A twin pair of wings that looked like cracked space and severed reality appeared on Shan'Rae's back. At the same time, her scythe shrank but became more deadly all at once. Her attacks became swifter, space began to suppress and form a Domain around Leonel, all while the scent of death lingered more and more fiercely.

Leonel indifferently countered everything, his spear moving with the fluidity of a swordfish in the sea. Every strike was firm and precise, and while the air seemed to implode where their blades collided, Leonel was never the reason. His blade was controlled too precisely, too perfectly.

"[Resonate Hum]." Shan'Rae's voice echoed as a pair of silvery-black spinning cyclones appeared behind her wings.

Large amounts of Force began to hammer toward her as though they couldn't rush forward fast enough, and Leonel was even beginning to sense the barrier the golden key had put up wavering as it was forced to allow this Force in.

At the same time, he felt that every time the air exploded, Shan'Rae took that borrowed force, fed it into those silvery-black cyclones, and then fed it into her own attack.

The longer the battle went on, the more energy she gathered, and the more her strength increased.

It was such a profound level of spatial control that even Leonel felt impressed. If things continued like this, he would find that even if his will wanted to continue, his arms would no longer be able to hold themselves up.

He wasn't surprised in the slightest.

The Void Race's heritage should be deeper than any he had ever come in contact with. Whatever abilities they had would certainly be amplified to the greatest extent with their techniques, and this [Resonate Hum] was just one of them.

Her power continued to increase, and Leonel found his wrists shaking and quaking so much that he was having a hard time maintaining his control. If he took the time to re-establish his hold, by then, Shan'Rae's next attack would come. But if he didn't take time to stabilize his blade, then his next attack would be duller and less precise.

The scythe's strikes came in a relentless avalanche. It was clear that Shan'Rae had already realized that she was no match for Leonel in terms of weapon control and skill. So she abandoned any thought of trying to compete with him in that realm, instead choosing the most violent and brute force approach she could.

And at this point, with the strength of her body and the potency of her Forces, it was working.

Until Leonel's gaze suddenly sharpened.

Swift.

His spear's speed suddenly doubled, and the world whined and shook.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Shan'Rae took three quick steps back, but she didn't feel perturbed, the cyclones behind her spinning faster. At the same time, she flapped her wings, sending a storm of miniature scythes of cracked space and shattering reality right at Leonel.

Leonel took a hand off his spear and faced a palm to the skies.

At that moment, those miniature scythes all expanded wildly and collapsed out of Shan'Rae's control. They touched one another and began to explode one after another.

The shocking change caught Shan'Rae in their death spin, and she lost sight of what was happening around her for a moment. However, her reactions were still quick.

The moment she sensed that something had gone awry, her flapping wings wrapped around her body and suddenly violently expanded. Then, a second pair of wings, for a total of four, took shape and spun like blades. Soon, it looked as though she was being protected by mirrors of reflective space, all while attacking with that very same space.

Leonel appeared right through the mess at the same time, and his eyes narrowed when he saw Shan'Rae's defenses.

As expected, her combat experience was on another level compared to Willowyn. However, she was still far too much of a coward.

The wings were connected right to Shan'Rae's body, so getting them to be stripped from her control was impossible. But that didn't matter.

All space here was his space.

His spear rotated once and swatted one of the rotating wings out of the way. He sensed his spear crack, but he was entirely indifferent to it all.

With another step, he thrust forward.

"One spear to connect the earth and the skies."

The moment Leonel spoke these words, all of the blood seemed to drain from his face at once, but the calmness in his eyes was eerie to the point of forcing one's heart to shake and tremble.

Despite being hidden away between folds and layers of space, Shan'Rae could feel all of this impossibly clearly, so much so that it felt as though those pair of eyes were looking right toward her.

And then, to her shock, Leonel's presence completely vanished from her Internal Sight. And when she tried to use space to lock down his location, she couldn't find him either.

Her expression changed and she hesitated, not sure whether to pull down her defenses or to keep them up to weather the storm.

However, that was when it struck her.

He hadn't disappeared.

He was everywhere.

He was everything.

One spear to connect the earth and the skies...

The line didn't represent a growth in his blade. It encompassed the artistic concept of a single attack being capable of going anywhere, doing anything. A single two-meter-long spear could touch both the Earth and the Heavens at the very same time.

What did that represent?

It meant that her defenses, her senses, her readiness...

Were all meaningless.

BANG!

A single spear pierced through the top of Shan'Rae's head and cut her body in two.

Her heart would have leapt into her throat, had it not been for the fact it was now cut in two as well.

Leonel landed on the ground, huffing for breath and blood leaking out of the corners of his lips.

He raised a hand to his throat and pulled his fingers back to look at the crimson liquid dripping from it.

He coughed up a mouthful of blood.