How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

How had this little white rabbit dodged her Raging-Scale Sea Burial?

A flicker of puzzlement crossed Jiu Lixue’s mind. She hadn’t sensed the slightest ripple of magic power, nor caught the faintest trace of Aesphyra’s movement. And it certainly hadn’t looked like any known magic. Jiu Lixue had never heard of an elemental spell capable of instantaneous relocation.

It was as if, in the split second before the tsunami swallowed her, the silver-haired girl had simply vanished from sight—vanished for real—and then reappeared out of nowhere right behind her.

Striking in that instant, when the opponent believed the kill was already made and had relaxed their guard, was exactly the right judgment to make. Against anyone else, it might have worked. Unfortunately for her... she was up against Jiu Lixue.

Sure enough—

Seeing the phoenix of flame on the Holy Sword quenched with ease by her water shield, Aesphyra confirmed what she had suspected: this white-furred fox had an extraordinarily high affinity for water—very likely at Exceptional rank, perhaps higher.

Aesphyra’s ability to kill across realms came in large part from her terrifying magic density, her spells far exceeding those of other prodigies in the Spirit Magus Realm, enough to crush even entry-level Masters.

But Jiu Lixue was different. She was a prodigy among prodigies. Even compared to the heroines of legend, she was at the pinnacle—vastly beyond some mascot-level saintess like Scodell. Her talent and bloodline, if not outright superior to Aesphyra’s, were certainly on par; her natural magic density was no less, and her cultivation was far beyond. At equal realms, it might be a contest. As things stood now, Aesphyra was outmatched in every respect.

And failing to land that strike had consequences.

Against an opponent of Jiu Lixue’s caliber, there was no second chance. Once she was wary of a technique, the odds of it ever catching her again were essentially zero.

Worse, Aesphyra couldn’t even disengage to regroup—her sword was caught fast in Jiu Lixue’s tail.

As the red lotus flames along the blade were extinguished, another tail swept in, entwined with deep-crimson thorned vines that instantly coiled around the Holy Sword.

[Nature Magic: Crimson God-Binding Briar]

The thick, winding thorns sprouted from her tail, their textured surface riddled with pores like human skin. Bound by such an unnerving, ultra-high-level nature spell, even the Holy Sword was locked tight, unable to break free.

At the same time, her other tails moved in. One snared Aesphyra herself. The rest wasted no opportunity—each wreathed in fire, lightning, ice, or wind, stabbing unhesitatingly at the immobilized girl.

The tails punched through her body like spears, the scene turning red in an instant. In the next moment, they tore her apart.

Jiu Lixue’s smile didn’t fade—it merely took on something chilling.

It was over. Or so most of the watching fox demons and succubi thought. But not everyone was fooled.

“To have prepared that much even for a sure-kill strike, Lady Galathus—aren’t you a bit too cautious?”

When the girl’s body fell apart, it began to lose color. On closer look—it wasn’t flesh at all, but wood.

[Nature Magic: Wooden Substitute]—a spell that creates a perfect duplicate of oneself, indistinguishable to others. Difficult to detect, but it had to be prepared in advance.

Which meant that the moment she landed from that space transfer, Aesphyra had already known the ambush wouldn’t succeed—and had swapped in a substitute to attack in her place.

If she’d struck with her true body instead, her fate might well have been that pile of splintered wood.

“Your Majesty is the cautious one. To unleash such a terrifying spell and still keep a guard up afterward—now that’s thorough.”

From a distance, Aesphyra smiled as if the pressure were nothing.

“Beautiful flowers always have thorns. That much is true. And the price of admiring them? Still acceptable.”

She stripped off a torn glove, sliding on a fresh pair.

Both now watched each other with sharpened wariness. The stronger Aesphyra appeared, the more certain Jiu Lixue became that she could not be allowed to leave. Otherwise, she would be a grave threat in the future—just like that saintess. Only, unlike the saintess—whom Jiu Lixue kept bound as the sole cure for her incurable ailment—Aesphyra was not yet in her grasp.

“Admire flowers? If you wished it, Lady Galathus, you could admire them up close, all day, every day. But since you have no such intention, I won’t force you.”

She flexed her claws. Lightning flared behind her.

Thunder boomed overhead; magic circles woven of crackling thunder nets materialized all around Aesphyra, covering the ground in every direction.

[Lightning Magic: Heaven’s Thunder Rampage]

In response, the earth-hued gem in the Holy Sword’s guard flared, and in an instant the golden sword transformed into a staff crowned with an ochre crystal.

One of the Holy Sword’s functions—when properly mastered—was the ability to transform into a top-grade staff of any elemental specialty, sacrificing all other elements and swordsmanship for maximum focus in one element’s magic.

Raising the earthen staff high, Aesphyra summoned towering, thick earthen walls to encase herself.

But amidst the thunderclaps, the walls lasted only moments before the overwhelming lightning blasted them apart.

The realm gap was simply too vast—no amount of talent could bridge it.

A new wall rose, then another, in a cycle of defense and destruction. It was only a delay. The raging thunder would eventually strip away every last scrap of cover.

Still, to generate such all-encompassing walls so quickly required no small degree of earth-element affinity and control. But against Jiu Lixue, it was the bare minimum—without it, she’d have died hundreds of times already.

And why was Aesphyra only using short-range space transfers, not calling on Holy Benediction or temporal magic? The answer was simple—she couldn’t. Not here. Not against Jiu Lixue.

Even her short-range teleports had limits; without the inheritance she’d gained in the Carillian Academy’s secret realm, she might not have been able to use them at all.

At last, the walls collapsed entirely, and lightning struck her directly. The blast hurled her—now reduced to smoking fragments—high into the air before they hit the ground. More wood.

Another Wooden Substitute.

A massive fireball descended from above, its heat sucking the moisture from the land. Hovering in the air by wind magic, Aesphyra had transformed the Holy Sword into a fire-element staff, unleashing a volley of large fireballs.

“Such frightening fire affinity,” Jiu Lixue mused with a lift of her brow. “Pity your realm is so low.”

One tail unfurled, opening a deep-blue water curtain that swallowed the fireballs whole.

But that was the feint.

As the fire struck the water, magic energy and smoke burst forth, masking the presence of Aesphyra herself—now appearing, via space transfer, at Jiu Lixue’s side.

No tails there. Not her front.

Yet the instant her feet touched down, she looked up to find Jiu Lixue’s palm aimed straight at her.

“The same trick, too many times—it won’t work, you know?” The fox smiled knowingly.

“Next time, remember that. Sweet dreams, Hero.”

Lightning exploded. Her claw clamped onto Aesphyra’s head, slamming her into the ground, the strike splitting earth into a web of gaping cracks.

No Wooden Substitute this time. She’d hit for real—but... something felt off.

“Your Majesty, above you!”

She looked up—and froze.

She’d hit one. But there were twenty more Aesphyra’s in the air.

[Dark Magic: Shadow Doppelganger]—and by her knowledge, this spell could normally create only one clone at a time. To conjure over twenty at once spoke to truly monstrous dark-element affinity.

No, it was more than that.

She knew Aesphyra’s fire affinity was likely beyond Exceptional. Her earth and wind affinities were similarly refined. And now this level of dark magic talent...

How many elements at Exceptional rank—or higher—did this girl have?

For a human prodigy, one or two such affinities was expected. But this was absurd. And high-level magic was not something learned on a whim; mastery took years, even decades.

Had she just been unlucky enough to run into every element the girl excelled at? Or... did Aesphyra truly master all of them?

Still—fakes were fakes. Even the most perfect doppelganger couldn’t replicate the Holy Sword. Only the real one could wound her.

The flood of clones closed from every direction. She didn’t have time to cast—but the moment the blade bit into her, she could seize the real one.

And to her surprise... the impossible happened.

Fabric tore at her collar. A lock of white hair fell.

When was the last time anyone had actually landed a hit on her? She couldn’t remember. The demons watching couldn’t either.

A human of the Spirit Magus Realm had struck their invincible queen.

But her focus sharpened instantly. The “Aesphyra” she grabbed turned to wood again—a doppelganger masking a Wooden Substitute.

“Got... you...~”

Her tail, wreathed in shadow, lashed sideways—plucking the silver-haired girl from hiding in the darkness and slamming her into the dirt.

“You’re the prey here.”

Lightning-clad claws descended. Water and earth shields rose in defense—paper before the storm. The blow crashed into the Holy Sword, driving Aesphyra into the ground, blood at her lips.

Jiu Lixue laughed, wild and delighted.

“Hero, you thought you were fishing—but you’re the one the fox has caught.”

Both had been laying bait for the other, reading and counter-reading. Aesphyra had counted on misdirection and invisibility; Jiu Lixue had anticipated exactly that, guessing she would use [Concealment]—the dark-element assassination spell famed for erasing all traces.

It couldn’t erase everything. Not from a fox’s nose.