Clash

The sealed underground prison created by Axiolypito quickly turned into a battlefield.

The two mages demonstrated their seemingly bottomless list of spells and tricks, anything at their disposal was used to try and swiftly take out their opponents.

Reduvia and Blouvier were evenly matched in every aspect however.

Their core elements were both the greatest bane of the other but simultaneously the greatest defense, death spells capable of instantly reducing great heroes to corpses were countered without any problems.

Likewise, life spells capable of taking out massively powerful undeads showed no effects.

Whenever one revealed another element or trick, it was just as easily dealt with.

They could neither overpower or outsmart their opponent, a true stalemate had been reached by simply pitting them against one another.

The castle-offspring of Axio didn't have eyes to see the battle with unfortunately, otherwise, the Dark Blue Moon would have quickly began to make comparisons with the Old Hadal King and his deep water sorcery.

He wouldn't have been able to make certain of which of the three topped the other two due to his ignorance of magic, he would have simply placed the old king at the top simply because he had more respect for him.

The unstopped exchanged of glorious spells came to a stop, despite the exchange, the bottoms of their mana reserves wasn't showing yet, in fact, the surface had barely been scratched.

They would have been able to continue for much longer but both came to the conclusion that it was meaningless.

Reduvia had mused the idea of using her undeath to secure the battle of attrition, she would never get tired by anything unlike Blouvier.

'She's not losing stamina...' the obvious truth was clear for all to see.

Blouvier, as powerful and experienced as she was, capable of standing on the same level as an undying lich, it was only natural to assume that she had lived for much longer than her appearance suggested.

Her mastery of life magic allowed her to remain youthful, on top of maintaining her stamina levels still.

Playing the long game wasn't in the interest of anyone.

If the spells in their arsenal couldn't overwhelm their enemy, then they were going to use their trump cards.

A silent agreement was reached between the two, Reduvia, her hollow sockets now blazing with a dark glow and Blouvier, her expression cocky as though she had already won, they both began calmly walking toward the other.

"I have been granted undeath by the Pure One's own miasma, no living can stand up to me" Reduvia steeled her resolve and affirmed her superiority despite not demonstrating it just yet.

"Encouraging yourself are we? Reduvia... Reduvia, I know that name, king Roderman mentioned it a few times" as the two were now much too close for comfort, Blouvier began to speak up.

"He told me about his former companions, most nameless but not all and I am fairly certain there was a certain Reduvia who disappeared after getting a hold of some crystals" it wasn't like Reduvia was a common name by any means.

"A Reduvia that wielded death magic at that!"

"Don't think that you can appeal to me in this way" the lich shut her down immediately, not at all touched by the fact that Blouvier was a close friend of one of her former friend.

She had given everything up to attain the most perfect undeath possible, it had always been her goal, to transcend the feeble reaches of life for the more prosperous undeath.

The crystals containing links to those of Mov had given her the best occasion to achieve her goal.

Amongst Mov, there was the most powerful of them all, the Pure Undead, an existence unlike any other, one could tell even by an echo of his lingering presence through the smallest shard of a crystal.

Knowing that she wouldn't survive an encounter with him in person, she worked out a way to simply make a fraction of his death miasma leak out into this world.

Just a small portion, so small that one wouldn't even be able to see it with the naked eye.

All to be turned undead by the greatest of them, even if indirectly.

Reduvia had become a lich of immense power.

She knew that she had failed to reach her true goal however.

There was now time to dive into her regrets however, she had to kill the woman in front of her.

Both of the mages made some sort of movements with their hands, muttering words aloud.

The complexity of what each were conjuring needed them to do that to ensure they succeeded.

Both exclaimed at the same time.

"Death Zone-"

"Life Zone-"

"Death Touch!"

"Flourishing Life!"

The mana in the room began to shake as it was pulled toward two completely opposite elements at once.

The one that managed to fully release her zone would win without doubt, once the mana in the air was converted to their own, the other would be instantly torn apart without a chance to fight back.

Blouvier and Reduvia remained still as the struggle forced them to pour all of their focus into it.

The act of using a zone would always burn out an enormous quantity of mana, however, one would normally be able to replenish it just after.

Currently, both were constantly casting this pinnacle of a spell constantly without reaping the rewards that should come with it.

Their seemingly bottomless reserves were taking a severe hit for every second this went on.

After ten seconds, the same thing as before happened again.

Both were equally matched and thus, none of their zone prevailed over the other.

The two of them were installed on the room in a strange harmony.

The ambient mana was neither Blouvier's or Reduvia's, it had become a third party.

The resulting zone was in neither of their favour, it wouldn't feed them any mana.

On top of this, it was actively dismantling any of the mana they tried to bring out.

No spells could exist outside of their own bodies.

Both were momentarily stunned by this event.

As mages, such a thing occuring could potentially mean a breakthrough in their understanding of zone.

It didn't last long however, they were unable to use mana outside of their bodies, leaving augmentation free for them to utilise.

The undead and living both assumed combat positions, neither seemed particularly impressive, their postures were ripe with imbalances and errors.

The mages couldn't pretend to know nearly as much in close quarter combats as the likes of the Old Hadal King.