth Steel Fist caught the sword by the handle with an affronted look on his face.

“Lady Lucifer please! I put so many hours into this sword, the least you can do is wield it with a bit more care!”

“Please. I wielded the thing just now, it's not gonna break even if you did not catch it.”

The old smith grumbled, but did not fight her on it. He and his apprentice immediately began to look over the blade with almost manic attention to detail.

Lucifer smiled to herself. A bit of soul sight showed the souls of the two smiths pulsing to an unseen tune, growing with every moment that they spent on her new sword.

Hogarth looked leagues better than he had a few months ago. The healing magic of Daranturn had been immensely helpful in his recovery, but he still needed a lot of physical therapy. His recovery had been prolonged due to the smith's stubbornness, as he had almost immediately began forging again as soon as his wounds allowed him to.

The smith still carried a few scars, but he looked healthier than ever. Likely having to do with his breakthrough into the second tier. The fight he had with the angels had apparently pushed his [Steel Fist Art] to the limit and he was finally ready to break through. Which he had done in the most cliche way. The old smith had locked himself in his forge with the plans for her new blade, only to emerge two weeks later with a finished sword and a successful breakthrough.

His new apprentice had been outraged at having been left out of the forging, which was why Hogarth was now spending so much time with him.

Lucifer left the two metal heads to their activities and turned back around to the siblings.

Grommash was kneeling on the ground panting, his sister having hobbled to his side. The young orc mage still had trouble with prolonged fights. His spellcasting abilities were incredible for someone so young, but his mana pool was having trouble keeping up. Ever since he had accepted the remnants lucifer had offered him, his spellcasting had grown even faster. Still he could not substitute the training of a large mana pool with knowledge. Mana pools grew with age and training. Or with a stable core, but that was something he had to figure out on his own. At least Aindaeth said so.

Asha, kneeling next to him, had a similar problem. Her skill with the axes she carried was top notch, having grown in a similar manner to her brother's spellcasting. The fragmented experience of hundreds of warriors guided her bit by bit. Though her skills did not grow in the same explosive manner her brother did. The most coherent remnant was of Bjorn Ragnarsson. While he had been a formidable warrior, his most impressive aspect was the control he had over his own anger.

Through a self created meditation method, he had managed to conquer himself. And now Asha had his method for herself.

After her breakthrough at her inauguration, she had grown in power a great amount. And just yesterday she had told Lucifer that she completed the method Bjorn had created.

According to Ashas path info, it was called [Serene Mind, Raging Body].

With the new method Asha now had even greater control over the red thirst, managing to use it in greater amounts even when she wasn't emotional, without it threatening to overwhelm her mind.

Lucifer kneeled next to the siblings, and laid a hand on Ashas thigh. Lucifer pretended not to notice the young woman shuddering, as she ignited her healing flames, fusing the femur she had shattered with her kick back together.

“You are getting stronger. Apart from that lightning bolt, any more and soon just a sword won't be enough for you two any more.”

Seeing the siblings grimace almost simultaneously, Lucifer asked,

“What? That was a compliment!”

“I know.” Asha grumbled.

“It's just disheartening is what my sister means. I can't throw that many lightning bolts, and we still haven't seen you use those fancy moves you sometimes use in training.”

Grommash looked better now that he had his breathing under control. A tiny pinprick of light rolled around in his empty eye socket, before locking on Lucifer.

“Ever since Asha was declared chief, we have been training non stop. Three months of sparring and magical theory with the other chiefs and we still can't scratch you.”

Lucifer shrugged apologetically.

“I am older than this planet is, children. I have magnitudes more experience than you will likely ever accumulate. It's a wonder that you even managed to push me this far.”

An affronted look crossed Ashas face, causing the young orc to immediately shoot to her feet. She hooked the head of her lighter axe beneath his shirt's collar and dragged him away, leaving Lucifer kneeling in the red sand by herself.

“What was that about?”

Lucifer stood and dusted off her knees before turning towards Hogarth and accepting the blade.

“Ugh, it's complicated.”

“Then I don't wanna know. I'll take the boy and work a bit more on his forms. You know where to find me when you inevitably need the blade reforged.”

With that the Short smith clapped his apprentice on the back, before leaving in the direction of his forge.

Lucifer was left standing by herself in the blood fields, surrounded by training warriors.

—-------------------------------------------------------

“Stupid fucking lizard and her geriatric waxing orgies.” Lucifer grumbled to herself.

She stomped through the plains with her gaze focussed on her surroundings, multiple pairs of eyes spread across the back of her head and bare back.

Her bare feet ghosted over the uneven ground, barely disturbing the dusty surfaces. With a quick application of kinetic energy, Lucifer jumped on top of the hip high grass swaying in the breeze. Despite her considerable weight, the rust brown stalks of grass did not bend when she stepped on them.

This was a technique she had developed for herself. With a liberal application of [Kinetic absorption] she could counteract the effect gravity had on her own body, making it so she barely disturbed her surroundings, all the while leaving her footing as sure as ever while gaining large amounts of kinetic energy.

Flooding her hips, thighs and ankles with kinetic energy, Lucifer moved forward, instantly crossing hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye.

She arrived on the tallest branch of a very dry tree, her arrival barely rustling the sparse canopy.

A muted thunderclap caused her to cringe. “Still can't do it silently.”

One of the most useful applications for [Kinetic release] was to flood her muscles with absorbed kinetic energy and accelerate her movements by large margin. One of her earliest ideas was a short to mid-range dash that many popular media had portrayed in her old world. From “Flash step” to “Shunpo”, the concept had many names.

The problem with these techniques was that they were utterly silent, something Lucifer was struggling with immensely.

It had grown easier now that she was in the second tier and had a more thorough feeling for her aura and the impact she had on her immediate surroundings, but she still could not help breaking the sound barrier.

Traversing a distance of several hundred meters in fractions of a second was already a feat, and now she was working on controlling the air around her while in motion, so as to not compress it too much.

“At least I'm no longer leaving trails of fire.”

That had also been a problem at first. In straight lines Lucifer could accelerate to truly ridiculous speeds from an absolute standstill. Her first few tries had been fast enough to cause the air in front of her to compress hard enough to cause it to ionize.

Balancing on the top most branch of the tree, Lucifer crouched down with a hand on the sheath of her blade.

‘I bet I look pretty cool right now.’ she thought to herself.

Taking a moment to look at her surroundings, Lucifer caressed the wooden sheath of her new blade.

The surrounding grasslands were moving slowly in the wind. The sky was clear and only a few solitary clouds lazily moved around.

An eye from an extinct bird of prey situated on Lucifer's forehead momentarily locked onto the form of a scaled beast flying in the sky, multiple kilometers above.

With another, more careful application of kinetic energy, Lucifer flickered to the next tree. This time there was no sonic boom, but she dragged a large amount of air with her, causing the tree to shake in the wind.

Her eye was still trained on the scaled beast in the sky. Closing her eyes momentarily, Lucifer shuffled them around, until both eyes on her face were those of an eagle.

The orange irises widened until she could see the scaled beast perfectly.

Going by the description Aindaeth had given her of her Draconic cousins, Lucifer decided that this was a wyvern. What kind she had no idea, but definitely a wyvern.

Two wings? Check. Two back legs? Check. Tail? Check. Long neck? Check. Draconic head? Check. Stumpy horns? Check. Scales? Check. Slitted eyes that narrowed at her ? Check. An overall wyvern-like body plan? Check.

“Yup, definitely a wyvern.”

Lucifer jumped to the next tree, her vision focused on the wyvern that ponderously turned around in the sky. Her attention was so caught up in the flying lizard that she did not notice her flash steps growing more and more quiet with each consecutive jump.

The wyvern continued to circle above her, always keeping eye contact, despite the multiple kilometer distance between them. Even when she flickered a whole kilometer, it only took the wyvern maybe a second until it was looking at her again.

A few more jumps, and Lucifer finally landed on a spire of rock in the middle of a large clearing.

Now with actual stable footing beneath her, Lucifer took a moment to look around.

She was farther from the orc settlement than she had ever gone by herself. All around her were trees in the process of shedding their leaves, the remaining few colored in a mixture of reds and browns.

Nothing immediately stood out to her, which wa<s nice. Lucifer took a deep breath through her nose, enjoying the crisp autumn air, free from pollution.

With a clear head, she looked back to the sky, only for her raptor eyes to immediately narrow.

The wyvern had apparently noticed that she was no longer keeping eye contact and had decided that it would like to start with a surprise attack.

It was rapidly approaching from almost vertically above, its wings close to its body. Lucifer observed the sleek form of the wyvern as it dive bombed towards her. The slitted draconic eyes were a stark gray, almost the same color as its scales. Those very scales were twitching as the wyvern apparently used them to steer. Similar to the hairs of a cat, the scales were raised at the base. Only due to the wyvern's size, they seemingly helped with maneuverability.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow as the dragon began to leak gray shimmering mana before it began to spin in its descent. The rotations grew faster and faster as it accelerated downwards.

Lucifer unsheathed her blade and took a stance, her knees slightly bent, the blade in her right hand in a high guard.

A manic grin spread across her face as the wyvern approached in a rapid descent.

Her muscles tensed, even though she knew that she didn't need them for this form. She had conceptualized this move shortly after her breakthrough and she wanted to test it for the first time. Instead of the liberal applications of kinetic energy and heat that her other moves were, this one was the exact opposite.

As the wyvern came into range, Lucifer readied herself.

In the middle of its rapid downward spiral, the wyvern suddenly opened its wings as wide as possible, catching the air with a dull “thwump” as it instantly came to a halt. Lucifer saw the muscles of its upper body straining beneath its skin as its wings arrested its entire momentum.

What did not stop though, was the spinning missile of shimmering gray mana that bore down on Lucifer with an oppressive aura. Apart from the main missile, a deluge of sharp gleaming blades of mana followed the spinning projectile.

With a calming exhale, Lucifer brought her sword forward, its blade pointed skyward.

[Dying Light Sword Arts: Entropic Dispersal]

A yawning void came into being behind Lucifer, akin to a window into the endless abyss. The area around her looked like the surface of a placid black lake that stretched endlessly in every direction.

The moment the projectile and Lucifer's sword came into contact, she let the sword be moved by the attack, until its force had bled off by a large margin. Ripples spread across the surface of the black lake.

Once the spinning missile had lost enough energy, Lucifer moved in a well practiced flourish, parrying the attack so that it slipped past her and entered the yawning void. With seemingly incredibly slow motions, Lucifer repeated the movements for every of the gleaming mana blades, until the entire volley was swallowed beneath the surface of the black lake. The only evidence of the attack being a few rapidly disappearing ripples.