Chapter 189: Mock Battle [part 2]

Something impossible happened the moment the flames ignited. With a blur of motion, Kassie withdrew her hand — and the fire only combusted in the air, leaving her skin untouched.

I had barely a moment to process this. As Kassie withdrew her hand, she tore leftward and crashed a rolling kick into the side of my head, sending me staggering. My vision swam. The next thing I knew, I was crashing into the pews behind me with a torrent of force that sent terrible pain lancing across my body.

I didn’t dwell on the ground. Instead, I surrounded myself with white flames that blazed ferociously, a barrier to prevent Kassie from advancing.

I truly thought a vicious white fire was going to stop her. The thought might’ve been quite naive of me.

She tore through the flames like they were nothing, grabbed me by the shirt as I tried to stand, then used my body to wipe the pews as she ran along the rows. My head crashed through the white wood, destroying benches into splinters that went flying.

Then she plunged out of the rows and smashed my back into a column. The entire Nave groaned under the impact, dust raining from the vaulted ceiling.

Pain sang a terrible song across my spine. Air seized from my lungs. For a moment, I genuinely thought I had died.

Then my body crumpled to the ground and I spat out blood.

Kassie stepped back. Her expression was indifferent — the same look she might give a disappointing news.

“Underestimating your enemy comes at a great price. No one deserves to be underestimated. You should prepare for the worst possible account.”

I coughed up more blood as I struggled to my feet, one hand braced against the damaged column.

“Well…” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “It wasn’t like I was underestimating my opponent. I was just sure my fire burned hot enough to scare anyone.”

“Some people love the pain of burns.” Her tone didn’t change. “Some people are crazy enough not to care. Your job is not to distinguish which is which. Your job is to make sure that regardless of which, they meet the same fate at your hands.” She paused. “Death.”

She stepped back, giving me space as I straightened. My ribs protested every breath.

“And for that, you cannot — absolutely cannot — afford to underestimate anyone. You do not have the luxury.”

I chuckled slightly despite the pain still ringing through my body. My legs felt like they’d been filled with wet sand.

“Well, I kind of do have the luxury. You and Magdalene are my luxury.” I glanced at Maggie, who stood two columns away from us, her arms still folded. She hadn’t moved an inch during the entire beating.

Kassie was silent for a moment. Her head tilted slightly — the closest thing to consideration I’d seen from her.

“You’re not wrong. We are the luxury. But this is not about us, is it? This is about what you can do.”

I shrugged, then immediately regretted it as my shoulder screamed. “Yes… but do I have to have all the advantage? I have you guys.”

“You’re not wrong again.” Her voice remained level, patient. “But you must continue to move forward regardless. Avoid stagnation. Anything can happen.”

I exhaled slowly, letting the pain settle into something manageable.

“Fine. I feel you.” I rolled my neck, wincing. “So how did I do?”

Kassie stood there for a long moment. The silence stretched. I found myself holding my breath despite my burning lungs.

“I was confident I would’ve been able to kill you on the first strike,” she said finally, her tone as casual as if she were discussing the weather. “Not only did you, for a moment, withstand my blow — you found a way around the other and countered intelligently. You’ve come far from where you started.” There was silence for a beat. “But you are certainly far from matching me in battle.”

I frowned, replaying the exchange in my head.

“I did match you… for a couple of seconds, right?”

Kassie’s expression didn’t change.

“I wasn’t even using a sword.”

The words settled into my stomach like poison.

’I swear I forgot.’

The realization hit me in stages. Kassie had been so terrific — I had felt like I was going to die every second of that exchange — and she wasn’t even armed. Not properly armed, anyway. Her fists and feet had been enough to reduce me to a bloody mess against the church furniture.

And that made me remember all the times I’d seen her with her greatsword. The thing was massive. I’d watched her swing it like it weighed nothing, carving through enemies that should have been immovable. And now I was thinking about how heavy it actually was, and how disastrous it would have been if she’d used it against me.

If Kassie had smashed me with that sword instead of her kick, would Frostfang have resisted breaking? Would I have been able to handle the damage the way I did?

’No,’ I answered myself. ’No, I would not.’

And I was certain — absolutely certain — that Kassie had been restraining herself from accidentally breaking her summoner. This hadn’t been her trying to win. This had been her holding back enough not to kill me by mistake.

Then I had a strange thought.

’This is what our enemies are facing.’

Kassie was right. Watching her fight and fighting her were indeed two completely different things. From the outside, she was devastating. From the receiving end, she was a natural disaster wearing armor.

Then I had another thought. A worse one.

’Could it be that… she has been holding back this whole time?’

Not just against me. Against everyone. Every battle I’d watched her dominate — had she been pulling her punches the entire time?

I narrowed my gaze at her.

“What?” She met my stare flatly.

“Kassie, it wouldn’t be that you’ve been holding back since you got summoned… right?”

She looked at me like I’d asked if water was wet.

“Obviously.”

I stared at her.

“What? Why?!”

Kassie’s expression remained perfectly calm, as if she were explaining something simple to a slow child.

“I’m not holding back because I want to. I have a total of one thousand units of weight on my body. That’s the sum total of my armor.” She glanced down at herself, at the plates of dark metal that covered her form. “I think in clear terms, this is about five hundred tons.”

Five hundred tons…

She was wearing five hundred tons of metal on her body. Every moment of every day. And she moved like she was wearing silk.

“Oathkeeper alone weighs about two hundred units.” She continued as if she hadn’t just shattered my understanding of physical reality. “All of it, of course, greatly reduces my speed and in turn magnifies the effect of my strength. But taking them off…”

She paused.

“Would break my enemies faster than I can enjoy the battle.”

I stared at her.

’What manner of wickedness is this?’

She wasn’t holding back because she had to. She wasn’t holding back because of some moral code. She was holding back because fighting at full strength would be boring. Her enemies would die too fast for her to have any fun.

I looked at her with something between awe and horror.

She closed her eyes, opened them, and exhaled.

“Anyways.” The word dismissed the entire revelation as unimportant. “We will continue the other part of our training when we get to Recimiras. For now, I think you’re strong enough to fight about anybody. Learn from each battle and develop what you think will be your unique style.”

She manifested two weight bracelets and held them out.

“You can take these out of the Nave.”

I looked at the bracelets, then took them from her hand. I slipped them onto my wrists.

They were bearable — lighter than the previous set — but they still dragged at my movements, made every motion feel like I was fighting through invisible resistance. I rolled my wrists experimentally, then reached for Frostfang and gave it a few test swings.

It was heavy but manageable.

’I guess that works.’

I looked toward the doors of the Nave. Beyond them waited the Crystalis and then Ashara and then whatever horrors it had in store.

Time to see if any of this training actually mattered.

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