Walkure watched both entities in front of her. Rephidim's face was all smug and confident. Apparently, he would have been in serious issues if Walkure's attack had landed, but Awis saved him just in time.
"Sorry if this seems unfair, a job is a job."
Rephidim took a martial art stance and started building up his power. He became even stronger than before.
"I won't let you trick me again like earlier. Prepare yourself, ethernal!"
He jumped from the vacuum he was standing on at speeds faster enough to break down the space behind him. He raised his fist and punched Walkure's face in the head...or so he thought.
"Oh?"
Walkure had successfully blocked the attack with her sword, Viktoria. Earlier, she had to bend the laws of causality to act first, but now she could keep up with him on her own.
"Ethernals are always growing. A disadvantageous fight like this one will only make me grow even faster. Don't think too highly of yourself or you'll end up being left in the dust, boy."
She said this, while at the same time extending her sword forwards, with the tip impaling Rephidim's body. But it was all naught. Before the blade could do any significant damage, a yellow forcefield appeared and blocked the attack.
"I see. This is a bit problematic."
Rephidim took this opportunity to grab Walkure's blade and pull her close to him, while simultaneously kicking her body a decillion times in moments.
"It doesn't matter how much you grow, you cannot ever hope to even scratch us, you bitch!"
Rephidim kept trading blows with the ethernal. Every time Walkure tied to attack, it was simply blocked by Awis' metaphysical barrier, and Rephidim would do a proper counter, but without actually being able to harm the ethernal's body. This process kept going for hours non-stop. Walkure was testing if they could be affected by the loss of stamina, but it seems their body lacked these properties.
"Let's settle this another way."
Rephidim said as he then raised his right hand open, and in the center of it, he quickly charged a spherical amount of energy.
"Fly."
As he said this, Rephidim pointed his hand toward Walkure and shot a beam of energy from it. The beam was massive, it had the diameter of a planet and a brilliance shinier than a supernova. Its power rivaled that of trillion supergiant stars exploding at once. Walkure got directly hit by it, but no harm was actually being done to her body. Rephidim expected this, but the beam itself still had a massive momentum, one that would push the ethernal far away outside this universe. And so it did. She had already reached a distance that escaped the sight of the wanderers there present. With one of the ethernal commanders out of the battlefield, the rest would be very easy to deal with. The war was within their hands...
"Wew. This was certainly an annoying one to deal with. But what was up with her body? Every time I punched or kicked it I felt the toughness would hurt even my bones."
"This simply means you were incapable to deal with this mission yourself. Without me, you would have died long ago. You are a failure."
"Whatever you say..."As they chitchatted, they could hear the song of glass cracking around them.
"What is...?"
A portion of the vacuum below them, which was already cracked, instantly broke into a million pieces, releasing from it a feminine figure carrying a sword in her right hand.
"!!!"
The ethernal, approaching at incomprehensible speeds, quickly closed the gap between herself and the accursed girl, performing a horizontal slash with the purpose of beheading her.
By pure reflex alone, Awis managed to cast her barrier and block the attack, but the shock was still enough to make her lose balance and fall backward. But what she had yet to realize was a portal that was opened right behind her, which she had no way to avoid, and fell into it.
"Awis!"
Rephidim, who only managed to properly understand what happened after the assault has been done, quickly jumped towards the ethernal.
"Tch, why won't you die!"
As he approached Walkure, he tried his usual punches and kicked charged with cosmic energy. Each of these attacks carried enough power to decimate star systems and enough temperature to rival supernovae. But it proved worthless. Walkure intercepted and countered all of them with her mastery of the sword. Then, after finding a blind spot within his stance, she pierced his body with Viktoria and cut his right arm off.
"Gaarrgh!"
Rephidim took several steps backward, increasing the distance between him and the ethernal.
"I told you, didn't I?", Walkure takes a sword stance. "To try and make the odds in your favor would only delay your impending doom."
As she said this, she vertically and horizontally slashed the space in front of her, forming an imaginary cross.
"Vene Altair."
A cross-like symbol appeared on Rephidim's body. Then, an X appeared on his torso, from which then it exploded from the inside out."Gaarrrhhh!!", Rephidim screams in pain. The effect had exploded inside him and boiled his insides.
"T-This is not over yet!"
Rephidim screamed while he started regenerating his severed right arm and his organs. Meanwhile, a certain portion of space around them starts to warp in a four-dimensional cube, from which then came Awis.
"You certainly know how to build extradimensional traps. A single mistake and I would have been lost for all eternity inside there."
The two accursed were together again.
"Oh my. You couldn't even kill Rephi while I was away. This was your only chance."
"I disagree."
Walkure said while grabbing her sword with her two hands. Then, after what appeared to be cracks formed vertically within the sword, she split Viktoria in two. Each part of Viktoria then became its own sword.
Awis made a hand sign symbolizing Ram, and Rephidim and herself were then covered with a yellow barrier. They were safe inside this. Within it, there was no way they could lose. All they need now was simply to keep attacking and find the ethernal's weaknesses.
"For the glory of our Queen."
Walkure said this while crossing her two swords with one another, forming an "X". Then, the swords started to glow red.
All surroundings across 1 light-year gained a slight reddish tone and seemed to have been cut off from reality. All planets, stars, asteroids, and spaces disappeared. In truth, all three individuals were sent into an alternate dimension. The solar system they were in moments ago still existed and was intact.
"What is this?"
"A teleportation technique shouldn't have worked with us. What the hell?"
This realm, outside space-time, contained a replica of all the contents of the space they were in before, except it now included eerie souls wandering and screaming everywhere, scents of death, visions of murder and torture, thick reddish fogs everywhere, and numerous grotesque structures here and there. It seemed to come out of a horror movie. Most of those floating buildings were yet-to-exist objects designed for torture, penitence, and murder. An extension of Walkure's will, shaped into existence in the form of a realm.
Then, the ethernal spoke.
"I've learned some things after taking my lessons with mother. All this time I strived for focusing on my skills, but I realized that I lacked training within the area of sorcery, something that should be essential when dealing with people like you. Thus, you both shall be my first experiments."
Walkure proclaimed while taking a sword stance.
"Welcome to my territory. My Iron Maiden."