Chapter 2473: Enough

Tomoe moved first, and the difference was immediate. The ruby blade in her hand didn’t behave like the weapon she had broken moments earlier.

There was nothing inside it except Tomoe herself. Every drop of blood had been formed from her Sword Will, every edge followed the same intent, and when she swung, Cassarae felt the warning from her own Will before she understood what Tomoe had done.

She barely raised the rusted sword in time.

The collision drove Cassarae backward across the plains with both feet carving trenches through the earth, the Guardian Angel Set screaming beneath the pressure while the formation surrounding the planet poured strength into her. She had more power available than Tomoe could possibly match, enough that their previous exchanges had slowly tipped in her favor, but none of it mattered when the ruby blade slipped around that power instead of confronting it.

Tomoe followed before Cassarae stopped moving, her laughter peeling across the skies as her blade drew another narrow line through the air.

Cassarae pulled on the oceans, mountains, and buried formations beneath Earth at once, throwing enough force behind her sword to flatten everything ahead of her, yet Tomoe turned her wrist and let the heavier attack slide past before cutting toward Cassarae’s throat.

The edge missed by less than a finger.

Cassarae felt several strands of hair fall from the side of her head, and the fear that entered her had nothing to do with pain. Her Sword Will recoiled hard enough to warn her before conscious thought caught up, leaving one truth clear beneath everything else.

One mistake would kill her.

Tomoe had recognized the same weakness long before Cassarae did.

She had fought sword cultivators capable of becoming their Will before, people who could reconstruct flesh, replace organs, and survive damage that should have ended them instantly.

Some had entertained her enough that she remembered their names for years afterward, but every one of them eventually taught Tomoe the same lesson: regeneration only mattered insofar as it met something it could stand against. There was no such thing as an infallible power in this worry.

The ruby blade moved again.

Cassarae twisted away as the edge passed beneath her chin, then let the missed motion carry her sword around in a horizontal counter. The old instinct to reset her stance never came, and she instead borrowed what she had learned from Tomoe, turning one motion into the next while Earth answered each change in direction.

It still wasn’t enough.

Tomoe stepped into a gap between two surges of planetary power and placed the flat of her ruby blade against Cassarae’s rusted sword, redirecting it upward before her elbow crashed into the Guardian Angel Set. Cassarae folded around the impact, and the blade came back down immediately afterward, forcing her to throw herself sideways rather than attempt another block.

The ground behind her opened for kilometers.

Cassarae rolled through the grass, came up on one knee, and stabbed her sword into the earth while the planetary formation surged through it. Sword light erupted from beneath Tomoe in dozens of overlapping currents, each one carrying enough strength to tear apart mountains, but Tomoe danced between them with movements so small that Cassarae almost couldn’t understand how she was avoiding anything at all.

Tomoe wasted nothing.

A half-step was enough when a full one wasn’t needed, the smallest turn of her wrist replaced entire defensive motions, and the ruby sword seemed to appear wherever Cassarae’s own weapon wasn’t. Tomoe wasn’t stronger than the world supporting Cassarae, but she understood the sword so much better that strength had stopped being the deciding factor.

Blood began running down Cassarae’s side.

Then her shoulder opened, followed by a cut across her thigh that reached deep enough for the Guardian Angel Set to seal itself around the wound. Angel Recovery worked furiously beneath the armor while Cassarae’s Sword Will reinforced the healing, but every injury slowed her by another fraction and Tomoe seemed to notice each one.

The laughter only grew louder.

By the time Paul and Geraldene Hale reached the edge of the ruined plains with Olivia beside them, they could barely understand what they were looking at. The battlefield stretched farther than they could see, trenches crossed one another in every direction, and two women flickered between them so quickly that most exchanges registered only as exploding earth and intersecting lines of blue-white and ruby light.

Geraldene found Cassarae first and her hand flew to her mouth.

Paul saw his daughter a moment later and forgot to breathe, while Olivia’s face lost every trace of the careless humor that usually survived even the worst situations. Sylas’ parents stood farther ahead with the same horror already carved into their expressions, none of them possessing enough strength to even approach what was happening.

Cassarae stumbled.

Tomoe’s ruby blade pierced through the Guardian Angel Set near her ribs and exited from the opposite side before Cassarae managed to wrench herself free. Blood sprayed across the plains as she retreated, but Tomoe had already rotated with the missed kill and was coming around again.

Cassarae swung.

The formation answered with everything she could drag from it.

Water around Earth thundered through its rings, mountains trembled, and the Aether across the continent bent toward the rusted sword until Cassarae’s next strike carried more raw power than anything she had produced so far.

Tomoe met it with the ruby blade and allowed the collision to carry her backward, shaving away the pressure layer by layer until the attack finally dispersed without touching her body.

Cassarae’s arms shook.

Too much blood had left her, Angel Recovery couldn’t keep up with the accumulation anymore, and even converting surrounding Aether through Sword Will demanded concentration she was struggling to maintain. Her sword remained steady only because she refused to let Tomoe see it shake.

Tomoe’s grin softened into something almost appreciative before the ruby blade rose.

Cassarae’s Sword Will screamed.

She understood none of the history behind Tomoe’s expression and had no idea how many swordsmen had died after seeing that same look, but every part of the Will she had only just reclaimed told her that the next strike was different.

Tomoe had finished learning how Cassarae was rebuilding herself, and her interest waned.

Her ruby blade descended in kind.

Cassarae moved, but she already knew she was too late.

But that was when a figure appeared before her and a thumb and finger caught the descending sword.

Everything stopped.

Xarvenya stood between them with her fingers closed around the ruby edge, the force that had nearly overwhelmed Cassarae vanishing so completely that even the grass beneath Xarvenya’s feet barely moved. No Aether surrounded her, no crimson power distorted the world, and nothing resembling a technique reinforced her arm.

She had caught Tomoe’s sword with physical strength alone.

Tomoe pulled, but the blade didn’t move.

Her eyes narrowed for the first time, both hands closing around the hilt as she applied more force, but Xarvenya’s fingers remained exactly where they were. The formation surrounding Earth had already sealed away the Heaven System’s sight, and without the need to hide what she was from it any longer, Xarvenya finally stopped compressing herself into something this world could comfortably ignore.

Crimson pressure rolled outward and the plains sank.

Xarvenya looked at Tomoe with none of Cassarae’s fury and none of the excitement Tomoe carried into every battle, only the calm, self-confidence of an empress.

"That’s enough."

Xarvenya raised a finger, pointing it at Tomoe’s skull.

**

Within the Creation Tower, Sylas stood in silence.

There was no expression on his face, but the fury beneath it had become so complete that even the space around him seemed unwilling to move. His eyes remained fixed forward while something cold settled deeper and deeper through his Will.

A notification appeared.

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[You Have Lost]

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