Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

The blow to her jaw lifted Reyna off her feet and the few seconds she was in the air and without the support of solid ground was seen as an opportunity for an even harder strike to her midsection.

Before the blow could connect though, Reyna blasted large amounts of fire from her body and used it to propel herself backward and away from Melinda's reach.

This was the first time Reyna would make use of her affinity with frames since this battle began and the reason she had not used it so far was that she knew of Melinda's Ordinance and did not wish to give her enemy even more of an advantage.

That said, using it to escape and using it in such a smooth transition that Melinda could not react fast enough to control the said flames was still a valid option.

The moment she was back on solid ground, Reyna swallowed a mending pill to heal the wound to her thigh.

The pill closed up the wound and stopped the bleeding but the pain, which was increased because of Melinda's use of flame Ordinance during the attack, remained and she would have to fight through it.

Meanwhile, Melinda furrowed her brows at her opponent's quick escape and then charged her speed with a boost of fire to once again attack Reyna who gritted her teeth at the pain in her thigh before raising a gauntlet to block the sword.

In that grain, both women engaged in close combat of gauntlets and dragon scales against sword and Ordinance flames.

Melinda was much more alert in regards to her body as well as the surroundings and so she was able to avoid getting struck by Gauntlet and the darkness that would cripple the use of her Ordinance.

That said, Reyna was not even trying to do so as she accurately judged that her opponent was prepared for this and it would be a waste of what was already a limited and finite resource.

Instead, the dragon lady had her arms shrouded in the energy of her Semi-Transcendent Aunt with the darkness Ordinance mixed in and used it to defend against Melinda's use of flame Ordinance which ensured that the battle remained at a stalemate.

While she did not let it show on her face and was smiling all through the battle, Reyna was actually quite upset.

She still remembered when she had last met Hal and Melinda... She had been so above their leagues that they had to join forces to fight her...

Now here she was, unable to defeat one of them on her own and even now having to rely on a gauntlet that she had been given to be able to contend with peak Pagoda experts.

She found the situation to be annoying and that annoyance actually boosted her ferociousness in attacks but even then she could not have the upper hand.

But for all of Reyna's frustrations, Melinda was just as frustrated or even more in fact...

She was fighting at full strength and she still had not been able to land a decisive and final hit on her opponent

Melinda had no intention of killing Reyna, she just wanted to win but so far because of the energy within the Gauntlets, she had been unable to do so.

She had even tried to pry gauntlets off Reyna's arms but that had been unsuccessful mostly because the more contact she made with the gauntlets, the faster it was for the darkness to track into her body.

Trying to use her sword to cut it off was also useless as any contact of her ordinance shrouded sword with any of the Gauntlets would result in a complete shut off of her flames and Reyna was not standing still long enough to let it happen regardless.

Not even the trick she had used with Hal's runes could work anymore because, just like Melinda, Reyna was also more aware of her body and was more than ready to pick up any touches on her body, no matter how light.

While it didn't have the same range as the energy produced by Semi-Saints, Semi-transcendent experts also possess extendable energy that they could at least pass away from their body up to a limited range that energy could affect runes just like semi-saint energy.

Anyway, Melinda now had a strategy and she did not like i... Her strategy was to wait out the energy of the gauntlets and go in for a definitive strike once the energy was used up.

She especially hated this strategy of hers because it had her reducing the amount of energy she expended so that she still had much to use when the energy within Reyna's gauntlets was used up and while she did this, Reyna got to land more strikes.

Her plan was helped by Reyna's cockiness...

The dragon lady laughed out loud in boisterous sounds when she was able to avoid a sword stroke that seemed intent on popping off her head (but had actually been purposely slowed and was made less powerful by Melinda) and bent down to claw Melinda's midsection.

The action (the clawing that quickly followed a dodge by Reyna) had been so fast that Melinda could not react in time to avoid getting clawed and she staggered backward which signaled an even bigger descent into a defensive stance.

The clawing was deep and Reyna did not give Melinda the chance to retrieve or use a mending pill she closes in on the golden-eyed beauty immediately.

Through it all, Melinda did not stop making use of the flames of her bloodline as well as the flames of her Ordinance but that did not help her much as she was now much slower and her attacks less impactful.

Reyna blamed all this on the injury that she had caused her opponent and it further stoked her ego.

She was still careful and took no chances against her opponent but the satisfaction of being the dominant of the two battling sides showed through it all...

Maybe unconsciously out of excitement, maybe deliberately for the same reason, but the more convinced of victory Reyna was, the more Semi-transcendent energy she used.

Even when she finally reached the end of the energy within her gauntlets, she was not dismayed... This had been the plan all along.

Her opponent was down so Reyna felt the use up of the energy was well worth it.

Melinda was on the ground, her Sword cosmic Armament was fallen to the side more than a few meters from where she was... The claw wounds on her abdomen as well as other lacerations and injuries that Reyna had caused her were still bleeding and all combined presented her image as the defeated side of the battling duo.

Reyna straddled Melinda and had her knees on both of the golden-eyed beauty's arms as though to pin them to the ground and take away the chances of Melinda making a move with them.

She placed a gauntlet by Melinda's face with a smile and chuckled at how the golden-eyed lady had her mouth sealed shut as though to stop the sound of pain from leaking out.

"I've won," Reyna said and the last wisp of Semi-Transcendent energy escaped the gauntlet just as the dragon lady drew back her hand and prepared to deliver a final killing blow to her opponent.

Her black eyes were glinting with pride at having been able successfully to defeat an Ordinance-wielding human and especially one that obviously had a large repertoire of attacks.

Before she could even think of bringing down her claws though, Melinda suddenly smirked and said,

"Have you?"

As soon as she spoke those words, Reyna felt her insides heating up but this was not like what she had felt inside the white inferno... This was not caused by Melinda's Ordinance.

She was right, the heat she was feeling was not because of Melinda's Ordinance but rather Melinda's bloodline or more accurately, they were caused by the flames of Melinda's Dane bloodline... A bloodline that is intolerantly vicious to bloodlines that do not follow the Primeval Virtue Queen's virtues.

The flames were not really attacking Reyna's body but were instead attacking her bloodline... They were attacking the Dragon bloodline with intolerant viciousness.

Such subtle use of the Dane bloodline flames were the likes of which no other Dane was capable of...

To use flames to attack an opponent's bloodline from within required a lot of direct contact and was only possible for Melinda because of how close she was to the progenitor of the bloodline.

It was only going to be active for one minute or so and the easiest and most effective solution to it for Reyna was the use of Semi-Transcendent or Semi-saint energy which Reyna currently no longer had.

Attacking Reyna's bloodline, the flames depowered the dragon lady and she lost her scales as well as her hybrid form and Melinda wasted no time shaking her off of her body.

"Nnnghhhh... Arggghhh... What the hell?" Reyna yelled but Melinda ignored it all and got to work.

She had only one about fifty-five seconds and quickly got to work on her depowered opponent...