Stepping foot on the soil of one of Enki XXXIII's planets, Theodore spread out his perception, carefully sensing the galaxies around him.
Being yet another Universe-type world which the now-destroyed Enki Imperium had claimed for itself long ago, it was originally teeming with countless lives, not only those of the empire's own citizens. But now, there was nothing to be found–even the plants had been burned down to the last. No matter how one looked at it, it was a truly post-apocalyptic wasteland.
'Perfect, this place works out well. She chose nicely. Although, to be fair, this is probably what most of the worlds that she passes through turn into...'
Nodding his head in appreciation, he glanced at his two companions on this journey, who would be challenging his business partner to a battle very soon. With plenty of space around and no need to worry about collateral damage, this was as optimal of a stage as there could be.
Well, to be completely fair, the local World's Will would probably have to endure unspeakable pain if any of them actually got serious, but that didn't matter to him. Even if this world was to perish–which was quite likely–it was no skin off his back.
This wasn't his territory, therefore he didn't feel beholden to keeping it safe. If Eleanora was fine with losing what had once been prime real estate but was now nothing but a lifeless ruin, then why should he make a fuss?
Recalling the directions that he had been given, he led the two women deep into the silent universe, until they arrived relatively close to its very core, where their host was already awaiting them.
Neither her clothing nor her expression were any different from normal, but there was an additional sharpness to her gaze that caused him to raise an eyebrow. It appeared that not only had she made it to the very beginning of the Divine Will Realm, making a two step jump since they had last met, but she had also benefitted a lot from slaughtering countless more lives. The recently discovered cluster of worlds had truly been a major boon to her.
"I see you've safely made it through the Will Sublimation Realm. Congratulations!"
Although the two of them exchanged wide, 'heart-felt' smiles, neither of them truly took this achievement too seriously. Whether or not she could surmount this minor hurdle had never been a question–all that was remarkable was that it had happened so quickly.
'My breakthrough to the Resolve Realm is also right around the corner. Only a few more days, and I should get there.'
Whilst he was anticipating his own progress, Eleanora's focus shifted to her sparring partners-to-be. The red-haired beauty with the runic tattoos still felt as enigmatic as before, but at least her Dedication Realm cultivation didn't feel like much of a threat. As for the believers collector, her Resolve Realm was even more harmless on paper.
'But he wouldn't let them try to face me if he wasn't confident in them–which means that judging them solely by this standard would be a foolish mistake.'
Recalling how both of them had performed significantly stronger than she had expected back when they had faced that Úlfr Family heir together, she narrowed her eyes a little, then rose to her feet and into the empty space.
"Which one of you would like to go first?"
As they had previously discussed this, when they heard her question, the two women didn't need to pause to communicate. Instead, Vigdis took a confident step forward and soared to a position not too far away from Eleanora.
"That would be me. Shall we begin?"
Having expected the 'weaker' one to go first, the lady of the Dragon Family gave her a curious look, then assented with a nod. Of course, the two of them waited until Theodore and Cheong Suhyeon had distanced themselves a fair bit before beginning their sparring match.
As this was a friendly duel, where they were both expected to adhere to the principles of sportsmanship, instead of a fight to the death, they wouldn't exactly constantly be going after each other's throat. Whilst pressuring them was fine, it was more so a sort of exhibition match where oftentimes, the opposing side would not interfere when their adversary was trying to pull off a less simple move. All was in good fun–showing off and learning from each other were the main objectives.
"You go first. Give it your best shot~"
Tauntingly crossing her arms and shooting Vigdis a confident smirk, Eleanora chose to give her challenger the initiative. As a Supreme Pillar heir, it would truly be unfair of her to dominate this from the start, right?
"... alright, but brace yourself–else it's going to hurt."
Not too bothered by this mindset, as she knew that even a single attack of hers would force Eleanora to take her seriously, Vigdis nodded. Mobilizing a fair bit of her Energy, her tattoos began to light up, then they reassembled into a number of combined Arrays that she was intimately familiar with, reinforcing various aspects of her fighting capabilities, as well as interfering with her opponent's senses.
Last but not least, she fashioned some more strands of heavy, metal-reinforced Energy into an intertwined vortex spinning rapidly, almost like a drill. All of these steps had been performed very slowly, with the intent of showing exactly how it was done–yet immediately after this initial demonstration was over, Vigdis stopped holding back. Hundreds if not thousands of these drills appeared all around her, all of them aimed directly at Eleanora.
Contrary to back when they had clashed with Sverre, this time, she wouldn't be sniping from a distance. Rushing forward as soon as she felt that she had prepared enough ammunition, she arrived behind her adversary at a speed that caused Eleanora to widen her eyes in shock.
Only with difficulty did she manage to dodge the palm strike that had been sent out, every single smidgen of complacency leaving her completely. She had no idea how someone like Vigdis could possibly surpass her by an extreme margin in terms of Standard Attributes, but the truth was staring her right in the eye.
Tilting her head a little and twisting her hips, she managed to avoid one of the drills that had been aimed at her face. Yet this one was soon followed by the next, and then another... and a few more! Amidst her close brushes with injury, she was locked into a sort of dance, one that Vigdis planned to take full advantage of.
Having reinforced her arms with the same heavy metal aura that her drills were carrying, she lashed out at Eleanora again, this time exactly when the Dragon Family heiress had just evaded multiple projectile attacks. There was no realistic way to avoid her blow, therefore all that she could do was to meet it head-on.
'Not too shabby.'
The corners of her mouth rising again, Eleanora chose to live up to Vigdis' expectations and did exactly as she wished. Strengthening her own body via suffusing it in fiery Energy, she also fashioned some of it into semi-solid gloves with mystical engravings all over them.
Raising just one of her hands, the Rún girl's full-force punch fizzled out as if it had landed on cotton, all of its might diffusing without doing any damage. But naturally, there were still the drills posing a threat. With dozens of them accelerating towards Eleanora at once, even she had to be a little bit cautious.
At that moment, right underneath them, within the empty space, a volcano purely fashioned out of her Energy appeared out of nowhere, spewing out millions of tons of lava which drowned the entire area that they had been in. It didn't manage to even touch Vigdis' clothes, as she had escaped quickly enough, but that had never been this blow's purpose.
Instead, with all of that lava at hand, not only did Eleanora fashion a new, now far more solid, fiery armour for herself, but innumerable spears were soon circling her like a school of luminescent fish.
All this while, the attacks of both had repeatedly sliced apart space, obliterating it in the process. The wails of the World's Will had been resounding in their heads constantly, yet it didn't cause any emotional fluctuations in them whatsoever.
"Now it's my turn!"
Chuckling in amusement, Eleanora sent hundreds upon hundreds of spears her opponent's way, locking her down far more thoroughly than Vigdis had ever done via her drills. Not to be outdone, the Rún girl made use of portions of her Energy to increase the amount of spinning vortexes, then fought fire with metal, and numbers with numbers.
'How come she has such vast Energy reserves?!'
Astonished once more, Theodore's business partner raised her opinion of his right-hand woman again. Neither she nor Vigdis had exposed anything beyond what they had made use of back during their confrontation with Sverre yet, and she hadn't thought that she would need to do so.
'... but most plans can never keep up with the changes.'
Furrowing her brows, she continued her bombardment, with neither side getting the upper hand, then snapped her fingers, summoning a silver light made out of her Energy. This was a card which everybody knew her to have: The Silver Dragons' inherent power.
Fusing it into not only the armour that she was wearing, but also her weapons, all of them turned completely indistinguishable from real, material objects. Even if they were closely scrutinized, most wouldn't be able to tell that they were actually simply made out of someone's Energy. Their colours had also changed, transforming into a lighter shade of red, occasionally shimmering with a silver gleam.
With her layer or protection now resembling scale armour, she strode forward, pressuring Vigdis with her now far more difficult to destroy projectiles, as well as her looming presence. In a real battle, she would have attempted to end things right here, not giving her foe a chance to react–but during this spar, she instead wanted to see which ability this red-head would reveal next.
'I should get more serious, else I'll waste this precious opportunity.'
Not surprised that all of her efforts so far had led to nothing substantial, Vigdis decided to give Eleanora a rude awakening. No matter what, the next blow would force her to unveil at least one of her hidden cards. Still, she wasn't comfortable with showing off any more than what she would make use of either, therefore this move would definitively spell the end of their duel.
"Again, brace yourself."
Warning her just in case, some of Vigdis' tattoos 'vanished' from view. In actuality, they had been moved to the interior of her body and were now directly connecting the engravings on the walls of her Dantians with the entirety of her tattoos. Instantly, the resonance that these two formed caused space to completely shatter and get obliterated around her in a vast area. No matter which celestial bodies were caught in the crossfire, nothing was left of them.
With occult symbols appearing on her irises, her eyes became chillingly cold, and her gaze detached and otherworldly. It was evident that whatever she had done had brought her at least multiple steps closer to being a 'divine' lifeform, but only temporarily.
Endless amounts of Energy surged forth from within her, transforming into countless numbers of the same familiar drills as before–which were now significantly reinforced–as well as far more enormous ones big enough to dwarf even entire planets.
Amidst projectiles big and small, Vigdis raised her hand, then sent them all forward in an unpredictable pattern, locking down the entire area around Eleanora. There was no possible escape, and all of her creations offered up little resistance in the face of this onslaught.
'She's making use of the difference in life hierarchy to obliterate the higher order of power that I employed. Clever.'
Although she felt appreciative of her opponent's move, this didn't mean that she could brush it off as easily as before. Somewhat reluctantly, she heaved a sigh, then she recalled all of the projectiles around her, as well as the silver light.
This time, she fashioned them all into the shape of a Dragon Pearl about the size of her fist. It flickered with fiery symbols swimming all over its surface and softly glimmered in many colours of the rainbow, yet appeared otherwise tiny and harmless.
With a casual wave, she tossed it towards Vigdis, whose expression suddenly changed. For the first time since they had begun, she felt an actual threat to her life–and that in her current state! It had to be known that even Theodore in his regular form, without making use of any of his Talents, wouldn't presently be able to scratch her.
Focusing all of her spinning vortexes on this extremely small object hurtling in her direction, following her every move no matter where she dashed to, she desperately bombarded it. Her strongest attacks barely left a scratch, therefore she had to up the intensity and frequency of them. Only after more than a thousand of them did she finally hear an audible crack.
What followed was an unprecedented explosion, one that entirely annihilated this current part of the world. It spread throughout many galaxies, wiping away all of spacetime along its path. By the time the dust finally settled, Enki XXXIII sported a hole nearly a tenth of its size in its centre, one which revealed the Lesser True Void beyond. The World's Will had fainted from the pain, and the world was already on the decline. If no miracle happened, it was certain to die.
"... it's my loss. You're quite impressive."
Sighing helplessly, Vigdis glanced at the destruction that had taken place. Although she wasn't powerless in the face of means like these, she would much rather save the aces up her sleeve for a truly rainy day.
"My, you flatter me. In my view, you're the outstanding one. To force me into employing a Dragon Pearl is an achievement worthy of pride."
Nodding at the red-head in approval, Eleanora once again lamented the fact that she had not been fortunate enough to run into anyone special herself. If there had been someone like Vigdis, then she would have done her absolute best to recruit them, despite usually relying exclusively on her clones!
'Oh well, it's useless to complain about it. I'm looking forward to what that future goddess has in store for me!'
Smiling happily, she and her sparring partner returned to a more stable region of the world. Both of them knew that Enki XXXIII would soon bear at least one additional fatal wound.