As the battle heated between Merlin and Lilia, it had quickly turned into a clash of the fundamentals of magic, surpassing what any regular wizard, even the accomplished ones could fathom. It was on a whole other level that even Betty would find it stupidly complicated to follow.
Any spells that would take more than an insignificant fraction of a second to cast were useless, and the two could only exchange pure blasts of compressed mana in the form of slashes, blasts, and piercing spears. Merlin would swing her hand, conjure hundreds of tiny, needle-sized mana projectiles, and shoot them forward at nearly the speed of light, only for Lilia to have predicted that move, and while dodging the assault of Baal and Eris, cast a spell right back at Merlin's face.
