"FINE!" I barked, throwing my hands up.
BAM.
I cranked gravity up to three hundred percent. We both slammed into the mats with a resounding thud. A second of respite—and then I "released" the weight, instantly teleporting behind her back. Lianel reacted like a beast: she set off a directional explosion beneath her and rocketed toward the ceiling. I immediately flicked the overload back on.
Then I relaxed it. I popped up right in front of her. She was swinging her sword, and I played with the weight again—toggling it up, then down.
Lianel lunged at me with transcendent speed. At the last microsecond, I sensed it: the figure before me was just an afterimage, an illusion, and the real princess was already flanking me from the rear. I jerked to the right. Her blade sliced through the air where my head had been a moment ago, but she adjusted her trajectory mid-flight.
I had to jump through space again and keep messing with the force of gravity just to break her rhythm. I eased the weight, went for a head-on collision, and delivered a short, full-force punch with my knuckles right against the flat of her blade.
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CRACK.
The impact was so powerful that Lianel nearly dropped her weapon. She flew back, regrouped, and... charged at me again.
"Good grief! She’s relentless!"
I decided to end this once and for all.
Snap—and the floor became the ceiling. Snap—and we were now standing on the right wall.
Lianel held on, anchoring herself to the surface with mana like a spider.
"ALRIGHT, NOW LET'S SPEED IT UP!"
I started shifting the gravity every two seconds. The world whirled in a mad kaleidoscope. At one point, it felt like there were three Lianels around me. A hallucination? Or had she actually accelerated that much? I created a water vortex around myself and then detonated it, scattering water projectiles in every direction.
She appeared from above, falling on me like a stone. I thrust out my hand, releasing a jet of flame to force her aside.
"THINK, GREG, THINK!" I commanded myself.
I found a way out. With a single pulse, I cranked the humidity in the gym to the limit. A thick, dense fog instantly filled the hall. The floor beneath our feet began to glaze over with a thin layer of condensation. And at the exact moment the water connected us into a single circuit, I sent a massive electric discharge through it.
But Lianel… she wasn't there anymore.
I felt the cold bite of steel right at the back of my head. A short swing—and I saw a severed black lock of my own hair flying past my nose.
Lianel stopped. She lowered her sword and gave a wide, triumphant smile.
"I did it..." she exhaled, barely catching her breath. "I touched you. The real you."
I froze, feeling the draft on the back of my neck.
"WHAT?!" I turned to her indignantly. "I wasn't even swinging my sword! I was just... I was just taking it easy on you! This doesn't count!"
Lianel just kept smirking, looking at me as if she had just conquered all the Nations at once