The mage was fully enraged. She gritted her teeth hard as she began to cast the spell. The bolts of lightning ripped through the air with vigor. It caused the wind to dance wildly, and the trees followed in the sway.

"Elves piss me off," the mage said. "You all act high and mighty like there is no rage like you." After saying that, she unleashed the attack. It tore through the air like a comet, lightning rushing together like a dragon attacking.

Sierra looked at the incoming attack. She gritted her teeth hard and placed one leg to the back, her sword to her side.

"Don’t get cocky because you used a stronger spell," her voice thundered. Mana surged. She slashed upwards with everything that she had. The blade cut through the air. It slammed into the massive bolt of lightning, and immediately there was a collision explosion.

Sierra was pushed back a few feet, yet she held her ground against the blast and refused to relent. Her hands trembled and ripped open, but even then she kept her eyes steady and continued her press against the attack. The blast finally died down, and she stood there, her armour damaged and blood painting her red.

"Hahahahaha, I knew that you were weak," the mage said in full eagerness, happy and excited at the fact that her attack had injured Sierra.

Sierra looked at her, then she smiled. "Hahahah, you really got happy because you injured me? Tch, and I thought you had something worth showing." After Sierra said that, she gripped her sword, and suddenly her mana rose like an erupting volcano. It blasted out and filled the air immediately.

The mage was stunned. Her eyes stayed wide open, and she looked with confusion and fear. "This mana, it’s greater than mine. How is that even possible?" she screamed at Sierra. She had believed that Sierra was a swordsman, but it turned out that Sierra was far more than a swordsman.

"I wish I did not have to go all out for someone like you," Sierra said with cold confidence, like she had decided the fate of the mage and how she had to deliver it.

The eyes of the mage trembled at the sight of this power. She gritted her teeth in anger. "I am a demonic human, there is no way I’ll lose, never, never!" she screamed from the top of her lungs. Her hands gripped the staff hard as some magical purple patterns formed around her skin. They glowed and burnt her as she stood, but she refused to stop.

"Let’s see how you handle this," the mage declared.

She was burning her own life force. It was a reckless move that people never did because of the risk attached, especially humans who had short lifespans. But a demonic human could live at least three times the regular life of a human, and so she had more to spend and use.

"Hahahahahaha." Her laugh got louder and louder, as if she wanted to use it to overcome the pain that she was feeling.

"Now die!" she yelled, and a surge of purple flames erupted from her staff, far larger than anything that she had done before.

The purple flames came like a wall.

They roared across the forest floor and consumed everything in their path, trees igniting instantly, the heat warping the air into something visible and suffocating. The mage pushed more into it, laughing through the pain of the patterns burning into her own skin, her staff shaking in her grip as she poured everything she had left into the attack.

Sierra didn’t move back.

She planted her feet into the scorched earth, both hands on her sword, and let her mana rise the rest of the way. It came out of her like a second atmosphere, pressing outward in every direction, bending the flame at its edges before she had even swung. She exhaled once, slowly, and then she stepped into it.

She cut.

The blade tore through the wall of purple flame in a single upward arc, and the fire split apart on both sides of her like water parting, cascading harmlessly into the trees, the heat dying where the mana touched it. Sierra walked through the gap she had made without breaking stride.

The mage’s laugh stopped.

She swung her staff, and a volley of lightning bolts ripped from the tip in rapid succession, each one thick and violent, cracking the air apart as they came. Sierra moved through them, her blade catching two and redirecting them into the ground, her body weaving around the third with a single sharp sidestep, the bolt scorching the bark of the tree behind her black.

She was still walking forward.

The mage screamed and slammed her staff into the ground, the burning patterns on her skin spreading up her neck now, her teeth locked against the pain. A pillar of combined purple flame and lightning erupted upward and then collapsed outward in every direction, a desperate detonation meant to buy distance.

Sierra leaped above it.

She rose through the smoke and heat, mana blazing around her blade, and at the apex she looked down at the mage with completely cold eyes.

She came down hard.

The slash carried everything, her full weight, her full mana, every last ounce of it focused into a single point, and the blade found the mage before she could raise the staff in time. The impact split the ground beneath them both, a shockwave rolling outward and flattening the burning grass in a wide circle.

Silence rushed in behind it.

The mage stood completely still.

Her staff was gone. The burning patterns on her skin had stopped glowing. She looked down slowly, her wide eyes moving to the wound Sierra had given her, and something moved across her face that wasn’t pain. It was something quieter and more final than pain.

"How," she whispered. "I burned my own life. I used everything. How are you..."

She didn’t finish.

Her knees folded, and she hit the ground, and the forest went still around her.

Sierra lowered her blade.