Chapter 51: Five Affinities, One Slash

She could remember the pressure against her Mana, the pain in her arm after choosing the wrong angle, and even the exact moment the western anchor failed after too much power was transferred through it.

It made no sense at all.

These strange memories had appeared before. Sometimes they showed her things she had never done. Other times, they gave her the answer to a problem she was certain she had never encountered.

Elinox had stopped trying to understand where they came from a long time ago. What mattered right now was that the barrier had a weakness.

She changed direction before the defenders understood what she was doing.

Wind carried her toward the western side of the station while Gravity reduced the resistance against her movement. She crossed the remaining field at a speed that forced the soldiers on the wall to turn their heads just to keep track of her.

Lightning struck the western anchor.

The barrier shook.

Elinox placed one hand against the outer formation and released another pulse of Mana through the damaged section. The anchor broke, taking part of the barrier with it, and she entered the station before the defenders could redirect enough power to close the opening.

Soldiers poured toward her from the inner courtyard.

Water answered them.

It ripped out of the station’s storage channels, climbed over the stone pathways, and spread through the approaching formation before any of the soldiers understood what she intended. Lightning entered the water a moment later, sending dozens of them to the ground while those farther away broke formation to escape the current.

Elinox continued toward the central section.

Her orders were simple.

This station had helped take one of Olmost’s. Elinox had crossed the border to erase it in return.

She had crossed half the courtyard when a wave of Mana came from above and forced her to change direction. The ground where she had been walking broke apart, and a young man landed inside the crater left behind by the attack.

Several soldiers who had been running toward Elinox stopped when they recognized him.

His name was well known in the Kingdom of Degenerates.

He had risen through Levels fast enough to be called a prodigy by people who rarely used the word, and his victories had already spread beyond his own kingdom. He had been compared to the greatest talents of his generation more than once.

Most of those comparisons ended when someone mentioned Elinox Holmes.

His interest in her had started years ago, and it had not improved with time.

"Elinox." His voice carried across the courtyard as he pulled his weapon free from the broken ground. "You crossed into our territory yourself over one captured station?"

Elinox kept walking toward him, and the soldiers around them gave both of them enough space to fight. "Move."

He laughed as Mana gathered along his weapon. "You come all this way, and that’s all I get?"

He stepped into her path while talking about the reports he had heard from Olmost, including the latest marriage proposal she had rejected. His family had already approached the Holmes Family once in the past and received the same answer as everyone else. From the way he spoke about it now, rejection had done very little to convince him the matter was finished.

Elinox listened long enough to understand that he had no intention of moving.

Then, he attacked.

His weapon crossed the distance between them with enough Mana behind it to tear through the stone beneath Elinox’s feet.

A foreign memory surfaced before the strike reached her.

She remembered blocking it. She remembered the impact damaging her left arm.

Elinox moved before the memory finished.

The weapon passed beside her shoulder, missing by less than a hand’s width, and she stepped inside his reach before he could recover. Gravity multiplied around his front leg while her palm struck the center of his armor.

The ground collapsed beneath him.

Cracks tore outward as his body was driven into the ground.

He forced himself out before the dust settled and attacked from below, sending a wave of Mana across the courtyard that tore through several abandoned defensive structures.

Elinox had seen that attack too. Or at least, she remembered seeing it.

She had learned years ago that trying to understand where those memories came from rarely gave her an answer. Using what they showed her was much easier.

She turned before the wave reached her, allowed Wind to carry her around its edge, and came down beside him with Lightning covering one arm. He blocked the first strike and tried to catch her with the handle of his weapon, only for the weight of his own arm to increase halfway through the motion.

His attack dropped.

Elinox’s knee struck his chest. He flew through the wall of a nearby structure and disappeared inside it.

The soldiers around the courtyard remained where they were.

Nobody rushed to help him.

Pieces of the wall shifted as he climbed from the wreckage, blood running from his mouth while his Mana continued rising.

"You’ve gotten stronger," he said, and there was enough excitement in his voice that Elinox understood he still had not learned anything.

She drew her sword.

The smile left his face.

Elinox had used very little of her strength since entering the station.

He knew that, and so did everyone else.

The young prodigy raised his weapon with both hands and released everything he had been holding back. Mana spread across the courtyard, tearing damaged stone from the ground while the remaining soldiers retreated toward the inner defenses.

He charged.

Elinox met him halfway.

Their weapons collided once.

The impact shattered every nearby window and sent a pressure wave across the station. His weapon survived the first exchange, though his arms failed to keep it in position after Gravity multiplied across the blade.

Elinox moved her sword away, turned with the opening she had created, and struck him across the chest with the flat side of the weapon.

He crossed the courtyard and crashed through another wall.

This time, he did not come back out.

Elinox checked that he was still alive before turning toward the center of the station.

The surviving officers had used the fight to activate everything they had left.

Multiple barriers surrounded the command structure. Defensive formations covered the walls, Mana flowed through reinforced channels beneath the ground, and every artillery platform that still functioned had turned toward her.

The soldiers accompanying Elinox watched from far outside the station.

Even from that distance, they could see the Mana gathering inside.

One of the officers beside them started to say they should move farther away.

Then, Elinox raised her sword.

Wind began wrapping around the blade while Lightning ran through it in thin lines. Light gathered along the edge until the metal became difficult to look at directly, and Gravity spread across the station with enough pressure to force loose stones into the earth.

Water rose from broken channels throughout the courtyard and remained suspended in the air around her.

Five Mana Affinities answered at once.

Inside the station, every remaining Mage poured more Mana into the barriers.

The outer barrier thickened first, followed by the second as more formations activated beneath the walls and engineers redirected power away from the damaged sections.

Elinox tightened her grip on the sword as the barriers continued gathering Mana around the command structure.

Another strange memory surfaced with the movement, carrying the sensation of her blade striking a formation built on the same principles. She remembered Mana spreading too widely across its surface, two more failed attempts after that, and the adjustment that finally broke through.

She knew she had never fought that battle, yet her hands already understood the mistake.

Elinox changed the angle of her sword and compressed the Wind along its edge instead of allowing it to spread. Lightning followed the same narrow path, then Light, while Gravity bent toward the line her blade was about to travel through. The water floating around her turned into mist and filled the space ahead, carrying Mana through every gap in the defensive formations.

Elinox swung.

The first barrier split from one end to the other.

The slash passed through the second formation before it had time to redistribute its Mana, cut across the central barrier, and continued into the command structure. Towers along both sides of the station separated along the same line, followed by artillery platforms, storage buildings, reinforced walls, and the underground channels feeding Mana into the defenses.

For a moment, the entire military station remained standing.

Then, the cut opened.

Wind tore through the gap and ripped weakened structures apart. Lightning entered the exposed Mana pathways, causing defensive formations to burst throughout the station, while Gravity pulled the broken walls, towers, and platforms toward the center.

The soldiers waiting outside the attack range watched a military station disappear beneath its own collapsing defenses.

Dust rose high enough to cover most of the ruins.

Elinox lowered her sword and looked across what remained of the command structure while the last section of the outer wall fell into the crater.

The Kingdom of Degenerates had used a stampede to help take one Olmost station.

Olmost sent Elinox Holmes in reply.

She destroyed theirs with one slash.