Ashton floated in the void, eyes sharp and calculating as always. A grin pulled at the edge of his lips, oozing confidence.
"Let's continue our fight, shall we?" he said smoothly.
Across from him, Maga held her position, silent and observant. She wasn't reckless—she'd sensed it the moment he opened his mouth. That confident aura. The way he stood still, grounded in space like he owned every atom around them.
He's dangerous, she thought. Facing him head-on would be suicide.
Ashton tilted his head slightly.
"Oh? Not attacking right away?" he mused. "That's rather precocious of you. But you don't need to come to me." He smiled darkly. "Just stay right… there."
Then it happened.
A sudden, crushing gravitational force erupted around Maga like an invisible mountain. Her body was yanked downward, smashing violently into the replicated earth below—so hard that she pierced straight through the planetary shell and came out the other side, falling into the silent, yawning vacuum of space. The world behind her cracked and crumbled from the impact, and where land once floated, a black void now remained.
She barely had time to catch her breath before Ashton appeared above her like a descending god. His axe, wrapped in dense gravity, crashed into her with the force of a supernova. She spiraled backward, crashing through artificial planets and satellites like glass. He pursued without pause, trapping her inside a tightening gravitational field, squeezing her from all directions.
Then—a final blow.
His gravity-fueled axe connected again, hurling her from the center of the replica solar system into the desolate outer void. She vanished into the abyss.
Ashton hovered calmly, brushing invisible dust from his shoulder.
"Hmph," he scoffed. "I knew it. The fight was over the moment I decided to go all out. What a waste."
But then… in that same void—something stirred.
A light flickered.
A single pulse, faint but resolute, beating from within the chest of the fallen angel. It glimmered like a heartbeat in the dark. Then it grew. Brighter. Louder. Stronger.
The fallen became righteous.
Empowered by the Divine Himself, a transformation rippled through Maga. Zail—now sacred energy—burst from her being in radiant blue flames. It wrapped around her like a celestial mantle, brighter than any star in Ashton's replicated galaxy. Her eyes opened, filled not with anger… but divine clarity.
A shooting star carved its way back toward the battlefield.
Ashton's eyes narrowed as the void before him lit up like a supernova. He instinctively shielded his face, even as his eyelids squeezed shut—yet the light still pierced through.
He opened them again, blinking rapidly.
There she was.
Maga.
Alive. Transformed. Cloaked in brilliant blue zail. She looked… unstoppable.
"You're still alive?" he hissed. "What is this light? You should be dead by now so….. how?."
He put his axe away and clenched his fists, commanding gravity to crush her where she hovered—but nothing happened.
She hovered effortlessly in defiance of his realm.
And then—she moved.
In a flash of light, her sword sliced cleanly through his arm. He gasped—but the limb regenerated instantly. It didn't matter. His confidence had cracked.
He retaliated, summoning a pulser, firing a concentrated blast of gravitational energy directly at her.
But it reflected, reversed, and struck him instead—sending him reeling into the void beyond.
He gritted his teeth, suspended in space. She's faster. Stronger. Different. Her power… it had grown beyond measure.
She came at him like an asteroid slicing through the cosmos—fluid, unrelenting, unpredictable. Her form was everywhere, striking from impossible angles.
A sudden uppercut sent Ashton's jaw snapping upward. He ascended helplessly, only to be caught mid-air and slammed down again by Maga—this time into the path he had just been thrown.
The replica realm trembled.
"I take it…" Ashton wheezed, trying to recover. "…this is the power of the Divine."
Maga hovered above him, her zail burning like a blue sun.
"Yes. He has lent us a portion of His power for this battle." She clenched her weapon. "And it looks like you're finally realizing you can't keep up."
Ashton's expression twisted.
"Why you—!"
"Still don't get the difference in our strength?" she interrupted. "Fine. I'll show you."
She raised her hand, her aura flaring.
"There was a technique I could never perform before. I lacked the zail for it. But not anymore. Prepare yourself, Ashton… because your reality is about to be turned on its head."
She whispered two words:
"INVERTED WORLD."
In an instant, the very fabric of space warped. Colors flipped. White became black. Light became shadow. Time felt like it twisted in on itself.
They were transported into a completely different dimension.
The Inverted World.
Maga's voice echoed through the strange new realm.
"Welcome… to my world."
Ashton turned slowly, eyes scanning the bizarre, color-reversed environment. Everything familiar had been distorted. Stars glowed dark, while voids pulsed with light.
"Hmph. Another alternate dimension? Like my own?" he said dismissively. "I'm not impressed. Let me guess—I can't use portals to escape this one either."
"Correct," Maga replied. "I've inverted your replicated realm. The rules that once favored you? They now answer to me."
She raised her hand.
Suddenly, the very gravity around Ashton collapsed inward, forming a singularity around his body. He groaned, struggling against the force—but then it suddenly reversed, snapping back and releasing a devastating wave of warped energy across the dimension.
"So this is what my enemies felt like," Ashton gasped. "Tch. Still won't be enough!"
He replicated himself—three copies forming beside him, standing back-to-back to form a full-circle defense. They prepared for her charge.
But Maga didn't strike—not immediately.
Suddenly all four Ashtons seemed to be facing each other. This was as a result of her inversion.
She laughed.
"That was hilarious," she said through a grin. "Watching all four of you face each other."
And then—she struck.
In a flash, she passed through all four Ashtons, obliterating the formation entirely. Gravity twisted. The realm itself cracked.
She raised her hand.
"Enough jokes." Her eyes glowed. "I'll crush you… and this dimension with you."
She snapped her fingers.
And the Inverted World began to collapse.
Ashton screamed as the walls of Maga's world closed in on him, trapping him in a prison of his own former power. Space fractured. The sky shattered. His body was locked in place—immobile—as the dimension crumbled.
Maga turned her back, stepping through the breach that led back to the real world.
She didn't look back.
The battle was over.