Abyssal Awakening

Expanding her zone to the limit of her reach, the edge was still unstable but usable. Compared to before, the furthest she could reasonably control was the tip of her blade, an area of influence where she could still react.

Standing still, Rita raised her spear slowly before bursting into action.

'The right!'

Taking a step to the left and twisting her body, Alice covered her blind spot as she was able to see Rita approaching with her spear at the last second.

*CLANG!!!

Parrying the spear briefly with her sword, she watched as the sword broke in half from the impact and quickly created another sword in her left.

Void Flux – Cleave!

A haphazard strike aimed to force Rita back and create some distance between them but she read the bluff.

Batting her wing at the strike, it shattered upon contact as Rita jumped into the air and raised her spear.

*RUMBLE!!!

A torrent of red lightning and flames rained down from above as it began to fuse with her spear.

Releasing a horizontal swipe, a wave of pure destruction rushed towards Alice as she made a cut along both of her arms and splashed blood towards the wave.

Forming a wide horizontal mirror, the attack was redirected behind her as Alice wouldn't missed the timing had she used her third Sigil.

Panting from the sudden loss in blood, Alice tried to retract the blood when Rita rushed towards her blind spot and stabbed up with her spear.

"ARGG!!!" Letting out a shout of pain, Alice felt the spear stabbing into her rib.

The convergence of lightning and fire tore through her flesh as the smell of her own body being cooked assaulted her nose.

Before the destruction could reach the rest of her body, Alice took the initiative to twist her body, breaking off a rib and causing a nasty cut along the side of her body.

Holding the wound to stop her organs from spilling out, Alice reached for a healing vial. Without any time to open the lid and drink, she directly bit through the glass, ignoring the shards that stabbed against her gums and tongue.

Spitting out the shards of bloodied glass, Alice could feel her wounds healing as she began to retreat while creating a fan of blood daggers.

Throwing it towards Rita who tried to enter Alice's blind spot once more, Alice grinned as each of the daggers began to blossom.

Stopping her charge, Rita raised her spear and stabbed it into the ground.

*BANG!!!

Before the briar thorns could reach her, spears shot out from the ground, creating a graveyard of spears that burned the flowers to cinders as embers fluttered through the air.

'F*ck! What the hell is that lightning and fire?!' Alice shouted in her mind as she didn't think it had the power to destroy her spider lilies so easily.

[No information, unknown variable.] Cayla kept it short.

None of what Rita had demonstrated has ever been recorded in the Abyss that she knew of!

'Another Zenia experiment?' Alyss suggested with a frown.

'Likely.' Alice frowned while creating a blade in hand.

Clenching her fist, her veins bulged around her hand and forearm.

Gathering all of her power into the blade, she let out a sharp breath as blood converged into a mirror in front of her.

Mimicry – Executioner's Blade!

Tearing through the space in front of her, the blade entered the mirror and appeared in front of Rita.

But before it could collide with Rita's parry, the blade began to tremble before scattering into particles of energy.

"Tsk!" Clicking her tongue, Alice gritted her teeth in annoyance as the Executioner's Blade was too annoying to activate without the help of Cayla. The movement of energy needed to be so precise in order to achieve the level of power and spatial manipulation and it was on a level she couldn't even approach at this moment.

Creating a wall of briar thorns around her to buy her time for recovery, Alice wanted to find some cover when a draconic head burst out from the ground and clenched its jaw, colliding against the walls of the thorn cage.

Realising that she had made a mistake out of desperation, Alice created a mirror to escape this predicament.

*BANG!!!

Watching the jaw crush the cage in an Armageddon of flames and lightning, Alice could feel sweat dripping down her back while Rita appeared above her.

Pulling her arm back, her limb transformed to mimic that of a dragon's as she slashed towards Alice with her claw.

*KRKK!!!!

Blocking the claw with her arm, Alice could feel the jagged nails tear through her flesh and bones as though it was butter before digging into her thigh.

Glaring at Rita who suddenly cracked open her mask to reveal the mutated innards of a dragon mixed with signs that used to be Rita's body, Alice widened her eyes as alarm bells rang out in her mind.

In a split second, energy gravitated towards Rita's mouth as a golden orb formed between her jaws.

*BANG!!!

Alice tried to use her blood to create a blood mirror in front of her but it was barely able to form before a torrent of energy collided with the surface.

Half of it was teleported away while the other half shredded apart Alice's right side.

Gritting her teeth, Alice traded places with Alyss as their Resonance began to shift.

From the remains of the red spider lily, violet flames burst forth, wrapping around Alyss's body as the wounds began to twitch. Countless tiny limbs burst out from the flesh, sewing itself together and starting to reconstruct the missing half of Alyss while she created floating flaming blades to keep Rita busy.

Feeling wary of the violet flames, Rita jumped back and created duplicate spears to ward off the blades before twisting her body and throwing her spear at Alyss.

Leaning down, Alice pivoted on her right foot and slammed her left heel against the shaft of the spear.

*BANG!!!

Knocking it off course, she flinched at the lightning and fire trying to tear apart her foot but thankfully, her violet flames managed to hold off the attack and heal the wound.

'What now twinnie? My regeneration can't keep up with how much damage we're taking. It's already slowed down this much.' Alyss asked, raising her hand as they could still see the bone while the flesh was stitching itself together.

Looking at Rita who flicked her wrist and conjured a spiral of flames that condensed into another spear, Alyss forced a brave smile despite having no idea on how to stop this monster of an opponent.

Scrambling her brain, Alice found herself coming on empty.

Rita is fast, too fast even and with enough firepower to breach Alice's defences. Not that her defences were great to begin with.

On top of that, she was wary of all their tricks. It took Alice everything to keep up with the sudden attacks that Rita was throwing out due to her blind spot.

'It'll be easier if I could still use-' Pausing the moment she had this thought, Alice shook her head.

Kaden was right, she was relying on Cayla and Void Fang far too much to the point that even when she thought she was being careful enough, her thoughts still drifted towards the two.

'We fight and we struggle. Like we always have.' Alice smiled as Alyss let out a laugh.

'Damn right! Let's go!'

Charging towards Rita, Alyss transformed their sixth Sigil into that of the Abyss Lord of Duality!

Coating her hands in a layer of violet flames, Alyss punched the side of the spear.

Once the spear was knocked off course, she released a palm strike against Rita's chest before flipping controls with Alice in an instant.

Snapping her fingers, Alice jumbled Rita's motor controls and gathered her blood into a single needle.

Flicking the needle towards Rita who wanted to slash it apart with her spear only for her to take a step towards the needle, she widened her eyes and gritted her teeth.

*BANG!!!

Letting out a pulse of lightning and fire, she knocked the needle aside as it exploded into a giant wall of spider lilies and briar thorns. Sweating from the thought of having that explode in her body, Rita was shocked to see Alyss appear from behind the wall.

Slamming both palms against Rita's stomach, she followed up by grabbing Rita's arm and pulled her into a shoulder charge.

While Rita was stumbling back and fumbling around with her motor functions, trying to figure out which was which, Alice took over and fired a point-blank Void Flux at Rita's chest!

*CRACK!!!

For the first time, a splinter of damage appeared on Rita's armour as their constant efforts to focus on one area began to show itself.

Both Alice and Alyss were subjected to the same motor functions as Rita but as the ones who set the parameters, it was much easier for them to adjust to the changes.

Of course, it wasn't perfect but by sticking to simple movements and mostly focusing on energy control, they were able to skip this gap.

'Seems like Rita's figured it out twinnie.' Alyss chuckled upon seeing Rita gather energy around her, forming an array of spears.

'Yep. Now we hit her with the jumble part two, electric boogaloo.' Alice laughed, flipping the controls for energy control while resorting the motor functions.

Taking over the offence, Alyss rushed into Rita's range as the spears diverted from Rita's intended path.

Releasing a triple kick on the thighs, chest and head, Alyss reinforced her body using partial bloodline release before following up with a roundhouse kick against the face, knocking Rita back as she tumbled against the ground.

Shaking her head, she noticed her controls returning to normal as she tried to get up only for her motor functions to get flipped once more.

*BANG!!!

From above, Alice had teleported in and slammed a Void Flux against Rita's back, shredding a part of her wing as red spider lilies began to bloom.

Punching the ground, Rita conjured an array of spears around her to stab towards Alice who swapped with Alyss and kicked the weakened spears aside.

Stomping against Rita's back, she dug her fingers into the wings as flames roared out from her body.

*KRKKK!!!!

The sound of muscle fibres snapping rang out as Alyss tore off Rita's wings while blood poured from her wound.

In this onslaught of constantly shifting controls and confusion, Rita found herself unable to fight back!