After long preparations, Solara was ready to use the Core to face Reimu. The life energy, present in abundance in the air around her, had been drawn and absorbed toward her like a silent, natural call, allowing her to deploy an extraordinary power — one that far surpassed what she showed under normal circumstances. The golden markings running across her skin pulsed with regularity, like a second heartbeat.
Reimu observed Solara's new form with a meticulous, calculating gaze. He thought inwardly. "She was always with Nova back then, but I didn't think she would master the Core. Looking at her power now, she even surpasses Nova… but will she be able to sustain it?"
But he didn't have time to finish his thought. Solara charged at him without the slightest hesitation, so fast that Reimu only had time to cross his arms to block the attack. But Solara's blow deployed such a colossal striking force that Reimu's body was hurled backward for several kilometers. His silhouette tore through buildings, walls, and heaps of debris without the slightest resistance, as if those obstacles didn't exist, before crashing heavily to the ground with a dull roar.
Reimu's Imperial Armor, at both arms, cracked and crumbled into fragments. He spat blood, his lungs compressed, his breathing labored. He thought, forcing himself to stay calm. "What raw power. Clearly, if I don't take her seriously, my fate will be fatal."
In an instant, all of Reimu's senses awoke. He raised his head toward the sky and saw Solara falling upon him like a comet. He leapt to the side to dodge — the impact she created on hitting the ground produced an immense shockwave that destroyed everything around it, reducing the last debris to dust.
In the air, Reimu followed up with a devastating stream of fire directed at Solara. The flames engulfed her. Her body was covered in burns, her clothes caught fire. But she emerged from the bath of flames without slowing, propelled herself at full speed toward Reimu and struck him head-on, slamming him into the ground in an immense crater that opened beneath the impact.
Focused and relentless, Solara didn't waste a second and charged at Reimu again. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning crashed down into the crater. The next second, Reimu appeared in the air and met Solara's gaze before snapping his fingers.
Without warning, a rain of lightning bolts — each more powerful than the last — hammered the ground in rapid succession. They ravaged everything in their path, carving enormous craters, reducing buildings to ruins and asphalt to ash. The scene resembled a divine punishment, a localized apocalypse transforming the district into a lunar landscape.
Faced with this deluge of lightning, Solara formed a wave of water beneath her feet. She dodged the bolts with a disconcerting grace and elegance, weaving between each discharge as if she read them in advance. She then created a surface of ice beneath her and glided across it to gain speed, allowing her to take sharp turns without losing momentum.
Once the rain of lightning had subsided, Solara had drawn close to Reimu through her dodges. She formed a whip of water in her hand and launched it toward him. Reimu prepared to retaliate, but was caught off guard by the abnormally low trajectory of the whip, which aimed at his feet rather than his body.
The water whip reached Reimu's foot — and inside it was the chain usually attached to Solara's arm, which instantly coiled around his ankle. Using her herculean strength, Solara lifted Reimu as if he weighed nothing and slammed him violently into the ground, the crater widening beneath the impact. She followed without the slightest pause with her mastery of earth, drawing all the nearby rocks and debris together and fusing them into a giant fist five times her own size, which rose slowly into the air before crashing down upon Reimu with terrifying force.
Faced with that colossal fist, Reimu instinctively felt the mortal threat. He had no time to react. The impact ravaged the surroundings, plunging everything into a thick cloud of smoke. Solara thought for a moment she had pushed Reimu to his limits, but something in her senses whispered that the worst was still to come.
The smoke slowly dissipated. And Reimu's silhouette appeared, standing in the crater. A colossal mass of electricity pulsed around him, condensing progressively to take shape. The denser it grew, the more a massive creature became visible — a giant lightning serpent, at least fifty meters tall, its scales perpetually crackling with arcs of electricity.
In a cold and measured voice, a wide smile on his lips, Reimu said. "Allow me to introduce Raijūku, the lightning serpent."
Legend has it that in a very distant era, long before humans possessed the slightest power, the great elemental spirits — the only ones to master elemental aetherium in its purest form — had each concluded contracts with spirit animals. Extraordinary creatures to whom they had granted a fraction of their own power, sealing an eternal bond.
After the disappearance of the great elemental spirits and the gradual emergence of individuals capable of using elemental aetherium, the most talented and powerful among them learned to call upon the spirit animals corresponding to their element. This call allowed them to access powers and techniques that surpassed ordinary limits.
Raijūku was the totem animal of the spirit of lightning in ancient times. Its summoner could access the most devastating lightning techniques in existence. Known for its blinding speed and the brutal efficiency of its attacks — Raijūku, the lightning serpent.
Reimu turned his gaze toward Solara and pronounced a simple. "Die." The next second, the serpent opened its jaws wide. A bolt of lightning of insane power erupted from it — so blinding it dazzled everything within a radius of several hundred meters, so fast it was invisible to the naked eye, and so powerful that the electric charge it unleashed made even the heroes fighting far away shiver, all of them feeling the tremor of Raijūku's presence in the air.
Solara took the blow head-on, unable to dodge. The electric shock reduced everything around it to dust, leaving nothing behind. But as the smoke dissipated, a large circular and opaque form appeared, roughly a hundred meters in diameter. It opened slowly — and inside, Solara stood, intact, without the slightest additional wound. She said, a smile on her lips. "You're not the only one who can summon spirit animals. It will take far more than that if you want my life."
As she advanced, Solara had summoned through her mastery of earth: Khorum, the totem animal of the spirit of earth. Known for her robustness and her impenetrable defense, Khorum was both a defensive and offensive asset, capable of absorbing the most devastating attacks. Khorum, the earth mole.
Reimu grasped the weight of the situation. A cold fury rose within him — he could not stand Solara putting him in such difficulty. He rose into the air, ready to prepare a new attack alongside Raijūku. But suddenly, high above him, Khorum appeared. She curled into a ball and spun on herself at full speed before charging at Reimu. He had the reflex, however, to block the attack by catching her between Raijūku's fangs, which snapped shut like lightning.
But in the second that followed, Reimu sensed danger at his back. He barely had time to turn around before he saw a stone blade attached to a chain hurtling toward him. He managed nonetheless to catch the blade with his free hand, stopping it cold. But now that Raijūku was occupied holding Khorum and both of Reimu's hands were taken, Solara pulled with all her strength on the chain to close the distance at full speed.
Reimu saw the danger converging from two sides at once. He released the stone blade, crossed both hands, and said. "Raijūku, polar inversion. Inverted magnetic field." He mobilized all the electric charge accumulated by Raijūku and inverted the electric poles to generate an inverted magnetic field that repelled everything within a radius of two hundred and fifty meters.
In a single action, he shattered Khorum and dismantled the entire combination Solara had prepared. But this technique had exhausted Raijūku: too much power spent in too little time. The invocation could no longer be maintained and Raijūku disintegrated in the air, leaving Reimu alone.
Reimu thought it was over. But from the debris emerged a body. Solara was covered in scrapes, bruises, and several open wounds from which blood flowed freely. Her clothes, so clean at the start of the fight, were now soiled and torn. Blood stained her face and ran down her chin. And yet, the golden markings across her entire body still blazed, testament to a power that had never left her.
She was struggling to see clearly, and her breathing was growing increasingly irregular. But she remained standing, drawing on her last reserves with fierce tenacity. Reimu couldn't hide the surprise on his face — seeing Solara still standing after all of that struck him. He was sincerely impressed by her determination. But to him, she was merely delaying the inevitable.
What he could not deny, however, was that Solara had pushed him to use his most devastating techniques. And his Imperial Armor — so robust under normal circumstances — was crumbling apart and beginning to fall in tatters.
He activated his Shugan and formed his famous Heart Flames to consume Solara. But thanks to the Core, she sensed the attack in advance and managed to dodge it with a leap to the side. Reimu wasn't about to let that stand — the dark flames, black as the hatred buried deep within him, pursued her relentlessly from behind.
Solara kept running to avoid being touched, her instinct guiding her at every second to evade the flames that surged by surprise from all sides. But despite all her tenacity, the flames grazed her left foot and left hand, and began to burn her alive. She fell to the ground, collapsing on the spot, the fire gaining inexorably on her body.
Reimu wanted to make sure it was finished. He threw himself upon her, and from his weight emanated a dark and dense energy, so intense that blood ran from his eyes and nose. He didn't care. He struck Solara in the abdomen as she lay on the ground, the fire spreading across her arm and foot. Then he raised his arm to deliver a second blow. And as he was about to strike a third, Solara grabbed his collar with a sharp gesture, headbutted him, then sent a blazing kick into his abdomen.
She tried to rise after everything she had absorbed, spitting a large quantity of blood. But she smiled all the same, her lips bloodied. "You didn't hesitate to use the Eternity Strike. Be careful not to consume all your life — it would be foolish to die like that."
The Eternity Strike is one of the Shugan's powers. Its user consumes four months of their life expectancy to transform that vital energy into raw power, released in the form of a devastating strike. The more intense the user's rage at the moment of impact, the more devastating the attack. It is a fearsome technique, but its cost is irreversible.
Solara, who had struggled back to her feet, continued. "You underestimate me too much. I'm telling you — it will take far more than this."
Suddenly, the Heart Flames consuming Solara — renowned for never extinguishing before having reduced their target entirely to ash — began to lose ground. They shrank, flickered, then dissipated completely. At the same time, the mortal wound Reimu had inflicted on her abdomen closed before his eyes. The flesh reconstituting cleanly, the burns across her body vanishing one by one. Solara's regenerative abilities were so powerful that her body rebuilt itself faster than the flames could destroy it. That was why they had gone out.
Reimu bore the consequences of the excessive use of the Eternity Strike — his body was repaying the cost of that consumption of life. But what truly chilled him was realizing that the Core granted such regenerative abilities. However, from beneath his feet, stone spikes suddenly surged and immobilized him on the spot. He looked up toward Solara — but saw only an ice statue in her likeness. He thought, a cold alert crossing his mind. "She changed position… where is she? Where will she attack from?"
Reimu scanned the surroundings — left, right, above. Nothing. Then, beneath his feet, the ground opened without the slightest sound. Solara surged from the depths of the earth from behind, emerging like a shadow, and seized him by pinning both his arms along his body before he had time to make the slightest move. In the same fraction of a second, without hesitation, she bit firmly into his neck. Reimu let out a brief, sharp cry of pain — an instinctive, uncontrollable reaction that spoke volumes about the intensity of what he was feeling.
A few moments later, he felt a profound change take place inside his body. He understood. "She's injecting aetherium directly into my bloodstream — it's acting as a poison in my body. This woman wants to defeat me from within. I have to break free before things turn bad."
Reimu struggled in every direction to try to free himself, but Solara held him firmly, leaving no way out. However, in a fraction of a second, their gazes met. Reimu seized that infinitesimal instant to activate the Gaze Chains — a Shugan power capable of completely immobilizing his opponent for a brief moment. Paralyzed, Solara could do nothing. Reimu broke free from her grip. He thought as he moved away, breathless. "My entire body is paralyzed by this poison… if it had reached my heart by some misfortune…" The thought sent a chill down his spine. Seized by a boundless rage, he turned back toward Solara and attacked her with his Heart Flames to reduce her to ash.
The immobilization effect faded. Solara managed to dodge the flames by a hair, but her left arm was caught. She was about to count on her regeneration once more, but something was wrong. She said to Reimu. "I told you it's useless…" But she didn't finish her sentence. She had just noticed something alarming — the flames were spreading across her arm far faster than her regeneration could contain them. Without hesitating for a single second — without even taking the time to close her eyes — she formed a water blade in her right hand, sharp as a razor, and amputated her own left arm with a precise and definitive gesture. The fire extinguished instantly, deprived of its progress. She grabbed a strip of fabric torn from her clothes and tied it tightly around the stump to stop the bleeding.
She thought fast, teeth clenched. "The Heart Flames draw their power from the emotions of their user. They therefore gained in intensity as Reimu's anger increased. Right now, I'm in a bad position. I'm approaching my limit."
The next second, the golden markings across her body went out one by one. She had used all the Core absorbed throughout their many exchanges. The situation seemed compromised for Solara. But both fighters were in a pitiful state. Solara was barely standing, her left arm gone, blood seeping through the tied fabric. Reimu for his part was not unscathed — the cumulative consequences of his most powerful attacks, notably the Eternity Strike and the multiple summonings of Raijūku, weighed heavily on his exhausted body. The Imperial Armor in tatters no longer protected much. The next decisive blow — from either side — could tip everything.
It was at precisely that moment that, between the two adversaries, Nozomi made his appearance. He looked at Reimu with a dark and determined gaze, carried by a new flame burning at the depths of his eyes. He said, his voice calm and assured. "Sorry for the delay — I had something important to take care of. You can count on me now."