Gardenia’s Heart

A wave of emotions surged through Nia’s chest, and there was only one way she could release it.

“Lily!”

She called her wife’s name.

“Yes, it’s me. Are you alright, my love?” Lily smiled, her fingers gently tracing the tears that streamed down her beloved’s face.

“Lily, we can’t defeat that thing! I can’t defeat that thing!” Nia cried in desperation, her trembling hands clinging to Lily, as if trying to shield her.

The metamorph couldn’t defeat the monster before her. That absolute truth hurt more than any blade.

Though she had faced powerful enemies and impossible odds before, Nia had always been prepared—ready to fight or flee.

But now, even using every spell and all her strength, she couldn’t overcome that being.

She didn’t know how to beat it. She didn’t even know how they could escape.

But then...

“Nia, do you trust me?”

A gentle question reached her.

Lily’s voice wasn’t cold—it was calm, incredibly calm, her gaze never leaving Nia’s.

“Y-Yes.” The metamorph stammered, a new, unfamiliar feeling blooming in her chest.

“Then leave everything to me. Just make sure neither of you interferes.”

She wasn’t brushing off Nia’s worry—

It was precisely because Nia was in such a fragile state that Lily spoke in the most serene way possible.

Warmth surged in Nia’s chest, and her racing mind slowed.

It was security. Pure and raw.

Setting her gently on the ground, Lily caressed her purple hair and leaned in, giving her a long kiss. Only then did she turn and walk toward her opponent.

“Why is Lily getting so close!? She’ll be killed!”

At the edge of the battlefield, Elarielle, now struggling to even stay on her knees, cried out in panic.

She had spent nearly all of her mana on that last distraction, and the dizziness from exhaustion was overwhelming, but still, she forced her eyes open to look at the newcomer.

In the middle of the ruined field, Lily walked forward slowly—but with unwavering steps.

A black cape fluttered in the wind, revealing parts of her dress, and in front of her, a dark violet tail swayed from side to side.

Stopping in front of the quadrupedal monster—several times her size—Lily raised her head to meet the gaze of a hundred glaring eyes.

They stood face to face, no more than a few dozen centimeters apart.

Torment and Lily stood there in complete silence until...

“Sorry, but even up close, I can’t say you’re cute.”

Lily tilted her head slightly, a subtle laugh escaping her lips.

Even the creature understood the mockery in her scornful smile.

The guttural roar that erupted from the abyss was pure rage. In the next instant, a cloud of dust exploded.

“Lily!” Nia screamed from the depths of her soul.

Sparks burst out in front of her, and a violent crash echoed throughout the labyrinth. Still on her knees, no matter how much the earth trembled, her eyes never left the battlefield.

Just seeing her beloved so close to the monster was unbearable—but watching her take a direct blow sent icy panic surging through her.

She had just seen her wife again—only to lose her in the next moment, helpless to stop it.

Everyone watching the battle braced themselves to witness the girl’s body torn apart when Torment emerged from the cloud of earth.

And when the dust finally settled...

Three girls saw it: a black blade and a blade of pure icy blue were pushing the monster’s claws back.

”What...?” Elarielle used her axe to steady herself, her trembling eyes refusing to believe what they saw.

Defeat had been engraved as an absolute fact into the minds of everyone who had faced that thing that day.

”Good, very good.” Lily pushed her blades harder, a fierce smile growing across her face. ”Unlike her, my head can only sustain this for a few seconds—but this seems to be your limit too, isn’t it?”

And now, that absolute fact was about to be shattered—by a single girl.

Bending her knees, Lily leapt onto the head of the black wolf.

The creature, momentarily off balance after having its claws suddenly pushed back, watched as the twin blades came crashing down toward it—and jumped back.

With no target, the black and ice-blue swords slammed into the ground.

A distance of more than fifty meters opened between them.

However, without even a pause—in what seemed to any observer like the same exact moment—the blades and claws collided again, now halfway across the space they’d just created.

Dozens of exchanges exploded between Lily’s sword and the beast’s claws, each impact shattering the ground around them.

But this wasn’t just two swords against claws.

Leaping into the air, Lily spun to dodge the creature’s tail as it tried to pierce her from the side.

“At least the tail’s pretty,” Lily half-sang, wincing at the growing pain in her wrists, before grinning. “But I’ll pass this time.”

With its claws and tail evaded, Torment lunged forward, its jaws aiming to trap her between its fangs.

Then came a flash of white.

The ice blade in Lily’s left hand exploded inside the monster’s mouth, jamming its jaw shut from top to bottom.

The ice wouldn’t last long—maybe a few seconds before shattering—but it was enough.

She landed, already conjuring another sword.

“Again?” she sang lightly.

Breaking free of the frozen block in its mouth, Torment drove its claws into the earth, carving a deep gash in the ground, fury and bloodlust radiating in waves.

Lily’s and Torment’s eyes locked—and in that same instant, both vanished.

The three watching girls lost sight of them for a split second, heads snapping around in panic.

Then—

A scream tore through the air.

It was the first time they’d heard that kind of sound.

Undeniably...

A scream of pain.

Atop one of the ruined pillars, a silver-haired girl stood over Torment, a black blade embedded deep in the wolf’s body.

She slowly pulled the sword free—and a burst of dark purple blood erupted. Lily was partially bathed in it, stained by the monster’s blood.

A roar of rage echoed as Torment rolled violently, the white blades jutting from its back like twisted tree limbs slashing through the air, trying to cut her down.

With her footing unstable, Lily was forced to leap to the next stone structure—Torment immediately following in pursuit.

”Come on now, hold together just a little longer and you won’t get sliced!”

A grin spread across the girl’s face, and Torment howled in answer. And once again—

They vanished.

All eyes searched frantically.

The next moment, in the center of the crater carved out by the earlier battles, Lily slashed through the rocks Torment was hurling at her.

Each impact threw up a new cloud of dust, and the wind forced the girls watching to blink.

That single blink—

Was enough to lose sight of them once more.

A thunderous sound cracked across the sky. Now in free fall, Lily had her blade buried into one of the creature’s limbs.

”It’s not possible...” Thelira murmured, blood still slipping from her lips as she did her best to move closer to the other two girls.

Nothing they had done had left a single wound on the monster—yet Lily was managing it.

A massive cloud of dust engulfed everything when Torment’s body crashed into the ground. For a moment, all vision was lost once again.

Lily’s stardust blade was a glowing blue line cutting through the dust-laden sky, while Torment loomed as a dark silhouette outlined by violet miasma.

Disappearing and reappearing in different places, the two figures clashed in an almost rhythmic cadence inside the dust cloud.

The girls watching the battle struggled to make sense of the vision before them.

It felt as if those two presences were pressing on the very fabric of the world, bending it to their will.

”Was Lady Lily always that fast with teleportation?” Thelira asked with a trembling voice, the agitation in her chest forcing her to swallow hard.

Her sister’s voice became the push her body needed to move again. Crawling over to her, Elarielle reached out, helping Thelira recover with the last of her strength, her eyes locked on the battlefield—unable to form words.

“No… That’s not teleportation.”

Beside them, Nia, her crimson eyes unblinking as they watched the fight, spoke softly.

Her hand moved over her heart as realization struck. With every clash of Lily’s blade against Torment, a strange sensation pulsed through both parts of her body.

Nia could see the world through Lily’s eyes. And that’s how she understood—it wasn’t about speed.

It wasn’t teleportation.

It was something else entirely.

A manipulation of the world’s order as powerful as teleportation—perhaps stronger.

It was a change in a concept.

Something Nia had never even considered possible.

“Lily is stopping time!”

She wasn’t moving fast enough to match Torment—

She was fighting at her normal pace, just like always.

Now it all made sense.

“When Torment disappears from our sight, it’s only because we can’t see them moving in frozen time!”

Nia cried out with both hands over her chest, her face flushed and warm as she watched her beloved fight.

And Lily, her sword pointed at the monster, blood dripping from her cheek, smiled faintly.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? I bet it’s been a long time since you last felt that.”

The creature before her was clearly beginning to show signs of fatigue.

“Come on—get up!” she shouted with even more force, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the beast struggling to rise from the ground. “This is a dance between you and me.”

Another furious howl filled the air—

Then all sound vanished.

The world turned to grey.

One second.

Running through frozen time, Lily raised her black sword to block the creature’s right claw. The difference in weight and size was overwhelming, but by channeling mana to her legs, she let the deadly claw glide along her blade, redirecting it. Then she ran up the monster’s arm.

Two seconds.

The second claw slashed toward her. Gathering mana into her blade, she blocked it. Blue crystalline wings formed on her back, lifting her toward the beast’s head.

Three seconds.

The beast leapt back—trying to keep her away. But Lily surged forward, mana spiraling through her sword in rhythmic bursts, gaining power.

Four seconds.

The world regained its color.

And the creature’s violet blood spilled onto the ground as Lily dragged her blade in a long arc across its face.

Both retreated in opposite directions—Lily landing on a pillar, and Torment leaping up a ridge of broken stones.

”The less I think about it, the simpler it feels. Trying to understand is way too hard. Freeze, unfreeze—that’s enough. Anything more just gives me a headache.”

Lily was interrupting the very concept that pushed the world forward—asking the world itself for permission to do so.

The notion alone was absurd. She didn’t understand the complex logic behind it, nor did she know the thousands of symbols forming the spell’s structure.

But none of that mattered.

As long as she could recall the sensation in her body, she would find a way to recreate it.

After all, she had felt it firsthand—from the most powerful mage in the world.

Brushing the back of her right hand across her cheek, Lily wiped away the trickle of blood.

She knew Torment was different from other quadruped monsters like the ice foxes.

It didn’t attack from afar. It didn’t hunt in packs.

It relied entirely on brute force to destroy.

A reckless charge could be fatal.

So she observed—and learned.

She would understand how that being thought, how it acted—

And she would respond accordingly.

”You’re on the defensive now, huh?”

Lily couldn’t help the quiet laugh that escaped her lips.

Her opponent had come to the same conclusion.

The distance between them was too great for either to freeze time and close the gap within its limit.

Jumping down from the rocks, her black cape fluttered behind her.

Unlike her wife, Lily couldn’t sustain multiple spells at once.

If she kept her wings active for too long, she couldn’t freeze time.

So—she ran.

Like a silver blur streaking across the battlefield, Lily sprinted through the shattered ground of the ruins toward her opponent.

Torment knew it couldn’t stay idle.

It bent its legs, honed its fangs, and waited—

For the critical moment when it would overwhelm her and deliver the fatal blow.

The human was approaching.

She was nearly within range.

Just a few more seconds, a few more steps—

It would end the world’s movement, and with it, her life.

By attacking in the frozen world, the blow would gain absolute power—

No counter, no defense could stop it.

Cutting space wouldn’t matter.

Nothing that required even a moment could affect what existed in a world without time.

That was its absolute offense.

Its perfect defense.

The way it had won every battle until now.

”Yo~”

Until someone arrived—

Someone who could step into the same frozen world.

A voice whispered beside it—

And was followed by a power even greater than its own.

She had activated it faster.

Mana surged along Lily’s stardust blade.

Twisting her wrists and her entire body, she struck Torment directly in the side of its abdomen.

She ducked, dashed, and spun.

With overwhelming force, her blade tore through the creature’s flesh, sending its body crashing sideways into the ground.

From the point of impact, a pillar of ice erupted as Lily leapt away.

”Stopping time’s still a bit messy, but I’m proud of this spell—so I hope you enjoy it~”

She sang the words as hundreds of ice crystals appeared in the air.

Even if the exhausted creature’s mind tried to halt time, it was too late.

The ice blade buried in its gut was too heavy to avoid in time.

There was no escape.

”[Crystal Apocalypse]”

A white flash consumed the world.

All the blue crystals detonated in a vortex of ice, the freezing energy crushing everything in its path like a roaring avalanche.

Lily landed softly on the ground, wiping the violet blood from her blade with a calm flick of her wrist.

With a cold, steady gaze, she stared at the epicenter of the ice explosion.

Half its abdomen torn open, the black wolf’s dark fur was now soaked in purple, and its hundred bluish eyes blinked wildly in response to the cold.

“You’re tough,” she said with a smile.

Without relying on the massive well of dark mana Nia possessed, Lily knew this fight had to be carried purely by instinct.

There was no room—not even for a single mistake.

Each time, both of them had to activate their time-freezing magic at precisely the same instant.

If either was even a moment late, the other would strike with an unavoidable blow.

In the few moments where Lily had managed to trigger hers first, she’d landed decisive wounds.

But unlike the beast, she wasn’t nearly as sturdy.

One mistake, and she’d die.

“How about one more round?”

Working with zero margin for error, she smiled—and rushed forward.

The world froze.

They collided.

Scaling the immense wooden wall of the labyrinth, dozens of meters high, Lily blocked the beast’s strikes as it climbed behind her, sinking claws into the structure.

A black tail lunged toward her—

She dropped her ice sword again.

A crystalline blast erupted midair, forming an ice wall that caught the monster’s tail head-on.

With a furious growl, Torment shattered the wall, intent on continuing its pursuit.

But the target it assumed had fled far…

Dropped directly onto its head from the cascading shards of ice.

The stardust blade came crashing down atop its skull, slamming its massive body into the ground—

And carving yet another crater.

The world returned to color.

Then vanished again.

Scarlet blood sprayed.

“Crafty little thing…”

But this time, it was the creature that whimpered.

“Trying to surprise me by freezing time right after unfreezing it? You really thought that would work?”

Lily’s left hand was inside the wolf’s mouth, one of its fangs impaled through her arm.

Torment, having collapsed, had tried to snap her in half with a surprise bite before she could retreat.

It was clever, Lily had to admit.

Red liquid streamed freely. Her wrist was broken, her bones lacerated—

But her fingers didn’t let go.

“I finally get how Nia senses these things…”

It was a faint discomfort. Like a vague itch at the back of the head.

Just as Nia could detect spatial magic being cast, Lily now felt it too—A distinct signal when Torment was about to stop time.

Reactivating time-freeze so quickly drained their strength immensely.

A desperate gamble to end the battle fast.

But it wouldn’t work on this girl.

A thick layer of ice expanded from her pierced hand, spreading through the beast’s jaw, its throat—

And then deeper—freezing its insides.

Pained groans leaked from its maw, now nearly immobilized.

Torment could feel its very organs turning to frost under her spell.

“Don’t whine over a wound like that. You made my wife cry, didn’t you?”

A lone blade, still gripped tightly in her right hand, was driven into the creature’s body—

Right through the side of its neck.

“Let’s not drag this out any longer. In this state, even aiming would be a chore.”

In a way, it was almost a grotesque embrace.

”Using point-blank attacks brings back bad memories.”

Lily rested her forehead against the creature’s snout.

”But... how about sharing this one with me?”

She smiled like a little girl... her face smeared with her own blood—and its.

And then, she spoke once more.

”[Crystal Apocalypse]”

From within the creature’s body, a massive white flash erupted, engulfing everything around them.

The surrounding temperature plummeted, the attack aimed at halting even the smallest atomic movement, ushering a new ice age into the battlefield.

Everything around the two had turned into a glacial wasteland.

”You’re at your limit too, aren’t you?”

Lily drove her sword into the ground and spat out a small amount of red blood.

Her left arm was torn apart, covered by a thick layer of bluish ice. At best, it was still attached to her body—just barely.

And in front of her, a black wolf, with dozens of ice crystals piercing its body, lay sprawled on the ground, buried in white snow.

She knew what needed to be done.

”You don’t want to die, do you?” Lily’s voice echoed in the cold air, her warm breath visible as vapor.

The Torment tried to rise, to fight again, but every limb failed, causing it to collapse back to the ground. The cold had stiffened its body. Not even its blood dripped anymore—it had frozen, inside and out.

Inside, the damage was worse.

From its mouth to its innards, countless burns caused by cellular death were destroying its flesh.

Only one of its many eyes remained open, a flicker of awareness watching the girl approach—still clinging to the will to fight.

“Do you still think I’m not worthy like she was?!”

Her eyes bore down on the wolf as her voice cracked through the frozen air.

The wolf didn’t answer. It couldn’t.

Until—

Lily raised her head, her determined gaze meeting the creature’s remaining eye.

”Recognize me as your master!”

And then…

Its head lowered.

Lily stepped closer but grimaced, her brows furrowing. Closing her eyes, she paused for a few seconds, seemingly uncertain about something.

”They say I’m good with names... but I think this time, I’ll honor the legacy you built.”

Extending her right hand, Lily placed it gently on the creature’s head. The words she was about to say would seal the bond between them.

”Come to me, Akasha!”

It happened instantly.

A pulse of mana surged through the labyrinth, spreading into the forest.

Like raw energy being born, light filtered through the creature’s body. And soon, it shone in hues of violet and blue—until something emerged.

Its handle was long and slender, made of ancient wood as if shaped by time itself. The structure curled like living branches, holding a core of light that pulsed with a serene glow.

At its top, a translucent orb hovered gently between the branches, never quite touching anything.

Around it, blue-tinged butterflies of pure energy floated, tethered by ethereal threads to the staff—threads that would never break, even when the wind ceased to blow.

With a single motion, Lily grasped it.

”Looks like titles matter too... but ‘Torment’ doesn’t really sound cool.”

Once belonging to the Archmage who laid the foundation of all modern magic—crafted not by hands, but by the true form of a being whose power was said to rival even the World Tree itself.

”Yeah... something like this fits better.”

The staff that had not been forged, but born—its power surpassing that of any known material.

”The Time Reaper—Akasha.”