Cineris was standing guard over Neva, who was sitting cross-legged beside the trunk and concentrating on the small thread. The thread was starting to react to her and was beginning to move as she commanded. But from the looks of it, an adequate amount of time would be required for it to be completely subdued.

  Concentrating hard, Cineris wove a small barrier made of compressed fire elementals around Neva and the trunk. The barrier was also reinforced with her elemental energy. She would not allow even the slightest disturbance under her watch.

  The shadow hiding in the dark was completely silent, waiting for the right moment to strike. If the moment didn't come, then it would simply retreat to safety.

  The process of subduing the thread continued for an unknown amount of time. Since Ascenders could sustain themselves on energy alone, Cineris was not able to get a proper grasp of time after her stomach first growled. Was it a day or two days ago, she imagined. The thread was starting to thrash wildly now and then, showing its resistance.

  From the behavior of the thread, it seemed that it was a very strong trait to even force Neva to spend a considerable amount of time. However, in due time, it was slowly being tamed.

  Neva was completely focused on the thread. Her eyes were glowing with a bright cyan color, and her Soul Vision was working at full power. Slowly, she was trying to guide the thread toward her Seventh Nexus Ring, but after every small distance covered, she would feel everything around her freeze in place, and the thread would struggle to free itself. It was highly likely related to freezing.

  Neva continued her efforts without rest. Her head was starting to ache, and the Nexus Rings, which were continuously providing energy, were also starting to dry up. She had to funnel elementals into them at certain intervals to keep them recharged. The thread had an absolute superiority over the elementals. Hence they could not be used against it, and only elemental energy was the option.

  Slowly and steadily, the thread finally touched the ring that had materialized in front of Neva. The thread tried to free itself, but the cyan ring held on tight.

  "Arghhh!" Neva let out a guttural roar. She had imbued traits before, but they were never this painful. She felt her soul being branded by something foreign that was trying to take it over. It was taking all her willpower just to keep her consciousness intact and keep the external force at bay. She didn't have the strength to pay even an ounce of attention to her surroundings.

  Even Cineris was deeply puzzled by this. She had observed other Ascenders imbuing strong traits into their Nexus Rings in the Church of Fire. But they had never faced this much difficulty. The temperature of the surroundings was also starting to drop. Just when she thought it could not get any worse, it actually did.

  She felt her responses slow down. Her mind was processing the changes in herself, but her body was refusing to obey. A glinting dark dagger appeared right in front of her forehead, just a finger's length away from piercing her.

  Just as the assassin was about to finish off his target, he froze in place. Several brightly burning fire rings had suddenly appeared at his feet. Large whips emerged from those rings and covered his whole body. Then, as if receiving some sort of signal, they started to burn the captor, soul and body.

  A slight trickle of sweat ran down Cineris's temples. Her eyes were focused on the perpetrator, who was silently bearing the brunt of the fire. She counted herself lucky for having an Ascension Spell that prevented the movement of her enemy; otherwise, she would have at least been seriously injured from the sudden attack, if not dead. But her relief was short-lived.

  A cluster of dark spikes appeared from all around the room, their tips focusing on Neva. Resisting the Ascension Spell, the dark masked man raised his right hand and flicked his fingers. Simultaneously, all the spikes were launched. And from the power radiating from them, Cineris could tell that they would be able to destroy her current setup of protection and attack Neva.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Damn it! she shouted in her mind and jumped near Neva. At the same time, her Ascension Spell was dispelled. Gathering all the fire elementals in the surroundings, she formed a large fire sphere around herself and Neva. This was further enhanced by her elemental energy. The dark spikes collided with the fire elementals and destroyed a large chunk of them, but still, the wall held.

  After all of them were exhausted, the fire sphere was still intact. In coordination with this, the dark masked man had also healed himself nearly completely. Right then, Cineris felt a burning pain throughout her body. She realized that the penalty for breaking the rules of her Ascension Spell was hitting her.

  An invisible fire was spreading in her body, intent on devouring her. She started to circulate her elemental energy, but to no avail. Clutching her chest, she fell to her knees, the pain unbearable. But luckily for her, the fire sphere, constructed from half her elemental energy, was just enough to prevent her opponent from approaching her or Neva.

  As for Neva, her consciousness was completely detached from the occurrences in her surroundings. Her sole focus was the thread, which had become more docile and was swiftly merging with her Nexus Ring. The process was slow at first, gradually getting faster and faster, with fewer errors occurring during the whole process.

  Cineris lay crumpled on the ground, tightly clutching her chest, snot running down her nose. Although she tried to conceal it, the pain was so terrible that she preferred death over it. Just the memory of her dreams to stand among those great beings kept her sane. After what felt like an eternity to her, the pain finally started to lessen. And simultaneously, the protective shielding also broke from the attacks of the masked man.

  The next moment, Cineris felt a blade touch and pierce her forehead. Dark flames started to surge through her body from the point of contact. At some point, she had taken out and was clutching a red gem. In a split moment, all her remaining elemental energy vanished, and the gem was absorbed into her hand. A red fire emerged from the wound on her forehead and attacked her adversary. The dark fire infiltrating from her forehead was also completely dispelled.

  Caught off guard by this turn of events, the masked man was engulfed in a pillar of red fire. But this was not enough to stop him this time. Although the move was powerful, its power was scattered in all directions without a proper target, making it easy to counter. The pillar vanished after all the elemental energy used to summon it was spent. The masked man was going to finish off his target when a soft, melodious voice entered his ears: "Freeze." He jumped back and hurriedly checked his body. But there were no obvious changes to him.

  Cineris looked ahead with blurred eyes. Although she had recovered from the Ascension Spell reflux, her body was still in great agony due to the exhaustion of all her elemental energy. A soft, cold hand was placed on her head, and a voice gently said with definite certainty, "Rest. I'll handle the rest." Cineris's heart, which was jumping like a wild deer, finally relaxed at these words, and she gently closed her eyes, falling asleep.

  Neva gently placed the unconscious Cineris to the side and looked at the man. He was wearing completely dark clothes, his face covered with a black mask. Gazing into his sharp eyes, she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "You will die." There was no emotion in her voice, just the tone of completing a chore.

  Although he had a higher rank than the girl in front of him, the masked man was feeling a keen sense of danger from her. His mind was blaring with alarms, warning him to run without looking back. The only thing keeping him anchored here was the lack of a proper escape route. Even accessing the Void Realm was impossible from this closed-off place.

  Neva started to slowly walk toward him. Seemingly not finding a way out, the man charged at her. Reaching her in an instant, he swung his dagger down. It was encased in a dark black energy, greatly elongating its length. Neva didn't react to it and let it approach her. Just when it seemed she would have her head pierced, she gently sidestepped and avoided it.

  The masked man was completely baffled by this. He was sure she would definitely be hit. He had used his Ascension Spell to slow her body down, and from feeling, he could tell the spell was still active.

  He once again attacked Neva, but the result was the same. For some inexplicable reason, she was able to easily dodge his attacks at the last moment.

  After getting accustomed to the use of her new power, Neva didn't dodge the recent attack but instead punched out in front of her. Her punch connected with the gut of her opponent before the swinging dagger touched her neck, and the masked man was thrown back.

  "Let's begin round two," she declared, her tone a lot colder than before, and a silent, cold rage dripped from her narrowed eyes.