Chapter 444: identity revelation
Klein remained frozen. The hooded woman slowly removed her hood. A cascade of chestnut hair with orange reflections fell onto her shoulders. Her skin was of an alabaster pallor. Her eyes, pearly iridescent orbs, stared at him with intensity. Klein widened his eyes, his heart skipped a beat.
"Ariana?" he exclaimed in a hoarse voice filled with surprise.
Klein clenched his fist. He couldn’t believe it: the legendary Pandora, the immortal alchemist, was in reality Ariana, his ex-fiancée.
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[Back in the Alexandrian Empire]
At that time, the war between the Pendragon faction and the other factions was raging, plunging the empire into chaos never seen before. The fighting took place on multiple fronts across the empire. The capital was nothing more than a huge blaze under a sky blackened by ashes and sulfurous smoke.
In the center of the market square, the chaos was total. Warriors from the Pendragon faction fought against the alliance of the factions.
Suddenly, a seismic shock shook the foundations of the city. The stone buildings cracked, the basalt slabs lifted before crashing to the ground.
Iris Pendragon made her entrance on the battlefield. She was a vision of pure power. Standing two meters tall, her body was a masterpiece of muscles. Her skin was marked by war scars. She wielded a double axe. Her build made the ground tremble with fear.
"You are nothing but corpses on borrowed time!" thundered Iris, her voice a roar that drowned out the clamor of elemental spells. With a brusque gesture, she raised her weapon toward the sky.
< Gravity Magic: Eclipse Collapse >
In an instant, the air above a platoon of mages from the other factions distorted. Gravity multiplied in a fraction of a second, transforming the atmospheric pressure into an invisible hammer. The mages did not even have time to incant a shield. They were literally flattened against the ground, their bones exploding under the pressure of several dozen tons. Blood spurted from their mouths and ears, staining the stone before their bodies were reduced to piles of crushed flesh and tissue.
Iris leaped forward, her iron boots pulverizing the pavement with each stride. She was a storm of metal and gravity, slicing through the enemy ranks with disconcerting ease.
It was at that moment that time seemed to freeze. The flames stopped dancing, the suspended debris remained motionless in the air. At the end of the imperial avenue, a solitary silhouette appeared. The Emperor of Alexandria advanced with calculated slowness, his silk garments not even brushed by the dust. In his right hand he held a long sword whose blade sparkled with a silvery glow, reflecting the temporal distortions he generated.
"Iris Pendragon... I will put an end to your carnage here and now," declared the Emperor in a calm voice, devoid of human emotion.
Iris let out a wild laugh, her amber eyes shining with a mad gleam. "You’ll have to be capable of it, old man!"
The battle between the two titans began without preamble. Iris struck the ground with her double axe, releasing a gravitational impulse intended to crush the Emperor on the spot.
< Gravity Magic: Abyss Pit >
But the Emperor did not move. With a simple circular movement of his sword, he altered the very fabric of reality.
< Temporal Alteration: Lost Seconds >
Iris’s attack seemed to pass through him without touching him. The Emperor instantly materialized on the giantess’s flank, his blade tracing an arc of light toward her throat. Iris, despite her size, showed unparalleled agility. She used a gravitational repulsion under her feet to propel herself backward, narrowly avoiding the silvery edge.
"Too slow!" she yelled.
She leaped into the air, her axe enveloped in a dense violet aura. She fell back with the power of a meteor. The Emperor raised his sword, activating a temporal acceleration to parry the blows that rained down at supersonic speed. The clash between gravity and time created metaphysical shockwaves that shattered all the windows of the capital for kilometers.
The Emperor followed with a series of precise thrusts, each blow multiplied by a temporal loop that made the blade strike three times for each real movement. Iris had to concentrate her aura to strengthen her defense.
< Aura Coating: Gravity Armor >
Her skin took on a metallic sheen, the sword blows leaving only sparks on her steel muscles. She seized one of the blades of her axe with both hands and triggered a forbidden technique.
"If I can’t cut you, I will crush the earth under your feet until nothing remains of this cursed capital!"
She plunged her double axe directly into the ground, at the heart of the central square. The power she released was such that the surrounding gravity field became unstable. The air became so heavy that it almost liquefied.
< Gravity Magic: Total Ruin >
The ground of the capital tore apart. The pillars of the temples collapsed, not from fire, but because their own weight had become too great for their structure. Entire blocks of houses were sucked toward the center of the square, compressing against each other in a din of crushed stone. The Emperor, struggling to maintain his own temporal stasis, watched in horror as the foundations of his palace wavered.
Under the force of the unleashed gravity from Iris, the city of Alexandria began to sink into the earth. The screams of civilians and soldiers were muffled by the rumble of the earth’s crust giving way. Iris Pendragon, in the middle of this crater of destruction, seemed to be the only stable thing, her muscular body vibrating under the effort of maintaining this singularity point.
The Emperor frowned, not digesting the fact that she was destroying the capital of his empire. With a leap, he closed the distance between them and delivered a powerful sword blow that Iris hastily blocked, sending him flying far until he collided with a building in a crash. At the same moment, the pressure she exerted disappeared, freeing the capital from her grip.
As the Emperor looked towards Iris, an axe suddenly emerged from the rubble and rushed towards him; with a swift movement, he deflected it with his sword.
