Dimensional Descent

The shadowy figure appeared before Aina, striking with a surprising amount of strength. His movements were oddly jerky, and his power spiked and then fell rapidly, making it feel like he was spinning a roulette every time he attacked, hoping he would land on something good.

Aina was immediately wary. She could feel an odd Force tugging at the air, and it felt like it was Fate itself being toyed with.

Time Force?

She had seen something similar from the likes of Hutch’s grandson. This felt like a similar, yet different application all the same. This opponent was a dangerous one.

The existence of people like this were probably precisely why the Council Members didn’t dare to guarantee a top 100 finish.

This was only the second Time Force user that Aina had met in her lifetime, and the first one that she was actually battling with herself.

Suddenly, just as the fist was about to land on Aina, she moved as it accelerated. She slipped out of its path, her golden irises flickering with an interesting light.

She was fascinated by the battle style. The strike just now was probably the third best the figure could do. During the jerky motion of his attack, Aina had distinctly sensed two more than were much stronger, each one double the strength of the last.

Aina’s Soul Clairvoyance was tugging at her and she seemed to faintly grasp onto something.

…

“That figure,” Caspian said, frowning. “That’s the Luck of the Draw Ability Index. When’s the last time that Ability Index appeared?”

“Who cares?” Lumina sneered, her beautiful features seemingly distorting more and more these days. “It looks like she’s going to lose. I didn’t expect this farce to come to an end so quickly. Maybe if she hadn’t insisted on trying to be something greater than she was, she could have lasted a bit longer.”

“Says who?”

“Did you not see her earlier battle? She’s a brute. Against a brute, that sort of unpredictable Ability Index is the greatest counter.”

…

Aina slipped away from punch after punch, but she was beginning to notice something. The longer they fought, the more unpredictable the figure’s Ability Index became, but that wasn’t because it was flickering between different modes more quickly, but rather that stronger and stronger possibilities were appearing.

If before the first strike Aina had slipped was the third best the figure could do, now it was only the fifth.

‘Now the sixth…’ She muttered to herself.

Aina thought about attacking, but there were two things holding her back right now.

The first was the curious tug from her Clairvoyance, but the second, though less important to her overall, was probably the more pressing matter given the battle.

The Ability Index worked on her as well.

Right now, she was using her Body Clairvoyance to time her dodges to match up to when her speed was the greatest. But as time passed and the man gained stronger possibilities, she seemed to improve in the reverse.

The intervals were becoming faster and harder to time, and at the same time, there were more and more possibilities where her strength suddenly plummeted-three more possibilities to be exact, the exact same number as the man.

The longer this went on, the more skewed it would become and harder it would be for her to actually find a path to victory.

‘This is weird,’ Aina thought to herself. ‘Normally, I would have gotten it by now. Is this Ability Index affecting my own at the same time?’

She realized that that must be the case. ‘What a strong ability…’

It seemed that there was a reason Time Force was so rare.

BOOM!

Aina’s steps faltered for just a moment as a fist she barely dodged brushed by her cheek, carrying a great amount of momentum. This was, once again, the third strongest attack the man could levy, but it was also eight times stronger than the last.

The air split and rumbled beneath the fist.

“Oh…” Aina suddenly said, a glow appeared around her as strands of her hair danced in the wind, many of them breaking free like broken leaves.

A slightly red mark appeared on her cheek, but no blood was drawn… at least not immediately.

Aina held out a hand to her side and a battle ax appeared. It glistened with red and gold, causing space to bend and twist beneath its presence. It reacted to her Weapon Force, roaring with life.

Her wrist twisted and the battle ax spun, its pole arm bending beneath her might as she cut clean through the tiles beneath her feet and up toward the man’s chin.

The speed was variable and jerky, shaking through the air much like the man’s. It was hard to tell if this was Aina’s own doing, or if it was the impact of the man’s Ability Index.

The man arched his back, pulling away as fast as he could.

His chin was barely nicked and a spurt of blood flew into the air like a sharp line splitting the skies.

He recovered quickly, ‘rolling the dice’ again and using it to recover. Then, he unleashed an even more feverish assault.

The two fought back and forth with the man mostly dodging as best he could.

Aina seemed leisurely, wielding her ax with just a single hand. However, if one looked inside her body, her blood itself was pulsing like a heart, changing pressures on a whim and shifting between degrees of Life Force. She controlled her body in more ways than just choosing a location to strike and then executing.

Slowly, the style became more and more fluid, moving at a faster and faster speed.

The man was completely overwhelmed. He pulled out all the stops, even maintaining a distance and firing his fists with nothing more than his peak powers.

Somehow, Aina was completely countering his Ability Index and her movements had lost the jerkiness entirely.

Suddenly, the man froze as he lost his footing.

He slipped, falling out of the arena.