Chapter 32: Stardust & Steel

"Leon Flanke." Alice repeated it once, like she was testing how it sat in her mouth. "Temporary Mythic transformation. Interesting." She didn’t sound entirely convinced, but she didn’t push it either. "Well then, Leon. Let’s see what temporary really means."

She was moving before she finished the sentence.

Comet Step!

She blinked out of sight and reappeared behind Tide before anyone had time to track the movement, bow already drawn, an arrow of compressed starlight nocked and loosed in the same breath.

Tide didn’t have any pressure built up yet, nothing ready to answer with. The arrow took him in the shoulder and detonated on impact, a small burst of light that sent him stumbling.

"Careful," Logan called out. "She’s fast. Don’t underestimate her."

Thistle answered first, roots already tearing up from the ground toward wherever she’d land next.

Overgrowth Snare!

She wasn’t there when the roots arrived. Comet Step again, this time putting her thirty meters up, perched on nothing but open air like gravity was a suggestion she’d decided to ignore for the moment.

"You’ll have to do better than that," she called down, grinning.

Zephyr rose to meet her, wind gathering tight around both wings.

"An archer who doesn’t like the ground. Let’s see how you do without your feet under you."

Gravity Snare!

The air around Alice went heavy, but she was already moving again before it fully closed, Comet Step carrying her clear with barely a second to spare.

Nova tried next, hands raised, light gathering thick for a shot of his own.

She read the windup before he’d even finished it. Comet Step closed the distance in a blink, and she put an arrow through his shoulder before his own attack finished charging.

Starpiercer Volley!

Maw came in low and fast after that, jaws already stretching wide for a bite.

She didn’t dodge this one. She let him get close, and at the last possible second, drove an arrow straight into the roof of his mouth from point-blank range.

Meteor Nock!

The shot didn’t kill him, but it staggered him hard enough to buy her the half second she needed to put real distance between them again.

Shard closed in last, no fancy movement to him at all, just raw mass crossing open ground straight toward her.

She watched him come and didn’t look worried in the slightest.

"You’re the toughest one here, aren’t you?" She drew back further than Logan had seen her draw before, starlight gathering so thick around the arrowhead it looked less like a weapon and more like a captured piece of the night sky itself. "Let’s find out how tough."

Horizon’s Requiem!

The arrow crossed the distance in less time than it took to blink, and found the center of his chest before Fracture Bloom had any chance to convert the impact into anything useful. Whatever the shot actually was, it didn’t behave like damage he could absorb. It behaved like something erasing him from the inside out.

Shard didn’t even have time to look surprised. He came apart in a shower of crystal dust, and then he was simply gone, the space where he’d been standing empty and quiet.

```

[ Shard (Eternal Quartz Behemoth) has been eliminated. ]

```

Nobody moved for half a second. Even Maw, mid-recovery from his own hit, went completely still.

Alice lowered her bow, breathing hard, the cost of that shot clearly landing on her too.

"Sorry." She didn’t sound sorry at all, not really, more like she meant it as a plain observation. "That one was for real. I don’t play around with someone who brings six of these."

"My heart is racing crazily, you know?" Alice’s grinned.

Logan felt something cold settle behind his ribs, followed immediately by something hot.

’She just killed one of mine.’

He drew his sword.

"Everyone, hold position. I’m taking point."

She turned toward him, and something in her expression sharpened with real interest.

"Oh. The man himself steps up. I was wondering when you’d get involved, Leon."

She loosed three arrows in quick succession, none of them aimed where he expected.

Starpiercer Volley!

Logan barely got his blade up in time for the first two, sparks flying where starlight met steel, and the third grazed his shoulder before he managed to twist clear of it entirely.

He closed the distance anyway, sword leading, and she let him get close enough to actually think he had an opening before Comet Step put her behind him instead.

An arrow grazed his ribs from behind before he’d even finished turning around.

He spun and caught the follow-up shot on his shield instead of his skin, the impact hard enough to numb his whole arm.

"Not bad." She was already circling for another angle. "Most people don’t last three exchanges with me. Too bad you have very low stats compared to mine at the moment."

She didn’t let up. Another arrow came in low, aimed for his legs this time, and he simply used Safe Haven to defend.

The one after that he didn’t see coming at all. It destroyed the barrier instantly.

The arrow caught him across the forearm, a shallow cut that stung worse than it should have, starlight still burning faintly along the wound’s edge before it finally faded.

Logan gritted his teeth and fell back a step, giving himself room to think instead of just react.

’She’s fast enough to dodge anything single. I need to take away the places she can go. Now is the time.’

’Zephyr, own the sky above us! Thistle, lock down the ground! Tide, add the pressure the second she’s caught in either one! We will drive her into a lockdown.

Zephyr rose high overhead, wind gathering thick around her.

Skydomain!

The whole sky above the clearing bent to her will, gravity twisting wrong for anyone she hadn’t allowed through.

Thistle’s roots spread wide at the same moment, covering every inch of open ground in a dense tangle that left nowhere clean to land.

Root Network!

Alice tried Comet Step again, aiming for a stretch of open air above the mess Thistle had made.

’Zephyr, Tide, Maw, Thistle, Nova. Coordinate as I say!’

’There. Shoot it ahead, force her to pause!’

Alice’s eyes flickered. A beam whistled past right in front of her eyes, forcing her to pause.

And that pause was all Logan needed. Having a telepathic connection with the summons made it easy to coordinate quickly.

Zephyr’s claimed sky shoved her sideways instead, gravity twisting wrong under her the moment she crossed into it, and she hit the tangle of roots below hard enough to lose her bow for a full second.

She scrambled for it, and Nova was already there, hands raised, drinking in the ambient starlight bleeding off her own weapon before she could even nock another arrow.

Starfeeder!

Whatever charge she’d been building for her next shot came apart mid-formation, absorbed before it finished gathering.

’It worked! As expected.’ Logan’s eyes gleamed.

Tide sank into the tangled ground and let the whole clearing go heavy at once.

’Get her!’

Crushing Depths!

Alice’s next attempt to rise off the ground simply didn’t work, weight pressing down on her shoulders that hadn’t been there a second earlier.

She was caught now, properly caught, roots around her ankles and crushing weight on her shoulders and nowhere left in the sky willing to let her through.

Logan saw the opening and didn’t waste it.

"Now! All three!"

Maw’s jaws closed toward her from one side. Thistle’s roots drove toward her chest from below. Zephyr dropped out of the twisted sky above, wind gathering into a blade sharp enough to end things in one clean pass.

Three killing blows, closing on her from three different directions at exactly the same moment.

Alice looked at all three, genuinely trapped for the first time since the fight started, and started laughing.

"Alright. Alright, that’s fair." Her grin was wide and easy, not a trace of real fear in it despite everything closing in around her from every side. "You got me."

"It was fun!"

’SURRENDER!’

The word rang out a half second before any of the three attacks landed, and the world pulled her clear of all of them at once.

The pressure and the roots and the twisted sky all let go together, and the clearing went quiet.

Logan stood there, sword still drawn, chest heaving, looking at the empty space where she’d been standing a second ago.

Her eyes had been laughing right up until the moment she vanished. Whatever else that fight had been, she’d genuinely enjoyed every second of it.

```

[ You have defeated player, Alice. Player L now has 5 eliminations. ]

```

Logan looked at the five of them left standing, and then at the empty spot where Shard should have been, who had disappeared into motes.

’That’s the first one I’ve actually lost. Do the summons die or are they just souls with bodies that return to whatever created them?’

He didn’t have anything clever to think after that. He just stood there for a moment.

He could still vividly hear her voice and see her face. Moving around at such a speed, and attacking lightning fast that not even these Mythics could dodge.

’Monster...I really thought I was gonna die there for a second.’

Logan clenched his fist.

A grin spread on his face.

He defeated her!

Someone that powerful!

’I’m sure I can refine the way I merge even further and create truly the strongest Mythic-rank summons.’

Logan looked at his Tower Points with longing.

’A new class. I want it fast.’

"Alright, folks. Let’s search the base for anything useful and then leave. We can’t afford to waste time."

"Boss, she dropped some things."