The walls of the palace's corridors closed in on me the deeper I went. My breath joined the thickening darkness with every iteration, my chest feeling like an elephant was sitting on it. I craned my neck to the ceiling, where a thousand chandeliers had already passed me by. A thousand more seemed to be on their way as my feet pattered against the moth-eaten carpets and bouts of uncovered marble tiles.

Even then, no flame flickered from the heavens, plunging the space into a void I couldn't dream of chasing away. In palaces like this, I was sure the high ceilings would have sported fancy murals depicting solemn things and such, but none of them were visible apart from the faint silhouette of what could only have been pale splotches which had faded into white.

I left Rin in the front hall and took the stairs to the second floor. Since then, I rounded that floor and climbed up on the third story. Nothing there too. I found a door leading to the higher floors ajar. When I decided to take it, one look through the shattered glass windows told me I was somewhere in the middle floors of the palace, the ones flanked by the crumbling spires.

Arzo was somewhere in here, I kept telling myself. It's been ages ago, and I haven't glimpsed a sliver of teal anywhere. I summoned my sword and fastened it to my belt. Should my skills get locked again, at least, I'd be able to fight. I wouldn't let him surprise me like that, by making me feel helpless. Because I wasn't.

Not anymore.

If anything in what Rin told me about a valdyrsi's weakness was true, the skill I developed using the Key of Goran should be good enough. Rin even tried to fight against it last night. So long as I have the talisman in my person at all times, Arzo wouldn't be able to control me. And this way, he wouldn't have any ability to steal and would just be reduced to his starting spells, all of which were moderately strong. I also had Rin share his ability list last night using the Book of Darkness. I knew how to counter most of them by the next morning.

Arzo would be going down. If it wasn't from my hand, then Cavya's or Karmi's. Or the rest of Solarlume's. As I reach the final floor of the central wing, dread began bouncing on the walls of my gut. What if we were wrong and Arzo wasn't here? What if he's just controlling the Monarch while being safely tucked away in some place else? What then? Would we have led the whole adventuring sector of Solarlume here for nothing?

I clenched my fists. He had to be here. Otherwise, what's the point?

My feet tackled the last set of stairs leading somewhere. The light from the outside beamed down the steps, chasing the darkness away with a silent hiss. Wherever this was going, it led into an open space. Kind of.

I cleared the steps and a courtyard flanked with pillars and capped by a triangular roof came up. It was narrower than the expanse by the entrance but wider than simply being a bridge in between spires. I looked to my left. Surging from the spaces between the pillars was the real war. The beasts of the mammoth size looked like ants from where I stood, the adventurers flitting between them more like dust flying in the wind. The smaller beasts would either be as large as people or smaller.

Sparks of magic colored the sky like fireworks as those who could handle aerial battle took to the heavens to deal with the swarm of kurkurye. The numbers had dwindled since the battle started, but the numbers were still at a level where it's overwhelming. There could only be that many adventurers dealing with them.

In short, I needed to hurry. And I didn't like the idea of leaving Rin by himself for too long. Sooner or later, he'd find himself encrusted in some other life-threatening situation. That's just how he was—he always thought it's better to throw himself to the wolves just to save the people he wanted to. He thought it's what made him cool, but really, I hated that tendency of his. What would happen to me, his family, and any one who cared for him if he's gone? It's like that thought didn't even cross his mind.

Not even once.

"Fancy to see you here, Seline," a silky voice emerged from the shadows of the eastern spire. Arzo's footsteps matched his languid expression as he stopped a few meters from where I stood. He inclined his head to one side. "Why have you and your friends decided to grace my humble abode with your presence?"

"This has to stop, one way or another," I drew my sword and crouched, getting into a stance. "Right?"

Arzo chuckled, not bothering to even brush a finger against the sword sheathed by his side. "That's an interesting way to put it," he said. "Afraid you won't win this round?"

I spat into the ground, giving him my most aggravating grins. "I'm always open for a rematch," I said. "I know all of your tricks now."

A blur of teal and white lashed towards me. I swung my sword to parry. Metal clashed against its kind. Unlike the last time, Arzo wasn't trying to worm his control into my system. Instead, he danced against my slashes, returning blows here and there when he could. In terms of blade skills. One misstep and he would win. If he made a mistake, I would.

It's just a matter of seeing who's faster and sharper.

The explosions and the varied kinds of screams ringing from the battlefield beyond the castle told me enough. I didn't have time to think about how to defeat him in a fair match. This needed to be finished. As quickly as possible.

I descended into myself and let Arzo take the first blow. I used his momentum against him and drove my fist into his jaw. He stumbled, catching his flaring cheek. I lunged, slashed my sword. Again and again. Ink lashed against the brightness of the sky. Our shadows tangled and separated. Don't give him the time to recover. That has always been my technique. Overwhelm and conquer.

Arzo blocked most of my blows, reduced to backing away to catch his balance every time. I cried as I drove my blade down, slamming the tip against his arm. It should have pierced flesh, but he had jerked it out of the way at the last minute, catching me against his blade, instead. A dissonant clang rang in the whole courtyard.

I pivoted on my ankle, about to throw another huge slash. Pain flared on my side, digging deep into my gut. A knee. The leg it belonged to straightened, sending a boot tip at the small of my back. I toppled forward, straight into the trajectory of his blade's swing. Shit.

"Meld!" I screamed, my hands taking in the blade before its tip pierced through my skull. More pain danced in my palms as the sharp edges bit through skin in order to stop my motion. The spell only took effect then, wrapping around the metal, morphing it into something harmless, like a wooden stick.

But that also meant Arzo now had access to that specific spell. The talisman worked only on unprompted stealing. Once I cast it, the talisman could do little to stop it from being stolen. I wrung my hands, all bloody and hot, as I kicked the wooden stick out of his hands. It clattered to the floor with a characteristic thunk.

"I never pegged you as insane," Arzo whistled as he eyed the stick that once had been a sharp weapon capable of skewering someone through. "But you just proved me wrong."

"At least one of us has that kind of pride," I stretched a healing spell into my hands, exerting a bit of MP to increase my HP the smallest bit. "What's wrong? Suddenly scared?"

Arzo's grin only stretched wider. A similarly manic glint flashed in his dark eyes. "No, my lady," he said, dropping the honorific more as an insult than a sign of respect. "I was just getting started."

Daggers appeared in both of his hands and he lunged. So this prick could conjure space too and he just skipped on telling us that during the jjangkai mission. Great. I angled my sword just as he crossed his daggers and locked mine in some sort of scissor-hold. With his face inches from me, that's when the smell hit. Like a thousand corpses rotting all at once. Like the stench of wet fur and a stepped-on bug. It's enough to induce a gag but I held it in. Not now.

Not ever.

Sometimes, a spiria's greatest strength was also her greatest weakness.

I pushed against him and slammed my boot into his gut. That's payback. The spot where he hit me was still sore and throbbed underneath my clothes. Even though I crafted them to withstand blows as easily as that bulky armor I came to Solarlume in. I needed to do better, fortify my defenses more.

My teeth rattled in my head as Arzo came at me again and again, throwing my tactic back at me. My eyes flitted here and there, never staying in one place for more than a split second. He's everywhere and nowhere. All at once.

I swung, breaking his streak when my blade connected against flesh. A grunt followed as he slashed at my face. One of his daggers sailed past my cheek on his way to retreat. I dodged. But not fast enough. The stringent ring of hair being snipped invaded my ears. The world seemed to slow as Arzo's feet tapped against the floor a few meters away and I watched strands of my hair flutter with the wind, falling to the ground not long after. Against the unscrubbed, off-white tiles, the silver was almost unnoticeable.

My heart hitched.

Did he just...?

"Such a shame, really," Arzo rolled his shoulders and tucked his hands behind him. The blades' tips glinted behind him, catching the errant rays of sunlight with every shift of his weight from foot to foot. "You have beautiful hair."

That's it. Nobody touches my hair and lives to tell the tale. "Shut the fuck up, bitch," I hissed, even though I knew he would have no idea what I was saying and the insult wouldn't land a dent in his emotions and ego. I said them anyway. It felt good.

I gathered all of my magic and lunged. "Shockwave!" I chanted just as my sword slammed against his. The huge blast of energy threw him against the pillars, sending it cracking. The other pillars weren't so lucky. Most of them crumbled to dust like chalk being dropped against a hard surface as the purple wave swished past them.

Arzo rolled out of the way as I pointed my sword. "Aftershock!" My beam of light hit the spot where he had been, sending the pillar's base to dust. Without enough support, the ceiling started groaning. One more pillar to fold, and it would fall all over us. Exactly what I wanted, though.

A flash of green whizzed in my periphery. I raised my sword to block it, shouting another spell of my own. Purple met green, exploding into a shower of sparks and a loud clap. Through the ringing in my ears and the bright assault in my vision, Arzo rode through the haze unfazed, blades aimed for my throat.

I swept my sword, cutting wide in the air. It caught flesh. Arzo groaned in pain as I sent him flying into another pillar—the last one I needed to destroy. Rock splintered with a hollow crack. The entire ceiling took forever to come at us, first in the form of shadows of a hundred chunks rushing towards us. Then came the screaming for retribution.

My legs pumped as I launched towards the open air. I stretched out an arm, yelling at the top of my lungs, "Divine Fire!" The heavens burst into purple. Clouds dissipated as blazing flames ate through every drop of water they carried. The ball of fire built and built, growing as large and bright as the midday sun. Then, it speared towards the falling courtyard roof.

A nuclear explosion shook the entire palace. Rock projectiles flew at impossible speeds and trajectory. The wind generated by the explosion blasted me farther than I calculated, sending me directly into open air.

Shit.

I began hurtling to the ground. Again.

Silver streaked in my vision. The wind ruffled my hair and tore at my body from all directions, making it impossible to veer away or change my ever-shifting orientation. Something pierced the cloth of my shoulder. A force broke my fall and hauled me backwards. A scream broke out of my mouth as I continued flying. Who—?

My world spun to a stop when the unmistakable sound of metal embedding itself against stone twanged in my ears. I looked up to see the damage and instead came face to face with a thin rapier with a dragon's head on the pommel. This strip of metal was what was holding me up a hundred—no, thousands—of meters from the ground.

"Cavya," I breathed. This time, I focused on the immediate landing, which was the roof of the first set of floors of the palace. A small space between the walls of the central floors and the spires was gilded with crenelations. It would have been used by the Western army to shoot down anyone who made it past the gates.

I didn't need to tell the langkoor to remove his sword, because the blade started quivering on its own as it answered the call of its master. The blade pulled free and my fall continued. This time, I was ready.

But, boy, was I spent.

I reoriented myself, letting my feet point towards the ground. Like a cat—land feet first. Pain shot to my ankles and knees the moment my boots slapped hard rock. Blasting away at the healing spell, I stood up. I passed a hand over my face, looking at the stats displayed in my menu. My HP, I could do away with. My MP, though...

"I never thought you'd actually go that far," a deep chuckle made me tense and whirl towards Arzo. Why was he alive? How many times did I have to kill him? "Well done, you."

A hand cradled one of his shoulders. Soot and bits of powdered rock dusted his face, his clothes, and colored his hair in awkward splotches. I spread my legs and summoned my sword back to me. The way he's not using the skills he had already gotten from me, instead letting himself be thrown all over the place...

He's aiming for something. My eyes widened. Don't tell me—

He's just waiting for my MP and HP to go down so he could finish me off? I couldn't decide if it was genius or just plain stupid, but it infuriated the hell out of me. Did he think so small of me from the start, believing he'd be able to survive anything I throw at him?

This slimy, little bitch.

I wouldn't be treated like I was weak. I simply couldn't take it. He would pay. He would—

A memory of words being said to me froze my limbs into submission, into reconsideration. You attack the moment you see a sliver of weakness, a voice said in my head. It's one I would rather not listen to again, but it might be what I needed to hear now. You don't analyze why you thought it to be a weakness. You just try to exploit it until it proves itself to be, in fact, not a weakness at all.

Any weakness could turn into the greatest strength if I didn't pay attention. It's what Karmi told me about my swordsmanship. I remembered the way she winked at me, her lips curving into a knowing yet playful smile. "You need to work on it in other areas of life too."

Maybe I had caused a ton of problems not just to Rin but to a lot of people as well by falling into that same pattern of thinking over and over. Weakness wasn't bad. What mattered was how I would overturn that weakness into a strength no one has ever seen before.

Karmi had stepped back and loosened her grip on her sword. I slumped and let my weariness show in my stance and my face. I faced Arzo, not bothering to corral the heavy breaths heaving in my chest. Let him see I was spent. Let him see what he wanted and needed to see.

Arzo smiled. "What's this?" he asked, chuckling in amusement as he hefted a dagger with his good shoulder. Up until now, he's not using spells to heal himself or at least numb the pain. Maybe he was saving it for something more or some shit like that. I wouldn't let him reach that stage though. "The mighty Seline showing she's tired? That's a first."

I leveled my gaze at him. "I don't always need to be strong," I said, slumping my shoulders more and doing a show of staggering, like I was barely holding myself up. Throw in a little bit of eyelid flutters there. Rin told me I'd never make a good actor but here we were now. "You win this time."

Arzo threw his head back and laughed. When he straightened and lowered himself into a stance, he smiled at me. It was wide enough to send the corners of his eyes crinkling. This was his real smile and it's fucking creepy. "I promise I won't make it hurt," he said.

Liar. Promises didn't mean anything. I should know. I've been given and have given some.

He reached me in a flash, a dagger aimed at my neck. I opened my hand and called for my sword. It had clattered somewhere behind Arzo which I only noticed while we're talking. It answered its master, as obedient as ever.

But not without going through a layer of flesh and organs.

Arzo fell against me, sputtering and squeaking in pain. "Sounds familiar?" I hissed in his ear. Let my whispers chill his blood into ice. Let him feel the agony he would have inflicted on all the people he and his actions had hurt and killed so far.

He gurgled, blood running down the side of his face. It's over.

I yanked the sword from his body and pushed him aside. Except he didn't topple backward the way I expected him to. He swept forward, his hand slamming hard into my face. His nails dug against my scalp. Even with a hole through his chest, his grip was still strong. Through the gaps between his fingers, his grin never faded.

"Let's give you a taste of your own medicine," he rasped. "Shockwa—"

A mass of red and white slammed into him from the side. I was thrown sideways, just in time to catch a face flashing in my periphery. I saw the words those lips formed. Without needing to hear it, I knew what he said.

I knew what Rin said, even though he promised he wouldn't.

Life Switch.