Chapter 109: He Stopped Being a Test.

Chase smiled as he felt a warm wetness building along his shin. At first, it was only a faint sensation beneath the adrenaline and heat of motion, something almost easy to ignore in the rush of the exchange. Then he looked down and saw the blood threading down his leg in thin, steady lines. Ten puncture wounds. Clean. Deliberate. Close enough together to tell their own story.

The sight did not erase his smile.

It sharpened it.

There was surprise in his expression, yes, but it was the kind a predator wore when prey bit back hard enough to finally become worth hunting. His green eyes lingered on the wounds for only a second before lifting again, rising over the black claws dripping dark red, over the crouched frame balanced low and wrong, over the glowing crimson eyes staring back at him with a hunger that had not been there at the start of the match.

“Come on then, Warbreaker,” Jagger said, voice low and edged with something far darker than confidence. Then his head tilted slightly, unnaturally, and the smile on his face widened into something that did not belong to him at all. “Bleed for me a little more. I want to hear what your bones sound like when they crack.”

Chase let out a short, harsh laugh that rang across the court.

“Alright, new boy,” he said, and there was genuine delight in his voice now, stripped of most of its mockery. “Now you’re making this interesting.”

He did not waste another word.

His body uncoiled like a spring released under pressure, the rubberized mat deforming beneath the force of his launch. He crossed the distance in a blur, but not in a straight line. He came in on a slight arc, a feint layered into a charge, forcing uncertainty into the angle of attack before the real strike arrived. His lead foot planted hard enough to squeal against the floor, anchoring his entire frame as his right arm lashed out in a full-force haymaker aimed less to test defense and more to break through it in one decisive impact.

It was a finishing punch.

A blow meant to silence whatever had crawled up behind Jagger’s eyes.

Jagger’s crimson gaze tracked it with unnerving calm. He did not flinch. He did not pull back early. He watched the fist all the way in, held still until the very last moment, then moved not away from the attack but into the space beneath it.

“Predator’s Blitz.”

The words came out in a savage purr.

His grin widened, all sharp teeth and hunger. “Yes,” he said softly. “Come closer.”

–

[Predator’s Blitz: Level 1] Explosively launches the user toward a target with savage force. Damage and speed increase against wounded or fleeing targets. [Cost: 10 MP. Duration: 1 minute]

–

The court seemed to snap around him.

Jagger shot forward at a vicious diagonal, low and predatory, one clawed hand skimming so close to the mat that the black talons bit into the rubberized surface and sent curling strips spiraling into the air behind him. Chase’s haymaker ripped through the empty space where Jagger’s head had been an instant earlier. The displacement of air slapped across the back of Jagger’s neck, but by then he was already inside the line of attack.

He rose up under Chase’s guard like something springing from beneath the skin of the fight itself.

His left shoulder slammed into Chase’s chest.

Not enough to stop him completely, but enough to shift him. Enough to take Chase’s balance off the clean centerline and steal the perfect structure from under the punch. Chase’s expression changed. It was not dramatic, only the slightest widening of the eyes, but in a fighter like him, it was as good as a shout.

Jagger’s right claw came up under the ribs in a brutal rising arc. He was not slashing wide. He was driving for depth, aiming to sink those black talons into soft tissue and rip upward through the vulnerable line beneath the guard. Every part of the movement was direct. Efficient. There was no flourish in it. No wasted aggression. Just a straight path from opening to damage.

“I’ll open you from belly to throat,” he snarled, voice thick with savage anticipation. “Then we’ll see if you still smile.”

Chase twisted hard, core tightening as his body tried to roll with the angle.

He knew immediately he was late.

A curse flashed through his head, sharp and involuntary. He was not dodging this cleanly.

Before the claws could bite, another force entered the exchange.

Jace moved.

She came in from Chase’s blind side with terrifying speed, her footwork nearly silent against the training mat. She did not shout. She did not announce herself. Her body turned sharply, hips snapping with perfect balance as she drove in with a whipping side kick aimed straight at Jagger’s exposed flank. It was not a trade attempt. It was a surgical intervention, meant to blast him off Chase’s line before the slash could land.

Jagger felt her before he fully saw her.

A shift in pressure.

A displacement of weight.

A precise and disciplined killing line enters the edge of his awareness.

His crimson eyes flicked once.

That was enough.

He abandoned the finishing angle instantly.

The claw that should have buried itself in Chase’s side instead carved through empty air as Jagger folded low in the middle of his own burst, one hand stabbing down into the mat to redirect his momentum. Jace’s kick cut through the space his body had occupied a heartbeat earlier, the force of it tearing the air with a sharp crack.

She missed him completely.

Jagger spun away in a tight predatory roll, claws ripping shallow grooves into the floor as he reoriented himself. He came up three meters back, crouched low on one hand and one foot, chest rising in slow, controlled breaths. His eyes moved between them in quick, hungry calculations. Chase. Jace. Distance. Timing. Blood. Foot placement. Openings.

Then he laughed.

The sound was lower now. Rougher. Older.

“Ah,” he said, tongue briefly dragging across his teeth. “Good. Two of you. That is better.”

Chase exhaled and barked out another laugh, though this one carried a sharper edge.

“Aw, sis, what was that?” he said, glancing sideways at Jace without fully taking his attention off Jagger. “You jumping in because I was about to get my pretty face ruined?”

Jace did not even look at him.

Her eyes stayed on Jagger.

“Stop messing around, Chase.”

There was no humor in her voice. Only irritation, sharpened by concern, she had no interest in hiding politely.

“You were testing him. He stopped being a test the moment he changed.”

Chase rolled his wounded shoulder and glanced down once at the thin lines of blood running along his shin. The smile remained, but it had narrowed into something more focused.

“I noticed.”

At the edge of the court, Grace stepped a little closer to Adriana, scarred face tight with disapproval. Her gaze stayed on Jagger’s posture, the claws, the glowing eyes, the way he held himself like something that had not fully decided whether this was still a spar or already a kill.

“Commander,” Grace said quietly, low enough that only Adriana and Leo could hear, “I recommend you stop this now.”

Adriana did not look at her.

“Why?”

Grace’s jaw tightened. “Because that is not just anger. Something about him shifted. The stance, the eyes, the way he broke his own attack the second Jace entered the line. He’s not fighting like a reckless kid anymore. He’s adapting too fast.” Her expression hardened. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this personality change.”

Leo, still hovering near the sideline with both hands buried deep in his jacket pockets, swallowed hard. He looked at Jagger, then quickly away, like staring too long might invite notice from something best left unseen.

Adriana’s lips curved.

It was not warmth.

It was recognition.

“Exactly,” she said.

Grace frowned. “Commander.”

Adriana finally turned her head slightly toward her. “He has lied, withheld, deflected, and guarded every answer since he arrived.” Her gaze shifted back to the court. “This is the first honest thing he has shown me.”

Grace’s mouth tightened. “And if honesty is dangerous?”

Adriana’s smile sharpened. “Then I would rather see it now, on a controlled court, with level-forty hunters present, than later when it costs me a squad.” Her eyes moved from Jagger to Chase, then Jace. “Pain strips away performance. Pressure reveals structure. I want to know whether this change makes him reckless, tactical, or monstrous.”

A beat passed.

Then, coolly, decisively, she added, “As long as I am standing here, no one on this floor is dying.”

Grace held her stare for another second, then exhaled through her nose and stepped back, though tension remained in every line of her shoulders.

Across the court, Jagger had not heard the words clearly, only fragments of tone and presence. It did not matter. The world had narrowed too far for distant conversation to mean anything at all. Chase was in front of him. Jace had entered the space. Chase’s shin was bleeding. Jace’s stance was cleaner, tighter, better guarded.

Two separate rhythms. Two separate threats.

The voice was no longer fully human. It came out deeper, rougher, scraped raw by something ancient and feral.

“Come then,” he said, every syllable soaked in hunger. “Show me whether the title on your backs means anything at all.”

Chase’s grin widened again.

Jace sank a fraction lower into her stance.

And for the first time since entering the court, everyone watching understood the same thing at once.

The match had become something else.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep