Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Blue Fire Domain.

Cold Haze.

When Eliza succumbed to Eren's spell, she sensed her body heat siphoning away, compelling her bodily functions to decelerate.

This happened despite her attempt to shield herself from the blue flames by enveloping her in the Enderflames.

The blue flames didn't scorch Eliza's skin, but an unwarranted hibernation-like effect seized her. Her body temperature would have plummeted dangerously against Eren if not for her Enderflames, guarding her from frost-like damage.

Encountering a fire-element Ranker using a uniquely employed Way of Fire was a first for Eliza. Opting for a defensive stance, she curtailed her offensive moves, precisely timing and matching Eren's attacks. Yet, being on the defensive meant enduring accumulating injuries with no immediate prospect of reciprocating damage.

The sky-blue flames darkened as they absorbed the perpetual heat emanating from the Enderflames. The flames seemed even more voracious, climbing Eliza's limbs to absorb more warmth.

It was as if these flames were intoxicated by the warmth of their targets. Eliza's fire-element summons proved ineffective against Eren's creatures conjured with the azure blue flames.

However, Eliza's wraith summons were immune to the heat-siphoning damage from the blue flames. Lacking living, breathing bodies, their mangled and barely-there organs as well as skeletal frames remained unaffected, presenting an effective counter against Eren's Blue Fire Domain and Cold Haze.

Upon realizing that Eliza's wraiths were shifting the balance, Eren altered his strategy. Instead of fire-element summons, he employed earth-element and wind-element summons, coating them with azure blue flames to make them resilient against Eliza's wraiths. Eren's versatility proved valuable, introducing the necessary variety to match and counter Eliza's moves.

Eliza endeavored to maintain composure in her battle with Eren, but it was evident she was caught off guard by his ability to match her, even after revealing most of her trump cards.

The more they clashed, the more Eliza grasped that Eren was an abomination surpassing even her. Despite her blessings and natural gifts, Eliza, a Ranker who had pushed the boundaries, found Eren to be beyond a typical Ranker.

Eren wielded multiple Classes, offsetting Eliza's apparent advantages. His mastery over multiple Elemental Attainments rivaled, if not surpassed, that of a regular Grandmaster Ranker. It was as if he had pursued each element and class individually, amalgamating the gains from multiple lifetimes.

However, what intimidated Eliza the most was Eren's mastery over Weapon Comprehension. Witnessing him from afar was impressive, but facing him in personal combat, exchanging blows, and slashes, made her heart skip a beat.

Eren had basically turned his arms into his weapons. Whenever he got a chance to approach and attack Eliza, he did it with such finesse that her defensive stance was breached more often than it should have. And this was when Eliza herself had exceptional Weapon Comprehension to begin with.

As a result, Eliza suffered from multiple grievous injuries while trying to study Eren's attack pattern. She used her army of wraiths as a defensive line to keep her distance from Eren while observing the variations in Eren's attack patterns.

On the other hand, no matter how Eren pressed his advantage against Eliza, he didn't feel like he was winning. Even though she suffered grievous injuries by changing her battle stance midway, Eren could see why Eliza had chosen to go with that particular option. If anything, he felt more stressed the more he brought Eliza on the backfoot.

This was because Eliza was reading Eren's moves.

With her mastery over the Weapon Comprehension, it wasn't difficult for her to come up with a good counter against Eren's butchering skills. It was as if she was trying to create a new attack pattern just for the sake of countering Eren's moves.

Eren had to say that Eliza had natural battle instincts. She could instinctively understand her opponent's weakness and react accordingly. She also knew when to shift between offense and defense, enabling her to deal maximum damage to her enemies while suffering minimum repercussions while doing it. Of course, when the two exceptional Rankers fought, the repercussions were unavoidable to both sides.

Still, Eren didn't want to turn his offense down a notch. If anything, he was trying his best to evolve his skills as the two fought, making him look as if he was just that thirsty to torture the Witch of the Enderflames in anyway he could.

One could say that this was a battle between the one who was born the strongest of their generation and the one who had become the strongest of their generation with their hard work alone. As such, the battle represented the clash between the two beginnings.

***

At this point, both the Grandmaster Rankers realized that their summons were practically useless on the battlefield. Because she didn't have to use her mana reserves for the most part, Eliza could have kept summoning the wraiths to eventually wear down Eren's summons.

However, she didn't want to use her Sin Series Ability if it didn't grant her a surefire and quick way to win against Eren. her instincts were telling her not to prolong her battle with Eren any more than she had to.

Swoosh. Clang. Boom.

The summons from both sides were dispersed into thin air as Eren and Eliza clashed with each other personally. Eren had a deep slash wound across his torso while Eliza's left arm was almost severed from her shoulder joint once again. It was apparent that Eren had targeted her recently joined arm purposely, exploiting the injury she had already suffered during her fight with Demonmir.

The two were forced to separate from each other when their respective spells clashed, generating a repulsive force strong enough to push them apart several meters from their initial positions.

"You… how long have you been planning to battle against me?" Eliza finally broke the silence. She gasped for air and wiped the blood on her lips with the back of her right hand as she stared at Eren.

"Long eno… *cough cough cough*... Long enough!"

Eren responded while trying to cough out the mixture of blood and other bodily fluids. The internal bleeding he had to face was more severe than Eliza's despite the latter being on the defensive stance most of the time.

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AN: Blue Fire Domain and Cold Haze were explained in chapters 249 and 250 respectively.