Rewrite That Witch
CH766 · Rewrite

Chapter 766: Ashes Against Lorgar!

The holy duel between Osha and Wildflame was to proceed as planned.

The Land of Fire had never been this crowded. Spectators had pressed in until they nearly surrounded the high platform entirely, and Iron Axe, to ensure that more people could enter the holy land, had loaned out a box of God’s Stones of Retaliation. As long as any single clan brought no more than fifty people, the other clans would not complain. Even if they had wanted to, the arithmetic of popularity had moved past the point where complaint was practical. Osha was now the second strongest clan in the Southernmost Region. Until they opposed the Three Gods directly, whatever they required would have to be taken carefully into account.

Under the crowd’s cheering, Ashes walked onto the platform.

The Ironsand people respected real fighters, and her work over the past month had purchased something genuine from them. There were people among the crowd calling her the strongest warrior in the Northern Kingdom. The fight had been framed accordingly, as a contest between that and the strongest fighter in the Southernmost Region. It was a framing she had done nothing to discourage, because it was likely accurate.

She wore black, no armor, hair tied back. She carried no weapons.

This was not arrogance. The Wildflame clan’s condition for an “unarmed fight” meant — according to Thuram’s explanation — no weapons, no armor, no supporting items of any kind. Which included God’s Stones of Retaliation. Banning the stones would theoretically affect an Extraordinary’s combat ability to some degree, though the Wildflame clan almost certainly did not know what an Extraordinary was. To them, all awakened women were Divine Ladies — a single category. The internal distinctions, the hierarchy of power that made the Extraordinaries something separate entirely, was not knowledge the desert possessed.

They probably just want a good fight.

In the end, that was why she had agreed. Lorgar’s ability — confirmed through Thuram and a dozen other sources — belonged to the melee type: physical transformation, enhanced strength and speed. Similar in principle to Maggie’s. The question of who would prove stronger, a transformed witch or an Extraordinary, was one she had found herself genuinely curious about. There was a quality to that curiosity that felt almost like hunger.

If the opponent had been Anna, she would never have accepted. The Blackfire could both defend and attack, adapt to any situation, and without a God’s Stone for protection it would be nearly impossible to close within ten meters of her. You could not solve that problem with strength. You could not solve it at all.

But this was a melee fight. Her kind of fight.

There was also the other reason, quieter and more personal: Agatha’s instructions. To become a Transcendent required continuous practice and, crucially, combat with strong opponents. Life-and-death situations. The edge where evolution actually happened. She had been looking for that edge since she learned what it was.

A sudden roar from the crowd pulled her attention toward the platform’s far side.

A woman in a hooded cloak came over the edge in a single fast jump, moving straight toward her. The crowd’s volume for this one was marginally louder than it had been for Ashes. The strongest of their own. Lorgar of Wildflame.

She pulled off the hood. Red curly hair, and — above it — a pair of tall, tawny ears, unmistakably not human.

Ashes blinked. “Are those — dog ears?”

“Wolf ears!” Lorgar’s face went instantly red. “They are wolf ears.”

“My mistake.” She studied them. “You’re not wearing shoes. Isn’t the ground too hot?”

“Mojins are never afraid of hot sand.” Lorgar lifted onto her toes demonstratively and shrugged off her cloak, revealing the tail behind her, curving out with its own apparent opinion about the temperature.

From her expression, though, it was clear that it was in fact quite hot.

Ashes kept her face neutral. “You’ve been maintaining the partial transformation continuously — you’re using that to condition your magic power consumption. That’s a reasonable training method.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Lorgar said, flicking her tail. “This is the price of the power the Three Gods gave me — I can’t fully transform back, so I live as I am. Half human, half beast. It’s not a training regimen.”

Ah. That explained the hood. She had not wanted anyone to see before the fight began. Revealing the animalized form once she stepped onto the platform would make it look like she had transformed in preparation for combat. The hood preserved the ambiguity.

And what the intelligence had described as a “monster” — it was a wolf. Lorgar was simply and permanently a wolf, in part.

Whether a bone thrown underhand would distract her the way it would distract Maggie was, Ashes admitted to herself, an open question. Almost certainly not the same. Maggie was pigeons and enthusiasm. This one was something else.

“What are you laughing at?” Lorgar’s brow lowered. “Are you underestimating me?”

“No.” She pressed the laugh back down. “I was remembering a friend. If you’re ready — let’s begin.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Lorgar raised both arms, and the smooth skin of her forearms thickened, stretched, resolved into a pair of dense wolf-claws. “Father, the gong!”

Partial animalization. By choice. Ashes raised her eyebrows. Even without understanding the mechanics of magic power, Lorgar had found a way to control and direct what she had — and partial transformation was hard. Maggie could only do it under genuine pressure, and not reliably.

This one has been working.

The chief of Wildflame struck the gong.

Lorgar drove off both feet and lunged.

Her speed was good. Not quite what Ashes was used to facing from the strongest opponents — she could already read the trajectory, predict the landing position, prepare a counter before it arrived. But she did not act on it.

Lorgar was holding back. This was a testing strike, a probe: gauge the enemy’s response, understand the ceiling, then decide how much to commit. She had not yet shown what she could actually do.

A reasonable approach. Ashes decided to answer it plainly — hit back at the same register, make clear that the ceiling was higher than Lorgar expected, push her toward full transformation rather than letting her stay comfortable.

She brought her hands up and caught both claws like a vise. Then she twisted her body, used the momentum of Lorgar’s lunge to pivot and lift, and drove her into the ground with her own force folded back against her.

That was the advantage of an Extraordinary, compactly stated. Partial animalization meant partial enhancement for Lorgar. But Ashes was enhanced always — not in a specific limb at a chosen moment, but completely, continuously, in every tendon and bone. Magic power strengthened her body every day without interruption, a tide that never fully receded.

She punched downward.

Lorgar rolled clear, planted her hands, bent her knees, and drove both feet toward Ashes’ center.

A kick that would have ruptured an adult’s organs. Ashes caught it one-handed, gripped, and squeezed — felt the skin of Lorgar’s calf peel and compress — almost enough to break it. In that fraction of a second Lorgar recognized the danger and kicked again with her free foot, transforming it mid-flight into a wolf leg.

Ashes released and ducked under the sweep. Lorgar landed and pulled back fast, and did not test the water again. Both legs shifted: full animalization, both limbs. She rose taller as the transformation completed, speed and strength rising with it.

It was, Ashes assessed, a meaningful improvement. Not enough. The unanimal parts — the head, the abdomen — were obvious weak points.

She attacked with both fists. Lorgar brought both paws up to meet them. Then Ashes smirked, shifted her weight half a step, and drove her forehead directly into Lorgar’s.

“Woo—”

The cry was involuntary, unavoidable. Tears and blood both — a broken nose could not help it. The impact closed Lorgar’s eyes from the force of it, and in the same moment Ashes turned, dropped her weight, and drove a kick into the soft abdomen.

Lorgar went airborne.

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