*
Huo Li continued to fire the rain, preparing her scythe only a moment later. Ari breezes through the lethal storm, gradually adapting to its movements and patterns. In between large waves of rain drops, Huo Li props up her scythe onto her bent elbow, balancing it above her head with ease.
Swinging it once, a few slashes were released onto Ari's body, cleaving her limbs apart. Another swing, she was decapitated, her limbs burnt and disintegrated without any resistance. Ari's hand swiped across the air, her body shows up in the air after her hand brushes past it, like a magic trick. Her other arm catches the scythe, causing it to crumble into dust.
"... Timeless... I can change its age value from 'ageless' to 'perished'. Why do you think your attacks haven't been working?" (Ari)
Sweeping her leg low, Huo Li enters into Ari's range with a click slide, her adrenaline had never been any higher. If forced to describe it, she would say that she was currently in the zone, everything was going perfectly according to her will, no... It was going even better. Envisioning a single swing, her wrist twists and her muscles propel her scythe, multiple slashes appear instead. She was challenging reality, she was busting past her limits like a fist punching through a wall of paper, her body was gradually moving faster... even beyond her own perception and wits.
Ari's body splits open into 2, her newly recovered body divides like a banana peel down from her left clavicle to her right hip. A chunk of flesh was blown away, nowhere to be found.
"Kagh!!!?!!" (Ari)
In a battle between gods, the solution was quite simple. Surpass your previous self, grasp at the future continuously, blast past the opponent's ability with even more of your own. Ari's skill down values Huo Li's attack damage, so Huo Li simply had to launch an attack so high that Ari couldn't reduce it in time. Her body dances through the air, her scythe in hand and her obscuring lethal rain blotting put the sky and ground. From above and under, Huo Li's magical construct smashes into Ari's flesh.
Faster, stronger, her body was surpassing her own imagination, as if it was controlled by someone else. Her body slips into the next position and attack, as if it was the most natural. Leaping far, she lands on all fours, her legs straightened and her arms wielded her scythe, with another leap she closes the distance once more. Before she noticed it herself, she had passed her target, her scythe drew blood. Having reinforced her body with forceful assimilation of the timeless material into her body, one could say she was handling power so far above what she had, to the extent that she couldn't control it.
It was rather concerning that she couldn't see the limits of her power, then she wouldn't be able to gauge how much danger she was in. *CLANG!!!* The loud, jarring noise of collision reverberates into their bodies, Huo Li's short assault had ended at once due to a parry. She felt her bones rattle in between her flesh, and her vision bounced up and down within her skull as she steadied her stance.
It was clear that Huo Li had taken the lead despite all of Ari's best efforts.
"[Crowning calls do not reach, tragedy]" (Ari)
She no longer has a choice but to reveal what she had left, if it would end the battle before everything goes wrong for her. The destroyers mainly erased worlds away without much resistance, those that resist sometimes bore potential destroyers that joined Arasovi's ranks. Ari had no particular reason, she was pure evil. Once again, Ari was evil.
A bright pale yellow blade materialises inside her grip, accompanying armour of blinding white wrapping around her mint hair and maid outfit. Straps of light stretched under her ear to her neck, forming a helmet on the back of her head with small winged shape horns near the top and tassels swaying at the bottom rear. These large strips of cloth tore through the air with enough force to melt stars, her gaze locks onto Huo Li's with a resolute expression. Her iris tracked onto HuoLi's figure, her heaving chest catching her breath.
Around her puffy maid top sleeves were plates of light, her neck held a round collar of light, her chest was hidden comfortably under plates of light reminiscent of pagoda stacks, but her sides and back still exposed her maid outfit. Laying on top of her perky skirt were more plates of light lining it's silhouette, lastly her legs were secured by a thigh high of blinding light and high boots of light. No matter how anyone looked at it... This was what someone would imagine from 'the hero of light'. Perhaps that was the effect of her skill, the manifestation of the hero...
Huo Li stood on the other end, her jett black jacket with gold engravings were reminiscent with the outfit of a gangster, even if its fabric had been weaved in a way reminiscent to a shrine maiden's outfit. Her constructs are timeless... She was meant to be the observer of time, from start to end. While Himei was only a person born to temporarily be the prioritised observer, Huo Li was meant to be its permanent observer.
A being born into the role by sheer coincidence of evolution, her genetics and circumstances were just right to ensure the creation of this role, the world's will of self preservation was but a small factor in all of this. The magical constructs that Huo Li creates are timeless and colourless, they contain every texture yet not texture, the human sense cannot make comprehension of its existence. The television static like visual it has is a substitute of rationalisation made by the human mind.
A low and smooth hum soars from Ari's blade, the tassels of blinding light from her helmet shake vigorously like an octopus' tentacle out of control. The blade clashes head on with her scythe, noticeably melting it as time went by. Her scythe has no melting point, this phenomenon was forcefully brought about by the magic of Ari's light. Skill disabling, value manipulation, and now this... A brute forced manifestation of the concept of the hero... Or whatever Ari's understanding of a hero is.
There was nobody to save her when it mattered, so the simple answer was to plunge the world in darkness. Nobody deserved saving, nobody deserved the light... Ari waves her blade of light, the whole universe is split in half. A hero must be capable of this much to stop the evil demon king. Huo Li blocks with her scythe, but her body along with the scythe is bisected cleanly by the infinite heat that transcends energy and state. The state of her being is sent from whole to fragmented, she looked to be melted through by the magic, but she was properly split into parts rather than cut apart.
An incomprehensible mechanism, a punishing light that would cleave through evil and bring about the bright sky and day. The hero's conceptual manifestation was the accumulation of the concept of overcoming odds. A representation of hope within small odds, an impossible dream to dive neck deep into humanity's danger and save it from within. In other simple words, it was the absurd power to win no matter the odds or situation. Ari swung her blade a few more times, cutting Huo Li up even more, but she didn't even flinch while receiving those attacks.
She couldn't help but spit out the blood from her ruptured organs, but...
"... Threat level assessed... Final skill activation complete, [A maiden's median of the world's end]." (Huo Li)
Her pale greyish white hair floated in the air like sea grass, some of it stuck to her forehead and lips due to sweat coating her skin. It might seem the battle was easy to end, at anytime they could have pulled out their final skills to make battle defining moves and change the tides, but if possible... She wanted to rely on her combat capabilities before she relied on her magic. Magical girls face the unpredictable factor of magic, saving a trump card to protect oneself was always the common tactic. Using the end world environment, she breaks down the light separating her body apart, letting her recover instantly.
The light began to erode at the end world environment, with what it was as an irrational materialisation of a concept, Ari began to cut apart the end world environment. The magic that eliminates threats to the world... Was overcomed... It was not blocked or reduced or destroyed, many of the destroyers who didn't die to it... Simply tanked it head on... Huo Li jumps in between the streaks of light bisecting the world, it looked like laser pointers of blinding white were steadily painting the world in nothing but white.
They weren't hot, they were sword strikes that were already thrown, a marker of where the world was split apart. Huo Li steps on one and closes the distance, she swung her scythe in an instant. Ari caught it with her sword, but... Her scythe didn't break... She applied the end world environment on her scythe, Huo Li must grasp desperately at everything available to her. She was also steadily adapting to her own power, she observed a glimpse of her own blade before it collided. Her perception was improving.
She stepped to the side and swung her scythe from the top, which Ari swung her blade into the air to block the scythe with the flat of her blade. At present, Huo Li was finally able to resist the absurd light coating Ari's way of battle. Huo Li swung it from the left, only to have it barely repelled. This continued into countless clashes. From above and below, left and right, Huo Li nipped abit of Ari's flesh from where she wasn't protected, before moving to the next location.
She turned her body around mid leap, making use of her large scythe's bigger reach to block another attack from the blade. She then hops to swing down an attack from above, smashing against Ari's blade of light, before vanishing to attack from another angle. Her body fades into a blur, dancing through existence and weaving into the world, her body makes the most optimal movement instinctively, but this time she could control her power properly, plan ahead and retreat when needed. Leaping at a low angle, her scythe swings from the left, then right.
2 sparks were released as her body drove past Ari, violently whittling down at the light composing her blade. No one was willing to fight for her, so when she gained the power to fight for herself, she knew nothing but to keep going. Her home was invaded, her neighbours were slain. Ari lost everything in a sea of fire, a monster assimilated a magical girl's machine oriented magic and grew to unimaginable proportions, they eclipsed the sun, swallowed the moon and blasted a hole through the other planets for amusement.
Humanity had ended save for a small few, a farm of sorts that mechanically preserved the remaining humans. When Ari awakened and escape the facility, she had only arrived to find nothing. Nobody would save them, nobody could save them. Her heart ripped itself apart in her despair and let loose. She stole the monster's skill to manipulate technology and assemble futuristic tech, forming a shield at the last second to protect herself from its attacks.
She awakened value manipulation and caused its insides to collapse, confiscating its mobility. Throughout her endeavour, she rebelled. She killed the monster and discovered disappointment. Beyond the veil, there were others. Humanity had not really ended. She was a part of a sick experiment, simulating the collapse of humanity. One that endlessly poured despair into her heart like injecting a syringe. It was all so fake, yet so incredibly real to her.
She unleashed her final skill and wreaked destruction on the true mankind, ending her own world before Arasovi reached there. The last of humanity tried to resist by discovering time manipulation magic. They manage to make a spark, alerting Arasovi. The power of destruction was absolute.
After a few days of non stop battle with the mechanical deity, all she could find was a sense of emptiness, a hole was forcefully drilled into her heart by her very sight. A simulation by highly developed technology, meant to play out the what if of an apocalypse and humanity's response to it... None of the humans that were simulated were genuine life, one could liken them to sophisticated artifical intelligence, indistinguishable from the genuine article... Her entire life rolled past her mind like the end credits of a movie, how could she be so sure if the world she stepped into here wasn't also a simulation?
How could she continue to face her life with this information that seemed to seep into the back of her insecurities, dredging up her past experiences and questioning their authenticity? Like an eternal spectre creeping over her spine, just out of sight. She could feel its looming claw with outing seeing it with her eyes...
Then... It was a simple progression. The simulation was set so that the mechanical deity devouring Ari's world could never be defeated, but with magic she conceptualised its defeat into existence anyway. She broke what was supposed to be an unbreakable law, a rule meant to keep her in place. Once humanity dies out, they would simulate another batch to watch how they would respond to the same apocalypse, all the way until they found a solution.
Ari was not the solution they looked for, but it was all the same to Ari. Thrusting her blade of light forward, the earth was cleaved in half and its core shrivelled into debris.