Chapter 1471 (2/2)

Paolo lowered his shoulder and used his right arm to push aside Alana’s thrust. The muscles of his right arm were shredded from contact with that placid white flames and his face twisted into a scowl, but he managed to deflect it. For a split second, they stood there, Paolo’s left arm cradled against his chest while her arm right arm hung limply at her side. Alana watched him with half-lidded eyes.

He didn’t strike despite her nonexistent guard.

Alana smashed her foot into the side of Paolo’s knee, earning a grunt from him. But his image of triumph flared and kept him on his feet. At which point Kayle arrived at her back and slashed forward with his long knife.

Twisting, Alana accepted a long gash across her shoulder blades in order to whip her right arm around. She couldn’t grip with it or move anything past her elbow, but it was enough to crack Kayle in the jaw with her shattered elbow joint. She felt the fracture spread to her upper arm, but Alana couldn’t dwell on that; she shifted her weight onto her other leg to move fractionally away from Paolo.

But the three of them were simply too close together. As Kayle was falling backward from her elbow strike, his leg whipped up and kicked Alana in the waist. It wasn’t particularly damaging, but it did mean that Paolo caught up with Alana before she could pull back her left hand. His right hand seized her left wrist, below the reach of the white flames.

This time he did strike with his left arm, a straight so brutal that she would have wondered if he was injured at all had she not been able to hear the bones of his shoulder grinding against each other during the explosive movement. Yet she had been expecting this; Alana pivoted on her left foot, bringing the right half of her body backward and letting the punch whizz past her nose.

But instead of running out of gas there, Paolo’s fist sprung open and then he swung his arm toward her. Before she could react, Paolo had physically seized Alana’s face, pushing her to the side in an attempt to unbalance her. Alana twisted her left wrist to escape Paolo’s other hand, but his grip was like steel. The crowd's cheers made him seem more like an avatar of wrought metal than a human being. His body became the refinery and each movement was a working of incredible sophistication beyond the normal functioning of a human body.

Her right arm flailed but was largely useless. Alana’s mouth tasted like blood as Paolo’s fingers ground her cheeks against her teeth. In her heart, she felt viciously frustrated. But more than anything, she was struck then by her own limits. This was as far as she had been able to make it, even after ridding herself of her hesitation.

Alana’s torso was steadily being pushed backward and her legs couldn’t keep up with the pressure. Paolo possessed more raw Strength than she did. There was a part of Alana that felt like it was time to give up.

But she didn’t want to. And in her chest, there was a resonance form the vast space that had existed since Randidly Ghosthound had created the connection with her. Through that, she had gratefully absorbed quite a few details that had largely solidified the foundation of her image. That connection had been the lifeline that had made her rapid ascension to the strongest individual on Earth that much more smooth.

So close the precipice of a loss now and still under the influence of the Fifth Revelation, Alana felt that calm resonance. It could nudge her in the right direction now, but she sensed that it wouldn’t be enough to overcome her current predicament. And when she thought about that, she could see the one moment where that connection had been useless: when she had lost herself in the expectations that Donnyton had for her.

And in a way, it was the presence of this supportive connection that had put Alana in the mindset that meant it was so difficult to escape the behaviors that had her image plateau for so long. It had caused her to take the details of images for granted.

It wasn’t enough just to absorb another’s details to grow stronger while only working on the fundamentals herself. Sometimes, even a prophet needed to raise her eyes toward the sky and want.

The muscles of Alana’s abdomen strained against the muscles of Paolo’s arm. I still want to win.

The white flames on Alana’s left hand stirred and slid down her arm. Her arm abruptly cut sideways as she sliced through the fingers of Paolo’s right hand and then cut his left arm off at the forearm. Strangely, his hand still squeezed her face even as Paolo took a stunned step backward.

Unfortunately, victory wasn’t quite so simple.

Kayle’s long knife ripped into Alana’s right thigh and then cut downward, largely destroying her quadricep. She fell forward onto her knees, but that also brought Kayle into a hunched position as he continued to twist the blade in her wound. She rewarded him with a horse kick to his face that crunched his nose into a mound of mashed flesh and cartilage that leaked blood.

With her right leg trembling, she spun onto her butt and raised her left hand above her head. The white flames evaporated from her limb and formed a one-meter tall hand in the air above her. It resembled ghastly figures from poorly developed film in older photography, blurred at the edges and strangely exaggerated. It was a child’s rendition of a hand rather than an anatomically correct version.

That glowing white hand swept forward, its fingers scything toward Kayle. Kayle produced another dagger to replace the one he left sticking out of Alana’s thigh and reversed his grip. His Willpower clearly illuminated his grey eyes. “Absolute Divide.”