Julio attacked first with a step that seemed to arrive before her body fully decided to follow it.
For a fraction of a moment, the space between her heel and the ground looked uncertain, like reality had forgotten which version of her was supposed to exist there.
Then she was already forward.
Verdantia tilted once in her hand and the living wood along its shaft began to split again.
The old man did not flinch.
His scythe rose in a big arc, not defensive in panic but placed in position to gaurd the incoming attack.
"Thy impatience remains thy oldest wound."
Julio laughed under her breath.
"Argh, your lectures are still boring."
Her body swiftly dashed.
Verdantia reacted before motion completed. Vines spiraled rapidly up her arms.
Wrapping her torso, shoulders, spine. Forming layered armor of living wood and floral bone.
Golden bark fused with her skin in places without piercing it.
Behind her, petals burst outward in sudden suspension, forming wings that did not flap so much as rearrange air itself into movement.
The old man's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Hmph. Thy Astra is one of the few which can morph without Syncronization."
Julio's grin widened.
"Don't get afraid when I beat you to hell!"
She slammed Verdantia downward.
The impact did not just strike the floor.
The ground erupted.
Thorns exploded outward in all directions, long, wet, crimson vines bursting through stone and steel as though the facility had been overrun by something both alive and wrong at the same time.
They curled, intertwined, multiplied beautifully in shape, obscene in intent.
Somewhere between the gaps of the thorn network, flowers bloomed briefly before decaying mid-breath.
The tunnel became a forest of contradiction.
Julio stood within it, wings of floral armor spread slightly as she tilted her head.
"See? Isn't it prettier when it bleeds?"
The old man remained standing amid the creeping forest of blades and vines, scythe lowered just enough to touch the ground without yielding.
His voice came calm as ever.
"Beauty that devours itself is still only rot in bloom."
Julio's eyes gleamed.
"Oh. That sounded super duper wise, hahaha."
The tunnel was no longer a corridor.
It had become a living contradiction.
Julio's vines spread like a blooming catastrophe across every surface and the Old Man standing within it like a point of still inevitability that refused to be swallowed.
Verdantia shifted in Julio's grip as she laughed softly, almost affectionately at the chaos she had created.
"This is my Natural Feedback. It doesn't just heal people… it listens to the environment. I can create animated plant warriors who can regenerate endlessly as long as there is oxygen and carbon dioxide."
She tapped the ground lightly.
"If there's air, there's life."
The thorned forest responded instantly.
From the tangled mass behind her, humanoid plant constructs rose.
Twisting bodies of bark and flowering bone, their movements jerky at first before stabilizing into unnatural coordination.
Their limbs regrew instantly when shattered, as long as they remained within the oxygen-rich tunnel.
Julio smiled.
"Cute, right? They don't stay dead as long as they can breathe."
The Old Man's scythe lowered slightly.
"Life granted without restraint is but hunger given form."
The plant warriors surged forward. The Old Man stepped once.
His scythe brushed the wind when not even fully swung and the space ahead folded.
The leading construct collapsed mid-charge. Its body corroded from physical matter itself.
Julio clicked her tongue. "Oh, that's annoying."
More constructs rushed in. The Old Man finally moved forward, voice still gentle.
"Death Touch."
He swung the scythe again. The moment it connected with a vine-armored construct, its body decayed at a molecular level, armor of living wood unraveling into brittle fragments that could no longer remember cohesion.
Even regenerated tissue showered its process.
Julio frowned slightly.
"So you don't just kill. Very interesting."
The Old Man tilted his head.
"All things already lean toward dissolution."
Julio laughed again.
"Yeah?"
She snapped her fingers.
More plant warriors erupted behind him, surrounding spots, attacking from blind spots, vines piercing from ceilings and floors simultaneously.
The Old Man did not turn.
Instead, the space around him warped.
A thin distortion like reality bending away from his body.
"Aura of Mortality."
Julio's vines struck nowhere as the Old Man appeared half a step to the side. Then forward, then slightly behind her formation, always maintaining impossible positioning without haste.
Julio's expression sharpened.
"Wait, what are these... you didn't use these moves in our previous conflicts!"
The Old Man answered calmly.
"This time, situation involves serious matters."
Their weapons collided again as Julio attacked again.
Verdantia's thorn-blade met the scythe's edge mid-air.
The impact didn't explode outward.
It compressed sound into a tight, trembling silence that vibrated through the tunnel itself. Both forces held for a moment, neither giving way.
Julio leaned in, smiling through strain.
"You are still holding back, aren't you?"
The Old Man's voice remained steady.
"Thou art still repeating loss in new shapes."
Julio exhaled slowly, then smiled like the entire tunnel was suddenly just another toy box she was bored of.
"Go away! Can't I even take these corpses as reward!?."
She lifted Verdantia slightly. The vines around her responded instantly.
Every direction of the tunnel erupted with thornfire. Needle-like vines shooted from walls, ceilings and broken pipes.
All converged toward the Old Man.
He was alone standing in an open field while being targeted by countless arrows.
One agent screamed as a vines pierced his shoulder and dragged him across the floor.
Another barely raised his weapon before being wrapped and squished violently.
Julio tilted her head casually.
"You know, you could just give up. I mean, they are already dead anyway."
The Old Man did not move from his stance.
His scythe rotated once, gently, like a pendulum deciding time.
"I do not negotiate in conclusions already assumed."
Julio laughed in amusement.
"Oh my god, you are so stubborn. Wanna sleep together? Before that, EAT THIS!!"
With a sudden motion, she threw Verdantia forward. It rushed swiftly like a beyblade piercing wind force.
The staff split the air with a shriek of compressed life force, vines trailed behind it like comet tails.
It hit the Old Man's scythe and stopped.
CLANG!
Verdantia split cleanly into two halves midair.
Julio stopped smiling. She tilted her head.
"Huh... That shouldn't be possible."
The Old Man lowered his weapon calmly.
"It is not, child."
Julio narrowed her eyes. Then her expression changed slightly.
"Wait. Don't tell me you were altering perception all this time!" she barked.
The Old Man nodded once.
"Indeed."
Julio sighed.
"Seriously? That is cheap of you"
He tapped his scythe lightly against the ground.
"Aura of Mortality, Switch off."
The atmosphere changed instantly. The tunnel, the vines, the blood, including Julio's morph form... All of it vanished.
The agents stood intact, confused and breathing. The walls were clean.
Verdantia lay intact on the floor without a scratch.
Julio stared at it then at her hands.
"…Oh."
She picked it up slowly.
"So none of that happened in reality..."
The Old Man spoke gently.
"It did. But thou didst not perceive it correctly."
Julio exhaled realizing it.
"So I was fighting you inside your head?"
"Partially and thou lost even there."
Julio clicked her tongue.
"Ahhh, You are an annoying grandpa!"
The Old Man's voice softened slightly, almost disappointed rather than angry.
"Thou art still early in thy bond with Verdantia. If thou were experienced, might have adapted your senses and brain. Thou knowest not its depth, nor thyself within it."
Julio rolled her shoulders.
"Yeah, yeah. Lecture me later."
"…Wait. You have had yours longer, right?"
The Old Man nodded.
"It is almost seventy-two years. One hundred and thirteen years of age and seventy-two as of the title of 'The Death.'"
He added casually,
"There was a time I made a contract with the previous Empress."
Julio raised a brow.
"You the title I hold now? The Empress?"
"She slowed my biological decline. I was already old. There was nothing left to grow. As thou can see I am already fine but my aging hath been slowed."
"Hm. That sounds interesting."
The Old Man gave a small, tired nod.
"Shall we proceed?"
Then Julio suddenly waved a hand.
"Yeah. Anyway, I am done here. You are boring when you win."
The Old Man did not react immediately.
"Child."
Julio looked back. He looked at her properly.
"Return not until thou understandest why thou fightest."
Julio grinned without turning back.
"I will meet you when I feel like it."
Then she walked away casually.
The agents, still alive and trembling, slowly looked toward the Old Man.
One whispered,
"Are we… allowed to breathe now?"
The Old Man sighed deeply.
"Yes. Unless thou bother speaking truth."