cerim
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Chapter 593 - 2v1
🕑 Added 2025-04-08 08:56:00 +0000 UTCThere are no words exchanged between us. Vic charges first, only for her body to explode into pieces the moment she gets closer. Each of these pieces grows into another person, and five Victorias charge Lissandra at once.
She kicks one of the Victorias away, the broken body passing by me through the air. Another two explode into piles of flesh. One of the remaining ones grabs Lissandra's arm, and the last one tears off its finger to throw it at Lissandra.
I use Wraith Dance to jump down and slash to Lissandra with Fracture.
Lissandra ducks under the blade, and a cascading mana attack seeps out of her hand. Victoria holding onto her arm bursts like a bubble.
I catch Victoria's finger midair, pulling it close to protect it as a burst of heat escapes from my partially unsealed heart. It scorches everything nearby, making the air flicker.
Out of the golden flames, Lissandra emerges undamaged with a pale blue barrier flickering across her skin. My kinetic energy’s hold on her is broken through a sheer burst of force, and a sword made of mana forms in her hand, which she slashes at me.
It meets with Fracture, which incredibly does not cut through it immediately. Up close, the two blades clash. While her sword remains firm and stable, Fracture keeps cracking, releasing bursts of black and gray smoke.
I send a disruptive wave at her, something that would easily overwhelm anyone from the Earth tutorial, but she remains unaffected. Instead, she pushes me back, using her mana to reinforce her body.
Circles of flame burst from the exhaustion node on my back, tearing through my hoodie. These flames surround me, swirl around, and attack Lissandra.
She steps forward, forcing me back, and the flames closing in on her are blown away by the pressure radiating from her.
The finger I have hidden within these flames behind her expands, and Victoria regrows from it only to be kicked by Lissandra who doesn't even turn around. Still, Victoria endures and grabs Lissandra's leg, twisting in an attempt to break it.
I seize the opportunity and boost my body to its limit, slashing at her with Fracture once more and finally shattering the sword she created.
For a moment, that familiar pale blue mana flickers across her palm as she deflects the blade by striking the flat side. Lissandra breaks free from Victoria's grip and kicks her again. Then she vanishes, reappearing atop another broken building.
I use the mark I left on her to send a tricolored orb through and then teleport behind her using the same mark. But the explosion I expected never happens. Lissandra stands completely untouched. With a viper-like motion, she reacts as if she saw it coming and grabs me by the neck. She raises her arm to block Fracture, only to realize with slight surprise that it's not there.
Victoria reaches us, holding the sword in both of her hands, which are already more damaged than mine, and slashes at Lissandra, who moves to dodge. I use that brief opportunity to create a nail made of black mana and stab it into her shoulder as she deflects Fracture Victoria holds.
I release a burst of kinetic energy at her, and she lets go of my neck to quickly draw a glowing inscription in the air that absorbs all of that kinetic energy and deflects it back at me, forcing me to absorb it as well.
Lissandra vanishes, even with the black mana nail stabbed into her, even with the pull of the black mana crown and the disruption I attempt. Her control is so precise that she ignores it all, and I focus on observing how she does it as closely as I can.
I grab Fracture as Victoria throws it to me. Meanwhile, Victoria bites off her tongue, spits it out, and regrows another duplicate, arms undamaged from holding Fracture.
Both of us jump over the buildings and follow Lissandra, who continues to put up distance by creating shields and shooting projectiles at us that, though weak looking, totally obliterate anything in their way.
We chase her across the rooftops as the first projectile hits behind us. The building it touches caves in without a sound sucked inward before collapsing in a slow, unnatural sink. Windows melt and flow like wax, then burst into steam.
Another shot cuts through the street below. The asphalt warps, buckles, then craters inward. Cars are flipped and crumpled like foil, their frames folding into each other before catching fire.
One glowing orange spark flies just past my face. The heat singes my cheek, leaves a glowing line across my hood, but I keep going. Behind me, it touches the building and explodes into a fiery vortex. Victoria ducks under another, her hair catching fire briefly before she snuffs it out.
One more strikes a parked car. It just folds the car inward until it's a perfect sphere, glowing faintly, then drops it through the cracked pavement like a stone into water.
All while Vic seems unkillable. She is quick, she is durable, and no matter how much she gets destroyed, a new version of her always pops up. It seems like these versions are becoming tougher against the attacks Lissandra uses, likely due to some sort of adaptive resistance passive or trait.
Meanwhile, Lissandra, even though limited, is far stronger than Ruby's avatar. Not because of levels, whether skill or stat levels, but because of her sheer experience and decisiveness she shows. She knows most of my skills and quickly adapts to Vic.
Even while holding back and fighting so simply, her style feels like that of someone who had to learn on their own, gathering abilities from different sources and relying entirely on personal understanding.
The fight slows down as she retreats back to the streets, giving us a few seconds to regroup.
Victoria joins me at my side, throwing down a few pieces of herself that grow into duplicates. They start walking in from the side and surround Lissandra, who lets it happen without even turning around to watch them. Fracture vibrates in my arm, breaking, cracking.
No cheesy one-liners are spoken, and I attack. Through the stretched Ley Line, I teleport, only to appear somewhere entirely different and high in the air.
I send a pulse of detection and fly in that direction, altering my course and heading straight for Lissandra, who is fighting against Victoria's duplicates.
I crash down like a meteor, with Fracture merely slicing past Lissandra as she twists her body. Immediately, I boost myself with black mana, both in body and mind. The barrier around Lissandra's body flickers as my black crown starts absorbing it, and Victoria moves faster than before and from behind grabs her in a chokehold and stabs one of her fingers into Lissandra's eyes.
My Mana Wavelength Iris observes Lissandra and the mana moving around her body, and she easily returns that gaze with her now single eye. Everything feels slowed down, and I move as if wading through mud, my body struggling to keep up with my perception.
Lissandra increases her speed to match mine. The fading mana around her skin flickers, and she deflects Fracture by striking the flat part of the blade with her hand and directing it into the ground. In one smooth movement, she throws Victoria off her, by breaking and twisting my sister´s arms.
I boost myself further. I recall the way Lioren moved, and even though I lack his grace, I try to mimic him for a moment, moving faster, raising Fracture, and stabbing it toward her.
To stop the blade, she slams her palms together, catching it between them. Fracture halts just a palm’s width from her chest. Even then, it releases bursts of gray and black smoke, tearing into her hands and leaving wounds across her chest. The same force hits me as well, and I’m forced to redirect my mana to avoid damage to my circuits.
Lissandra moves to twist the blade out of my hands, but Victoria's punch hits her blind side and sends her through the air, rolling across the asphalt and coming to a stop against the side of a bus. Victoria doesn't stop there, charges her, sending the bus rolling across the road as she hits it with her shoulder, but Lissandra is not there.
Feeling a movement behind me, I release a burst of mana in that direction, a huge amount that I have collected.
Lissandra, standing there, slashes her arm across the air, and that burst splits in half, passing by her sides and tearing the street and buildings behind her apart. She walks forward, her gaze locking with mine. Mana spirals across her body in a pattern far too complex to be random. My currently activated Mana Wavelength Iris catches it for a moment, then falters. Pain surges through me, and my grip on my mana breaks.
Even then I force myself to attempt to absorb the kinetic energy of her punch, but I fail and am sent flying back, crashing through the glass window of a small shop nearby.
I boost myself back up only to see Lissandra holding my black crown, which she must have grabbed as she kicked me away. She smiles and throws it far into the distance, only to be punched by Victoria, who appears nearby. The hit lands, but Victoria’s body instantly detonates under the force, torn apart into flying chunks of flesh and blood.
From one of the scattered pieces, another Victoria grows. She moves the same way, landing a second hit before disintegrating mid-strike. For a brief moment, she's as fast as Tacita and nearly as strong as Jean. The impact sends Lissandra crashing through buildings, and the shockwaves push debris and vehicles down the street.
Once again, from the pieces a new Victoria appears, charging at Lissandra with her shoulder and sending her into another building that collapses as well. The structure groans under the impact, walls cracking and supports giving way. Before it can fully collapse, it erupts in a violent explosion, launching debris in every direction.
Lissandra steps out, with pale mana flickering around her and remaining nearly undamaged.
Victoria charges again in the same reckless way, and I try to read her trajectory, predicting where her punch will send Lissandra. I move to intercept, ready to swing my sword as she comes flying toward me.
I move, positioning myself before Lissandra's punched body reaches me, but a spear of mana forms in her hand. She drives it into the road, slowing her momentum and causing me to miss. She then immediately moves and stabs my neck, chest, and leg before I break the weapon with Fracture and slash it across her legs, causing a wound there.
Thermal energy combusts beneath my skin, healing these wounds nearly immediately, and I throw Fracture aside, where Victoria grabs it.
I start channeling more kinetic energy through my body, using mana to strengthen it at the same time, all as much as I can with the entirety of my [Focus]. Thermal energy continues combusting inside me, sending waves of pain through my body but healing the damage I cause to myself. Using my rapidly healing body I let go of efficiency and worry and only focus on quickly channeling kinetic energy through myself to match up to my sister and Lissandra.
Victoria unleashes short bursts of strength and speed that tear her body apart with each movement. My own body holds together only because it's constantly burning itself to heal. Lissandra uses some form of overclocking, combined with incredible mana-based reinforcement.
What began as a clash of skills and tricks shifts into pure, brutal melee as we attack Lissandra together. She’s likely only as strong as one of us alone, yet somehow matches both of us combined.
Lissandra gets wounded and hit, yet without healing herself, she continues to fight with these wounds. Even with just the physical capabilities we possess, she matches us one-on-two, redirecting our attacks, positioning herself better, or exploiting our lack of experience in fighting as a pair.
We move at speeds that turn my side view into a blur, crashing through skyscrapers and reducing them to rubble. Every step sends cracks racing through the pavement, every missed strike shatters concrete and twists metal. Windows burst from the pressure alone, and the ground quakes beneath our feet.
An elbow strike from Victoria sends Lissandra flying through a high-rise, her body carving a jagged path through steel beams and office walls. She crashes out the other side, landing in the middle of a street already cratered from earlier impacts. I follow close behind, my landing punch splitting the asphalt like dry earth.
The force of my kinetic impact throws parked cars into the air. Streetlights are ripped from their foundations, traffic signs bend and melt under stray mana discharges.
A single deflected kick from Vic blows out an entire building's facade, raining glass and debris over several blocks.
And yet Lissandra remains unshaken. She meets Victoria’s raw power with ruthless timing, slipping past her charges with narrow sidesteps, punishing overextension. Against me, she reads the smallest shift in my stance and parries with perfect counter-movement, redirecting force instead of resisting it. Her body, though wounded, moves like it’s untouched.
Mana radiates off her like a pulse. Shields flicker and reform between blows. Spells shape and unshape in her hands in half a second. She sends Victoria crashing through an office building, then spins to block Fracture with a blade made of mana. The clash sends both of us skidding backward, tearing up the street in long, burning trails.
Fracture devours the air, cuts through the barriers Lissandra forms, and obliterates the mana weapons she creates. But she knows my plan. She locks eye with mine and changes direction so that we do not head toward where she has thrown my black crown, a move I had hoped to counter.
"Give me 2 seconds," I shout to Vic as I bury my feet into the broken asphalt and throw her Fracture.
I release a blast of kinetic energy and shoot to the side to avoid Lissandra, bulldozing through the building. She tries to head my way, but Victoria jumps in front of her, only to immediately fall back with her head exploding.
Lissandra tries to pass by, but that body moves and a hand grabs her, and a piece on the other side regrows for the duplicate to attack her as well.
In that brief movement, I reach the crown lodged deep in the side of the building, and it floats over my head, granting me access to an incredible amount of mana that it absorbed from me and stored inside.
Out of nowhere, Fracture comes flying and pierces through my leg, stabbing me against a nearby wall. Victoria's body crashes next to me, only for her to stand up immediately nearby to face Lissandra, who slowly walks out from between the buildings. She is missing one eye, her face is bruised, and there are wounds on her body caused by either me or Vic, and even a few caused by Fracture.
Still, against all logic, this Absolute does not heal herself. She doesn't even put much effort into dodging; instead, she drags herself down to our level. An Absolute, bruised and wounded by two mere Champion candidates, remains uncaring about her image or pride. In fact, she seems to be enjoying it.
"That's all?" she asks, and mana rises up around her.
Against my will, I let out a short snort and, grabbing Fracture, pull it out of my leg, redirecting more thermal energy to the wound and nearly entirely burning it, setting it on fire and regenerating it at the expense of great pain. Even then, the damage caused by this weapon remains, and I change the way I channel mana within my body to account for these wounds.
Ding, the notification rings. Something as useless as death now being possible.
I wave it off, then the second round starts.
***
Comments
venkata siddhardha yarlagadda
The kid in contact was spacewolf aka lucien who is the healer of jean (1st round tournament winner) while the shadow wolves guy is the 3rd round tournament winner. 2 completely separate people but they are both kids which is where your confusion is from I guess.
P K
I want to get a pov of the kid with the shadow wolves (forgot his name) when he realizes who their fighting, if I remember he also was in contact with Lizz in that lvl for a while
Johnny
At this level how does anyone even die? Just constant regeneration/duplication. Seems like champion fights could take weeks and destroy planets
Johnny
This shit slaps
jazz
Resources of course
Ivan Jelenić
Yeah, he at least needs the left arm gone.
Abhishek
How can Vic have such a broken ability? Regenerate from anything and come out stronger. There has to be a limit
Max
Tftc!!! Mother Gwyn (forgot her First Name) will be Happy watching the recording of this fight of her two Kids fighting some weird never-before-Seen women 😁 Also Victorias skillset/avatarbuild is intresting af with her class and build she could have all the crazy traits and stuff.
Lonnie
Knew this was going to be a multi chapter fight. Good stuff
Ronnel
TFTC!!!!
TYRELL GRAY
I never thought of that but, as much as mana is his favourite, it’s basic, he can lose control over like a skill like eclipse, it doesn’t hold up well against primordial elements, like void, or kinetic energy and a lot more. And he has to condense it to have an impact such as those tri orbs he used. And he’s not skill like the cockroach to will it at a level where it hold up against, anything. He needs a lot more experience, and another reason I think why he lost confidence in it, is it has failed Thought out the story
zoarian
System: Btw, you can die now. Nat: Why are you bothering me with this useless info? smh
zoarian
Black mana lance is coming, and I'm ready for it
11335577
He would die
Edmund Dillon
The ultimate family duo🖤😈, tftc!!!!
Funny guy
Danks fur da chappie!
RingoSeto
hes about to go full on thermal on this woman
venkata siddhardha yarlagadda
True lol. I forgot about that. Cerim might have too.
Charminski Parks
Who else thinks Nat is going to fully unleash the seals on his 2nd heart ?????
Sargon Yami
I think one of nats problems and why his advance and talent is not showing as much as LIss wants is that he somewhat forgot his love for mana. He uses it more as a tool that he is proud in. One of whites defining features was how much he loved kinetic energy. For nat to become an absolute candidate he needs that back.
Muntu Omnyama
Thank god it’s not Thursday ;)
Tsorov
Thx for the chapter! The city definetly makes this chapter even better because it shows us a reference point to what we already know/can comprehend. My question now is: If Nat's thermal energy killed even beyonders, how the fuck ls the city still standin? We know that somebody like Jean can withstand the punches they threw in this fight, or at least mostly survive them. But the city seems really fragile against that, and Nat engulfed it entirely in primordial energy. It should be gone before the fight even started.
Madje Tobi Marc'Avent Tchona
Sounds like a philosophy question
Arnon Parenti
What's the point of Death if they literally can't die?
David McCreight
Hyperion lance? 👀👀
Andrew
Thank you!
Moonfrost
Ding. The notification rings. The > A
Venno
More epic
venkata siddhardha yarlagadda
Yeah but I wonder what the use of turning on the possibility of death even does. At best, it's just gonna get some talented people killed. If anybody has any thoughts on why it does that, please tell me.
venkata siddhardha yarlagadda
Lol
Oaktree
All difficulties: the crazy siblings were going easy on us. To add to the cards: They’re monsters Note: wtf is wrong with them They’re harder to kill than cockroaches. Ones immortal while the other refuses to die. The brother is a waking catastrophe, while the sister is a one woman army. Note: in the future could vic create an army of clones? Also who the hell is this white haired chick who is beating these monsters senseless???
im_among_you
Lily gets countered by her, her attacks disintegrate it’s not a 1 shot so she can just make more and waste your mana, Nat could probably beat her with a pigeon obliterator 100000
Adrian Rake
The system is ruthless.
Woojoe
Oh man! Nat hasn’t even begun to fight. With both arms intact he’s still warming up. We definitely need more of these duo fights in the future!
Kingcarn
Omg I need more now. I'm a junky lol
Belmont Igneul
He’s having so much fun :)
Leyphelio
I mean the fight is very cool and all, but can we talk about how bullshit Victoria's powers are? How would you even go about killing her without being overwhelmingly more powerful? Even Lily with a bag of Nat's arms couldn't survive this much
Aoth the Arcane
Uffff
M van Dongen
System fucking people over, again and forever.
Claro reyes
Let's fvckn goooooo!!!
