God of Destruction: Living Among Mortals

Elesch's mind raced. The void manipulation granted her temporary strength, but it demanded too much; her mana pool was depleting fast, her lungs burning harshly.

"Struggling already?" The Kuwaiti girl's voice carried amusement now. She approached slowly, purposefully, savoring every second of Elesch's exhaustion. "You're not as composed as I thought. Maybe your rank is just for show."

Elesch's grip tightened around her rapier, her knuckles pale. She tried to focus, letting the void's rhythm flow through her arm, steadying her breathing. Then she dashed forward, swinging upward with a flash of darkened steel.

The Kuwaiti girl dodged, countering with a point-blank ice spike aimed at Elesch's ribs. Elesch barely twisted out of the way, but the sharp edge tore through part of her uniform, leaving a shallow cut.

Pain flared, but so did defiance. Elesch brought her blade down again, void energy flaring brighter, black lightning cracking faintly around the tip. She struck again and again, faster, reckless.

Her form blurred; the air around her distorted. But despite the display, the Kuwaiti girl blocked each strike, her ice armor fracturing and reforming almost instantly.

Elesch's final swing came with a desperate roar, but the Kuwaiti girl sidestepped and slammed her palm against Elesch's chest. A surge of freezing energy burst forth, sending Elesch skidding backward across the slick arena floor.

She gasped, the void energy flickering weakly around her. Her rapier trembled in her grip, its edge dim.

The Kuwaiti girl strode toward her, slow and confident, eyes glinting with victory. "You fight beautifully," she said softly, voice dripping with condescension. "But beauty alone won't win you anything here."

Elesch forced herself up, legs shaking. "We'll see about that," she whispered, voice hoarse but steady.

Elesch's knees trembled beneath her as the Kuwaiti girl circled her like a predator, the artificial light from the arena slightly blurring Elesch's vision as she tried to see.

Her breathing came in sharp, shallow bursts. Every inhale scraped against her throat. Her body screamed for her to stop, to yield, but she refused to bow, without giving it more than what she could handle.

I don't give up now. I have to move. I can't stop. I can't die here. Her mind spun as she slowly tried to get up.

The Kuwaiti girl's smirk widened. "You should've stayed in your rank's trials," she said, voice dripping with confidence. "This one's beyond you."

Elesch's lips parted, but no words came out. Instead, she raised her rapier with trembling arms. The weapon felt heavier now, its weight pressing down as though it wanted to sink her into the floor.

Then, the assault came again, relentless. The Kuwaiti girl's movements blurred into streaks of cold light. Blades of ice formed, shattered, and reformed faster than Elesch could follow. Each deflection sent a shock through her arm. Each strike left trails of pain blooming across her skin.

Minutes stretched into an eternity. Elesch fought like a cornered animal, pure instinct, pure desperation. The void energy in her rapier pulsed faintly with each clash, dimming more and more with every failed attempt to land a decisive blow.

Her opponent was untouched, save for that faint line of blood from before. Elesch, on the other hand, was breaking apart. Her uniform clung to her with sweat and frost, and her hands were raw from gripping the hilt too tightly. A streak of crimson slid down her chin; she didn't even remember when she'd bitten her tongue.

The ground beneath her shifted as another impact sent her sprawling. She hit hard, the breath knocked out of her, her vision fading into gray.

The Kuwaiti girl didn't even pause. She advanced, step after deliberate step. "This is mercy," she murmured. "If I end it now, you won't suffer."

Elesch's fingers twitched. She tried to rise, once, twice, before collapsing again. Her pulse roared in her ears, drowning out the announcer, the distant crowd, the world itself.

For a long moment, she simply lay there, her cheek pressed against the cold floor, the taste of iron on her tongue. Then something inside her shifted.

It wasn't defiance, it was something deeper, older, stranger. A whisper that coiled up from the depths of her being. The same voice that had called to her when she first touched the Void.

"You are not done yet."

Her hand clenched around the rapier's hilt. The blade flickered, a faint shimmer of violet and black shimmered across its edge.

The Kuwaiti girl noticed. "Still fighting?" she said, annoyed now. She lifted a hand, ready to summon another storm.

But before she could act, the air changed. The arena's atmosphere grew heavy, oppressive. The temperature dropped sharply, not from ice, but from something that felt colder than cold. The space around Elesch rippled as if the very air was bending away from her.

She rose slowly, every motion deliberate, her head bowed. Her hair drifted upward, carried by an invisible current. The black aura around her grew brighter, shot through with veins of deep purple light.

The Kuwaiti girl hesitated, frowning. "What-"

Her words died.

Elesch lifted her gaze. Her eyes no longer held exhaustion or fear. They were dark voids, swirling with faint glimmers of starlight, like galaxies condensed into two points of endless gravity.

The rapier in her grip hummed, alive. The black lightning from before had thickened into web-like veins crawling along its blade, whispering in a language that wasn't meant to be spoken.

Elesch spoke quietly, her voice calm yet inhumanly steady. "You wanted to see what my rank can't show."

Then she vanished.

A shockwave burst outward as she reappeared inches away from her opponent, her rapier already mid-swing. The Kuwaiti girl barely had time to raise her arm before her ice barrier shattered like glass.

Elesch's strike didn't just hit, it tore through the space around it, a blur of dark light and distortion. The force sent the Kuwaiti girl sliding backward, boots scraping across the arena floor.

For the first time, fear flickered across her face.