Mei rose to her feet, her wounds vanishing almost instantly as her flaming aura grew, radiating heat and light like a sun about to swallow everything around it. The wind cut through the levitating debris, but nothing seemed able to stop her overwhelming presence. She cracked her neck, a wild smile appearing amidst the crimson blood trickling from her lips.
— I needed that, you know? — she laughed, her voice cutting the air like blades of heat. — Fighting while holding back was getting too boring.
— Good thing you seem like a punching bag I can hit at will.
The Prince of the Abyss stared at her, his eyes fused with Seraphyne's coldness, a black aura pulsing around his body like a vortex.
— You will die, Mei. — he said, firm and icy. — You will not be powerful enough.
She laughed, throwing her head back, the fire around her rippling with a strength and elegance that was almost artistic.
— Do you know who you're talking to?
— It's fine, you'll find out soon enough.
And, without another word, they launched themselves at each other.
The first impact was brutal. Mei fired a wave of compacted flames, concentrated into a rotating blade, almost like a fiery saw cutting through space. The Prince absorbed the energy with the Abyssal core radiating from his body, deflecting just enough to send a gravitational whirlwind against Mei, spinning the air around her into crushing pressure.
Mei felt the gravity suddenly change, as if every muscle had to fight against an impossible weight, but with a smile she manipulated her own technique: she condensed the fire into tiny spheres spinning around her, creating a counter-gravity field that launched her sideways, dodging the attack.
— Hm… interesting. — the Prince murmured, tilting his body, absorbing again part of the heat and light surrounding Mei. — I cannot underestimate you.
She arched backward, feeling the pressure, and launched a sequence of flames thin as needles toward his flanks, spinning to exploit the slightest weakness in his absorption. He raised his arms, creating black blades of Abyssal energy that intercepted the attacks, but Mei was already anticipating:
— Reverse Implosion! — she shouted, inverting the gravity around one of her spheres, creating a miniature black hole that sucked in the Abyssal energy and exploded in a counter-wave, throwing the Prince back a few meters.
He rose instantly, every movement exuding discipline and lethal force. His response was simple and brutal: a vortex of Abyssal energy appeared beneath Mei, swallowing the surrounding debris and trying to drag her into his gravity core. Mei laughed loudly, dodging in an acrobatic leap and transforming the pressure into a directed explosion of flames, each impact creating micro-collapses of air, like small fire-quakes.
— Impressive… she's infiltrating her energy and collapsing it with the Abyss... but she'll need more than that! — he shouted, striking with fists that seemed like spheres of molten iron, each one releasing waves of Abyssal energy that distorted light and gravity.
Mei spun in the air, manipulating the pressure around her to neutralize the force of the impact and launched her flaming blades toward him in a spiral, each one varying in intensity and density. She wasn't just attacking; she was testing, calculating, searching for gaps in his absorption.
He blocked most, but a few blades got through, superficially burning his energetic armor, provoking a crackle of alarm in his core:
— Hah… you learn fast. — he said, creating a wall of Abyssal energy that absorbed and neutralized consecutive attacks, advancing with surgical precision.
— And you're underestimating my creativity! — Mei retorted, condensing flames and pressure into two columns, which spun and fused into a point of intense heat—an attack that looked like a tiny star about to explode. — Let's see how you handle this!
The Prince merely raised one hand, manipulating the gravity around the explosion. It partially collapsed, but the residual pressure and heat still struck him, forcing him a step back. Mei seized the opening, running across debris, launching alternating attacks: physical blows, flames, localized implosions, all in a deadly dance.
He absorbed, reflected, rebounded, faster and faster, but Mei laughed as each of his attacks was just another variable in her strategic calculation:
— I missed this… — she murmured, her eyes shining, — being able to give my all and strike to kill.
The Prince then raised his voice, and his aura darkened further, making the air dense and heavy:
— No matter how much you move, no matter how much you create! — each word was accompanied by waves of Abyssal energy rippling like columns of a living abyss. — You will not pass.
— Oh, I will, I'll pass right over your head. — Mei retorted, and her flames exploded into spirals that manipulated inverse gravity, micro-black holes appearing to change the trajectory and speed of her attacks. The fire seemed alive, spinning and cutting the space around the Prince, while she exploited every instability in his absorption.
The Prince tried to counter this insane gravitational avalanche.
He stretched out his hand and the space seemed to distort between the clash of two absurd techniques.
He condensed a wave so dense that time within it seemed to freeze, a wave of Abyssal energy that paralyzed.
— YOU WILL NOT PASS! — He roared as he fired his technique toward Mei.
Mei smiled and faced the challenge; she was going to do it anyway, truth be told.
The wall of paralysis based on density just made her think a little more.
— Let's go. — Murmured Mei with those golden eyes everyone knows and fears.
Mei's altered gravity and her army of little black holes opened gaps for a maneuver. Mei then propelled herself and flew like a missile.
She concentrated her aura, which covered her, creating armor as dense as the Prince's technique. When she and the distortion wall collided, the city groaned, the ground trembled, and the wall gave way.
Mei passed through, being as dense as the technique itself.
And to complete it, with the Prince's unhappy expression upon seeing his technique subdued, Mei subdued his face with her feet.
BOOM
The Prince flew like a missile, crashing into what remained of the city.
— I told you I'd go over your face.
The Prince distorted space and stopped in mid-air.
"This woman, who does she think she is…"
To his misfortune, she answered, even though it was just the Prince's own monologue.
— I am the strongest! The Empress of Flames, so I think you'd better stop talking as if you were something more than a dying being who never should have left your hole.
You are in my house, in my world.
And here, the one who decides things, who judges, creates, or erases, is me.
She snapped her fingers and an arsenal of ethereal and flaming weapons appeared.
She was expanding her creation, just as she had done in the previous fight against Dante.
She was retracing her steps in search of finishing an unfinished technique.
She took the bow and fired.
One arrow became hundreds.
And hundreds of arrows condensed and became energetic spheres.
The Prince dodged with deadly precision, but something glinted in his eyes—for the first time, he had to calculate, readjust. The battle was becoming a test of intelligence as much as strength. Every second, every centimeter, was fatal.
Mei noticed the slightest hesitation and smiled. She wasn't just burning or crushing; she was playing with the field, manipulating gravity, pressure, fire, and the relative timing of the attack, creating patterns that confused the very Avatar of the Abyss.
The Prince advanced with all his remaining strength, a concentrated attack of Abyssal energy, gravity, and Seraphyne's presence. Mei took a deep breath, gathering all the surrounding pressure into a single point, condensing the air, gravity, and fire into a giant blade that cut through the attack and reflected part of the energy back into the Prince's own field, creating an explosion that made the ground tremble and fragments levitate.
— Hah! — Mei laughed, even as blood streamed down. — See? This is how you fight!
The Prince merely narrowed his eyes, and his body became enveloped in a vortex of black energy, momentarily disappearing into multiple spatial distortions, ready to reappear and attack from another angle.
The battle continued, visceral and intense, a confrontation between strategy and brutality, creativity against absolute power, fire against abyss, gravity against gravity—where every move could be the last.
The air trembled with every pulse, charged with the heat of the confrontation and the electric tension emanating from the Prince. Mei breathed rapidly, feeling every molecule of energy around her, while her golden eyes scanned the figure before her. The most devastating attack she had ever launched—the "Sun"—had barely shaken him, and worse, he seemed to learn, to adapt. With every technique she unleashed, he reacted differently, as if his own arsenal was multiplying.
She calculated, weighed, evaluated. Every step the Prince took, every flutter of his hands, every spark of energy escaping his skin was registered in her mind. It was a battle of logic versus creativity, strategy against instinct. Mei's brain worked on levels no ordinary human could sustain: equations of pressure, heat, impact trajectory, energy absorption… all in a fraction of a second. But even she felt the limit approaching. How many new techniques could she process, improvise, execute before her body and mind imploded under the strain?
The Prince advanced, increasingly confident, utilizing Abyssal techniques that arose almost spontaneously. Every attack was an addition to the adversary's arsenal, a reflection of pure adaptability. Mei smiled bitterly; the solution wasn't in keeping her distance, it was no longer a battle of projectiles or energy—it was time for close combat.
She closed the gap, approaching with feline steps, eyes fixed on the enemy. The Prince was fast, his skin resilient, but Mei would not lose this confrontation. Her explosive strength, combined with millimeter-precise technique, made every blow a promise of destruction. The first impact of her fist against his rib reverberated like thunder, followed by a side kick that knocked the air from his lungs. He retreated just enough to absorb the blow, but Mei felt the right moment approaching.
With a calculated movement, Mei activated her technique: the Stellar Core. A sphere with a ten-meter radius formed around her, the heat increasing, the pressure becoming almost tangible. This time there was no intention of knocking him out—after all, she wasn't fighting Dante in Akira's body; now it was total destruction. The Prince froze, unable to react. There was no way to absorb this; it was all heat and pressure compressing the air and asphalt around them, melting everything into waves of magma. Mei's power was absolute; the Empress of Fire dominated that space.
This was almost like Mei's Veil.
She advanced, blow after blow, a calculated fury. Every punch, every kick, every explosion of energy created cracks in the Prince's defense. And then, in a moment of clarity, Mei perceived his spiritual points and blocked them with surgical precision. A simple technique—and yet lethal. She raised her arm and concentrated all the pressure of the Core into a point above her finger. A nucleus that pulsed with heat and power, and she aimed it precisely at the staggering adversary.
That nucleus possessed heat and pressure on the same level as a technique Mei already knew.
It only lacked the activation energy that would generate the explosion. With a roar that crossed the city's limits, she then transformed and released it:
— DEVASTATING SUPERNOVA!
BOOM!
When she released it, the world exploded in light. The flash was so intense it blinded for moments, turning the city into shadows contrasted against the golden and red radiation of the nucleus. The asphalt and concrete melted, lifting entire blocks as if they were simple levitating leaves. Each impact created small ridges of destruction, forming craters within craters, a chaotic stage for Mei's fury.
The air boiled, the heat was almost palpable; waves of energy swept through everything ahead, and the ground cracked, raising clouds of dust and debris. Amidst all that destruction, Mei remained imposing, every gesture, every strand of her wavy red hair reflecting the intensity of her power. She wasn't just responsible for the explosion—she was its center, the absolute holder of the fire consuming everything.
The Supernova didn't just devastate; it illuminated Mei's presence, emphasizing every movement as if the universe itself curved around her. Every block that flew, every flame and blaze snaking around her body, every fragment of concrete spinning in the air—all reinforced that here stood the Empress of Fire, unstoppable, incandescent, impossible to ignore.
And as the light faded, the dust and smoke revealed the magnitude of the newly created crater, and Mei remained at the center, solid, serene, and still dominating every centimeter of the chaos she herself had generated. The combat arena, now transformed into devastated terrain, seemed to obey every silent command of her will.
To be continued…