"Huuf..."
Crrrrkkk...!
The soil under Gray’s boots tightened first, then the thorned vines behind the princess leaned inward as if they had been waiting for permission.
Fwoop!
She shot towards Gray instantly.
A straight charge, spear low, crimson mana bursting from her heels hard enough to split the wet ground behind her.
Gray read the line of her shoulders before the spear finished its path and stepped left, but the soil grabbed his right boot and held it half a second too long.
THUNK!
The spearhead tore past his ribs instead of through them, still close enough to open his coat and leave a burning line across his side.
"Hissh!"
Gray hissed, ripped his foot free, and Swap-marked a thorned vine above her left shoulder before the next thrust arrived.
"[✧Swap✧]"
His body left the soil and appeared in the air behind that vine.
The spear punched through empty space and sank into the domain floor with a wet, heavy sound.
SHLUK!
"You keep running," the princess said, already tearing the spear free.
"Is that the only thing your tribe taught you?"
"They taught me not to stand still when someone is aiming their weapon at my lungs." Gray landed on a thicker vine, felt it try to coil around his ankle, and cut it before it finished the motion.
"You should try it sometime."
She flicked two fingers.
A wall of roots exploded upward between them, then split down the middle, so her next mana burst could come through the gap.
The burst was not a spear wave; instead, it was a compact sphere of royal Demonic Energy, dense enough that the air around it warped.
Gray dropped off the vine and rolled.
BOOOOM!
The sphere hit the place he had been standing and opened another crater. Dirt and red sap sprayed across his back.
He came up running along the inner curve of the Domain, forcing her to turn, forcing her to waste the width of her own field.
He had analyzed quite a bit of her fighting style.
She liked to pin first and punish second. The soil was the pin, the vines were the fence, and the mana bursts were the execution.
So he refused the pin.
The ground tried to swallow both his feet at once.
Gray stamped the wet soil, used a thin pulse of Gravity Magic to lighten his own body instead of weighing hers, and skimmed across the surface like someone running on thin ice.
The princess noticed the change in his footing and clicked her tongue.
"You adapt too quickly."
"You repeat yourself too quickly."
A vine shot from under his next step anyway. He Swap-marked a drifting scrap of torn root to his right and vanished again.
"[✧Swap✧]"
He reappeared off-angle, already cutting.
The rapier scraped her outer guard and left nothing but a white scratch on the crimson light covering her waist.
No blood, barely even a mark.
She did not look impressed, but looked interested instead.
"That tickled."
"I was aiming for your pride..." Gray reset his stance, breathing through the sting in his side.
"Apparently it is thicker than your armor."
The princess laughed once, short and sharp, then slammed the butt of the spear into the ground.
The Domain floor rippled.
Dozens of root-hands burst out in a circle around Gray, closing like a cage.
He slashed two, kicked a third, and still felt one wrap his calf. The soil rose with it, trying to cement him in place.
"Caught," she said.
Gray did not waste a swing on the obvious bind. He let the root pull, used the pull, and threw himself toward her instead of away.
The unexpected direction made her spear rise a fraction late.
CLANG!
Rapier met crescent blade at an ugly angle. Sparks of mixed mana and Demonic Energy spat between their faces.
Gray was the weaker one in that lock, and he knew it, so he did not stay in it.
He slid his point off her shaft, ducked under her elbow, and drove a knee toward her midsection.
She took it on her forearm and shoved him back with a burst of raw force.
BAM!
Gray hit a curtain of vines, bounced, and immediately Swap-marked a thorn behind her before the follow-up spear could pin him to the wall.
"[✧Swap✧]"
He appeared at her blind side and cut for the same shoulder he had already wounded.
The princess turned with the wound instead of against it.
The spear shaft knocked his blade wide.
A vine slapped his wrist hard enough to numb his fingers. The rapier almost left his hand.
"Predictable," she said.
"Only if you stop after one look." Gray caught the hilt, dropped low, and swept her ankle.
The soil tried to save her, so he decided to cut the soil first.
SHING!
The rapier opened the ground under her heel.
"Ah?!" She staggered half a step.
Unfortunately, that was all he got as her other foot quickly came around and kicked him in the chest.
THUD!
"Kurgh...!"
He flew, coughed blood, and carved a trench through the roots with his back. The Domain wanted him buried.
He refused the burial by rolling, slashing, and coming up on one knee with the rapier already raised.
The princess walked after him again, slower this time, spear resting on her shoulder as if the fight had become a stroll.
"You should be on the ground by now."
"I have been on the ground..." Gray spat red into the soil.
"It was uncomfortable."
"Then stay down."
"Only if you stay down with me..."
"...."
Swip!
She sent three mana bursts in a triangle, one at his head, one at his legs, one at the space he would dodge into if he moved like before.
Gray saw the triangle form in her wrist before the first sphere left her hand. He did not dodge into the empty space.
He Swap-marked the center burst itself.
"[✧Swap✧]"
For an instant, he occupied the same line as her own attack, then left it behind her.
The two remaining spheres smashed into each other. The third detonated against a wall of vines and showered the field in burning sap.
The princess whipped around with widened eyes.
"You swapped with my attack."
"It was convenient..." Gray’s voice stayed even, though his breathing had grown heavier.
"You should stop leaving gifts in the air."
Her pride flared hotter than her bloodline.
The blood moon brightened until the whole Domain looked soaked in fresh gore. Vines thickened in size, and the thorns lengthened.
The soil climbed his boots without waiting for a command.
"Enough tricks."
She came in a storm.
Spear, vine, burst, spear again.
Gray gave ground in pieces, never in a straight line. He let one thrust graze his hip so he could avoid the vine meant to crush his spine.
He let a burst scorch his sleeve so he could keep his sword arm free. Of course, he was able to deal damage to her...
But his weapon and strength were significantly weaker, so he could not really do any kind of real damage to her.
She noticed that too.
"You cannot hurt me."
"Not yet."
"Then why are you smiling?"
Gray had not realized he was smiling until she said it. The expression stayed anyway.
"Because you telegraph the soil before you use it. Your left heel sinks first. Your vines follow your spear, not the other way around. And when you get angry, you stop mixing your attacks and start stacking them." He parried a downward smash and let the force slide off to his right.
"Stacking is loud. Loud is readable."
The princess’s face tightened.
"You talk too much for someone bleeding."
"Talking keeps me counting."
Fwooosh!
A vine shot at his throat, making him duck instantly. Just then, another shot at his knees.
He hopped it.
The third came from above, thick as a pillar.
He Swap-marked a torn strip of his own coat fluttering near her feet.
"[✧Swap✧]"
He dropped into a crouch in front of her, too close for the pillar, too close for a full spear sweep.
His rapier stabbed up under the crescent head and kissed the light over her collarbone.
Tink.
That was all.
The defensive layer rang like glass and did not break.
She headbutted him.
CRACK!
Gray’s vision flashed white.
"Ugh..."
He staggered, tasted more blood, and still kept the rapier between them because experience had taught him that pain was a trick people used to open your guard.
The princess pressed the advantage.
Soil climbed to his calves while vines wrapped his sword arm. A mana burst gathered in her palm at point-blank range.
"Got you."
Gray smiled with blood on his teeth.
"Do you?"
He could swap his position, but instead... he decided to do the ugly thing.
He stepped into the burst, twisted so it tore across his already ruined coat instead of his core, and slammed his forehead back into hers.
THUD!
Neither of them fell.
Both of them cursed.
"You insane fucker!!!"
"You started the close fighting."
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