Callum jerked to awareness with a startled gasp, pushing himself to his feet while checking to make sure that he had still held onto his blade even in the brief time that he had been dead.

  Which, not that he had much time to really think over it, was a very strange and alien thought to have, he couldn’t lie. Before this trial, if someone had said something like that to him, he would have laughed it off entirely. Perhaps he might have believed it to be a metaphor or overexaggeration if he believed it at all. Now though, he was deeply aware of just how serious such a sentence could be, and exactly what it felt like to be on the opposing end of it.

  However, he really couldn’t afford to focus on that too much, because right now he was facing an enemy that he was too, insultingly, weak to even properly protect his friends from.

  “Where!?” He exclaimed, looking around with wide, alert eyes and hair matted with blood and sweat.

  His answer was, like always, with his two friends. The two of them trying to box their enemy between them as she just laughed. A loud, boisterous, mocking laugh that seemed paradoxically both encouraging and discouraging at the same time as if she was offering a hand to help them up off their feet and mercilessly beating them with her other hand at the same time.

  Try as Alec and Olivia might, they couldn’t quite pincer her properly between the two of them, her blade and tail lashing out back and forth to ward off any attacks while her feet stayed in constant flux, navigating the uneven ground and shifting opponents with ease. Try as their enemy might, however, she couldn’t shake either of the two of them off or position herself to properly deal with both. The two of them moved like they expected every single side-step, backpedal, and feinted lurch that the woman threw at them.

  The woman’s ungodly technique and proficiency kept her from getting a single scratch on her, but Alec and Olivia’s experience and teamwork kept her deadlocked.

  For Callum or Glenn, such an experience would have been haunting. To be trapped between two fighters like Alec and Olivia was a sentence that neither of them ever wanted to be in, yet for the woman in front of them, it appeared to be nothing less than heavenly.

  “Now you’re making me work for it a bit!” The woman cackled, her blade clashing with Alec’s while her tail whipped out and slapped at Olivia’s wrist to throw her aim high.

  Blue and black hair ruffled in the wind as she slid her blade down Alec’s and rotated on the spot, crouched down low. Her tail pulled away just in time to avoid Olivia’s downward swing, and her head out of the way of Alec’s continued momentum.

  “Gotcha~” She grinned up at Alec, a lone eye winking conspiratorially at him as the palms of both of her hands stretched out the side of her curled in form.

  Callum and Glenn were both moving before she had even finished speaking, recognizing the sign for what it was. While they were moving and fighting like they had been, Callum was nothing but a deadweight, a distraction that would do nothing but get his friends cut down yet again. But if he could protect his friends, even at the cost of taking the hit himself, then he would.

  Glenn, meanwhile, had recognized the opportunity as yet another chance to cave the bitch’s face in with all the power that he had. While so focused on Dius and Kio, there’s no way that she’d be able to deal with him as well. If he was the one to get the final blow on her, then everyone would realize his greatness! Dius and Kio kept hogging all the spotlight, but that was fine. They were just the opening act, heralding his arrival-!

  Alec and Olivia jerked left and right, a whistling screech fading into the distance before the sound of cracked bark and splintered wood echoed through the jungle forest. Pearlescent white hair waved in the air as Olivia’s body collapsed face-down into the ground beneath them.

  Yet, oddly, Alec’s did not.

  The thinnest possible trail of smoke wafted off the side of Alec’s makeshift blade, his breathing heavy and eyes wide in alarm. Blood began to stain his shirt in multiple places and a long, deep gash along his temple seeped the viscous life-force like a waterfall. His arms trembled a little as he panted, the heel of his left hand bracing the flat of his blade and his other hand holding it aloft, directly in front of his face.

  “Oh?” The woman’s eyebrow raised and her tail lashed out grabbing him by the arm and throwing him right into Callum.

  A yelp –a manly yelp, a startled cry even– tore itself out of Callum’s mouth as he lurched left on the spot and grabbed Alec by his arm. The blue-haired teen’s momentum bleeding into his teammate and forcing the green-haired teen to spin on the spot to avoid being thrown back alongside him.

  “Throw me!” The bark left Alec’s lips harsh and commanding, but Callum couldn’t help but grin when he heard it, forcing more and more speed into his rotation as he caught the split-second sight of their enemy with her blade flipping in the air above her and her fist buried in Glenn’s nose.

  Blood droplets hung in the air and the air whipped furiously around them as Callum finally let go of Alec and flung him at their mystery enemy, the teen stumbling and falling onto his side as the world spun chaotically.

  The sound of their swords clashing was more akin to thunder than the regular ring that Callum expected to hear. The earth beneath the woman’s feet broke a half-instant after impact, leaving her with nothing to ground herself with. The two blue-haired combatants hurtling into the dense jungle behind them with the sound of shattered wood and meaty thuds.

  “S-Shit!” He gasped as he pushed himself to his feet, his vision still drifting a little but not enough that it would impact his ability to run after his friend.

  Before he could get more than two steps in their direction, however, Olivia’s hand on his bicep stopped him. His head whipping around to look at her in alarm and confusion over why she was stopping him.

  “Olivia?...”

  “Callum, stop. Just listen. We need to wait.”

  “What- Why? We’re running out of time and Alec is our best chance currently!” Callum argued, his expression hardening with each word.

  He wanted to trust Olivia. He really, truly wanted to. However he knew the facts, and the facts were that Alec was undoubtedly pulling off the best performance in his numerous fights with the woman.

  “No. He’s not.” Olivia shook her head in response to his words, however, and Callum just couldn’t figure out why.

  “Are we seeing the same fight? Of course he is!”

  “I don’t think we are seeing the same fight. Look. I’ve been watching. She has a larger library of techniques that she’s not using against us.”

  “Yeah, I know. I watched you get cut down by one of them.” Callum muttered, an almost haunted look flashing over his expression for a moment before he shook his head once more.

  “Exactly. But where are they now? Nowhere to be seen, right? She’s not pulling them out against Alec. She refuses to pull them out against Alec.” Olivia explained.

  “Then he’s our best chance at winning this. So, we need to go help him.” Callum stressed, ignoring the larger form of Glenn charging into the jungle with a roar of pure, mindless fury.

  “Let me finish.” She snapped and tugged him back harshly with the hand she still had holding him. “She may not pull out that extended library when she’s fighting him but she’s far more dangerous.”

  “That makes no sense, Olivia.”

  “Because you’re not actually stopping to think about it. Whenever that woman is fighting Alec its like it instantly puts her in the zone. Her reactions are faster, her movements more precise, her battle-lust more overwhelming. In that brief moment where he’s dead, her reactions slow down and her creativity is stifled, forcing her to rely on her extra techniques. So, we need to wait for Alec to…fall, and strike then. And only then.”

  “…You really think that she’s more dangerous when fighting Alec? Even without those techniques?”

  “I don’t think. I know. Now. Are you in?”

  Callum looked her up and down for a second before sighing deeply.

  “Fine, I’ll join up with you and wait until Alec dies again.”

  “Good. Now let’s catch up. We only have two minutes left.”

  XXXxxxXXX

  Alec woke up to the familiar feeling of his head clouding with jumbled static and his body full of an energy that he needed to burn off, lest he succumb to it entirely.

  In what felt like the blink of an eye, he was on his feet and clashing with the tiger-eared woman once more, their swords clashing against one another in a dance of death and finesse all rolled into one. He had started this trial, this Step even, feeling normal; why did he feel like this now?

  …gh,...ve….kid….

  It happened when he tried using the remnants of this woman’s magic to try and sharpen his own, he was fairly certain. That was what started this buzzing in his mind and endless, ceaseless energy that he had to burn off.

  Thigh,…..Bicep.

  The world felt compressed down to just him and her, every movement she made echoing in his mind infinitely. Every time her blade cleared the gap faster, he took notice of it. Every time her parry perfectly tore his offense apart, he took notice of it. Every time her piercing strikes and crushing slashes ripped his defences to tatters, he took notice of it.

  Kidney, Gut, Neck, Lungs.

  Sparks filled the air between them as his blade, makeshift as it was, batted away and blocked four rapid strikes. Both his eyes and his enemies widening at the same time as they realized what, exactly was happening.

  Alec was using this woman to claw his way up to her level. He still wasn’t there, he wasn’t even close, but it was noticeable. He was taking fractions, crumbs, of her godly, ascended technique and consuming it for his own growth.

  The blade that tore clean through him –in the fastest, most subtle Dragon’s Might he had ever experienced since first experiencing the technique– was hardly a surprise, in fact he knew that it was coming before it had even split him open. He had overextended too far on this go around, lost his tentative edge at his realization and been too slow to pull himself back together in the face of it.

  But the thrill, unlike any he had ever had in his entire life, that shot through his entire body made this temporary loss worth it in its entirety. An idea sparking to life in the final moments he had before he hit the ground and it all went black.

  ‘Yes. If it’s right now, I may be able to-‘

  Alec Dius hit the ground and, for the next three seconds, all went black.

  XXXxxxXXX

  No sooner had Alec collapsed into the uneven, root-bound ground of their new battlefield than Callum and Olivia leapt at the woman simultaneously. Expressions of fury and concentration painted their features and white-knuckled grips held their blades.

  “Well now, looks like you’ve come up with a strategy.” The woman taunted, blade twirling in her grip before it swung around to clash with Olivia’s overhead strike and then swing down to slam Callum’s blade into the ground beneath.

  Orange eyes darted down to the edge of her sword in the brief fraction of a second, she had before Olivia’s follow-up strike as the girl landed on the ground. The woman’s eyes widened by only a single millimetre before she swung her blade up to parry Olivia’s strike yet again.

  While not as aggressively as Alec, the others were improving at a rapid pace as well. Refining their techniques, improving their timing, attempting new ideas. The big, burly one whose name the woman refused to remember had tried all manner of powerful strikes on her in an attempt to break clean through her guard. Callum had begun to focus on the greatest strengths he had, his stamina, and was trying to box her in as best as he could, ever the sacrificial one, from what she remembered. Olivia Kio, however, was the one who showed the greatest improvement out of the three, and the glowing white line looping around the blade of her sword showed it.

  “Finally using your attribute are you!?” She crowed as she threw Olivia’s strike upwards and slid around the strike at her back at Callum attempted to make.

  He was entirely too loud and chivalrous for such a thing, though at least he hadn’t attempted to shout out his attack as he did it like someone she had been forced to fight in the past eight and a bit minutes.

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  This current technique that Olivia had started on her blade was the most dangerous in her arsenal, but also the easiest to combat if you were aware of how it worked. Unluckily for Kio, the woman was aware of how it worked, though she decided not to dispel it quite yet.

  Her goal wasn’t to overwhelm them entirely; it was to stay just far enough ahead that they could see the light at the end of the tunnel while she crushed them repeatedly. If they made it out the other side beaten but unbroken, than they’d be all the better for it, if not…. well, not every timeline could have interesting versions of everyone.

  A sphere of glittering silver lines burst into and out of existence around her for half a second, throwing both of her opponents strikes away simultaneously. The final silver line following the point of her sword as she drew it back and thrust it forward, towards Callum.

  ‘It’ll still hit but I should be able to place my blade in the way-‘ Callum thought, pulling his blade back down with every ounce of speed that he had, only for his eyes to go hazy as the length of the woman’s blade seemed to blur.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out where her blade was aimed towards, leading to it piercing clean into his chest without difficulty, a line of his own blood following the edge of her weapon as she pulled it out and swung on the spot, meeting Olivia’s strike with a picture-perfect Iron Scale.

  “Ooooh.” The woman pretended to wince in sympathy, her tail flicking idly behind her as Callum collapsed, “Looks like your strike just happened to miss the mark. Tough luck, Kio.”

  Her eyes purposefully skipped down to their clashed blades, where the edge of Olivia’s sword was a single centimetre to the left of the looping white mark that she had left on her own blade.

  “You kne- HAK!” Olivia’s cry of outrage and shock was silenced as the woman leveraged the hilt of her weapon around using their clashing point as an axis and slammed it into Olivia’s jaw, dislocating it instantly.

  “Of course I knew! You really think that you never-!”

  !!!!!!!!

  The woman was turning before her conscious mind even registered that she was moving. Whether she was holding herself back to match their level was inconsequential in the face of the way that her brain seemed to shut down in the face of the shockwave of Alec’s mana that passed over her. Injuries long since healed and phantom sensations long passed flared across her body and mind as adrenaline and mana crashed through her system like a flash flood.

  Alec was three meters away and closing fast, too fast. With her self-imposed limits she couldn’t hope to avoid his strike, aided by the Magical Contract behind his Power Stance as it was. Her best bet was to parry or block as best as she could, a Glancing Scale or Flowing River would be the fastest to deploy.

  That was assuming that she had enough free brainpower to consider such options, however. Between her excitement at getting to battle a younger Alec Dius, at seeing the tangible growth of him, Olivia Kio and Callum, and at the –relative– challenge that they were posing against her; the woman’s blood was fire and her brain a factory for serotonin and nothing but. Facing a Power Stance from Alec, one that had caught her off-guard and was closing in so fast, was the final straw.

  The woman of gleaming orange eyes and a manic grin did not do an action that would be the most tactical or logical; she did what she and she alone deemed to be the most fun.

  The fraction of a second to aim her sword and complete the thrust forward was all it took for mana to coat her blade in the same vein as Alec’s Fortress Piercer, only reversed. The points of their swords meeting head-on and stopping dead in the middle.

  Their respective mana’s crashed into each other like two unstoppable forces. They surged against each other and struggled for only a fraction of a fraction of a moment before splashing outwards like water droplets on a calm puddle's surface.

  Their respective mana’s ripped themselves free of the shackles of their weapons and roared outwards, ripping at the ground and snarling at the myriad objects of creation. A sphere of silver mana rippled into existence around them and detonated, dust and shredded foliage filling the jungle in its simulated entirety.

  XXXxxxXXX

  Xyn, as headmaster of the Dragon-Scale Sword Academy, naturally knew and could perform every single one of the six techniques that comprised the Dragon-Scale style.

  He had used Glancing Scale to save his life more times than he could count. Had his usage of Iron Scales down to an artform. Had even refined his own version of Devouring Maw to such a killing edge that not even the other professors at the Academy could hope to defend against it.

  But amongst the six techniques, one stood out as the dud. The black sheep that bore no mention and was taught to others as a proof of concept and nothing else.

  The creator of the Dragon-Scale style had created the sixth technique for a purpose, according to texts left behind in the academy’s library. They had had faith that the technique would be just as valuable to know as the first five.

  Their faith had been in vain.

  Hundreds of years of users and not a single one had been able to make the technique viable in battle. Simply pulling it off for demonstration purposes was already impossible for some of them; that was the ludicrous difficulty that came inherently tied to the technique.

  “T-There’s no way!”

  Xyn took a step forward, his hands out at his sides and his eyes blown wide in astonishment and disbelief. His mind warring against itself, and his body stun-locked in place.

  Because for the first time in centuries, for the first time since the technique itself was created, Dispersing Claw made its debut in a real, proper battle.

  XXXxxxXXX

  The woman looked down at her hands as they shook and spasmed a little, no injuries in sight, but the feedback from her Dispersing Claw having left its mark, nonetheless. She had done so well not to let anything show that they hadn’t already done beforehand, keeping all of her extended techniques away from Dius and that inhuman instinct of his. Only for her to fail at the eleventh hour. For a technique to slip out of her grasp and be witnessed by the blue-haired teen that she tried so hard to keep it from in the first place

  “H-Haha! HAHAHA!” The woman laughed, for it was all that she could care to do.

  They had all shown enough growth now, she reckoned. If she kept going the way that she was, she was never going to come out the other side victorious. The four of them, as much as she ignored the bullish one, had one minute left before she forced this farce of a Trial to crumble down around their heads. One minute left before their timer ran out. If ever there was a time to push herself to her self-imposed limits, now would be it, would it not?

  Shards of bone whistled through the dust, sending the four teens into a flurry of half-uttered curses and stumbling dodges. A blue and black ear twitched and fluttered, and the woman was off.

  Her opening strike was nothing less than outright lethal, her blade pulled back as she phased into view to Alec’s right and let loose. Four simultaneous strikes rained down on the teen while swirling with mana. Fortress Piercer and the technique she had deployed against Kio earlier conjoined into a singular attack. The first strike met the edge of Alec’s blade and went wide; the next three made sure that nothing above his hips survived to hit the ground, atomized in their entirety.

  Her leading foot hit the ground, and her presence disappeared entirely as Glenn charged in with a roar and a wide swing that, had it actually hit, may have done some damage.

  Silver lines danced into existence across his form before he fell to pieces. The woman crouched behind his form with her blade sheathed back at her side. She wanted to gloat or get a better lay of the land, but she had no time. Olivia and Callum both knew how much time they had left and were getting desperate; they wouldn’t give her any time to relax.

  Both of her ears twitched in different directions, her eyes darted left and right in quick order.

  Five o’clock. Nine o’clock. She had two seconds until Dius got back up.

  Her sword sang from her scabbard in a sadistic harmony, and she spun on the spot, a sharpened ring of mana surging out from her position. It shot through the battlefield with impunity, leaving a small vacuum trail in the dust behind it and forcing both Callum and Olivia to jump or lose their legs at the knees.

  ‘They’re expecting my extended list of techniques. It’s going to be difficult to catch them off-guard without going for pure force like with Alec. And I have perhaps one or two more uses of that combination before he figures out some kind of counter.’ Her thoughts ran at a mile a minute as she closed in fast on the airborne form of Olivia, her ringed projectile crashing into the trees around them and cutting clear through them before losing its form entirely.

  The dull drone of toppling trees started to echo through the forest as a translucent dragon’s maw formed around the woman’s sword, the edge meeting Olivia’s side and the jaw closing around her midsection.

  Olivia hit the ground in a spray of blood and a heavy thump, the woman’s blade already braced against her back in an impromptu Iron Scales as the un-Power Stanced Dragon’s Might of Callum crashed into her.

  Every ounce of force from his strike flowed through her body and into the ground beneath her, caving it in and breaking it like glass as his own momentum came to a complete stop. A high-pitched giggle left her lips as she spun on the spot and swung out with her blade, an arcing slash of mana flying out of her blade and sending Callum flying high into one of the collapsing trees around them.

  Alec was up again, running towards her like defeating her was the only thing that mattered in the entire world. Blood leaking from his eyes and nose, and thin cuts opening themselves along his fingers.

  ‘He’s hit his limit. Only the reconstructing nature of this simulation is letting him keep fighting.’

  She didn’t dare think that he was out of the fight, however. She knew him far too much to ever believe such a thing.

  Her form fizzled out of existence as his blade swung through it, the woman reappearing in six separate positions around him, one after another after another. Six giant crescents of silver mana converged on him from each position that she had reappeared at, tearing gouges through the earth and roots and ripping Alec to shreds without mercy.

  Glenn got back up, then Olivia. She engaged in combat with the woman as soon as she could get her feet beneath her. Callum got up next; he and Glenn engaged the instant that both of Olivia’s arms were severed and split-kicked towards the two of them.

  Alec got back up right as the both of them fell, his opening strike throwing her in the air where she grabbed the bowing trunk of one of the falling –and trapped– trees and ran up its length, the blue-haired teen not far behind her.

  The battle transitioned then from the ground to the collapsing treetops and canopy, the five of them engaging in a rapid exchange of hasty techniques and murder. Bodies toppled from the trees just as quickly as they rose back up into them.

  Finally, with twenty seconds of their ten-minute time limit remaining, something in the flow of the battle shifted.

  Alec Dius’s eyes snapped open one more time as he woke up from the cold embrace of death once more, blood running out of his left nostril and smearing his lips as papercuts and gashes opened up from his fingertips to his biceps. The roaring, ceaseless energy in his body filled it beyond the point that he could handle it even in the slightest, yet the buzzing in his mind had reached such a crescendo of a fever pitch that it looped right back around to leaving his thoughts crystal clear for the first time since the woman ahead of him had given him this blade.

  The woman kept pulling out technique after technique in a seemingly endless collection, but he knew that he couldn’t repeat any of them, not in the state he was in, with the time that he had left. But that was fine. He didn’t need to be able to use any of her techniques against her; he just had to make sure that he could overcome them.

  He launched himself towards her, seeing the exact moment that her ear twitched and her attention shifted to him. A rapid spin had one of those rings of mana emanating out of her once more, but he knew how to deal with that.

  Alec’s feet dug into the bark, and he felt his muscles tense, and his joints lock into position on nothing but reflex, a shockwave of mana flowing into and then back out of him in quick measure.

  The cuts on his arms multiplied and deepened.

  His Power Stanced Crushing Claw dispersed the ring in its entirety as he both deflected it –by using the deflecting motion to throw his body up and over the technique– and used its own power to stimulate the mana roaring in his blade. He rotated on his side and flipped into the correct orientation through the air, arcing towards the woman who appeared more than happy to meet him at his landing zone. Because of course she was, and he knew that she would be as well because it was him that was coming for her.

  She may have who-knows-how-many years of knowledge and experience on him to inform her decisions and tactics, but that didn’t make him incapable of figuring out things about her, too. When it came to the four of them, she would always focus on him above all else and accept any kind of challenge that he threw her way, intentionally or not.

  As he flew through the air, he let that spark of inspiration roar throughout his entire body. His mana answered in kind. The swirling mana in his blade was already at its peak thanks to his Crushing Claw, but the mana surging through his body –Hot pain pain sharp pain hot tearing– had more that it could do. More that he could make it do.

  Scales of silver formed in the air around Alec’s form as he approached the woman; forming, joining, growing. The head of the dragon formed around him right as the light in her eyes caught Alec’s notice.

  For the first time in the fight, as reflexive as it appeared to be, the look in her eyes wasn’t of joy or mockery, but that of fear. The kind of fear that only one deeply, hauntingly, traumatized by something in their past and suddenly forced to face it head on could ever possibly have painted their features.

  Silver mana surged around the woman while simultaneously surging into her and bouncing back out as a shockwave that blew the dust around her away from the both of them. Her mana shifted in two directions at once, activating Glancing Scale at the exact same moment as that sphere of glowing lines formed by the movement of her sword's point sprang to life in a flurry of movements so fast that Alec couldn’t even hope to follow it.

  Alec’s Devouring Maw met the woman’s combination technique and tore at the tree trunk beneath them, his blade bouncing off her double-layered defence and shattering into a hundred pieces as it did so. The look of surprise that overtook her was so strong that even her ears wilted, and her tail fell limp, her techniques spluttering out of existence as even her mana output stuttered to a halt.

  “DIE!”

  Olivia’s shout shocked the woman back into motion in a startled, jerking movement that lacked the finesse and grace that she had so easily held up until this point. Her blade swung around to attack the approaching Olivia with a strike so lightning quick that, had Olivia been in range, it would have decapitated her in an instant.

  Yet it wasn’t the flesh of Olivia that her blade met, but Callum instead. His hand reinforced his guard much like Alec had earlier to stop the blade from going any further than the bone of his shoulder. Flowing, pearlescent white hair ghosted into view from behind him.

  ‘He acted as bait to take my blow instead of her!’ The woman’s eyes widened as she realized what had happened. Olivia swerved around the immobile form of her green-haired teammate with her gaze locked on the woman and the edge of her sword glowing a white so bright that it almost hurt to look at.

  Her arms tensed to rip the blade back out of Callum’s arm and attack Olivia properly, only for them to move a couple of centimetres and then jerk back abruptly.

  With wide, disbelieving eyes, the woman looked back at Callum, seeing the almost vindictive grin on his face. The hand of his uninjured arm clutching the blade of her sword to keep it buried inside his shoulder and unable to be used to stop Olivia’s offensive.

  ‘My sword is useless. Second sword? Can’t draw it in time. Dodging? Not enough time. My tail? Too slow. I…’

  Olivia roared and swung her blade upwards, the woman letting go of her blade and jerking her upper body backwards with every ounce of speed that she could push out of her limited form in vain hope. The Kio daughter’s sword swung high into the air, and even the wind itself seemed to fade out of existence. Five sets of eyes all following the same, exact thing as if it –and they– were stuck in slow motion.

  A singular, lone drop of blood rising into the air from the edge of the woman’s jawline.

  ‘I…lose…’