B2 | Chapter 44 - Purple Fire Unleashed

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B2 | Chapter 44 - Purple Fire Unleashed

Theodore POV

Nothing… Nothing's working against her.

Why?

Theodore knew the answer, obviously, it was that she was stronger than him, but it irritated him nonetheless.

He wiped sweat from his brow, chest heaving as he stared across the training field at Freya.

She stood half a dozen paces away, barely winded, arms loose at her sides, that infuriating smirk still plastered on her face. Like this was all some kind of game to her.

How the hell was she this strong as a Rank 2? Or Rank 3, if she was using strength equivalent to that?

Actually, scratch that. Theodore knew he wasn't exactly your average Rank 2 either.

He'd killed Rank 3s before. Multiple times. Wasn't exactly common, but it happened when you had the right combination of skill, ruthlessness, and plain dumb luck. So yeah, he was strong for his rank. Stronger than most.

But Freya?

She was fighting him on equal footing. As a supposed Rank 2 going up against his Rank 2 strength. That was... impressive, honestly. Terrifying, but impressive.

So, again, he had to wonder, how the hell was she this strong as a Rank 2?

His eyes tracked Freya as she circled him with all the casual menace of a predator toying with its prey. Her movements were fluid—measured, almost lazy—but there was nothing careless about them. That confidence, that infuriating ease… it wasn't just arrogance. She wasn't pretending. She knew she was better.

It was like facing a mirror that didn't quite reflect his own image, but something close enough to unsettle him.

He'd never considered himself a genius. Others had thrown the word around—mentors, enemies, a few terrified allies—but he'd never internalized it. Still, he wasn't naïve. He knew what he was. He was stronger than most. Stronger than nearly every Rank 2 he'd ever met. He'd killed Rank 3s before—more than once, and not with luck or tricks, but through sheer, brutal superiority. He knew how far ahead he stood.

But Freya… Freya moved like someone unbothered by effort. Like the rules didn't apply to her. And the most maddening part? She wasn't even using her full strength, not even close. He could feel it, a coiled storm behind those calculating eyes, just out of reach.

Which meant only one thing: she was like him.

No—maybe worse. Maybe she was more.

That was fine. In fact, it was thrilling.

If she could match him even when he was tapping into Rank 3-level power… then how far could he push her? What would it take to make her use Rank 4 strength? To stop pretending?

He wanted to see it. Needed to.

Theodore stretched out his senses, feeling for the kinetic energy radiating off Freya's body. Every movement she made, every shift of weight, every breath. It was all energy he could manipulate. All energy he could steal.

He'd already sucked most of the air out of their immediate area. Freya was on a timer whether she knew it or not. Couldn't breathe forever. But she didn't seem bothered by it yet, which was... concerning. Either she had incredible lung capacity or she wasn't entirely human.

Both options were possible, honestly.

Theodore reached out with his power, fingers of invisible force wrapping around the kinetic energy flowing through Freya's limbs. He began to drain it. Slowly at first, then faster.

Her movements started to slow. Just a fraction, but he caught it.

Freya's eyes narrowed. She tried to take a step forward, but her leg moved like she was walking through thick mud.

Theodore grinned despite himself as he absorbed the kinetic energy even more aggressively.

But he couldn't use fire. Couldn't use thermal energy at all, actually. She absorbed it somehow, turned it back on him. Which left him with ice, water, air, and earth. Limited options, especially given thermal energy was his strongest—or more like, he was most familiar with it—but he'd work with what he had.

He didn't give her another moment to move. Action was better than thought. He stomped his foot, and the packed earth beneath Freya erupted. Not in a single spike, but in a wave of churning soil and rock, rising like a tide to swallow her. Simultaneously, he thrust his palms forward, and the air itself warped, forming two razor-thin sickles of wind that screeched as they flew, aimed to cut her off if she leaped away.

It was a classic pincer movement, and sure enough, Freya didn't leap.

With a grace that defied the chaos around her, she took a single, deliberate step back. Her foot landed on the rising crest of the earthen wave as if it were solid stone. The ground beneath her instantly stabilized, the churning chaos freezing in place to form a perfect pedestal. She used the newfound height to look down on him, her smirk widening.

The twin sickles of wind arrived a heartbeat later, and she simply raised a hand, catching them.

The shrieking blades of air spun harmlessly in her palm, their energy dissolving into nothing. She flexed her fingers, and they dissipated like smoke.

Pulling on his ice affinity, he didn't just freeze the ground. He pulled every drop of moisture from the air and slammed the temperature down, creating a localized, violent hailstorm in a ten-foot radius around Freya.

Her vision obstructed, shards of ice, hard as pebbles and imbued with the kinetic energy he'd just stolen from her, hammered down, not just to cut, but to bludgeon and disorient.

Simultaneously, he drove his hands downward, and the ground at her feet erupted with jagged lances of thick, blue-tinted ice, boxing her in and forcing her to navigate treacherous footing within the blinding storm.

For the first time, she looked genuinely inconvenienced.

The kinetic drain made her sluggish, and the combination of the blinding hail and the forest of ice spikes forced her into a defensive crouch. She raised her arms to shield her face, the ice shards audibly thwacking against her forearms, leaving angry red marks on her skin.

Looking a bit annoyed, she clapped her hands together once.

A single, sharp report that was paradoxically silent, a sound absorbed by the world. It wasn't an explosion of power, but a precise pulse of concentrated fire with… something peculiar about it. It was fire, yet it cut, and sure enough, every shard of ice in the air, every lance protruding from the ground, was instantly cut and shattered.

The makeshift blizzard cleared, revealing her standing in a pristine circle of white powder. The red marks on her arms were already fading. She rolled her shoulders, her movements crisp and free again.

He blasted her with pressurized jets of water aimed at Freya's center of mass. The water struck her with the force of a sledgehammer, and should have knocked her flat on her ass. He expect it to not work, but this time, it did.

The jet of water, dense and heavy as a battering ram, slammed into her chest and sent her stumbling back three full steps. A genuine grunt of effort was forced from her lips, and the impact left a dark, soaked patch on her clothes. She wasn't unmovable. She could just tank a ridiculous amount of damage..

She planted her feet, digging her heels into the stone to stop her retreat. The water, instead of splashing off her, seemed to cling to her skin for a moment before sluicing away.

Theodore didn't give her a second to recover. He saw the opening and poured more power into the assault. The single jet became a raging torrent. He shaped the deluge, forming liquid battering rams that slammed into her one after another, forcing her back step by agonizing step. The ground around her was being blasted into a muddy crater from the sheer, relentless force.

Which was saying something, given that this training field was practically made for this kind of magic assault.

This was getting ridiculous.

Theodore gathered what remained of the air in the atmosphere around them, compressing it into a dense sphere, then he threw a frankly dumb amount of mana into it and compressed it into oblivion. But he knew she'd be expecting a direct assault. He needed to set it up.

He blasted forward with air, using a jet to propel his own body at a terrifying speed. As he moved, he used his other elements to force her into a corner. He slammed his palm towards the ground mid-dash. The packed earth beneath Freya's feet instantly turned to thick, grasping mud, sucking at her ankles to rob her of the mobility she'd just regained, meanwhile he also sucked away all her kinetic energy.

Almost simultaneously, he flexed the fingers of his other hand, and three crackling bolts of raw lightning creamed towards her. They weren't his most powerful, but they were fast, chaotic, and designed to split her focus.

Freya was trapped. The mud clung to her, and the lightning was a direct, immediate threat.

To add to that, she was wet.

Her eyes darted between the incoming bolts. She made a choice. With a furious stomp, she sent a pulse of energy through the ground, not just solidifying the mud but turning the stone beneath it to glass-slick obsidian for a split second, allowing her to wrench her feet free.

At the same time, she swatted the lightning bolts out of the air with her bare hands. It wasn't a clean defense; arcs of electricity danced across her arms and shoulders, forcing a sharp hiss of pain from her.

But her focus was split. In that half-second of distraction, as she dealt with the lightning and the ground, Theodore arrived. He was already upon her, his face a mask of grim determination. The clear, vibrating sphere of compressed air, his true attack, was ready. He aimed for her stomach, right side specifically. Wanted to knock the wind out of her, force her to do something drastic.

The compressed air slammed into her right side, and Freya doubled over, gasping.

All the air rushed out of her lungs in a single, pained wheeze, and she was knocked off the ground, but she pivoted and landed on her feet, looking at him with a sour expression.

What the actual hell was she?

He knew for certain she was just letting him attack her all he wanted, because she wanted to show just how superior she was. Which, frankly, she was, given her actual Rank, but he refused to let this be the end.

He'd never met someone who could match him like this. 

Theodore's mind went to that sense thermal offered him, where something lived inside. Something he'd been afraid to use ever since he'd first acquired it. Something that whispered to him in quiet moments, promising power beyond measure if he'd just let it out.

He'd been on the fence about it for months. Terrified, if he was being honest. Because once he used it, once he opened that door, he wasn't sure he'd be able to close it again.

But Freya wasn't giving him a choice.

Theodore closed his eyes and flipped the switch.

Purple fire erupted from his fingertips.

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