Astra's body lurched to the side as a plume of flames roared passed her, engulfing the area she had once occupied before the curling tongues of fire petered out, losing themselves to the surrounding air.

She could feel the heat brushing against her, the reason why she had a river of sweat running down her back and more beads forming on her forehead. But thankfully, at least this time, there was no scent of burning hair.

He had already caught her hair a few times, and she was not happy about having lost a few inches of her. Her perfect, silky soft white tipped hair was now charred black, frayed and frizzy at the ends.

It turned her two tone hair, black at the roots which became white half way down, into something that looked more like an Oreo. She was not an Oreo!

Astra's harness tugged at her torso as it pulled her out of the fire's path, with a pressure beneath her feet helping with the speed as she shot higher into the air.

She wasn't so much flying, as she was being dragged through the air like she was performing wire stunts for a movie. Just instead of wires it was millions of volts of electricity and a bit of electromagnetism instead.

Now, how those millions of volts didn't heat up the metal at all, but the fire did... she had no idea. It made completely no sense. But when you can fly and shoot lightning from your hands, and your boyfriend can making a living, breathing person out of a pile of rocks, what 'makes sense' begins to lose all reason and simply changes by the day.

People in this world had quickly came to the understanding that if you want to stay sane, then they should completely disregard the old worlds rules of logic and reason, not focus on what should and only what was. It was much less stressful, that way.

Because no matter how immutable you thought certain parts of the universe to be, there was always going to be someone with an ability that would let them bend that immutable rule over a barrel and show it a 'good time'.

Huh... Now that she thought about it, that was the first time that she had ever thought of Seth as her 'boyfriend'. Was that a little too soon? I mean they had technically only been one two dates, even if their first date had lasted months for them.

Meh, His little children were already calling her Mother, so 'girlfriend' was the least he could call her. Plus... the thought did sound pretty nice and made her body heat up slightly. A bit too hot actually. Scorching hot In fact!

Oh right, the fire.

Having been distracted by her own flowery thoughts, Astra didn't have much time to dodge the blazing ball of fire shooting towards her like a meteor.

She quickly raised her hand and let a bolt of lightning fly. The streaking plasma tore through the centre of the fireball, causing it to explode in a dazzling display of roaring fire.

As the wave of fire washed over her, her raised hand bent inwards and covered her face, before the flames completely engulfed her.

The flaming skeleton hovering in the sky a few metres away narrowed his eyes at the blaze. Or he would have, if a skull had eyes to narrow or the ability to even do so. He regarded it with suspicion, already starting to gather more flames in the palm of his bony hands, before a clap of thunder echoed out and another blinding streak of light carved through the sky.

A searing bolt of lightning slammed into the breastplate of his armour, throwing him backwards as he tumbled head over heels through the air.

A jet-stream of fire burst from his hands and feet as he steadied himself, getting himself the right way up, before quickly lurching to the side and tilting his head.

Fragments of a sword whipped past him, multiple shards of a single blade that stayed connected by the stream of pale blue lightning arcing between them all like a rope. One of the blades scraped against his cheekbone, carving out a sharp line from the bone.

With another flash of light, Astra shot out from the blazing inferno, her body coated in a viscous black substance that clung tight to her skin, doing its best to keep it cool. Unfortunately the same could not be said for her clothes, which were lit aflame once again and had been reduced to burned tatters.

One of her trouser legs was shorter than the other, and her baggy T-shirt had been reduced to a short crop top with a single shoulder.

The blades of her whip-like sword clicked together like pieces of a puzzle, becoming a singular solid blade once again as she appeared in front of the skeletons face, already swinging the sword towards his spine.

He leaned backwards, letting the sword whistle over him, as he flipped parallel to the ground and raised his feet. The jet-stream pouring from his feet increased ten-fold, shooting him backwards and blasting Astra in the face with a fresh plume of fire as he escaped.

Astra was forced backwards, unable to stay inside the intense rocket-like plume of flames that were washing over her. The ferrofluid covering her body bubbled and rippled as it tried to disperse the energy, but it wasn't long until even its naturally cool temperature was starting to raise.

It would have been even worse if she was wearing armour.

The flaming skeleton circled in the air, rolling over so that he was looking back at Astra from a distance as she retreated from the trail of fire he had left behind. Her already burned clothes were completely ruined, so with a begrudging grimace Astra simply tore the scraps of burnt cloth from her body.

She was left in nothing but the ferrofluid, and the underwear underneath it. At least she could fit that under the liquid, so she had some dignity. To any onlookers it would seem that she was only wearing a skin tight one piece outfit as well as her boots, bracers and the uncomfortable climbers harness around her torso and hooked under her thighs.

She tossed the ragged remains of her clothes to the side, letting them drift down through the air to be swallowed up by the chaos and death beneath her.

Astra risked a glance downwards, her eyebrows knitting themselves into a soft frown. The battle was not going well for their forces.

Something had happened to Seth, she was almost sure of it. His forces had been fighting perfectly, as one singular unit controlled by one massively expansive mind. A mind that still found the time to screw around and show off with little figures on a map, that idiot.

But now they had lost that unity. They were still connected, still fighting, but they were out of sync and fighting on their own. It was a small difference, but it was an important one. It was like being pelted by a hundred rocks vs being crushed by a boulder.

The former might still kill you, but the latter will do it much quicker and much more efficiently.

Tie that with the fact that whatever strange Nightmare creatures the Paladin had created had suddenly grown in strength at the same time the massive Demon appeared. Thankfully Alexandra currently had that under control, at least she did when Astra last looked, but their forces weren't dealing well with the increased power of the Nightmares.

Thankfully, whatever caused that also seemed to have the side effect of making them unable to respawn. So even if they were harder to kill, their numbers were still reducing gradually. Just not as quickly as Astra would hope.

And there was one last problem...

"How long are you gonna keep this up?"

The flames surrounding the skull of the skeleton receded, peeling away like a second skin, as the skulls actual skin quickly formed once again to create the visage of a handsome, blonde haired man.

The face looked like it belonged to a man straight off the cover of a fashion magazine. Flawless skin, chiselled features, baby blue eyes and silky hair. The basic look of a handsome man, but even if it was basic it was simply undeniable.

Even in the previous world, it was guaranteed that he would have had women hanging off him at every turn.

His only flaw was a small cut on his cheek, from where Astra's sword had carved up his cheekbone, that started to trickle blood as soon as his face reformed.

He flashed her a cocky smile, one that was blinding with how white his teeth were.

"I mean, we both know you can't go on forever. You're going to run out of energy eventually, and I'm betting you'll do it long before I do.

So I'll tell you what, since I'm nice. I'll let you live. All you need to do is kneel at my feet, apologise for your heresy, and for being such a little bitch, and I'll happily let you live. You can join the rest of my concubines.

I have a feeling that the children you'd give me would be much better than the rest of them. So what do you say sparkles?"

His pretty face warped into a disgusting, depraved grin as his eyes trailed over her body, which was unfortunately on display with her ferrofluid being the main thing that was covering her.

You would almost expect that he burned her clothes off on purpose, as if the way he was still undressing her with his gaze wasn't violating enough.