Chapter 465: Polar Opposites
As the clash between Serah and the Pureblood raged on, Marcus remained unmoved, lounging atop the high branch as though the chaos beneath him was nothing more than a street performance put on for his amusement. His arms were folded lazily behind his head, body stretched across the sturdy wood, looking for all the world like he had drifted into a half-slumber.
The battlefield itself was a ruin of shattered trunks, gouged earth, and smoldering ash where flame and blood clashed violently—but the tree Marcus chose to perch upon stood untouched, untouched as though shielded by fate or by Marcus’s sheer will to have his peace. The violence was a storm, but to him it was no more than background noise, a distant hum against the lull of his chosen perch.
His onyx eyes, however, told a different story. They tracked every flicker of flame, every darting step, every lash of blood that the Pureblood unleashed and every flame Serah bent in perfect counter. His gaze, a mix of curiosity and amusement, never left her.
"I must say, I’m impressed," he murmured under his breath, voice quiet and smooth, his grin half-curved as though the words were for himself alone. "Her use of that analytical, tactical way of fighting that knights cling to... it’s awfully impressive."
Marcus was no stranger to the methods of knights. He had cut down his fair share of them, seen their tricks, learned their structured ways of reading a foe and turning observation into strategy. They were taught to dissect an enemy’s stance, their rhythm and habits, then weave the most efficient way to counter and crush them. He knew them like one knew the words of a song they’d heard a thousand times. And yet, watching Serah now, Marcus felt the stirrings of intrigue. She wasn’t just practicing knightly discipline—she was embodying it, elevating it, refining it in a way he hadn’t seen before.
Her every motion was a study in patience and calculation. Her eyes were ceaselessly reading, measuring, and cataloguing the tiniest hints in the Pureblood’s movements. She probed for flaws like a surgeon’s scalpel finding a vein, taking risks only when the gamble had been weighed thrice over. Where other knights lunged the moment an opening presented itself, Serah waited, tested, and confirmed. Her execution was not simply cautious—it was precise, unnervingly so.
And Marcus, with his own nature, could not have been more different. He fought as the storm fought: wild, instinctive, and primal. His blades and body moved with an unpredictability so sharp it bordered on madness. At times even he could not tell what his next strike would be until it had already left his hand. It was chaos made flesh, and it had carried him to heights others could not reach because no one could truly anticipate what he would do next.
Serah, on the other hand, was the embodiment of strategy. She fought like a tactician draped in fire, her elegance sharpened into lethality. If Marcus was savagery—brutal, wild, relentless—then Serah was the executioner’s blade, clean and deliberate, every strike aimed with surgical certainty.
A laugh—low and amused—escaped Marcus as he tilted his head back against the bark. "Talk about a perfect half," he muttered, a smirk stretching his lips as though he found himself in on some private joke.
His gaze flicked back to her again, more intently now. He could see her restraint, the deliberate tethering of her strength. Her flames climbed steadily higher, roaring with increasing ferocity, yet they were not unleashed in their entirety. She was matching the Pureblood’s devastation in increments, like an alchemist carefully adding measure after measure to a volatile brew. It was clear she was capable of far more—but she chose not to release it. Not yet.
Marcus narrowed his eyes, watching her dance with the demon’s frenzy. The Pureblood lashed out in unpredictable bursts, yet Serah flowed with it, always slightly behind, always on the defense—but never once faltering. She was learning, testing, sharpening her understanding with each exchange.
"Is she trying to taunt the demon?" Marcus asked himself softly, his voice touched with amusement as his lips curled in a suspicious smile. "Or maybe she’s just testing it—prodding at its strength, cataloguing every one of its tricks. Studying it like some beast in a cage."
He leaned back further, folding one leg over the other, perfectly at ease despite the carnage shaking the world around him. "How very like her," he whispered, eyes gleaming with curiosity. "To hold back not because she must, but because she wants to know. Wants to understand."
With that, Marcus closed his eyes and tilted his head as though savoring the calm that should not exist here, in the heart of a battlefield. The roar of flame, the screech of blood tearing through the air, the thunderous collision of two powers trying to tear the world apart—it all became a muted backdrop, a song he chose not to hear. For Marcus, serenity was not the absence of chaos, but the choice to be untouched by it. And so he lay, lounging in his perch like a king upon a throne, enjoying the so-called calm while his eyes, hidden behind their lids, remained fixed upon the fiery knight below.
***
Back upon the battlefield, amidst the shattered earth and the lingering haze of smoke, Serah still stood tall with her blazing claymore clutched in her hands. Her figure was streaked with crimson—several cuts carved across her arms, cheek, thighs, and abdomen—but she was far from faltering.
Her eyes, sharp and unwavering, were fixed on only one thing: the Pureblood demon looming in the distance. The creature looked far more agitated than it had when the fight began, its earlier arrogance slipping beneath a veil of frustration. Its golden pupils flickered with something that almost resembled disbelief.
The demon’s gaze lingered on Serah’s bloodied form, utterly baffled at how she remained standing after suffering so many vicious slashes. By all rights, the poison laced within those strikes should have already claimed her life. Yet with every pulse of her flames, Serah burned the corruption out of her body, purging the venom before it could root itself. The Pureblood’s greatest weapon—its poison—had been rendered useless before its very eyes.
Still, the demon had expected her to collapse from self-destruction by now. With the way she relentlessly pushed her fire magic to cleanse herself, it was certain she would eventually sear her own body from within. But watching her now, unbowed and unbroken, the Pureblood understood the truth: Serah’s mastery over her flames was far beyond what it had anticipated. Her durability and control were terrifying in their refinement.
’That Magna blood truly runs through her veins,’ the demon thought, its jaw clenching as its golden pupils narrowed. ’If it were any other fire mage, their body would have been nothing but ash from that constant burning. They’d be long dead.’
The demon’s lip curled into a bitter snarl as it studied her further. ’She has the calmness of a quiet lion, stalking patiently, waiting for the moment to strike. And the more she refuses to answer my taunts, the more dangerous she feels. She’s not rattled—she’s watching, waiting. What’s worse... her flames are interfering with my healing. Each strike she’s left on me, the heat clings to the wound, fighting against the regeneration. Every cut from her blade lingers as though her fire refuses to let go.’
A low growl rumbled deep in its throat. ’This might turn against me if I don’t end it now.’
After staring across the battlefield at Serah for what felt like a long moment, the demon’s torn flesh and burns finally knitted themselves shut, the regeneration complete. Its eyes burned into her with loathing and a twisted sense of determination.
"If my taunts cannot break your spirit," it hissed, its voice deep and venomous, "then I will break your body. I will end you physically—and make certain you stay dead."
In the next heartbeat, the Pureblood’s form began to swell. Its frame grew monstrous, muscles bulging grotesquely as blackened veins pulsed beneath its crimson skin like writhing snakes. The ground itself trembled as more and more blood tendrils surged from its back, wriggling like living spears, and others burst from the soil at its feet, thrashing hungrily toward Serah. The demon’s presence darkened, heavier, its killing intent radiating like a crushing wave.
Serah, however, only smirked. She shifted her grip on her claymore, her stance lowering as though she welcomed the new display of savagery. Her flames pulsed outward, coiling around her body with renewed vigor, flaring hotter, fiercer—each ember burning like molten coal. The great sword in her grasp blazed higher, as if the weapon itself hungered for the clash to come.
"I knew there was more to you than what you were showing," she said coolly, her tone sharp but calm, laced with resolve. "And now that you’ve revealed it, killing you will be far easier than I thought."
Her smirk widened, and her crimson aura surged. The firestorm roared around her, engulfing the battlefield in a violent glow, her presence pressing back against the tide of blood.
"Time to make use of everything you’ve given me," she declared, bending her knees ever so slightly, her body coiling like a spring ready to launch. Her aura condensed, a violent pressure radiating from her as the ground beneath her feet cracked.
In the blink of an eye, she vanished from where she stood, her body propelled forward with explosive speed. At that same instant, the Pureblood also surged, their forms colliding in a blur of blood and fire that split the battlefield apart.