Both orbs moved at the same time.
The instant they left their hands, the air between Damon and Ivy collapsed.
There was no sound at first.
Just a thin distortion in space where crimson heat and absolute cold met.
Then, they collided.
A deafening crack split the battlefield as if reality itself had been struck.
The ground beneath them caved inward.
A shockwave tore outward in every direction, ripping through shattered stone and scorched earth.
"Ugh—!" Nyla was forced back, her boots dragging across the ground as she raised an arm to shield herself from the pressure alone.
Even the serpent Damon had summoned recoiled slightly, its form flickering under the unstable clash of opposing forces.
At the center of it all, the two orbs pressed against each other.
Crimson fire pushed against absolute frost.
Despite the two oppressive forces clashing against one another, neither advanced.
For a moment, they looked perfectly even.
Then something shifted.
A faint crack formed inside the black orb.
Damon noticed it instantly.
The crack spread until the black orb shuddered and collapsed.
The moment Damon’s construct failed, the compressed crimson force surged forward.
It didn’t explode.
It pierced.
A streak of condensed flame tore through the battlefield too fast to follow, swallowing the remaining frost in its path.
Damon tried to evade using Dimensional Step, but before his thoughts could even reach for the ability, the beam of crimson caught him.
His body was thrown through the smoke and debris, carving a trail through broken stone before finally slamming into the far edge of the battlefield.
A moment of silence followed, broken quickly by Nyla’s scream. "No!"
The crimson glow faded a second later, leaving only drifting ash and smoke behind.
Ivy stood where she had been, her arm still extended, but her breathing was more controlled now.
Damon pushed himself up slowly from the rubble.
One arm hung loosely at his side.
The sleeve was gone.
The skin beneath was burned and fractured, blackened by residual heat that refused to dissipate.
He looked at it once, then let out a long exhale.
"...So that’s what I missed."
His voice carried faint amusement.
Through the settling smoke, Ivy’s figure became visible to him once again.
Seeing she was still alive, she lowered her arm.
"You copied it correctly," she said calmly. "The structure. The flow. Even the intent."
She stepped forward once.
"But not the stabilising delay."
Damon tilted his head slightly.
Ivy’s gaze didn’t waver.
"The orb wasn’t meant to be released immediately. It needed time to compress itself into a state that wouldn’t collapse under its own output."
Her eyes sharpened slightly.
"You tried to cast it like an ability. But it isn’t one."
Damon looked at his ruined arm again.
Then smiled.
’Just like I thought.’
Even in the short moment of defeat, with his Heavenly Comprehension active the whole time, he caught a glimpse of what he missed. The orb needed to be pressurised to maintain its structure, something he thought he could wing rather than truly follow.
His smile slowly faded as his expression turned to something colder.
Enough games.
It was time to put an end to this.
Black frost began to crawl over his forearm.
It moved slowly at first, before spreading faster and faster.
The broken flesh tightened as the cold seeped inward, forcibly reconstructing structure rather than simply healing it.
A second technique layered beneath it followed, one he hadn’t used before.
When he first returned to Earth and copied the classes of everyone in the third citadel, he managed to get a healer class. It wasn’t nearly as strong as Victor’s class, which was able to regrow limbs, but when layered beside his Black Ice, it was nearly as good.
His arm began to regenerate at an unnatural speed.
Damon flexed his fingers once.
"...That’s better."
He looked up at Ivy again.
"I’ll make this fast."
Ivy raised her arm again, and this time her movements seemed a little more hurried as she began to weave a second orb without delay.
Damon didn’t let her.
He reached her with Dimensional Step before the orb could pressurise correctly.
Ivy didn’t simply dismiss the attack.
She deliberately shattered the orb and used the surging flames to counter.
But despite her superior speed, her attack only whistled past an empty air as Damon’s sword struck from the side.
She held on to life for a second longer, her eyes locking onto his before he pulled the sword out, and her body collapsed to the ground for the third and final time.
As the mana inside her body surged again, Damon’s understanding of the Resurrection technique finally reached the threshold.
[Your Comprehension of the *Resurrection* is Now Complete.]
Of course, despite having a complete understanding of the technique, he couldn’t simply use it whenever he pleased. Only the leader of the Phoenix Clan had the authority to use and grant use of it.
And that leader was now Ivy.
Damon kept his gaze on Ivy even as the notification faded from his vision.
He understood the implication immediately. Comprehension did not mean control, and if he hoped to use the technique to end the quest, then he needed her to allow it.
Across the field, Ivy’s body lay still for a moment longer than before.
The heat around her did not fully disperse this time. Instead, it lingered in uneven strands, as if something within her was trying to reassemble itself without following the usual cycle.
Damon noticed the difference.
Although there was no limit to the Resurrection technique, it still took a great toll on the user’s mental health.
Dying wasn’t easy, especially not if done more than once, and as his gaze moved to Ivy, who was now slowly rising to her feet, he saw someone whose earlier conviction began to falter.
Her breathing was steady, but there was a slight delay to her movements, as if her mind and body weren’t fully aligned yet. Her eyes lingered across the battlefield for longer than they should have before finally settling on Damon.
He didn’t move.
The silence between them stretched, no longer shaped by combat urgency, but by something more uncertain.
"Let’s talk," he said.