Chapter 115: A Rare Grin

"What the fuck happened here?"

Ravena stepped out of her spatial rift and looked over at the crater that scarred the training room floor.

After a second, her eyes gravitated towards Valerian, and for a split second, her detached expression became a shocked one before turning back.

"You changed, but it’s weird."

"Haha."

Sylas laughed at her reaction, earning himself an annoyed face from Ravena.

"Right, you are here too."

"Don’t be like that, Ravi, you hurt my feelings."

Feigning hurt like he was stabbed in the heart, Sylas stumbled back.

’Ravi?’

Valerian was more than curious why Sylas was talking so casually to her and why Ravena didn’t even say anything at the nickname, but he also didn’t want to involve himself in the matter between these two demi-gods and let it go.

"Master, can we have a spar? I want to test my strength."

Valerian turned to Ravena, who looked at him with scrutinizing eyes before nodding in response.

"Sure, but put on some clothes first."

Valerian looked down at himself. While his body was still covered by the darkness he conjured, he did feel quite exposed and complied, walking out of the training room and leaving the two behind.

As he left the training room, Ravena turned to Sylas with questioning eyes.

"What happened, and why does he feel so different?"

Sylas turned around and looked over his shoulder.

"Hmm, is that worry I feel from you, dear student? I wish I could take a photo and sell it."

Not answering his teasing, Ravena held his eyes with a demanding look. The mischievous look in his eyes disappeared as well, and he turned away from her.

"Be grateful, Ravi. We managed to bear witness to the birth of a god, well, not quite the birth."

Ravena looked at the back of Sylas’s head with intense eyes. She knew the elf for a long, long time, and not once had he been as serious as he was now.

She cast her eyes down and looked at her hands that were scarred by centuries of war and bloodshed, leaving scars so deep that even her body couldn’t heal them.

’A god...’

Their silence was broken by Valerian, who walked back into the training room wearing his apex combat uniform.

For some reason, the starry window in his waistcloth seemed brighter and more alive, and his very presence drew in the world around him. It was a subtle pull, but for beings like these two, it was unmistakable.

"What’s with the gloomy mood?"

Ravena didn’t say anything, but Sylas walked over to him and threw his arm around Valerian’s shoulder.

"You better show this brat some respect; she has been ignoring me for the entire time you were gone!"

’What do you mean show her respect! And who are you calling a brat!’

Ignoring the comments of Sylas, Valerian looked over at Ravena, who had already opened a rift to the white training space, only for it to snap shut when Sylas clicked his fingers.

"How about you don’t fight in that cramped space?"

With another snap of his fingers, both he and Ravena were transported away and out of the training room of Valerian’s dorm.

Their forms appeared again on earthen ground, surrounded by trees.

"Where are we?"

Valerian looked around, but it didn’t help much, as all the trees were dozens of meters high and he couldn’t see anything beyond them. Even his spatial perception didn’t find any landmarks around them, only more trees.

"This is just some property that I own, or rather, it was gifted to me, but I don’t remember anymore by whom. I think it was a king..."

Finally letting go of Valerian’s shoulder, Sylas walked over to Ravena and whispered something in her ear that Valerian wasn’t able to hear.

"Okay!"

Sylas turned around and clapped his hands with a bright smile on his face that didn’t match the words he spoke.

"Valerian, I want you to go all out! Use everything you have and try to kill Ravi!"

Valerian looked at Sylas with a blank face. Of course he knew that he wasn’t able to kill Ravena; even if he used his domain, he wasn’t sure if it would do anything against her.

Still, hearing him say something like that with such a happy smile was definitely weird.

But what could he do? He went into a fighting stance. He didn’t have a weapon to use right now, since Twilight wasn’t finished.

Seeing Valerian get ready, Sylas grinned and disappeared, leaving him and Ravena alone.

"Valerian, I have to say..."

"I’m excited for this. Show me what you’ve got."

Valerian nodded and started the fight.

He pumped his divine mana through his body. He could feel that the raw quantity was below what he could produce before, but the quality of it was more than enough to make up for it.

[Void Lightning] began to crackle around his arms. Clenching his fist, a large lightning bolt dropped from the sky like a god’s wrath, aimed straight at Ravena. When the lightning bolt hit her body, the surrounding trees got blasted away and disintegrated into nothingness in one go.

The shockwave created by the lightning bolt traveled for another two kilometers, uprooting even more trees.

Instantly, an area of three kilometers turned barren, with a ring of two kilometers where the shockwave hit and a one-kilometer-deep crater in the middle, right where Ravena stood.

’Holy fuck, I expected a lot, but this...’

Before the lightning bolt impacted, Valerian had teleported away and was now looking at the destruction brought by this single attack from above.

Yet even if the attack created by his divine mana was powerful, he knew that it wouldn’t be enough to kill her. And he was proven right: as the dust kicked up by the blast settled at once, Ravena hovered right at the spot where she had been before. Not even a single strand of hair had been displaced.

’Fuck.’

Instantly, her silver eyes locked onto Valerian, and her form disappeared from sight. Valerian’s instincts screamed at him to duck. Following them, he practically threw his body down, barely dodging a kick that was aimed straight at his head.

"You’re faster. Show me more."

Her usually emotionless voice had a tint of excitement in it, and she started to engage Valerian in a close-combat duel.

She was obviously faster, but she limited herself to something that matched his speed and strength as their hand-to-hand combat took them across the sky.

Valerian dodged every attack he could and blocked those that were too fast. His newly formed arms were stronger than ever, no longer threatening to break when she hit them.

He tried to create distance by teleporting away, but she wouldn’t let him, following right behind with her own teleportation and not letting him freely use his long-range magic.

He activated his [Primordial Scales] to protect his arms like gauntlets. Since the ability was still partially locked, he couldn’t extend them beyond his forearms, but the increase in durability and hardness helped him immensely in the battle.

When Ravena saw the black scales form around his forearms, she looked at them with interest before flashing a rare grin and increasing the pace. She threw him around like a ragdoll, crashing through trees and splitting the ground apart with the shockwave behind every attack.

With a devastating kick, she sent Valerian flying through the air. When he impacted the ground, his body uprooted dozens of trees. Without wasting time, he activated his teleportation and appeared over five kilometers away from her.

Finally finding a window to cast magic, he looked toward Ravena and stretched out his hand. Around his body, dozens of silver-golden discs appeared, all of them aimed at Ravena in the distance.

Releasing the spell, a beam of concentrated light raced towards Ravena at the speed of light, but she simply leaned, pivoted, and dodged every single one of them.

As the beams flew past her without even touching her clothes, they impacted the ground behind her. The heat created by the concentrated light melted the earth as the ground shook under the impacts, setting the surrounding trees on fire.

’You’ve got to be kidding me.’

Ravena locked eyes with Valerian, and a sword appeared in her hands. It was one of the katanas she had given him during their training, pitch-black, with no ornaments or markings.

Yet when she held the blade in her hand, it seemed deadlier than anything Valerian had ever witnessed.

Teleporting farther away, Valerian released salvos of icicles, light beams, lightning bolts, and lances made from the crushing darkness of [Event Horizon]. None of them could even touch Ravena; she either dodged them outright or sliced them apart with her sword.

While she wasn’t hit by the spells, the surrounding forest had to take the brunt of the attacks, turning from a lush green haven into a burning battlefield with nothing but destruction for kilometers around.

Creating distance again, Valerian teleported a few kilometers away, but as he arrived at his destination, he was shocked to find Ravena standing right in front of him. She moved faster than he could direct his mana, grabbing him by the face and slamming his body deep into the ground, devastating even more of the forest.