Angel Monarch

As the first blood droplets ran down Sera's broken head, the temperature was already rising.

Scarred Sera didn't know if she wanted to curse or laugh. On one hand, Sera ruined her previous plans, and this trick to get near her wouldn't work again.

On the other hand, she had to give credit to her rational side where it was due. Taking your own life with such ease must've been extremely hard, even if she knew she would come back.

Sera's body glowed and began melting the metallic spikes. The mad lady just shook her head in self-deprecation.

She knew that expecting Sera to go down easily was out of the question, and she still somehow underestimated her absurdity.

While Sera's body turned hotter than the surface of the sun, Scarred Sera let her armor encompass her head, too.

She beat her wings once to get out of the explosion's reach, but those few seconds of thinking cost her time.

She only got about two dozen meters away, before Sera exploded with blinding light and melting flames.

The shockwave brought Scarred Sera down to the ground, and she had to act quickly, since Sera was already on the move.

She wasted no time. Immediately after the resurrection, she flew straight at her other half. She didn't even wait for her glaive to appear and just swung with her gauntleted hand.

Even though Scarred Sera got up from the floor, her reaction time wasn't fast enough.

The punch connected with her jaw, sending her reeling backwards. In less than a second, two more punches arrived, one into her gut, another into her face.

The metal armor held and distributed most of the damage, but the punches held enough force to knock her back.

After the third punch connected, Sera's glaive finally appeared and the next attack came with a much deadlier power.

The blade held her Transcended flames, and in a few moments, the metal floor below them turned red hot. It actually melted wherever Sera stepped, but that meant little to either of them.

The glaive cut in a horizontal arc and hit Scarred Sera on the side. It hurt quite badly, but with using the blow's force she extended the distance between them.

She flew into the air, and Sera quickly followed. From her gauntlet, her curved silver sword grew out, but for it to be usable, she had to suffer another devastating blow from Sera's glaive.

Sera's weapon glowed in pure light and golden flames. It concentrated on the tip of the blade.

Her four wings beat behind her once. She lifted her glaive above her hand, and in a vertical strike tried to cut Scarred Sera in two.

The silver blade rose in for defense, and she beat her metallic wings to gain the same momentum Sera had.

The two blades connected, one absorbed in silver flames, the other alight by the cleansing golden ones.

For a moment, everything turned silent, then the concentrated energy at the end of Sera's blade constricted until it reached the smallest size. With a blinding light, the energy violently expanded.

The blow focused in the front of Sera's glaive, exactly where Scarred Sera floated.

The sound was overwhelming, and Sera felt her eardrums rupture. They healed back in the next second, but she still felt the blood trickle from her ear.
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When the light and flames subsided, she finally saw the destruction she caused.

Half of the large chamber got destroyed. The floor and roof melted, and she could clearly see the generator room above the room.

Most of the lights went out, only a few red emergency lights remained. Not like it mattered, since Sera could see perfectly in any brightness.

The part of the room, which wasn't destroyed, was instead on fire. The Gate somehow remained intact, though. Sera was pretty sure that until the Tree of Life on the other side keeps standing, then the Gate won't close.

Her eyes scanned the ground, but she couldn't find where Scarred Sera disappeared to.

It took Sera a few seconds to find her, but sadly, she only heard the wingbeats as they closed in on her.

Sera turned around faster than she should've been able to. Her wing made strong beats and as she turned, she moved away backwards.

The curved blade only touched the surface of her armor, but instead of distributing the blow, the silver sword cleanly cut its golden surface.

This revelation was disturbing, but since the next blow was already coming her way, she ignored it.

While still moving backwards, she raised her glaive and deflected the curved blade. Her glaive stuck to the serration, though, bringing both of them closer and off balance.

They moved through the air, their weapons stuck to each other. Their bodies were only a few dozen centimeters away, leaving no room to deliver punches.

Instead, both had the bright idea to lean back and headbutt the other.

The force of the headbutt was so strong they both lost their grip on their weapons and flew away from each other.

They both suffered mild concussions, which healed in seconds. The moment they were back in control, their wings beat and they flew at each other as fast as they could.

Sera's gauntlet grew spikes and got absorbed in her golden flames, while Scarred Sera summoned two silver daggers.

When they were only a few meters apart, Sera used her wings to evade the incoming strike. The extra pair of wings gave her unmatched agility in the air.

With one wingbeat, she dodged the blow, and with the next, she closed in the distance, delivering two punches to Scarred Sera's side and chin.

Her other half had to move backwards, but Sera didn't relent and closed the distance in.

She was about to connect another punch, when an unexpected dagger cut her arm. The silver flames on the dagger instantly melted her skin and muscles, closing the wound.

Sera didn't even register the pain. She suffered much worse and getting burnt felt was her specialty.

Strangely enough, her armor didn't regenerate, but Sera had no time to think about it.

The cut didn't stop or slow her fist, but it pushed it off track. Instead of her head, it hit Scarred Sera's left shoulder.

The force unbalanced her, and she flew towards the nearby Gate.

Sera closed in the distance as fast as she could, but her other half was catching up on her tactics.

She tried a similar maneuver, but instead of the side, she dodged the daggers upwards in a flip.

Scarred Sera was more prepared, and one of her daggers nearly cut her wing. Luckily, it was one of the flame ones, so instead of taking any damage, the blade instantly melted.

This caused Scarred Sera to yelp in pain and gave Sera enough time to move behind her.

She grabbed both of her silver metallic wings and delivered a double kick right between them.

It wasn't strong enough to rip the wings off, but it held so much power that Scarred Sera crash landed into a few buildings. She demolished at least a dozen stone structures of the previously emptied town.

They were already on the other side of the Gate, but neither payed attention to that.

In the shadows of the Tree of Life, their fight continued.

Scarred Sera got up from the ground with her curved blade in hand. From the outside, her silver armor seemed unhurt, but her movements weren't nearly as fast and eccentric as before.

She seemed to turn more calculated and cunning, almost wary.

Sera just stayed emotionless. The only good part of the hollowness she felt was her inability to lose control of her emotions.

Even in constant pain, and in the deepest of sufferings, she could keep her mind straight.

Her other half flew straight at her, but before she could've gotten too close, Sera's hands glowed in especially strong flames.

Scarred Sera expected her to make the same fake out attack and decided to keep her distance.

Instead of punching the air, Sera smiled behind her helmet, then threw the fireball as hard as she could.

The mad lady was about a hundred meters away, and the fireball, which was the size of an apple, increased in size with each passing meter.

It also moved faster than the speed of sound, and Scarred Sera had no time to move far enough away.

The fireball had a few meter diameter by the time it reached her and exploded.

The explosion destroyed much of the town and lit the Tree of Life's lower branches on fire.

The flames spread quickly, but soon a green energy took hold of the tree. It extinguished the flames, and the branches regrew with new leaves.

But the energy didn't stop there. It spread over the tree and suddenly red flowers grew all over it.

The previously beautiful green leaves turned blood-red with a hint of yellow at the center of each flower.

The green energy moved from all over the tree, and from one of the inner branches a human-sized flower grew.

Its red petals closed in, hiding the inside. The green energy headed for the flower, turning red upon reaching it.

In a few seconds, all the energy reached it, and the flower bloomed.

Sera expected to see the yellow middle of the blood-red flower with seven petals, but instead it surprised her to find a naked woman inside.

Her hair was brown as the tree's trunk, while her eyes were green as its leaves.

Bea looked out of the flower with an annoyed expression. A brown armor grew around her seductive body, and from the back of her armor, two giant branches grew.

Leaves and flowers spread all over the branches until they resembled wings.

She made a few trying beats with them, then, seemingly satisfied, she stepped off the flower and flew towards Sera.