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“Hey, are you sure you want to fight me in front of two dragons?” Malvina asked, raising an eyebrow at Tafel. “What if they take advantage of our fight to deal with us?”
“You’re the only one they’d be dealing with, so that’s fine by me,” Tafel said and nodded. She placed her hands on her hips and glared at the phoenix towering over her. “If you’re scared, you can always back down.”
Malvina stared as mana flowed from Vur to Tafel, the traces imbued with different elemental energies. Silver wisps of smoke were also leaking out of Vur’s body and floating towards the demon before sinking into her skin. “A dragon selfless enough to buff another person? Interesting,” Malvina said. “It just goes to show new things are always appearing no matter how old you get.” The phoenix squinted at Tafel before hiccoughing. “Since it looks like you’re serious about fighting me, what else can I do but fight back?”
Tafel retreated backwards as the air roiled around Malvina’s body. Phoenix flames blossomed into existence all around Malvina, and the queen of the phoenix’s eyes shone with a blood-red light. “World of Fire!” Malvina cried out and spread her wings. The phoenix flames ballooned and expanded with a crackling roar, filling the whole residence without burning a single tree or piece of grass.
Tafel raised her arm up in front of her face to shield her eyes from the sudden wave of heat. At the same time, her forehead shone with a blood-red light as her imprint appeared on her skin. Phoenix flames of her own appeared around her body, pushing away Malvina’s all-encompassing fire. Although the demon had forced Malvina’s flames away from her body, the phoenix’s flames still completely surrounded her. Tafel’s horns glowed silver as a portal opened by her side, and she placed her arm inside, retrieving Chi’Rururp, her trusty, eyeball-having, acid-spitting sword.
“A sword?” Malvina asked and raised an eyebrow. “Of all the weapons to pick, why a sword?” She raised her right leg, flashing her talons at Tafel; each curved claw longer than the demon’s weapon. The phoenix’s root bracelet flashed with an amber light, and a red, crystal sphere appeared in the phoenix’s grasp. “You must not have a lot of experience fighting other phoenixes, huh?”
Tafel’s lips curved downwards into a frown. It was true she didn’t have much experience fighting phoenixes unless the occasional small squabbles she had with Emile counted. She wasn’t going to let that discourage her though. “Haste me, Chi’Rururp,” Tafel said. She narrowed her eyes at Malvina as she gripped her sword with both hands and pointed the tip of the blade at the phoenix. The demon’s sword chanted, and a clockface appeared underneath Tafel, the hour and minute hands spinning rapidly.
Malvina glanced at Vur and Volearden. The two dragons were sitting on their haunches, staring at her and Tafel. If the queen of the phoenixes weren’t drunk, she might’ve been unsettled by the way they were looking at her, but she was drunk, so she didn’t care. As long as she maintained her distance from the dragons and defeated Tafel without showing any openings for the dragons to take advantage of, she’d be fine. It didn’t seem to be too difficult to do because Tafel was fighting more like a human than a phoenix for some reason.
Malvina narrowed her eyes at the demon and squeezed the red sphere she held in her talons. The phoenix flames from her World of Fire skill swirled and condensed, forming blood-red spears of fire that floated around and pointed at Tafel from all directions—save for the ground. “Phoenixes fight with fire,” Malvina said as the orb she held in her talons lit up. The spears rotated in place, each one roaring and crackling as they increased in size. “Your sword isn’t even an extinguisher weapon. What exactly are you trying to do?” Either Malvina was too drunk to understand her opponent’s master plan, or her opponent was a complete novice. The latter seemed much more likely since Tafel had only entered the tower recently. “Unless you have some sort of trick up your sleeve, this is going to end faster than Erin can drink a bottle of wine.”
Tafel pursed her lips as she used her peripheral vision to observe the spears while keeping her gaze focused on the phoenix ahead. Although she didn’t know how long it took Erin to drink a bottle of wine, Tafel still understood Malvina’s intention. The demon snorted. “Don’t underestimate me,” she said as her horns glowed silver. Despite the distance between herself and Malvina, Tafel swung Chi’Rururp downwards. Two portals appeared, one where Tafel was slashing, and one by Malvina’s side. The demon’s sword entered the portal and cut Malvina’s wing, causing the queen of the phoenixes to squawk as the left side of her body burst into flames. Her right side combusted as well, and the phoenix reappeared in the air above Tafel.
“If that were an extinguisher weapon, you might’ve hurt me,” Malvina said and shook her head. She clutched her crystal sphere and raised it up, lifting her foot until it was at the same level as her chest. The flaming spears surged ahead towards Tafel, drilling through the air as they rotated and billowed out heat.
Tafel’s horns glowed silver, and a portal appeared beside her. She leapt through, avoiding the spears while appearing behind Malvina. Icy snakes emerged from the tip of Chi’Rururp, and they circled the weapon like blue chains. With a grunt, Tafel stabbed her sword forward into Malvina’s body, but the phoenix’s flesh turned into fire, and the demon’s weapon harmlessly passed through. Despite the heat, the icy snakes didn’t melt; instead, they lashed out, biting wildly at every part of the phoenix’s body.
“Ow!” Malvina said and slapped at the snakes with her wings while twisting her torso away from Tafel. “Stop it!” The queen of the phoenixes glared at the demon after beating all the icy snakes into pieces. “First you use a sword, and now you use ice magic. Are you sure you’re a phoenix?” Malvina nodded. “No wonder why Vur wanted me to teach you how to fight like a phoenix; you’re terrible at this.”
A dark expression appeared on Tafel’s face. She had received her phoenix imprint not too long ago, so it made sense for her to be terrible under Malvina’s standard, but it still stung a bit to hear.