Chapter 1202. I May Have Underestimated the Desperation of Cornered Prey

Chapter 1202: 1202. I May Have Underestimated the Desperation of Cornered Prey

Valentina realized that raw power and predictable patterns would only feed his adaptation. She needed to probe the nature of his very existence.

Her fingers began to move in a complex, hypnotic spiral, weaving a rare and dangerous detection casting into the tail end of her next elemental barrage.

This wasn’t just an attack; it was a metaphysical probe designed to strip away illusions, to peel back layers of disguise and reveal the true face of whatever lurked behind his presence.

She had only used this technique twice in her entire career, both times against infiltrators who thought their magic could hide their sins.

VROOOOOM SHHHHIIIINNNN!

A pulse of translucent silver energy rippled outward from her spell, racing toward Xerollion like a wave seeking a shore. Valentina held her breath, waiting for the magical feedback that would signal a successful unraveling.

Instead, there was nothing. The silver wave didn’t crash against a barrier; it simply slid off him, harmlessly deflecting as if he were made of polished diamond.

There was no resistance, no magical recoil, just an eerie, absolute absence of vulnerability. The failure landed in her chest like a cold stone.

"That won’t work either," Xerollion said.

His voice lacked any trace of malice; instead, it held something far more unsettling: patience. He sounded like a professor correcting a promising student who had made a predictable error.

"Whatever lies beneath this mask isn’t hidden by anything a detection spell was ever built to find."

"You’re trying to measure the ocean with a ruler, Valentina."

Valentina’s jaw tightened. Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she said nothing.

She didn’t have the luxury of curiosity. Whatever truth he was withholding would have to wait for a day she survived to ask it.

Her mind filed the revelation away like a bullet in a chamber: ’His true nature is beyond conventional magical comprehension.’

FZZZT BOOM!

She pivoted instantly, refusing to let the moment of doubt linger. She began to weave her spellwork into increasingly chaotic patterns.

Every three to four seconds, she shifted her entire magical methodology.

CRACKLE WHOOSH SHATTER.

Fire became ice; ice became lightning; lightning became raw gravitational force. She never allowed the same elemental combination to repeat twice in succession.

It was a desperate, brilliant strategy designed to sabotage his Full Potential Adaptation to force his mind to constantly restart its analysis, to deny him the data he needed to predict her next move.

It worked. For several agonizing minutes, the adaptation stuttered.

Xerollion’s eyes flickered with micro adjustments as his brain struggled to process the shifting variables. The delay he suffered was measured in precious seconds, but in this dance of death, seconds were the difference between a killing blow and a fatal mistake.

Beneath this magical cacophony, Morwenna remained the silent, deadly constant. She fought with a terrifying economy of motion that made the air itself seem to obey her blade.

SHING. SHING. SHING.

She never wasted a single calorie of energy. Every strike was a calculated expenditure; every retreat was exactly half a step—just enough to avoid a counterattack without conceding ground.

She never overcommitted, never left her flank exposed. She was a surgeon with a sword, operating in the space between his breaths.

SQUELCH.

Twice in quick succession, she found the gaps. A precise slash across his bicep, then a lightning-fast nick across his ribs. Blood painted small, crimson streaks across his clothes.

’God damn it,’ Xerollion thought, his enhanced senses registering the sting.

He watched her move the way she balanced her weight, the way she anticipated the magical backlash from Valentina’s spells to use it as cover.

For a fleeting, dangerous moment, something shifted in his perception. He found himself reassessing the woman he had spent the previous night with.

He had seen the matriarch, the political force, the composed ally. But now, seeing her in the crucible of combat, the true Morwenna surfaced: the ruthless combat instructor who had drilled thousands of soldiers to die without hesitation.

The predator beneath the skin was unmistakable.

CLANG!

Morwenna’s blade met his telekinetic barrier with enough force to send vibrations up his arm. She didn’t recoil; she rolled into the impact, her eyes locked onto his with a cold, unblinking intensity that spoke of a lifetime spent in the slaughter.

For Morwenna, the steel in her hand felt heavier than it ever had before, though not from physical fatigue. The weight was psychological, a crushing pressure that had nothing to do with the blade and everything to do with the man standing across from her.

Every time she caught the specific tilt of that masked head, a micro adjustment of the neck that felt hauntingly familiar, her heart stuttered.

Every time his economy of motion flickered past her at that particular angle, a treacherous part of her mind clawed at the surface, reaching for memories she had spent the entire night trying to bury under layers of duty, grief, and the desperate need to protect her crumbling household.

’No,’ she screamed at herself internally. ’Not now... Not him...’

She shoved the thought down with such violent mental force it felt like a physical blow to her skull. There was no room in this blood-slicked corridor for sentiment.

To entertain that suspicion, even for a heartbeat, felt like a betrayal she wasn’t ready to name aloud—not to Valentina, not to her soldiers, and most terrifyingly, not to herself.

CRACK THOOM!

Valentina felt the shift before she saw it. She felt that specific, cold tightening low in her chest, the intuitive warning that the dance of probing strikes was over.

The time for testing defenses had passed; the time for annihilation had arrived.

"Morwenna, clear the blast radius!" Valentina commanded, her voice dropping an octave into a tone of absolute authority.

Valentina planted her feet wide, her boots grinding into the stone. Both hands rose in intricate, desperate patterns.

FWOOOOOOOSH.

The pages of her grimoire didn’t just flutter; they tore free from their binding entirely, each parchment sheet glowing with an incandescent violet light as they began to orbit her body in a swirling, deadly cyclone.

She was drawing on reserves she normally reserved for collapsing siege towers or ending entire campaigns.

"Forgive me for this," Valentina whispered, though whether she was speaking to her enemies or herself was unclear.

Then, she unleashed it: her strongest working. A catastrophic fusion of ionized lightning and raw gravitational magic.

KRA BOOOOOOOOM!!!

The world disappeared behind a wall of white-hot agony and crushing pressure. The spell didn’t just strike; it detonated.

An expanding ring of violet energy tore outward, the gravitational force shrieking as it twisted the very air.

CRUNCH. SHATTER.

Support columns thirty feet away snapped like dry twigs under the sudden increase in mass. The ceiling above Xerollion gave way instantly, massive slabs of ancient stone plummeting toward him.

THUD THUD CRASH.

The debris created a boiling column of dust and pulverized rock so thick it blotted out what remained of the torchlight.

SHING!

Morwenna didn’t hesitate. She didn’t wait for the dust to settle.

She used the disorientation as her scalpel. Seeing the silhouette of Xerollion struggling beneath the crushing gravity and falling stone, she launched herself forward.

She drove her blade toward a vital point—the exposed throat—with every ounce of her remaining strength.

SQUELCH.

For several agonizing seconds, the combined force of Valentina’s cosmic devastation and Morwenna’s lethal precision actually worked.

The shockwave and the blade’s momentum forced Xerollion backward, his boots skidding across the stone as he was pushed several steps through the chaos.

As the dust began to thin, a figure emerged from the wreckage.

Xerollion stood amidst the rubble, his robes torn to shreds, revealing skin mapped with fresh burns and shallow cuts. He raised a hand to his face, wiping a thin rivulet of blood from the corner of his mouth.

SPLAT.

The blood glistened crimson against his pale skin. When he spoke, his voice carried a new, rougher edge—the sound of a man who was finally beginning to feel the friction of real combat.

"Quite impressive," he said, his breathing measured despite the carnage surrounding him. "Both of you are considerably more dangerous than I anticipated."

"I may have underestimated the desperation of cornered prey."

Valentina didn’t flinch. Sweat cut clean lines through the thick coating of stone dust on her face, her eyes blazing with a terrifying, focused light.

"Save the compliments, you bastard," she snapped, her fingers already twitching in the air as she began weaving the next devastating pattern. "Save them for after we’ve actually finished this."