NOVEL NEXT Vol 2. Chapter 15: Miracle Girl
They both rose to their feet, sweat clinging to their skin, dust swirling around them like a storm yet to settle. The two fighters breathing hard now, both marked by the fight that refused to end. And they returned to where this had begun.
A stand-up battle, an exchange of strikes.
This was where Celina thrived, this was where she had the clear edge over the princess. But Rosalia didn't back down. There was no fear in her step, no tremble in her breath.
The princess lunged forward with a sharp twist, her entire frame coiling as if she were about to unleash a devastating spinning back kick—a movement so large, so telegraphed, that Celina reacted on instinct, her guard rising, her footing bracing, her mind flashing through every counter she could use to punish the inevitable blow.
Except the kick never came.
Rosalia's leg darted low, almost like a snake striking beneath tall grass, sweeping behind Celina's legs with deceptive speed, and at the very same moment, her hands slammed into Celina's shoulders, violently shoving her backward.
There was no time to recover—no ground to regain. Celina's centre of gravity was gone, her balance thrown off before she could even react. The Divine Knight crashed to the earth in a cloud of dirt, a sharp cry of frustration escaping her lips.
From the side lines, Lukas could barely contain the roar that tore from his throat—a visceral, guttural sound of triumph—as his fist pumped up high into the air. That was the same judo throw that he had made Rosalia practice again and again in the months leading up to the fight. And she had just executed it perfectly.
Rosalia was relentless. She surged forward, relentless as a rising tide, her weight crashing down on Celina's frame, pinning her to the ground. And now, the fire in the princess's gaze had transformed into something else entirely. Gone was the glimmer of the student still trying to prove herself. Gone was the girl who had looked up to Celina as her hero.
What stared back now—what hovered over Celina with a tightening grip—was a predator, cold and methodical, relishing the slow, inevitable collapse of her prey.
She would not let the Divine Knight her escape this time. Not again.
Celina, breath ragged and pulse hammering against her ribs, threw one arm to the ground to prop herself up, desperate to peel her body from the suffocating pressure of Rosalia's mount. But Rosalia's hands snatched the limb and yanked it forward, pulling Celina flat against the earth, her back exposed, her movements trapped beneath the princess's weight.
Panic fluttered in Celina's chest. She twisted her hips, scrambling to plant her feet, searching for leverage—but every time she built a foundation, Rosalia shattered it. Her foot drove into Celina's shin, knocking it away. Celina shifted the other, only for Rosalia to sweep it aside in the next heartbeat. Again and again. Every foothold dissolved like sand slipping between trembling fingers.
Celina's world became one of suffocation, as if she were drowning in a swamp from which no amount of struggling could free her from its grasp. The more she resisted, the deeper she sank into Rosalia's grasp.
Desperation overtook instinct. Celina twisted wildly, trying to shake Rosalia off, but in doing so—she exposed her back completely.
A fatal mistake. One that screamed of her inexperience on the ground. Lukas couldn't fault her for he doubted Hiraeth would have ever had developed grappling techniques like the people of Earth had. And then, like steel snapping shut, Rosalia's arms coiled around Celina's throat, her biceps pressing tightly against the sides of her neck.
The rear naked choke was locked in.
Celina clawed at Rosalia's forearms, her fingers trembling as she fought to pry the grip loose, but the hold was iron—unforgiving, perfect in its execution. Her breathing fractured into short, ragged gasps. The edges of her vision frayed, dissolving into creeping darkness. Her body began to grow distant, her limbs sluggish, as though submerged in freezing water.
The Divine Knight could tap.
Her hand hovered. A single tap was all it took, Celina could still surrender. The pain would stop. The pressure would ease. But her pride—her unrelenting, razor-edged pride—anchored her to the only choice she had left. The Divine Knight persevered through it all.
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Celina refused to give up. She would rather pass out than yield. She would rather fade into unconsciousness than admit defeat. And as her arms slackened, as her heartbeat slowed into a dull, distant thrum, she realized that she had already lost.
The fight belonged to Rosalia. The princess had claimed her victory—not by chance and not by accident—through precision, through relentless pressure, through a style of fighting Celina had never faced.
What none of them had realized—what had slipped beneath the frenzy of grappling, the scramble of limbs, and the collision of sweat and dirt—was that the runes the old man had so carefully traced across Celina's body had begun to erode.
It had happened slowly, gradually.
The slick layer of sweat from their exertion mixed with the grime of the training yard, grinding against the ancient ink, smudging the delicate lines, pulling apart the lattice of magical restraint the old man had so meticulously crafted. And as the fight raged on, with neither combatant willing to yield, the seals that had suppressed Celina's strength quietly, inevitably dissolved.
Rosalia, drained of strength, was desperately clinging to her chokehold—her muscles trembling, her breathing ragged, her entire body demanding rest—but she refused to loosen her grip. She was moments away from victory. She could feel Celina's consciousness slipping away beneath her hands.
But then Rosalia felt it. Celina's muscles surged with a strength that should not have been there. The runes had been erased. The Divine Knight's power—her true power—had returned to her.
In a heartbeat, everything changed.
Celina's arms wrenched free with brutal ease, her regained strength effortlessly breaking Rosalia's hold as though she were swatting away a child. Rosalia let out a startled cry, her body hurled aside by a single, violent motion. Lukas could see the Divine Knight's body reverting back to its original form.
The princess crashed to the ground, the breath knocked from her chest, her limbs limp with exhaustion. Rosalia had nothing left. She had given everything to that last desperate hold.
Now Celina loomed over her, wild-eyed, caught in the haze of battle, driven by the rush of restored power and the fury of having been brought to the brink of defeat. She did not hesitate. Her fist drew back, muscles flexing, her entire frame coiling as she aimed a final strike at Rosalia's prone form.
A blow that would shatter bone. A blow that could pulverize flesh. A blow that could kill her.
Lukas roared, his voice exploding across the training yard, his Divinity surging to life in a violent eruption, the threads of his power beginning to crackle around him—but he was too far away.
The old man jolted upright, his staff raised, his expression flashing with dread—lightning crackled all around him but even his magic would not reach them in time.
They had all been too slow.
Celina's fist plunged downward.
And then—the world ignited.
There was no time to process it. No time to react.
A blinding explosion of light detonated between Celina and Rosalia, a pulse of raw, condensed Mana erupting with such force that Celina's body was blasted backward, her limbs flailing as she crashed into the dirt. The air itself vibrated, humming with the residue of that unfiltered power—a purity of Mana so dense, so absolute, that it stunned everyone who felt it.
In the heart of that eruption, Rosalia rose through the air from where she once lay seconds ago.
The princess continued to rise, levitating off the ground, suspended by the sheer force of the Mana swirling around her. The wounds on her skin shimmered, glowing faintly as bruises faded, as cuts sealed, as her battered body repaired itself as if the damage had never happened.
Her fiery red hair lifted in the current of invisible winds. Her eyes—brilliant, unearthly—glowed with the radiance of someone who had become something more.
Lukas could only watch, his mouth parted in disbelief, his mind barely able to comprehend what stood before him.
The old man's hands trembled around his staff, his throat dry. "To all the Gods of Hiraeth," he whispered, the word falling from his lips like a confession. "She...is truly a wonder."
Celina sat up, her chest heaving, staring at the figure before her—not with rage, not with the focus of a warrior—but with the wide-eyed shock of someone witnessing the inexplicable.
This entire time, Rosalia had hidden this gift of hers from her master. She had always wanted to become the Divine Knight, but to become it through her merit alone. This would be Celina's first time witnessing it. This gift that Rosalia had been blessed with.
Rosalia had struggled, pushed herself to the edge, endured punishment she didn't need to suffer. All because she wanted to prove something—that she could become a Divine Knight through her own strength, her own merit. And not because of some gift that allowed her to speak to Mana itself.
Now, Celina saw it. Saw something that she had never seen before in all her years of life on the face of this planet. She saw Rosalia for what she was:
Not just the child of her closest companion.
Not just the little girl who dreamed of becoming just like her.
For Rosalia Elarion was the girl whom Mana obeyed.
This girl...she was a Miracle.