Chapter 196: Come At Me

The four executives had abandoned their previous formation.

Aldric’s silver Command Lines still connected them, but he no longer attempted to coordinate every movement. Instead, he directed the others to attack independently, forcing Yuna to defend against four different fighting styles without giving her a predictable rhythm.

"Don’t let her establish another pattern," Aldric ordered. "Attack together, but don’t wait for my signal."

Garran gathered the accumulated force inside his body. Mirelle’s geometric patterns spread through the air, ready to interfere with Yuna’s Mana control, while Ilyas marked golden routes across the broken floor. Aldric remained behind them, watching for the instant Yuna committed to a technique.

Then all four executives unleashed their strongest attacks.

Garran drove his fist forward, releasing a devastating shock wave. Mirelle compressed her Mana into a spiraling spear covered in threads designed to unravel opposing abilities.

Ilyas activated his prepared routes simultaneously, launching attacks from several directions while his Gnosis predicted the movements Yuna might use to escape. Aldric’s Command Lines tightened around the other three, synchronizing their attacks into a single assault.

The hall shook beneath the combined pressure.

Yuna didn’t attempt to expand her Domain.

Dawn Descend was already active, and she knew that trying to force it against four S-Ranks would accomplish nothing. Instead, she gathered the forces of Blazing Dawn into a single point.

A brilliant sphere appeared above her palm.

It was barely larger than a marble, yet the energy compressed inside it made the air tremble. Light gathered toward its center, bending around the sphere’s surface as gravity and electromagnetic forces struggled to contain the unstable power. Yuna felt the strain immediately. Even with her improved control, maintaining the sphere was like holding an explosion that could tear itself apart at any moment.

Dawn’s Core.

Her strongest attack was also one of her most expensive. She couldn’t afford to maintain it for long, and releasing it near allies would be disastrous. But the executives had already committed to their attacks, leaving her no safe path to retreat.

Yuna raised her eyes.

"Come on, then."

She released Dawn’s Core.

The sphere shot forward and met the four attacks halfway across the hall.

For an instant, everything went white.

Dawn’s Core erupted into a concentrated burst of energy. Its explosion wasn’t large enough to destroy the building, but the power compressed into that tiny point was enough to challenge the executives’ combined assault. The sphere collided with Garran’s shock wave, Mirelle’s spiraling spear, Ilyas’s converging strikes, and the force transmitted through Aldric’s Command Lines.

The collision tore through the hall.

Every active Mana Domain fractured at once.

Aldric’s silver lines snapped. Mirelle’s geometric patterns broke apart. Ilyas’s golden routes shattered, while Garran’s accumulated force exploded outward without a target.

Yuna’s Domain collapsed beneath the backlash, and the environmental authority she had been maintaining vanished in a violent surge.

The shock wave swept across the room.

The four executives were hurled backward and slammed into the walls. Garran struck hard enough to crater the stone, Mirelle crashed against a broken pillar, and Ilyas tumbled across the floor before hitting the far wall. Aldric smashed into the remains of a reinforced doorway.

Yuna suffered the same backlash. She was launched backward, her boots carving deep grooves into the floor before her body struck the wall. Her Robe of the King absorbed part of the impact, but pain tore through her ribs, and the remaining air escaped her lungs.

Dust swallowed the hall.

For several seconds, the only sound was falling debris.

Then Yuna pushed herself upright.

Her legs trembled. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth, and her arms shook from the enormous Mana expenditure. Dawn’s Core had consumed so much energy that she could already feel the difference in her remaining reserves. The sphere had dissipated, her Domain was gone, and she couldn’t simply repeat the attack.

Yet she was standing.

Across the hall, Aldric lifted his head. Mirelle stared at Yuna in disbelief, while Ilyas looked between her and the destroyed battlefield as though he expected to find some hidden explanation. Even Garran stopped struggling long enough to stare.

They had combined the strongest attacks of four S-Ranks. Their collision had destroyed every Domain in the room, including Yuna’s.

And she had survived it.

Yuna wiped the blood from her mouth. Her eyes narrowed.

"Come at me."

She rushed toward them.

Garran recovered first. He pushed himself away from the wall and charged, gathering what remained of his accumulated force around his fist. Without his Domain, he couldn’t unleash the same devastating shock wave, but his physical strength remained formidable.

Yuna raised the Blade of Jade and met his punch at an angle. The impact rattled her arms, but she redirected the force into the floor. Before Garran could pull back, she stepped inside his reach and drove her elbow into his ribs.

He staggered.

Yuna increased the gravity beneath his leading foot. His balance broke, and she followed with a slash across his chest. Garran twisted away and caught her wrist, but the extra weight forced him to plant his feet to keep from falling.

That gave Yuna an opening.

She twisted free and kicked his knee, making him stumble into the path of Ilyas’s approaching attack.

"Move!" Ilyas shouted.

Garran barely avoided the strike. The two men collided shoulders, disrupting Ilyas’s angle, and Yuna slipped past them before either could recover.

Mirelle was already raising her hands.

Without her Domain, she could no longer spread her interference patterns across the entire hall. Instead, she concentrated them into a narrow web of threads aimed directly at Yuna’s Mana pathways.

"You can’t maintain that level of control while exhausted," Mirelle said. "I only need to disrupt one movement."

The first thread touched Yuna’s Mana, causing the gravity beneath her feet to falter. A second spread toward her shoulder, interrupting the flow she had been preparing for her next technique.

Yuna swept the Blade of Jade across the web.

Green light flashed along its edge. The threads split apart, and Mirelle’s expression changed when the weapon severed the magical structure she had carefully constructed.

Yuna reproduced the cutting effect through the Blade of Jade, sending a second wave across the hall. Mirelle raised a barrier, abandoning her attempt to interfere with Yuna’s control, but the attack cracked it and forced her backward.

Ilyas immediately exploited the opening.

A golden route brightened beneath Yuna’s foot as he launched his weapon along the path he expected her to follow. Yuna jumped, twisted in midair, and used gravity to pull herself toward the floor at an angle.

She landed beside him before he could redirect his attack.

The Blade of Jade cut through the golden mark forming at his side, disrupting the next route before it could activate. Yuna struck him beneath the jaw with the hilt of her weapon, then released a concentrated burst of Gnosis energy that threw him into the wall.

He slid to the ground and didn’t rise.

Mirelle tried to intervene, but Yuna had already closed the distance. One slash cut through her hastily assembled barrier, and a second struck her Mana armor. The armor cracked under the impact, sending Mirelle crashing against the pillar behind her.

Two executives were down.

Garran roared and charged again.

He no longer cared about coordination. He intended to crush Yuna before she could turn toward him, gathering the last of his accumulated force around his fist.

Yuna tried to summon Stillness of the Sun.

The air around Garran slowed, but the technique faltered almost immediately. The energy she’d spent on Dawn’s Core had left too little Mana to suppress his movement for more than a fraction of a second. Garran’s fist broke through the slowing effect and slammed into her guard.

The impact threw her across the floor.

Yuna caught herself on one knee, her wounded ribs burning with every breath. She couldn’t afford to keep using her strongest techniques. If she exhausted the Mana she had left, Garran would crush her before she could reach Aldric.

So she changed her approach.

Solar Gravity—King’s Burden!

Gravity slammed down on Garran’s leading leg. He forced himself forward, but the resistance slowed his charge just enough for Yuna to move aside. She guided his arm past her shoulder, then shifted the direction of the force acting on his body.

Garran’s momentum carried him beyond her.

His fist struck the floor, releasing the last of his accumulated power into the stone. Yuna was already moving behind him. She increased gravity across his shoulders, forcing him down as he tried to turn.

Garran crashed onto the broken floor.

He struggled to rise, but the pressure increased until his arms shook beneath his weight. His Mana armor flickered and collapsed, leaving him unable to overcome the force pressing him down.

"Stay there," Yuna said.

Garran snarled, but he could no longer stand.

Only Aldric remained.

The strategist looked at his fallen comrades before turning toward Yuna. His Command Lines had disappeared with his Domain, leaving him without the coordination that had made the four executives so dangerous together.

He drew his weapon.

"You dismantled our formation, broke Mirelle’s control, and used Garran’s strength against him." Aldric’s expression hardened. "You planned every exchange."

"No," Yuna replied, struggling to steady her breathing. "I adapted."

Aldric attacked.

Without relying on his Gnosis to coordinate the others, he fought with his own strength and speed. His weapon moved with the precision of someone who had spent years studying combat. He changed angles between strikes, refusing to let Yuna settle into a rhythm.

Yuna blocked the first attack, then the second. The third slipped past her guard and cut across her forearm. Aldric followed with a kick to her wounded ribs, sending her crashing onto the floor.

She rolled away before his weapon could descend, but her body was reaching its limit. Her Mana reserves were nearly empty, the Robe of the King was damaged, and even holding the Blade of Jade had become difficult.

Aldric advanced cautiously.

"Your power is extraordinary," he said. "But your Domain is gone, and Dawn’s Core consumed most of your Mana. You cannot maintain this forever."

Yuna pushed herself to her feet. "You’re right."

She could feel the truth in every aching muscle. Her strongest attack had bought her survival, but it had also forced her to fight the rest of the battle with severely limited resources. She couldn’t rely on another overwhelming burst of energy.

She needed to make every remaining movement count.

For years, she had mastered gravity, learned to influence motion and friction, and gradually developed control over electromagnetic forces. She had treated them as separate abilities, choosing one technique at a time according to what the situation demanded.

But during the collision, she had been forced to gather those different forces into one attack. Now, watching Aldric prepare his next strike, she realized she could apply that same understanding without compressing everything into Dawn’s Core.

She didn’t need more power.

She needed to direct the power she had with greater precision.

Aldric lunged.

Yuna reduced the motion of his blade as it approached, slowing its advance just enough to spoil the timing. At the same time, she increased gravity beneath his back foot, shifting his balance as he committed to the thrust.

She redirected his momentum past her shoulder, and the resulting movement carried him directly into the path of a fragment of broken stone she accelerated with electromagnetic force.

The fragment struck his armor.

Aldric stumbled, surprised by the seamless combination of effects. Yuna stepped forward and sent another electromagnetic pulse through the Blade of Jade, disrupting the Mana reinforcement around his weapon. His grip loosened.

She struck the weapon.

It shattered.

Aldric stared at the broken pieces for a fraction of a second. Yuna drove the Blade of Jade against his chest and released the last of her concentrated Gnosis energy.

He crashed into the wall beside his fallen comrades.

The hall fell silent.

Yuna remained standing, though only barely. As her Mana settled, she felt something change in the way she perceived Blazing Dawn. Gravity no longer seemed separate from motion, and motion no longer seemed separate from friction. The electromagnetic currents she had once struggled to direct now felt easier to recognize and guide.

Her Mana Sovereignty had deepened.

It wasn’t a new Gnosis or an ability that suddenly made her invincible.

It was a breakthrough in her understanding and control, allowing her to connect the forces she already possessed rather than relying on isolated techniques. She could coordinate more aspects of Blazing Dawn, although sustaining that control still demanded concentration and Mana she scarcely had left.

A loose stone rolled across the floor and stopped as Yuna unconsciously suppressed its movement. A moment later, it dropped.

She stared at it, then slowly curled her fingers around the Blade of Jade. Even exhausted, she could feel the difference. She had spent the battle struggling to survive four S-Ranks, yet the fight had taught her something she couldn’t have learned by training alone.

A tired smile touched her face.

She had held the line.

Reinhard and Emily could keep moving because she had stayed behind and defeated the people who stood in their way. She didn’t know what awaited them upstairs, but she trusted them to face it.

"Reinhard. Emily." She forced herself upright, even as her legs trembled. "Please win."

Beside the doorway, a damaged security panel flickered back to life. With the executives’ Mana signatures gone, the defensive network connected to the upper levels began to fluctuate. Several barriers weakened, and the power sustaining the tower’s highest defenses briefly faltered.

It wouldn’t last long, but it was an opportunity.

Yuna leaned against the wall and drew a shaky breath. She had done her part. Now the outcome depended on the two people fighting above her.

...

Far above the ruined hall, the doors to Xanxus’s chamber opened.

The Baal Family leader watched Reinhard and Emily enter. His black diamond-shaped mask reflected the light from the corridor, and his black-and-white sword blurred as he slowly drew it.

"So," Xanxus said, "you’ve finally arrived."