Serenity was still staring at the messages in shock when he felt a rush of Death energy pass over him and he heard Order’s Voice speak.

[A Lord’s Challenge has been issued. Defend your Lordship!]

The next words he heard as the Crystal interface disappeared and he saw the world again were quieter and sounded like the voice that had greeted him when he’d revealed himself to threaten the curse inventor - Tzintkra’s Voice.

[The Challenge cannot be cancelled]

[Defend me, Serenity]

[Destroy the usurper]

[Please]

The first thing he saw as the interface vanished was a cloud of Death energy gathered around himself and the City Crystal.

He’d never been begged by a planet before, and it was positively disturbing.

Equally disturbing was that he’d just been hit by the same attack that destroyed - what was his name? The man who was killed in the audience chamber - and he hadn’t been hurt at all. The (former?) City Lord stepped forward, only to stop when she saw he was unhurt.

The City Crystal was encased in a translucent bubble, as was much of the room; everyone other than Stojan Aith and Serenity were outside the outer bubble.

Serenity felt the Nightmare Wraith roar as it unspooled from the hardened knot it had been condensed into and streamed towards the former City Lord.

“YOU! I remember you! You are the one who made the World scream! You-”

Stojan Aith moved faster than Serenity expected a mage to move as she leapt to the side. She tensed the fist she held near her neck and threw another Death Bolt with her other hand at the shouting Wraith. When it impacted, the Wraith was knocked away from her, towards the outer barrier. The Death Bolt was stopped by the barrier, but the Wraith wasn’t. When the Nightmare Wraith tried to return through the barrier, it couldn’t.

Stojan Aith turned her attention back to Serenity and moved to face him without the barrier around the Core interfering. “Thief!” She shouted. “I knew you weren’t here just to go home! Idiot to try it in front of me!” She gathered another bolt of Death energy and flung it at Serenity to equally little effect.

Serenity was still disturbed by taking no damage at all from something he’d seen kill someone more powerful than him, but could only chalk it up to Death Immunity; it was a Death attack, after all, and he’d occasionally seen Immune monsters shrug off attacks. When you saw that, you switched to a different attack. Serenity hoped she wouldn’t realize what was going on; he’d never seen a person with an Immunity, after all, so he hoped she hadn’t either.

Each bolt probably took more than his entire Mana pool to cast. Serenity had no idea how he was even going to hurt her. Since she didn’t have an army of undead here and the bubble wouldn’t let them in even if she did, he didn’t see any way she could hurt him quickly, but he wasn’t sure he could hurt her at all. His naginata wouldn’t - wait! The axe. It was a higher-Tier weapon!

Serenity heard shouting and the sounds of fighting from outside the barrier. He turned towards where the Wraith was still trying to get back in. “I’ll take care of her, go help my friends!”

The Wraith didn’t immediately stop, but Serenity had to pay attention to the laughing spellcaster; even if those bolts didn’t hurt, he wanted to dodge them as much as possible. He couldn’t be sure she didn’t have any tricks up her sleeve, after all. Even - no, especially - if she didn’t, he didn’t want to make it obvious the Death Bolts were ineffective.

Serenity dodged her third bolt, then tossed his axe at her. It slowed as it passed through a shield of some sort, but that slowed it enough that it left only a superficial wound. He called the axe back to his hand and tried to figure out a way to deal with her.

Serenity risked a glance at where the Nightmare Wraith had been. It was gone; he could only hope it was doing as he’d asked.

The former City Lord threw another Death Bolt at him. Did she have any other attacks? Surely she’d figure out soon that this wasn’t working?

How much mana did she have, anyway? What Tier was she?

Serenity watched Stojan Aith as she grabbed the caged crystal shard strung around her neck. Had she done that for each bolt? She’d pulled her hands up and held them together, had they been around the necklace each time?

He thought that perhaps she had - which meant this wasn’t entirely her own attack. He wasn’t sure what the item did, but whatever it did, he was sure she wasn’t using up as much mana as she should have been to power the bolts.

He couldn’t count on her running out any time soon.

Serenity threw the axe again, hoping she hadn’t taken the time to replace the barrier, but she deflected it with her next Death Bolt.

The axe might actually be able to hurt her, but he’d have to get closer to avoid having it deflected.

Stojan Aith screamed as she threw another Death Bolt at him. “WHY WON’T YOU DIE???”

Serenity didn’t understand how she’d reached the point she had. Not only had she not adapted, she was wasting time talking during a fight. Was she setting up a trap?

It was better not to use the teleport in his boots; that way, if she was setting up a trap, he’d have a possible way out.

Serenity circled around her, steadily getting closer as he dodged her attacks. Even if she wasn’t using much mana on them, she was using some, and if there was some way to turn this into an endurance match, he’d have a better chance.

It was two steps forward for each step back, more or less; he wanted to approach her without making it obvious. There was a good chance she had a close-range attack to go with her long-range Death Bolt, and Serenity didn’t want to find out the hard way that he wasn’t immune to it. She was a DeathLord, after all, and Stojan Tasi had said something about her killing other DeathLords.

Despite the Tier difference, Serenity was still fairly confident he’d make something work out, as long as she continued to only use Death magic.

Surely he hadn’t been like this as the Final Reaper? He’d always been more adaptable, even though he only used Death magic - hadn’t he?

He must have been. You couldn’t slide by purely on power forever, and he didn’t remember ever having such a powerful object as something that would let you cast the way she was - at least, not until he actually had the mana reserves to do it himself.

Serenity was finally close enough. He ducked under a Death Bolt Aith sent a little high and turned the dodge into a lunge, swinging the axe as he moved. It thunked solidly into her shield before the shield popped. The axe kept moving, but Serenity could feel that it’d lost a lot of power, and once again it only cut a little into her side. He tried to pull it back to hit her again, but his second attack hit the shield as well. It seemed weaker, but that wasn’t good enough.

Long range didn’t work, and neither did close range. Serenity needed to get that shield down and somehow attack while it was down. He definitely couldn’t at a distance; calling the axe back took too long. He needed something else.

Stojan Aith screamed and grabbed his right arm as he tried to pull it and the axe back. She let go with her right hand and clutched the stone in her necklace while her left hand held onto Serenity. He tried to pull free, but his first tug didn’t move her; she was stronger than he was.

She had to be at least two Tiers above him, probably more. She was a mage after all, and most mages didn’t put that much into Might. They’d get Might from equipment, and equipment-provided attributes always lagged by at least a Tier. She might have been a hybrid in her younger days, but she didn’t act like it. She acted like she’d always been a mage, and a pure attack mage at that.

It didn’t make sense. Pure attack mages couldn’t complete the Death Concept; it had too many little details that weren’t purely about attacking. Serenity expected all Concepts to be that way; even Fire, the most classic attack Concept out there, had all sorts of other uses and connotations that made it more than just damage for a Concept. Completing a Concept wasn’t knowing everything - that was obvious, as he was now using Death magic in a way he hadn’t thought of as the Final Reaper - but it also couldn’t be just knowing one thing well, could it?

A wave of Death energy poured over Serenity from where Aith’s hand gripped his arm. He pulled some of it into himself but most of it simply dispersed into the air around him. The inside of the outer bubble was starting to become saturated with Death. The bubble around the City Crystal kept the interior clear; Serenity thought he could probably have used it to take some of the hits if there had been any need, but since they didn’t hurt him it was simply another hazard to avoid.

Serenity tried returning Death magic to her, but he didn’t have time then to make a proper spell, and it bounced off her shield. He hadn’t really expected it to work; a mage was usually best at defending against their own element, and he knew she’d fought DeathLords before. She had to have counters for the easy things.

Serenity twisted in Aith’s grip, loosening her hold and pulling away from her. He had to drop the axe to do it, but that was fine.

Aith was breathing hard and sweating; she looked like she was getting low on Stamina. That didn’t make any sense; yes, they’d been moving around, but they hadn’t been in combat for long enough to make even a mage run out, and she’d been using almost exclusively magic attacks; the only nonmagical thing she’d done other than turn in circles to face him was when she grabbed him.

It couldn’t be stamina loss.

Serenity moved away from his opponent to give him time to react while he studied her. She threw bolt after bolt at him, as though they were going to have a different result from the previous attacks. Serenity was beginning to suspect that she was indeed trying to trap him, but he wasn’t sure how. The only thing she was achieving was a general air of Death magic.

Could she be trying to create a field effect?

Serenity examined the Death energy in more detail. She’d created a torus, with a lower concentration of Death energy in the center where she was and a higher one where Serenity was. It was still not really concentrated enough for a true field effect; she’d need to at least double the intensity.

He’d been ignoring her shouting for a while, but something she said suddenly caught Serenity's attention. “COME ON OVER HERE, DON’T YOU WANT TO SAVE YOURSELF FROM DEATH? I’LL MAKE SURE YOU RISE AS A MINDLESS SERVANT TO ME!”

She hadn’t realized he was immune. She probably thought he had a shield of his own, allowing him to take the hits, but that the Death energy would be sapping his energy and making him vulnerable. She was more clever than he’d thought, but she’d missed the most important fact. He hadn’t slowed down, and she was starting to. The Death energy was probably why she was slowing down and seemed tired; unlike him, she wasn’t immune.