Trying to Kill A Superior Spirit
Florene knelt on the ground, watching me with a smile that wasn’t quite steady.
There was tension in it now. Nerves. The kind she was trying not to show.
As she rose, I turned my upper body toward her without moving my feet. She wiped the blood from her cheek, glanced at the smear on her fingers, then looked back at me.
“Where did all this power come from?” she asked.
I said nothing.
Same mood. Same heat. Same silence.
There was no point in speaking anymore. Florene had a habit of taking every word I gave her and sharpening it into something to throw back at me.
Talking to her was wasted breath.
She wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to know.
“You’re going to stay quiet, huh?” she said. “Fine. I guess there’s no need for any more words.”
She was right. Words were over. Only the fight remained.
Florene spread her arms.
“Eden’s Coffin.”
Roots exploded from the ground around me in a tight circle, shooting upward within a one-meter radius. They curved inward as they climbed, weaving together into a cage—part coffin, part birdcage, all a trap.
I stood still inside it and watched it all happen. Not worried.
Then Florene brought her hands together with a sharp clap.
“Thorn Slap!”
The pillars of the cage responded at once.
Thorns burst from every angle, long enough to punch through armor, all driving inward toward me as the cage itself tightened.
“Crimson Barricade.”
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to.
Crimson fire wrapped around me like armor. And unlike when I faced Vevil, the heat was more intense and brutal.
For a heartbeat, Florene smiled—certain she had me.
Then the thorns hit the aura and burned to ash instantly. The cage followed.
Its roots blackened, curled, and vanished in a rush of heat before they could close around me.
Florene’s smile faltered.
“What…?”
When she looked at me again, she saw it clearly—the crimson shell of fire around my body. And just as quickly as I had formed it, I let it vanish.
My fingers rose again.
That was all she needed to understand what was coming.
“…Ah!”
This time, Florene didn’t try to hold her ground. She ran.
I still fired.
The beam tore after her as she moved in circles, forcing her to keep weaving until the attack finally bled off its momentum and carved a glowing scar through the land behind her.
Florene planted her feet and took two sharp breaths.
“That attack of yours is seriously annoying,” she said.
Then she pressed her hand to the ground.
“Creation magic… Mother’s Orchard.”
A pulse spread through the earth.
The ground trembled beneath us.
Then the forest changed.
Trees twisted. Flowers folded inward and reopened into new shapes. Shrubs convulsed. Even the ground itself seemed to give birth.
From bark, soil, petals, and thorn came semi-living beasts—thorn hounds with jaws of vine and fang, blossom serpents coiling through the grass, vine stags with antlers like branching roots, petal moth swarms, and root spiders clattering into motion on sharpened legs.
All of which are creations of her.
Florene thrust one hand toward me.
“Go, my pets. Tear him apart.”
They obeyed instantly.
Some howled. Some slithered. Some burst from the sides and air at once.
They came from every direction, forcing my eyes to keep shifting—never letting one target stay my focus for long.
I dodged. Twisted. Parried. Burned.
But they kept coming.
There were too many to keep on the ground.
So I jumped.
In the air, I formed the flame bow again.
The petal moths were the only ones that could reach me up there, but they were slower to adjust than the creatures on the ground.
I loosed the arrow.
Mid-flight, it split into multiple flaming heads.
The moths went first—burning out of the sky.
Then the arrows rained down on the creatures below, punching into hounds, serpents, stags, and spiders in bursts of fire and shattered plant-flesh.
When I landed, Florene had already sent another wave.
Long-range attacks were useful, but if they got any closer, they would box me in. So I stopped trying to control the field from a distance and charged.
Instead of retreating, I met the swarm head-on.
I drove all my firepower into my arms and legs, turning each limb into a weapon.
A thorn hound lunged to bite—I punched through its open jaws, and it exploded in flames.
A serpent lashed at my neck—I grabbed it, tore it aside, and crushed it with a kick that ignited its whole body.
A stag charged—I met it with my shoulder, then brought my fist down through its antlers and sent it burning across the ground.
The spiders followed next, spitting thorns instead of webs. I burned through them, too.
The line of attackers thinned. And every beast I destroyed brought me closer to Florene.
I closed the distance and drove a right jab straight at her head.
She slipped aside.
My fist missed her by inches and slammed into the ground hard enough to crack the earth.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
We stood there, watching each other through heat and drifting ash.
“Well,” Florene said casually, brushing dust from herself with irritating elegance, “it seems nothing is working anymore.”
She looked me over slowly.
“You have extraordinary magical power,” she said. “And you’re well-trained in close-quarters combat.”
Then she smiled, eyes closed—not mocking this time, but almost pleased.
“I’ll admit it. You’re quite formidable.”
She opened her eyes.
Then her tone changed.
“But…”
She let the word hang between us.
“…you are still too young.”
I stared at her, trying to decipher what she really meant by that.
While I narrowed my eyes at her, Florene slipped two acorn-sized seeds from her sleeves and held them between her fingers.
Then she flicked them forward.
The seeds bounced once across the dirt, rolled a short distance, and stopped.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the ground beneath them split open like a mouth and swallowed them whole.
I watched.
The earth bulged.
Seedlings burst up.
They grew with sickening speed—sprout to stem, stem to stalk, stalk to towering bloom in the space of a breath.
By the time the motion stopped, two giant sunflowers stood before Florene, far larger than any natural flower had a right to be. Their petals were thick and golden, and at the center of each bloom, the disk glistened like molten glass.
Lucky for them, the sun was still high enough for peak photosynthesis. But with the long trees, the sun would eventually set earlier than it should.
Florene lifted her hand, mirroring my earlier gesture—two fingers pointed directly at me.
“Let’s keep going,” she said.
Her voice was almost cheerful.
“Solar Bloom Beam.”
The heads of the sunflowers began to glow—golden, then yellow-orange, then white-hot at the center.
I felt my breath catch.
The light condensed into a single point.
Then it fired.
Two beams lanced toward me with terrifying speed.
I threw myself to the side.
The beams carved past—and a heartbeat later, an explosion thundered behind me.
“Tch—!”
Pain ripped through my thigh.
Even though I’d dodged, the edge of the attack had still clipped me.
I clutched the wound and immediately understood what Florene must have felt when my Dragon Flare grazed her.
Only this was worse. Much worse.
Her attack was faster. Sharper. More condensed.
What happened?
Why was I so slow?
The question barely had time to form before Florene moved again.
She summoned another wave of her plant-beasts, and they rushed me from multiple directions.
I forced myself upright, my leg protesting movement.
Then I raised my hand.
“Flame magic… Flame Javelin Barrage.”
Flaming javelins formed above me in clusters, hanging in the sky like a rainstorm waiting to fall.
I sent them down.
They struck the beasts and the ground alike, detonating in bursts of heat and light. I didn’t stop to count how many I’d destroyed—only whether the opening was wide enough.
I tried to run. And immediately felt it. Something was wrong, heavy.
My body wasn’t obeying me the way it should.
What is going on with me?
The sunflowers flared again. Another Solar Bloom Beam screamed toward me, chasing my back like a spear of sunlight.
Dodging would be too slow this time.
So I spun and fired back.
Crimson Flare met Solar Bloom in midair.
The attacks collided, and for one blinding instant, the world became nothing but heat and exploding light.
But then—Her beams pushed through mine.
They tore past the remnants of my flare and came for my shoulder.
I twisted at the last possible moment.
They missed me by a hair.
I thought I’d escaped. Then Florene reformed beside me in a burst of petals.
“Feeling a little sluggish?” she asked.
Her leg came up in the same motion. And I barely got my forearms up in time.
Her kick crashed into them anyway, and the force hurled me through the battleground. I slammed into a tree hard enough to crack the trunk, and when I dropped to one knee, the tree groaned and toppled behind me.
Florene landed lightly and watched me struggle.
“Look at that,” she said. “I’m not even trying that hard.”
I glared at her, breath rough, body heavier than it had any right to be.
The wound in my leg throbbed something fierce.
But that wasn’t the only thing dragging me down.
I pushed against the tree and forced myself back up.
“What did you do to me?” I asked, voice strained.
Florene tilted her head.
“Hm? I figured you’d notice sooner.”
She smiled—small, knowing.
“When I realized that your sudden surge of power came from your rage, I filled the air with a scent that dulls strength and slows the body.”
I stayed quiet.
She kept watching me.
“You should really pay more attention to your surroundings,” she said. “Plants are useful for more than just attacking.”
I breathed hard, listening despite myself.
“You didn’t even notice your mist was becoming less effective.”
For a moment, Florene didn’t sound mocking.
She sounded… analytical.
As if she were observing a student fail a lesson she had already taught.
That should have infuriated me more. Instead, her words sank in.
…She’s right.
I hadn’t noticed.
I’d been so deep in my own rage, so focused on killing her, that I hadn’t realized she had poisoned the battlefield itself.
I placed one hand against the tree and used it to steady myself.
Reina was right. Magic awareness mattered. And it mattered most when I wanted to ignore everything but my target.
I hated that Florene was right about me.
I hated that she had seen the opening in me before I had.
But underneath the anger… something else took root. Resolve.
Fine. If I can’t understand it yet… Then I’ll become stronger than it.
I stood straighter, even with the heaviness in my limbs.
I need to get stronger. For myself. And for everyone depending on me.
Determined to overcome whatever she had done to me, I pressed fire to the wound in my thigh and seared it shut.
The pain was immediate. Sharp enough to make my vision stutter.
The air reeked of burnt flesh mixed with scorched flowers and blackened bark, and my teeth clenched so hard my jaw hurt.
But I endured it.
I let my arms hang loose by my sides and forced my stance to relax.
I don’t know where this mist comes from… But I feel connected to it.
I focused—not to shape my mana the way Reina had taught me, not to make it neat and disciplined.
No.
This time, I focused on releasing it.
Crimson mist poured from my horn and spread across the battlefield, low and thick, slipping over cracked roots, blackened petals, and broken trunks like a second layer of weather. It crawled through the ruined clearing until everything looked half-submerged in red.
As it spread, I tightened and released my fists twice.
Strength returned to my body in pulses.
I still didn’t know whether the scent Florene had mentioned was truly gone. I hadn’t noticed it when it first took hold of me, so I had nothing to compare it to.
But with the mist back around me, I could move again. Fight again.
“Losing my rage made me weak,” I said, eyes fixed on Florene. “So I must end this fight quickly, before I run out.”
Florene acted the moment she understood the shift.
She called for another Solar Bloom Beam—But the cast dragged.
She looked down. And saw why.
The mist had spread over the field, and the plants within it were beginning to wilt, drying out as if moisture were being sucked out.
Edges curled. Petals sagged. Stems softened.
To Florene and me, the crimson mist didn’t feel hot. To the plants, it was a slow burn.
Florene’s expression tightened.
I ignited my body in flame, pushing my offensive output higher.
What I had left wasn’t much. Maybe enough for low-tier magic, maybe some mid-tier if I pushed too hard.
The time for Dragon Breath and Crimson Flare had come to an end. Though they had lasted far longer than I thought.
Seeing the Solar Blooms begin to weaken, Florene abandoned that approach and changed tactics.
She turned her hand in a smooth circle, and a storm of petals tore free from the air around her—each one razor-thin, each one fast enough to carve exposed skin.
I lowered my weight and jumped. But the jump was only half of it.
While I was still in the air, I repeated the same movement I’d used before.
I stepped. As if there were solid ground beneath my foot.
The mist under my heel exploded into flame, launching me downward at Florene like a meteor, and I drove a right hook into her jaw.
The impact knocked her to her knees.
Burn marks spread from the point of contact, darkening her skin in a tight ring.
For the first time, disbelief crossed her face openly.
Physical blows alone weren’t enough to threaten a spirit. But physical blows carrying magical force—those mattered.
I didn’t let the opening go.
I rushed her while she was still dazed and unleashed a brutal string of punches and kicks.
Face. Chest. Ribs. Jaw. Any place my fists could reach, they landed.
She couldn’t dodge. Not one.
The combo drove her backward, body jolting with each hit, petals and dust spinning away from her in bursts until I finally pulled back and let her stagger on her feet.
But not out of mercy, it was for preparation.
“Enhancement Magic,” I said, Words with so much trauma left me with more confidence than they should have.
“Crimson Helix.”
My right leg became wrapped in a spiraling double helix of crimson flame, wound so tightly it looked like a spring forged from heat and pressure.
I side-spinned. Then let the kick loose, driving it into Florene’s stomach.
She saw it. But she was too slow to react.
The impact folded her body and forced blood out from her mouth. She crashed backward through trees, snapping trunks and sending leaves, dust, and petals raining through the clearing.
The forest boomed with the sound.
In magic, maybe we were closer than I wanted to admit. Or maybe she had been holding far more back than she let me see.
But in close combat—there, I had the edge.
Florene pushed herself up from the broken trees, dust clinging to her skin and robes. She spat blood to the side and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Then she looked at me. And smiled.
Not the polished smile she wore before. Not the amused one.
This one was different from the polished smile she wore before. The amused one. This smile was of satisfaction, eager, like the fight had just become worth her attention.
She held onto a nearby trunk to stand straight.
This kid is him, she seemed to think. But he is just very young.
Whatever warning or memory had been lingering in her mind, she liked what she had just confirmed.
“Flowers of the earth,” she murmured calmly, “bathe me in the soothing scent of health…”
Flowers burst from the earth around her in a ring, blooming all at once through the cracked soil.
“Bloom Rejuvenation.”
Pollen rose from them in soft curls, and Florene absorbed it in. Sucking the life out of them for herself.
The healing effect was immediate.
Bruises faded. Burns softened and vanished. The blood disappeared from her lips.
By the time the flowers withered at her feet, she looked untouched—as if my entire assault had only brushed past her.
I stared at her with anger, tightening my jaw.
She stared back with that same odd smile.
Odd but approving. As if she had solved a puzzle.
I answered by wrapping Crimson Helix around my entire body.
Flame coiled over me in spiraling strands, tracing my limbs and torso like a second nervous system made of fire.
Florene started walking toward me slowly. Hands low. No spell gesture. No trick. Just the posture of someone ready to settle this with her own body.
Her smile stayed in place.
“Ready?” she asked softly, tilting her head like she was inviting me to dance.
My fists tightened.
“Don’t walk toward me like you’ve already won.”
The air between us vibrated. Suddenly—Florene burst into petals.
Dozens of copies of her scattered into the air, filling the sky around me like a storm of torn blossoms caught in a violent updraft. Red, pink, white, and gold petals spun through the smoke-thick air, drifting and circling until it felt like the whole battlefield had turned into a blizzard of flowers.
I didn’t panic.
I shut my eyes for the briefest instant.
Mist Burst—engage.
My foot pressed against the crimson mist suspended in the air as if it were solid ground. Flames exploded beneath my heels, and in the next heartbeat, I launched upward, slicing through the petals as an arrow shot into a storm.
The false Florenes moved with me.
They drifted and rotated through the sky, their robes fluttering, their smiles identical, their bodies almost too graceful to be real. They attacked from multiple sides at once, closing in with the rustle of petals and the hiss of pollen cutting through the air.
And from every direction, her voice rang out at once.
“Hahaha! This is wonderful!”
The laughter made the battlefield feel smaller.
I twisted in midair and kicked downward, triggering Mist Burst again. Fire and compressed air detonated around me in a violent spiral, scattering the copies in a burst of petals.
I punched one—soft resistance, then nothing.
Petals scattered.
I kicked another—a body shape collapsing into bloom and dust.
Petals scattered.
I drove an elbow into a third—and it burst apart so close to my face I smelled the bitter-sweet scent of crushed flowers.
More petals scattered.
“Stop running,” I growled, voice raw from heat and rage, “and tell me what I want to know!”
A whisper came from directly behind me.
“Then catch me.”
I spun.
The real Florene’s palm strike slammed into my guard, and the impact cracked the air between us with a sharp, ringing sound. The collision numbed my forearms for a split second.
She followed instantly with a knee aimed at my torso.
I caught the angle on my forearm and twisted around her, feeling the silk-slick brush of petals against my neck as she passed.
Crimson Helix ignited around my arms.
I drove my fist into her ribs. This one was real.
The impact was different—solid, resisting, satisfying.
Florene let out a short gasp. Not loud. Not theatrical. Just enough to tell me I had gotten through.
Then her hand snapped around my arm, fingers tight as roots, and she yanked me in. Her forehead crashed into mine.
The headbutt rang through my skull like a bell.
We ricocheted apart.
The air rushed around me, cold for one heartbeat before the heat of my aura swallowed it again. Florene spun back through the sky, petals whirling around her body as she slowed, like the wind itself was helping her stay graceful.
“Is this it…?” she said, a thrill in her voice that made the words sound almost sacred. “Has the era of beginnings finally returned?”
Blood glistened at the corner of her mouth.
I didn’t let her recover.
Mist Burst.
The crimson mist flashed under my feet, and I vanished forward, leaving a streak of red in the air behind me. Florene surged to meet me, and this time her petal clones moved first, diving in as shields, blades, and distractions all at once.
I tore through them.
Each impact bursts warm petals and sparks across my arms and face. The sky lit up with streaks of red and pink as our movements crossed again and again.
A punch from me. A kick from her. Both blocked.
A knee from me—caught on her forearm.
A spinning strike from her—I ducked beneath it and felt the wind of it scrape over my hair.
We collided and separated, collided and separated, too fast for anything below us to follow cleanly. The air boomed with each clash. Petals spun in our wake. The tops of nearby trees bent beneath the pressure of our movement alone.
But little by little—Florene started to fall behind.
Her movements were still elegant. Still precise.
Mine were just faster now. Sharper. Crueler.
My body reflexes—carved out through real battles, pain, survival, and repetition—were starting to force her into my tempo.
She tried to pull away. I didn’t let her.
Mist bursts again.
I appeared above her.
“AH—!”
I brought my heel down like a hammer.
It connected with a heavy, flesh-and-bone impact that sent a shock through my whole leg.
Florene dropped from the sky.
She hit the earth like a falling star.
The ground burst beneath her in a ring of dust, broken petals, dirt, and torn roots. The impact shook nearby trunks, sending leaves and ash raining down. A low boom rolled through the woods a second later.
I stayed in the air above the crater, breathing hard, chest heaving, eyes locked on her shape below.
Then I spread my hands in front of me.
Every bit of flame and crimson mist that still lingered around me began to gather.
The air around my fingers grew hotter and brighter. The mist spiraled inward, fire folding into fire, pressure building until it made my arms shake.
This was everything I had left.
Not enough for another drawn-out exchange. Just enough for one final attempt.
Below, Florene pushed herself upright through the dust, dazed but not broken. She lifted her arms, and golden petals unfolded into a broad sunflower-shaped shield.
“Sunflower Shield.”
I drew in one final breath.
My throat burned. My chest hurt. And I roared with everything left inside me.
“Dragon Breath—Full Output!!”
The beam came down like a piece of the sun.
A column of crimson-white fire slammed into the shield and swallowed the clearing in a flash so bright it turned every shadow into a black wound. Heat rolled outward in waves, searing bark, igniting loose petals, and splitting the earth in glowing lines beneath Florene’s feet.
She braced.
The golden shield flared brighter and brighter, trying to absorb and redirect the force, but it was too much. Her heels dug trenches into the ground as she was pushed backward, soil piling up behind her legs. The edges of the shield cracked with sharp, glass-like sounds. Her whole body trembled beneath the pressure.
Petals blackened around her.
Trees behind her split and ignited.
The smell of scorched pollen filled the air so thick it became bitter on the tongue.
Florene grimaced through clenched teeth. And endured. Barely.
When the stream finally ended, silence hit like a slap.
Her shield shattered into drifting sparks.
She staggered where she stood, gasping, chest rising and falling hard, skin streaked with soot and sweat.
Above her, I was descending slowly. Too slow.
The crimson flames around me sputtered and thinned, breaking apart into little tongues of dying light. My horn flickered once… then went dark.
The air suddenly felt colder.
Florene looked up at me and wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
“…You’re running out of stamina,” she breathed.
I landed on one knee.
The ground felt unsteady.
My breathing was ragged, my vision blurring at the edges. Crimson Helix unraveled from my body in fading coils, and even keeping my head upright felt like work.
I had pushed too far.
Florene pressed a hand against her chest and exhaled once.
“That’s too bad.”
Flowers bloomed around her again—pushing up through cracked earth, opening in soft light that looked almost gentle after everything else. Their scent spread in a sweet, soothing wave.
“Flowers of the earth… bathe me in the soothing scent of pollen-health. Bloom Rejuvenation.”
She inhaled. She absorbed. And bruises faded. Burns softened. And her breathing steadied.
The flowers around her withered as they finished their work, collapsing into pale dust at her feet.
Not all of her strength returned. But it was enough. Enough to stand straight again. Enough to keep the fight going.
I watched her with raw frustration, tightening my jaw.
“You can just… restore yourself…”
Florene smiled faintly, almost indulgently.
“And you can burn everything in your way.” Her eyes narrowed. “That seems fair, doesn’t it?”
I forced myself upright.
My legs trembled under me. My hands twitched. My lungs felt scraped hollow.
I had almost nothing left in terms of mana or stamina. My eyes looked worse than they should. And I couldn't hide that from Florene.
She took one step forward. Then another.
The dust stirred around her robes. Then she stopped.
Her hand rose.
“This fight... is over.” She said.
The words were calm.
Final.
She aimed her open palm at me, and the air around it began to twist. Pollen, petals, and mana gathered into a single point, shrinking tighter and tighter until even the space around her hand seemed to scream under the pressure.
I tried to move.
My body answered too slowly.
Damn it—
The attack fired.
A beam of condensed floral light and crushing force tore through the air, aimed straight for my chest. It came too fast. Too—final.
Then—
“KRAI!”
The shout came from my left.
A streak of golden light spun into view from the edge of my vision—a sword, hurled with desperate precision.
I turned my eyes just enough to catch it.
Asahi.
In that instant, I understood. The sword was not a weapon. It was a lifeline.
The sword shot through in front of me, and Florene's final attack.
I moved on instinct.
My right hand shot out and caught the hilt just as death closed in.
The moment my fingers wrapped around it, the sword yanked me sideways with a burst of light—hard enough to tear me out of the attack’s path.
Florene’s strike passed where I had been standing an instant ago and slammed into the tree behind me.
The trunk exploded.
Wood, bark, and burning petals burst through the air in a violent spray.
I skidded across the ground, still gripping the light sword, breath torn from my lungs.
Then I looked up.
Asahi stood at the edge of the ruined clearing, chest heaving, eyes locked on me.
He had made it. And Florene’s finishing blow had hit nothing.
