The sounds of explosions, collisions, and violent bursts of energy continued to shake the mountainous region where the battle between Sophia and King of Dusk raged for eleven uninterrupted days. Throughout those days, the surrounding landscape was transformed into something entirely unlike what it had been before the battle began. Mountains were brought down, valleys were carved by the repeated impacts, and the earth cracked and twisted across vast stretches of land. Every strike unleashed and every collision added another layer of destruction atop the last until recognizing the region's original terrain became impossible.
As for the humans who had lived in this region and whom King of Dusk had enslaved, forcing them to offer human sacrifices under his claim of divinity, they had already been evacuated before the battle began. The followers Sophia had sent accomplished this task efficiently and swiftly before the first blow of the great confrontation was ever exchanged. All that remained before Sophia now was a single matter: to eliminate the heretic known as King of Dusk.
As for King of Dusk's followers the warriors and guards upon whom he had built his dominion over the region she dealt with them quickly before engaging in the great battle against their self-proclaimed king. The swift purge she carried out before the main battle removed that variable from the equation entirely, while whatever remained of them afterward was handled by her own followers.
"Wait. Why don't we reach an agreement? I'm willing..."
King of Dusk began to speak, his enormous body covered everywhere with wounds from which blue blood flowed freely. His words came out with obvious difficulty, like someone desperately trying to find a way out of a situation he had never imagined he would one day face. But before he could finish his sentence—
Whoosh.
A sharp, deadly slash shot toward him without the slightest warning or hesitation, interrupting him before he could continue. King of Dusk narrowly evaded the attack, his face filled with fear and terror of this bloodthirsty madwoman.
When the battle had first begun eleven days ago, he had unquestionably held the upper hand. He surpassed her in raw power, in size, and in the accumulated experience of thousands of years. During the first hours of the confrontation, that superiority had been obvious and tangible in every exchange.
But the one thing he had never anticipated and which had begun to trouble him more with each passing day of the battle was that Sophia's strength neither remained constant nor declined. Instead, it continued to improve, deepen, and transform with every passing moment. The longer the battle lasted, the more noticeably her strength increased, as though every blow she received and every clash she endured reforged something within her instead of wearing it down.
At this very moment, he felt that if he relaxed for even a single instant or left even the smallest opening in his defenses, the deadly sword in her hand would finish him. It was a feeling unlike anything he had experienced in any previous battle, one that told him something he refused to accept about the true nature of what was unfolding before him.
As for Sophia, outwardly she bore all the signs of exhaustion and the accumulated weight of eleven continuous days of combat. But within her, things were entirely different. Despite the visible fatigue, she was still enjoying this battle, and with every passing moment she could sense the changes in her own fighting style.
The katana in her hand no longer felt like the same sword she had entered the battle with eleven days earlier. Not because the blade itself had changed, but because she had changed in her relationship with it and in what she was now capable of accomplishing through it. The sharpness of her touch upon its hilt had deepened, and her understanding of exactly what she wanted from it in every moment of combat had become clearer than ever.
She eagerly awaited the moment when King of Dusk would expose even the smallest opening in his defenses, one that would allow her to reap what she had come for and bring to an end everything she had begun.
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