Fist King (3)
Dang! Dang!
A bell-like ring shattered the hushed stillness of the inner training grounds — though no actual bell was ringing. It was the sound of Rena's shield absorbing Kaya's fist, again and again.
"Let the force flow through you. You have to turn a power you can't withstand into one you can."
"Ugh!"
Gritting her teeth, Rena strained to move her shield and soak up the Fist King's blows. She called every inch of her body into play to squeeze out the most her shieldwork could give, and when an attack proved truly unblockable, she threw herself into desperate rolls across the dirt to evade it.
Watching her sway like a reed before a typhoon — unsteady, yet somehow never snapping — I couldn't help but marvel. It was combat instinct far beyond her years. And yet Kaya was not satisfied.
"Being so short, I suppose you're used to attacks coming down at you from above. But what about the opposite?"
Thud!
"Hyek!"
With a casual flick of her leg, Kaya sent Rena sailing through the air, shield and all. It happened because Rena's armor wasn't enchanted with Fixation.
By the time Rena came plummeting back down, Kaya was already waiting at the landing spot, fist clenched and ready.
"Like this, you can't bleed the impact off into the ground."
KWAAANG... thud!
Struck midair, Rena was launched clean across the arena and slammed into the wall. Unlike before, the impact seemed far worse — she couldn't even draw a proper breath. Yet Kaya's earlier warmth might never have existed; with detached, unblinking eyes she pressed the attack, speaking as she did.
"You still can't handle your mana properly. All you care about is what's happening on the surface."
Thud-thud-thud!
Rolling her massive frame smoothly from side to side, Kaya drove in a relentless flurry of blows. Rena somehow held on, barely managing to breathe — and then, clearly pushed past her limit, she used her skill.
Provocation
"Oh, so that's the skill I heard about. Unusual — but a simple build."
"!"
Kaya was completely unaffected by the provocation. In the end, Rena found herself hoisted into the air just as before, and this time she took a hit there was no dodging.
"That's about enough for you. We'll stop here."
"...That was way too short, Mister—" she wheezed.
"If you think that's unfair, then get stronger."
Kaya seized the prone Rena by the nape of the neck and laid her down in a patch of warm sunlight. Then she dusted off her hands and ambled over toward me.
"Hmm... her frame's so small I had my doubts, but she's better than I expected. Now I see why you keep her in the vanguard. Give her a decent set of armor and she'd hold up against most things."
"Right?"
"Provocation, was it? An excellent skill. For a party's defense, nothing beats it. But..."
"But?"
"There's nothing uglier than power swung around by someone who doesn't understand how it works. Well — I suppose you couldn't know, at this stage."
Shrugging, Kaya rolled her shoulders in slow circles. It was only then that it truly sank in: I was next in line.
...They'd clearly gone a little easy on Rena. They were not going to do that for me.
Gulp.
The sound of my own dry swallow seemed to thunder in my ears.
Just as I'd expected, Kaya advanced toward me one heavy step at a time.
"Now then, your turn. Your weapon is... a sword?"
"Yes."
"Conventional. Let me say this up front — feel free to go all out."
"Isn't sword aura a little dangerous, though?"
Kaya's current outfit was nothing but light clothing. Even for someone who fought barehanded, could she really take a blade of aura with her bare skin? I knew it was a pointless question, but I couldn't keep from asking anyway.
Kaya gave a short laugh, looking faintly amused.
"Knew you'd ask. Fine, then let's check that upfront. Make the strongest sword aura you're capable of."
"On it."
Shing.
Without another word, I drew my blade and wreathed it in aura. One step beyond ordinary sword aura — the Sawtooth Sword Aura, spinning like a buzzsaw. I'd grown quite accustomed to it by now; at my will, the teeth whirred at a speed invisible to the eye. All I had to do was show that I could block even this—
KKAGAGAGAK!
"There."
"..."
Out of nowhere, Kaya had shoved her forearm straight into the spinning saw of aura. And with nothing more than that, the aura-forged blade stopped dead, unable to break her skin. Not a single scratch marked that slab of muscle. So this is the Fist King...
"As you can see, I don't even need my fists for an attack at this level. Not a drop of blood."
"...I see."
"So stop worrying and show me everything you've got. That's not all, is it?"
I nodded, thinking of Sensory Impartation. It had worked on the Bishop — maybe, if I was lucky, it would work on this absurdly strong woman too. Or... no. Relying on a skill would defeat the whole point of training. And judging by how Rena's Provocation had failed, the odds were high mine wouldn't land either.
"Begin whenever you're ready. Come at me."
One hand clasped behind her back, Kaya beckoned lazily with the other. And somehow, that cocky gesture made me want to land at least one clean hit on her.
...
Breaking their spirit right off the bat isn't the most sporting opening, but... there's no beating this woman anyway.
I took in Kaya, still standing there utterly relaxed, in a single glance. The gap between us was obvious. And she wasn't the gentle-mentor type who'd patiently correct your form stroke by stroke, either.
Still, chances to unload my full strength against someone above my level don't come around often. Especially without a threat to my life.
Well — maybe my life would be in some danger. In any case, she certainly wasn't planning to kill me outright. So my plan was simple: drag this out as long as I could, and learn everything learnable along the way.
Having settled my thoughts, I called out to Kaya.
"Here I come!"
Crack... BOOM!
My body, reinforced by aura threading through every fiber, punched a shallow crater into the hardened floor of the training ground as I launched forward. Time seemed to slow as that colossal three-meter frame drew steadily closer. It felt less like fighting a person and more like facing down a monster.
Shaaak!
The Sawtooth Sword Aura, deployed at full power, whipped down toward the wrist of Kaya's outstretched right hand. There was even a faint edge of killing intent in it — I genuinely meant to cut. Crack!
But my aura shattered into fragments at a single casual flick of her hand. So it could break after all? Gasping at the shock, I pulled my sword back in.
Kaya chuckled lightly. "First time seeing something like this, isn't it?"
"..."
Without bothering to answer, I turned my attention inward. Thankfully, it had only been the aura forming the blade that scattered — my body was perfectly fine. I rebuilt the sword aura at once. The improvement needed was obvious.
Harder... something that absolutely cannot break—
Sirr...
Reforging the edge of my aura, I summoned the image of a diamond — the very byword for hardness — as intensely as I could. Whether it actually helped I couldn't say, but the aura consumed by the blade thickened noticeably. Was that working?
"Oho. Quick learner."
"...!!"
Behind me!
Kaya's voice came from at my back. Without turning around, I threw myself forward instead — but the presence at my rear showed no intention of receding.
"Hah!"
KA-KANG!
Left with no choice, I wrenched my whole body around and swung the aura in a horizontal arc. Kaya caught the Sawtooth Sword Aura barehanded, again. Her forearm tightened, clearly intent on shattering it a second time.
Nghhh...
Veins standing out on my forehead, I poured my focus into the aura itself. Unlike before, I could feel it now — Kaya's destructive mana boring into the blade in intricate threads. I hauled up a torrent of aura and slapped it over the cracking edge like a field repair!
For a few long seconds, my aura and Kaya's mana waged war inside the blade.
"Have to watch out for this sort of thing, too."
Whoosh!
Kaya yanked the hand gripping my sword. My body followed helplessly — and with Beast's Senses, I felt a thigh thicker than my own head rising toward me from beyond the edge of my vision. I lifted my body a hair and craned my neck back to its absolute limit!
WHOOONG!
"Kgh!"
"Oh, now that's surprising. You've got decent instincts, don't you?"
A kick wrapped in a howling gust skimmed past my chin by a hair's breadth. The wind pressure alone left my jaw numb. Kaya kept hold of my sword as she continued.
"But how long can you keep dodging? If I were you, I'd have let go of the sword by now."
"...Without it, how am I supposed to fight you at all?"
"Not my problem, is it?"
Whoosh!
With that heartless reply, my body was yanked toward her again. ...
"Nice dodging~"
"Kgh!"
WHOOONG! WHAM!
Like a doll in a child's hands, I was flung this way and that by Kaya's movements. Aided by Beast's Senses, I somehow evaded the terrifying barrage with acrobat-like contortions — but from the fixed posture of a man whose sword was trapped, I couldn't dodge everything. The inevitable conclusion: Kaya's hand closed around my neck, and I dangled helplessly from it.
"Kgh...!"
"Keep this up and you'll pass out. Wouldn't letting go of the sword have been the better call? Your situational judgment is a little lacking... how disappointing."
Her grip, like an industrial vice, permitted zero resistance as it slowly tightened around my throat. The overwhelming gap in strength threatened to snap something in my mind. But being caught like this was something I had predicted in advance. It was even intentional.
Just as I thought. With this much skin contact, I can feel Kaya's mana clearly.
Even with my carotid arteries squeezed and my breath failing, the flow of her violent mana came through her hand, vivid and immediate. Mid-combat as we were, it was incomparably more intense than what I'd felt during the test before the sparring began — a flow of mana that was savage and delicate all at once. My consciousness might be dimming, but her mana grew sharper by the second, close enough to touch.
She's coating every single muscle fiber, every fine capillary, in mana — protecting them like a layer of lacquer. And inside that... an enormous energy is churning.
It was the exact opposite of my own aura, which simply flowed in one mighty current like a river. Was she taking the tremendous repulsive force of that mana and using it directly as strength? It was a feat impossible to imitate without both innate physical power and supreme confidence in one's mana control. ...Conditions I happened to be rather confident about myself.
Noah's around, so a few injuries are fine. Let's copy it.
The key was perceiving aura at an even smaller scale. Unlike me — who had always treated aura like a liquid, using it in great undifferentiated masses — Kaya's mana was built from infinitesimally small particles. Those particles collided with one another, bounced apart, and generated a kind of repulsive force. That was the wellspring of her power.
Shwoop!
I drew the great majority of my rivering aura into the Inner Heart. What remained was a bare sliver — which only made its presence burn all the more vivid in my awareness.
Smaller... even smaller... like peering into a microscope!
"What an interesting thing to try. Good thinking — but you think that'll actually work?"
Kaya said something or other, but I was already so deep in concentration that nothing reached me. I drove my burrowing nerves down into my right forearm.
Crack!
Splintering the last remnant of my aura again and again, to the very limit of my will, until it became tiny grains. What I envisioned was the atom — the fundamental building block of matter! Even if I couldn't reach it, the direction of my aim had to be grand.
Mind reeling, I imagined the shape of the atom and ground my aura down finer and finer.
Brrrm...
Something strange began to happen. The aura that had so obediently followed my will started slipping free of my control the more I split it. Colliding with itself, it gave birth to some uncanny force.
One wrong move and my arm's going to explode!
One became two, two became four, four became sixteen, sixteen became... two hundred fifty-six! The force born of the colliding particles swelled geometrically, threatening to burst outward in every direction in an instant. My body screamed at the violent, unfathomable churn of aura — movement I couldn't have imagined before. All I could do was sheathe my entire forearm in a thin protective layer of aura and impose a simple direction on that chaotic, mysterious force. And for the moment, that was enough.
"Kghaah!"
KWAAAAAANG!
I swung my right arm — literally on the verge of bursting — at the limb Kaya had clamped around my throat. That arm, carrying strength my old self couldn't have conceived of, collided with hers with a deafening crack, and against all expectation, Kaya's iron grip loosened.
Only then, planting both feet on the ground and gulping down fresh air, did intuition strike me. My arm is broken, isn't it?
"Cough, cough! Ughaaah..."
"Are you completely insane?"
Between working the stiffness out of my strangled throat and clutching a right arm with a snapped bone and skin split open in half a dozen places, I was in no state to think straight. Kaya, rubbing her faintly reddened forearm, was staring at me with an expression of sheer bewilderment.