I Only Summon Villainesses

The clash between Kassie and Altharion consumed the rim of the pass like a living cataclysm. Brunhilde faltered mid-strike as the sheer pressure wave from their locked weapons blasted her back a full ten paces, frost cracking off her katana in glittering shards.

She didn’t look distraught by the fact that the combat was surpassing something that she could continue to fix herself into.

Instead, she seemed to even grin.

”You’ve grown even more powerful since the last time I saw you. Damnit, damn that talent of yours.”

Kassie wrenched her greatsword free from the crossed axes with a roar that echoed down the throat of the pass. Red haze poured off her like blood mist, her boots carving trenches into the frozen stone as she pivoted.

Altharion’s pleasant, harmless smile never left his face. Even as he spun both black double-bladed axes in lazy, lethal circles. One axe still bore the fresh notch from her blade.

”I have heard about the monumental reputation of the Tyrant Empress, you were worshipped by the women of your era, you were liberty to the chained, and hope to the broken. Your power was the beacon of salvation. If this is that power. Oho... I have to say, I’m pretty disappointed.”

Kassie didn’t answer with words. She answered with motion.

She exploded forward, greatsword raised high in a two-handed overhead that could split a warship. The blade came down like judgment from the heavens, trailing crimson afterimages.

Altharion didn’t dodge.

He stepped into it, axes crossing above his head in a perfect X. The impact was apocalyptic—a thunderclap that hurled snow and ice outward in a radial blast, cracking the rim’s edge and sending boulders tumbling into the pass below.

For one frozen heartbeat, they strained against each other, muscles bulging, boots grinding stone to powder. Kassie’s red haze surged, pressing down with impossible weight. Altharion’s arms trembled once... then held.

He shoved upward, breaking the lock and whipping his right axe in a horizontal slash aimed at her midsection.

Kassie twisted, the black blade whispering past her armored ribs by a hair’s breadth, shearing off a chunk of her pauldron in a spray of sparks.

She countered instantly, slamming the flat of her greatsword into his chest like a battering ram. The force lifted Altharion off his feet and hurled him twenty feet across the rim, his back slamming into a jagged outcrop with enough power to embed him halfway into the rock.

But he was smiling wider now.

Before Kassie could close the distance, he wrenched free, axes already whirling. A summon—a hulking vine-wrapped horror—lunged from the side on his command, but Kassie ignored it.

Her sword carved through its torso without breaking stride, vines and ichor exploding outward. Altharion used the distraction to vault over her, landing behind and driving both axes down toward her shoulders in a pincer strike.

She spun, blade rising to meet them. Sparks flew in a fountain as metal screamed against metal.

They traded blows so fast the air between them blurred—axe against sword, sword against axe, each collision shaking the pass anew.

Kassie’s strength was raw annihilation; every swing carried the momentum of a landslide.

Altharion’s was precise, vicious economy, using her own force against her. He parried a diagonal cut by angling one axe just enough to deflect it into the stone, then hammered the other into her guard, forcing her back a step.

He grunted, his breath visible in the freezing air.

”Okay, I might have to admit, you’re strong. Stronger than I had expected. But strength alone doesn’t win wars.”

He summoned another wave without looking—stone beasts rising from the rim itself, arms outstretched.

Kassie roared and charged straight through them. Her greatsword became a whirlwind of red death, bisecting two in a single horizontal arc, shoulder-checking a third into fragments, and stomping the fourth into pulp beneath her boot. The haze around her thickened, turning her into a crimson specter of ruin.

Altharion met her charge head-on. He ducked under a sweeping cut that would have decapitated a giant, then exploded upward with an uppercut from both axes.

The blades caught her sword near the crossguard and lifted — actually lifted — Kassie off the ground for a split second.

She twisted in midair, bringing one knee crashing into his face. Cartilage crunched. Blood sprayed from Altharion’s nose, but he laughed through it, spinning away and slashing low at her legs.

Kassie landed hard, blocking the low strike, then drove forward with a series of brutal overhead chops.

Each one landed heavier than the last. The rim of the pass became their arena, a twenty-yard stretch of tortured stone where every footfall left craters.

Altharion gave ground at first, then held, then pushed back. His axes sang—black blurs carving intricate patterns of death.

One caught her sword arm, opening a shallow gash that bled red into the haze. She answered by slamming her pommel into his sternum, cracking bone audibly.

They separated for a heartbeat, circling. Kassie’s chest heaved, but her eyes burned with feral joy. Altharion wiped blood from his face, still smiling.

”One might think you to be enjoying this far much than I am.”

”How long can you maintain it for?”

This was the first thing Kassie said throughout their battle.

Altharion just smiled it off.

”I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He lunged, feinted high with one axe, then dropped low, sweeping the other in a leg-severing arc. Kassie jumped, tucking her knees, and came down with her full weight behind a stabbing thrust. The greatsword’s tip punched through his left shoulder guard, driving deep.

Altharion hissed in pain but didn’t stop — he headbutted her face, then ripped free, blood spraying across the snow. He spun both axes in a double helix, forcing her to retreat under the onslaught.

Blow after blow rained down. Kassie parried, countered, parried again. Her greatsword met every strike with earth-shaking force, but Altharion was adapting too, reading her rhythm.

However beneath all of that, was a deep, and uncontrollable exhaustion that was seeping in.

Whatever Altharion was doing to be able to put up this kind of fight with Kassie, it was costing him. And it was costing him greatly.

It won’t last long any longer.