Xander let out a faint scoff despite the situation as he glanced toward the woman with narrowed eyes.
"We expected this, you know? So now, we get serious. If we fought using our massive forms you would kill us easily. It's a good thing you didn't kill us before we got smaller."
The woman's expression flickered for just a fraction of a second. That moment was all Xander needed as his body moved before the thought could even fully settle.
A massive serpent tail manifested behind him in an instant, formed from condensed mist and energy, and it swung forward with brutal force, slamming directly into her before she could fully react. The impact sent a shockwave through the ground but the strain of it showed immediately as more blood spilled from his lips. The tail dissipated just as quickly as it had formed. He moved forward to grab Farrynelle's arm and pulling her up with him.
Farrynelle winced as she rose but her focus didn't waver. He quickly retrieved a vial and handed it to her.
"Drink."
She immediately uncorked the vial and took it, Xander did the same without hesitation as they both consumed the contents. Their injuries vanished. The damage that had been crippling them moments ago faded as their bodies were forcibly restored to a functional state.
The lingering pain didn't vanish completely but the difference was enough to bring them back into fighting condition. Farrynelle rolled her shoulder slightly as she felt the pain fade.
"Veneri's blood really is something. Too bad he only gave us one vial each."
"That's already pushing it. If we took more than the required dose, our souls would be destroyed."
The woman appeared in front of them again. She looked at them with a faint smile.
"Now I'm intrigued."
Both of them began to change, entering a state that balanced their human and Therianthropic forms into something far more suited for direct combat.
Xander's skin hardened into white scales that spread across his arms and neck. His eyes shifted into sharp, predatory slits as his fangs became visible when he exhaled. His Divine Weapon, a double-edged longsword, materialized in his hand.
Farrynelle's form shifted as well, forming blue wings from her back as lightning began to run around her body in thin, crackling streams. Her chakrams appeared in her hands as her stance lowered slightly, ready to move at a moment's notice.
"You don't stand a chance."
Xander glanced at Farrynelle for just a second before looking back at their opponent.
"We're the Power Couple. This won't be hard for us. We're just buying time."
The woman raised her hand as a wave of black energy flew at them. Farrynelle vanished the instant it was released as lightning cracked the ground where she had been standing. Her body appeared behind the woman, forcing the woman to dodge. The slashes grazed past her.
Xander moved his mist and used his sword to cut through the energy.
Farrynelle ran in and out of the fight with blinding speed, using her wings to amplify her movement as she struck from multiple angles. Each attack carried both physical and elemental force as she pressed the offensive, never staying in one place long enough to be targeted directly.
Xander complemented her perfectly. His mist formed barriers and blades that adapted instantly to the flow of the fight, shielding her when necessary and striking when openings appeared. Their coordination wasn't something they had to think about. The woman responded with bursts of energy. Each blast was aimed to test their reactions rather than crush them outright, and yet even that level of restraint carried enough power to shatter the ground and distort the air with every impact.
Farrynelle dodged attacks with incredible precision. Her speed allowed her to slip through gaps that barely existed. Xander adjusted constantly, forming shields at the exact moments needed to intercept attacks that would have caught his wife. His sword struck in calculated arcs that forced the woman to divide her attention.
Their weapons moved as extensions of their bodies, Farrynelle's chakrams spun and returned with deadly accuracy, Xander's blade cut through both energy and space. They weren't overwhelming her but they weren't being crushed either.
The woman's patience was running out as she looked at them like they had overstayed their welcome. Without any warning, she grabbed her own arm and tore it clean off as if it were nothing more than excess weight. She hurled the severed limb toward them. The energy packed inside began to swell.
Farrynelle grabbed Xander and vanished from their position in a burst of lightning just before the arm detonated. The explosion that followed erased everything within a ten-kilometer radius in an instant.
The blast incinerated both Therianthropes and Krepsunas alike, leaving behind nothing but scorched emptiness. The shockwave followed immediately, tearing through the air with a deafening sonic boom that chased Farrynelle even as she escaped. The force caught up to her and slammed into her mid-motion. She lost her balance as the pressure hit, causing her body to tumble across the ground.
Xander was thrown with her, though he managed to stabilize himself faster. Before either of them could fully recover, the woman was already there again. Farrynelle forced herself up and moved again with a surge of lightning, dragging Xander out of the immediate danger zone just as another attack began to form. The movement wasn't easy this time. Xander's mist surged forward to catch her mid-motion as she used that momentum to throw him. The coordination wasn't perfect but it was still precise enough to keep them from being overwhelmed instantly.
And then the second arm came.
The explosion hit them this time. Pure instinct took over as both of them reacted at once. Their powers converged into a desperate defense. Mist and lightning collided and fused into a barrier that shook under the impact. The barrier held just long enough to prevent them from being completely erased but the force still broke through, slamming into them and sending them skidding back across the shattered terrain.
The world around them blurred for a moment. Their senses were rattled by the intensity of the attack but they didn't fall.
Farrynelle pushed forward again despite the strain. She launched bolts of lightning crashing down from the sky and slammed into the woman's position. Each impact tore through the ground and lit up the ruins. Xander condensed his mist into sharp slashes that cut through the space between them.
However, it didn't work the way they needed it to.
The woman didn't fall or even falter. Her body regenerated almost instantly from the damage as if the attacks barely registered. The lightning burned through her, the mist sliced her apart and yet she stood there, reforming again and again with that same growing irritation in her expression. She wasn't even fighting seriously yet.
If Farrynelle wasn't as fast as she was and if Xander didn't react as quickly as he did, they would have died dozens of times over in those few moments alone.
The battlefield around them had already been reduced to something unrecognizable. Massive sections of land were erased. Other Therianthropes and Krepsunas were split apart by the force of their clashes.
The woman's patience finally snapped.
Her energy gathered in her throat. She opened her mouth. She was about to speak her Overwrite but before she could even start, Farrynelle reacted.
A bolt of lightning tore through the air and struck directly into her mouth mid-speech.
The timing was so precise that it cut off the invocation before it could fully form. The impact didn't destroy her but it disrupted her completely. The lightning burned through her throat and tongue as the unfinished Overwrite collapsed before it could manifest. She staggered from the interruption itself and that moment, that single opening, was all they needed.
Xander's mist had condensed around his blade. The strike connected, severing her head completely. The force behind it carved a massive gorge into the ground behind her, splitting the barren landscape even further.
Farrynelle didn't stop there. Her body already began drawing power from above as lightning gathered in her hands, condensing into a concentrated mass. The lightning crashing directly into the woman's body just as it began to fall.
The impact caused a massive explosion that consumed everything in its path. The force was far beyond what they had used before. Their strongest attacks reduced the area to nothing, covering a diameter that spanned the entire temporary base. Kilometers of land was wiped clean under the force of that attack.
When the light faded, there was nothing left where the woman had stood. Farrynelle and Xander stood there, breathing heavily. Both of them knew that wasn't enough. It was enough to kill a Seventh Enlightenment Divine but not enough to kill an Overlord Rank Krepsuna. Still, it managed to erase her for a while.
Fragments of matter began to move, gathering from the scattered remains of the explosion.
The regeneration wasn't immediate this time. Pieces of her reformed from what had been left behind. Her body reconstructed itself from nothing as if the destruction they had caused was just a temporary inconvenience. Flesh, bone and energy reassembled in a slow, unnatural process until she stood there again, whole, intact and very much alive. When her mouth and throat finally formed, the damage from earlier still lingering just enough to distort her voice for a moment, she screamed, the sound raw with fury as her composure shattered completely.
"I'm going to kill you!"