"Here I come!"

The air shimmered in response to Leticia's ferocious energy, forcing Zanetor into an immediate defensive stance.

Leticia swung her right arm, commanding the fibres that surrounded it and directing them towards the shadow soul. Her arm split into three fibre whips that charged at Zanetor.

"Dang it, it's too fast," he stumbled.

*SLAM!*

Zanetor felt a merciless force lift him off his feet. His body flew back several metres and crashed onto the ground with a dull thud.

He didn't waste any time, immediately regaining his footing and channelling a familiar flow of spirit energy.

[Movement spell: Serene Swift!]

His body blurred as he circled his opponent at high speeds. Several thoughts came to mind, but none of them seemed likely to help him defeat her.

He needed to relax.

He needed to carefully find a way to win.

'The goal of my training is to gain advantages over the Serene Swift's drawbacks,' Zanetor aimed his torrent blazer at Leticia.

The shadow soul fired a few rounds of water-coated bullets at the 7-foot tall Leticia, but the fibre on her body opened up holes, causing the bullets to simply pass through.

'So I can't use normal attacks. Noted,' he stopped a few metres away from his opponent.

Leticia turned to face him. "Shadow soul. Normally, your kind wouldn't have stayed in that form for this long. It means you must have an extremely important goal."

"Hm?" Zanetor raised an eyebrow. "I thought you already knew."

"..."

"Well, it's simple," his expression grew stern. "I'm going to find my mother, and as long as she's being held captive, I'm not going to change form or anything. Not until I find her."

Leticia was stunned for an instant.

She definitely wasn't expecting him to share such information.

Zanetor prepared to use the Serene Swift once again. A few ideas popped up in his mind, and he was willing to try them out.

There was utter silence as both sides remained motionless.

That was… until a gust of wind blew.

Bursts of energy could be felt everywhere within the bounded area as several fibre whips cracked and charged in varying directions. The Shadow soul went into his all-too-familiar blurring phase, evading the attacks.

He began to take wide curves as he tried to make final evaluations.

'Whenever I try to make sharp turns, the droplets of water don't respond,' he ducked as a strand of charged hair narrowly missed him. 'They only seem to respond to gentle, easy manoeuvres. So this is all a matter of spirit energy changes, right?'

"Your continuous moving around is really starting to bug me," Leticia raised her hands and clenched them into fists.

Some of her hairs began to travel through the ground, slithering toward its prey at top speed.

[Fibre spell: Dirt trap!]

"Damn, this is such a pain in the ass."

Zanetor now had to deal with underground attacks as well as those that came straight for him in plain sight. Using the air didn't seem ideal at the moment either. She'd be able to reach anywhere with those hairs.

His movements were suddenly halted as a large strand of hair erupted from the ground just beneath his feet. Leticia's hair grabbed hold of his foot and threw him high up into the air.

There was no time to react!

A second attack came from above, slamming him into the ground with a powerful CRASH!

"I was thinking about what you told me a while back," Leticia withdrew her attacking hairs. "The Spirit realm works under its own rules. You may think that you have certain goals that you'd seek out no matter what… but, without being one with your heart, you'll only run around in circles."

...

Zanetor struggled as he stood on his feet, "The best efficiency is devoid of emotional interjections. The Soul core is nothing but a useless drawback. That's what I've concluded based on what I've heard about it so far."

"Uh- You just don't know anything!" The fibres around her body shook in response to her rage. "You come here and stay for barely a month, and you think you're in a position to draw conclusions!? I can't STAND YOU!"

*BOOM!*

Every fibre lunged full speed at the Shadow soul, completely decimating him and creating a large crater at the same spot.

Well, part of that was true.

Leticia's eyes widened as she felt a rush of spirit energy gather at the location Zanetor once was. It was his energy, but it was taking a different pattern.

Zanetor felt a fresh wave of information fill his mind as his lips began to move on their own.

"Water Spell…," he silently muttered.

Danger alerts began to go off in Leticia's mind. Whatever was coming wasn't good, and she had to find a way to stop it immediately!

The 7-foot tall humanoid made a series of hand gestures that commanded the surrounding fibres to form pillars covered with spikes. She then sent a few other fibre whips to Zanetor's location, all in a coordinated move.

Just then, a blurry figure shot through the field. The whips of fibre responded to his movements but didn't land a scratch on him as he easily weaved through them with stream-like movements.

He was too fast, getting closer!

There's no way Leticia could find a way to move before he got into attack range!

And that was when something strange happened. Zanetor's figure simply slipped through her body.

"H- Huh!? Did he go right through me?" She was about to look back when she felt something was amiss. "No, No, the attack is still right in front of me!"

Invisible point forces began to blast through Leticia's defences until they got straight to her.

Edem, who watched from beyond the boundary, seemed quite intrigued by the new development.

"Oho, now what is this?" he said in a surprised tone.

The strands of hair that surrounded Leticia's body suddenly shrunk, returning to its normal size on her head.

The 7-foot tall humanoid had been reduced to a little girl. Leticia stared at the grass, relieved that she had shut down her form in time and confused about what had happened at the same time.

"Water spell."

A familiar sound came from right behind her.

"Fluid Aftermath," Zanetor uttered, placing Leticia at gunpoint.

"Tch," Leticia clenched her palms into fists as tears began to well up in the corner of her eyes.

Zanetor was quiet for a while and then said a few words.

"Jumping to my own conclusions and sticking to my own evaluations… that's what has kept me alive so far."

The little girl immediately turned around and was left speechless as she saw tears run down his face. It was just like before; no expression showed that he was in any form of sadness. His heart

cried through his eyes, the eyes of an emotionally dead person.

That wasn't what stunned her the most, however. It was the fact that this time, even if it was for a brief second, she heard him speak with the smallest emotion.

Zanetor put down his weapon and then looked away, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Hm?" Leticia blinked. 'He didn't realise what he said? Does he even realise that tears are flowing down his cheeks?'

The little girl giggled slightly. She had wanted to hear someone's heart, even if it was just for a very brief moment.

"What's so funny?" the shadow soul raised both eyebrows.

"Idiot," Leticia lightly pouted. "Wipe those tears of yours."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

At that moment, a light atmosphere spawned, and Leticia felt less hatred toward him, even though she did not realise it right away.

The golden circle that bound their spirit energy dissipated as Edem walked toward them.

"I must say! That was quite the show!" he clapped as he snapped his fingers.

A floating circle appeared before Zanetor just as he was about to fall. The shadow soul panted heavily as he felt his entire body ache with pain.

"Shadow—" Leticia took a step forward and paused. "Zanetor… Zanetor, are you okay?"

"Don't worry about him. He just overused the same spell, plus he exhausted his working spirit energy," the cloaked man smirked and patted the little girl on her head. "All he needs now is rest."

He pointed to the shadow soul who had supposedly fallen into a deep slumber.

"Gone like a lamp light," sweat ran down the sides of Leticia's face.

Edem walked over to his student and then carried him on his back.

"Hey uncle, do you know anything about that water spell he used?" a conflicted look appeared on her face.

"It's probably exclusive to the wielder of the infinity blazers. It's simple, however," the cloaked man began. "He fired a few shots from his torrent blazer and then used the serene swift to get way ahead of them. The enemy focuses on the incoming person, oblivious to the deadly barrage that lay hidden. The fact that the Serene Swift causes an illusion that makes it seem like the user passes through his opponent also adds to the horror."

Leticia gulped, "Did he seriously come at me with killing intent?"

Edem burst into laughter, "Beats me."

"Hmph, quit laughing," she pouted. "But then, I had my defences up. I was sure he wouldn't be able to weave through so many of my spiked fibre pillars… but he did it without any problem!"

"Shouldn't you be asking him all this? I'm not a walking library or something, you know?" Edem's brows twitched.

"Okay!" the little girl immediately smiled.

"Now then, we should get back to the inn."

With that, a golden circle appeared beneath their feet, and they were teleported away from that location. Once again, the area was left in its initial state; devoid of any sound but the ominous winds.