As the colors washed away from his sight, the only prevailing color being the different shades of purple, Yoel lurched forward.
Why… why is the entire damn arena fucking purple?
What should have been grey and dull, was vibrant with color as the motes of avon sunk into place as if they had always belonged there.
It took a few torturous moments for Yoel to adjust his vision. It was hard, very hard trying to adjust to a world filled with purple.
Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead to his nose, his brown hair growing messy and glued to his head.
"Cool eyes. What can you do? I can't wait to find out."
Julia pointed out the change of colors in his eyes. Indeed, one eye remained purple while another turned pitch black, as far as Yoel knew.
Yoel grabbed his head, and after a minute or two he managed to adjust. As if realizing something had happened, Julia never moved to attack in that timeframe.
He turned his head from left to right. Where there had been Cole's feathers a dull dark purple shape replaced them.
Where Loki and his opponent clashed, a dull dark purple knot of sorts hid their weapons, it caused Yoel a headache to look at it, so he quickly jerked away from the sight.
Finally, he looked at Julia herself, and as if that had been her queue for attacking, she once again swung her sword.
A crescent of avon immediately manifested in front of her, unleashed at monstrous speeds.
Yoel saw the entire thing this time, even if the rest of the shades of purple he was seeing were somewhat distracting and made him blink a bit too much.
Now with a bit less effort, he dodged her attack.
Step one, done.
Another dull sound erupted as the slash hit the barrier, and he wore a satisfied smile on his face.
However, what he didn't expect was that there was another invisible slash not even seconds away from tearing through him.
He tried to jump backward and duck, but he was too late to realize the slash was upon him, and another deep gash showed on his already wounded hand.
Why doesn't the damn mist heal these injuries too?!
Yoel cursed inwardly at the strange mechanism as he shakily stood up.
He had almost reached a deeper understanding of his opponent's ability, due to that second invisible slash.
She never swung twice, I see. I see..
It appears that she does not need to swing her sword to make those invisible slashes manifest.
That would explain why Yoel was hit the first time, and why the attack from before had clashed with the barrier while Yoel took a direct blow from another.
It was never a horizontal slash, no.
As if to confirm his theory, he saw as 3 different slashes manifested, one right after the other with only one swing, and these ones were even faster than before.
Is this supposed to be training our enigmas…? All I'm doing is fighting a battle junkie and doing all I can to fucking survive!
Sighing, Yoel was about to try something that he should probably never do in real life.
As the slashes approached, hungry enough to tear at his skin and flesh, he brandished his spear and took a stance that would support his balance on his feet.
He drew the spear as if preparing to slash at her, and waited until the invisible slash came closer.
It was hard to time it right, the slashes weren't exactly slow and Yoel was not sure if he could time his own correctly.
But once the dull dark purple crescent drew closer Yoel squeezed the pole of the spear and drew strength from his entire body, attempting to alter its trajectory.
And he succeeded, although partly.
He had managed to alter the trajectory of the first slash, evading him by a hair's breadth but that left him stunned for just enough time for the next slashes to land.
Both of Yoel's arms were cut off cleanly by the slashes, as he avoided getting his own head cut off and a fountain of blood decorated the floor.
It fucking hurts so damn bad! At least my innards are still inside me.
The a small cloud of white mist that had gathered low over their heads, parted from the bigger main cloud and descended towards Yoel.
"You're getting the right idea, but you're still not there, Yoel."
He groaned at her words.
"I really don't think I should be getting punished like this. Can't you go easier on me, Julia?"
Yoel already knew her answer, but he still decided to try. Trying was better than not trying at all.
"Nope. Not a chance!"
Damn this girl! What kind of household did she grow up in to be this violent?!
The cold touch of the mist he had only felt a few minutes ago once again encompassed him, focusing on his arms.
As they did their magic, Yoel once again could feel his arms, as if they had never been cleanly sliced off by some weird magical spell.
I think I understand how it works, now. I don't think I'll get hit by that attack again unless she has another trick up her sleeve.
Yoel stood straight and raised his hand, he made a taunting gesture at her and awaited for the now familiar invisible slashes.
He sighed deeply once again, and got into the same stance as before, however now the stance had a visible difference to it; Julia couldn't quite tell what it was, but it felt more… confident than before.
Yoel looked at her once again, his mind had entered some state of deep focus, he was no longer distracted by the sounds of the battles going on around him, and he no longer minded the various shades of purple clouding his vision.
It kind of resembled the state he found himself in right after his awakening. The feeling of derealization felt way less than back then, but even then.
He could never mistake this feeling of sitting back and watching a TV screen behind someone's eyes.
Clearing those unnecessary feelings and thoughts, he began to work on his breathing.
He breathed rhythmically, as the Silhouette Arts manual had once instructed him.
Now, instead of only seeing various shades of purple, he saw something more. He saw countless possibilities of how the battle would go, most of these calculated according to how Julia had behaved during the battle and the rest of them nothing more than a few bizarre assumptions.
This is where my losing streak ends. I will lose no more limbs here. I… declare it.
As he felt his muscles tighten on his legs, he jumped forward and began to close the distance between him and Julia.
She responded in kind, sending waves of slashes towards him.
This time, Yoel was able to see the slashes clearly, along with the gaps between them, while before he was barely able to see them due to the fact they almost blended in with the avon all around him.
By being able to view them even more clearly, he could pinpoint individual slashes instead of viewing the attack as one big wave of avon.
He smirked, as numerous ways of how to close in on Julia manifested in his head like lightning.
He dashed around what slashes he couldn't deflect and deflected those he believed he could without being slowed down.
It was an arduous effort and he would have long since collapsed if he was in his real body, but he kept going despite his muscles aching against the power of avon.
As his spear met numerous invisible slashes, a sound as if steel met steel erupted each time, despite there being essentially nothing but avon.
And then, that was where he spotted it.
An invisible crescent perfect enough for him to accomplish what he believed was the best course of action here.
As he approached, gripping the spear tightly with his right hand, he ducked under an invisible slash and deflected another.
When he was almost face-to-face with what he wanted to use, he walked towards it with relatively light steps and never moved to duck or to deflect the slash as he had with the others.
Instead, he only brought his upper body downwards, avoiding the slash by a hair's breadth, and struck with his spear one of the outermost sides from inside of the crescent.
Julia watched with her mouth agape, as Yoel's spear clashed with the invisible slash and completely reversed its trajectory, by rotating around the slash.
It took a lot out of him because he was using purely his own strength to change the trajectory of the slash, and doing so from the way it came was even harder to do because the slash was charging forward, while he was attempting to stop it and change its trajectory back from where it had come from.
Yoel's muscles strained against the surge of avon, and he definitely felt a few of his bones break.
But he had managed to achieve what he wanted; the invisible slash was now turned against Julia, flying at her with incredible speeds.
It also bumped into the other invisible slashes she had sent out, losing a bit of speed and experiencing a slight change in trajectory, nothing that wouldn't hit its target though.
As the invisible crescent approached Julia, she slowly recovered from her shock and regained a neutral expression on her face.
Once the slash was mere centimeters away from her face, it abruptly came to a stop.
Yoel watched as the avon dissolved into nothingness as Julia's face came into view again.
"Did you really think something like that would be enough to win against me?"