Chapter 160: A little training

Early the next morning, Jelo, Atlas, and Mira met at the location Tongen had given them.

The morning air was still. Quiet. Almost unsettling.

A few minutes later, Tongen arrived.

Without wasting time, he spoke to them briefly before turning and walking ahead. The three followed closely behind.

After some time, they reached a fenced area. The gate was old and rusted, and hanging on it was a bold warning sign:

DO NOT ENTER.

Mira narrowed her eyes.

“Doesn’t that fence say Do Not Enter?”

Tongen glanced at the sign, then back at her.

“Don’t bother about that,” he said with a faint smile.

He stepped forward.

One kick.

That was all it took.

The metal gate flew open violently, slamming against the fence with a loud clang.

“All right,” Tongen said calmly. “Let’s go in.”

Without hesitation or further questions, they walked inside.

After moving deeper into the area, Tongen stopped and turned to face them.

“So basically, what we’re doing today is simple,” he said. “And we’ll repeat it until you succeed.”

He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small red ball.

“The three of you must work together to get this red ball from me.”

He held it up briefly before slipping it back into his pocket.

“Until you take it from me… we are not leaving this place.”

Was he serious?

Three against one. The odds were clearly in their favor.

Or so they thought.

“If you understand,” Tongen said, “shall we begin?”

“We’re wasting time,” Jelo replied firmly.

Atlas and Mira nodded. “Yes.”

Tongen gave a small nod.

“You may start now.”

Mira tilted her head. “Shouldn’t we at least give you a head start? Go deeper into the forest or something?”

“I don’t need a head start,” Tongen answered calmly.

And then—

He ran forward.

And vanished.

He didn’t actually disappear.

He was simply too fast.

His speed ripped through the air so suddenly that it felt like he had blinked out of existence. No sound. No disturbed leaves. No scent left behind.

Nothing.

Now they faced a new problem.

They couldn’t take the red ball from him…

If they couldn’t even find him.

“We need to come up with a plan,” Mira said, turning to face Jelo and Atlas.

“Okay, we’re listening,” Jelo replied.

“I didn’t say me, I said we,” Mira shot back sharply.

Jelo blinked. “Oh.”

They both looked at Atlas.

Atlas scratched the back of his head. “I… don’t really have a plan right now.”

They stared at him.

“I also don’t have anything in mind,” he admitted.

Mira exhaled. “So what do we do? Do we split up? Or search together?”

Atlas thought for a moment.

“I think splitting up would be better,” he said finally. “If one of us finds him, don’t engage. Call the other two first. We face him together. That’s the only way we stand a chance.”

Mira nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

“Okay,” Jelo said. “Let’s split up.”

The three separated, each disappearing into a different direction of the forest, searching for Tongen.

Tongen, of course, knew.

If he hid in one place, they might eventually corner him.

But that wouldn’t be interesting.

So instead…

He decided to confront them.

One by one.

Atlas moved carefully through the trees, scanning his surroundings, listening for even the slightest shift in the wind. The forest here was dense. The kind of dense that swallowed sound whole and gave nothing back. Every step he took felt deliberate, like walking through a room where someone was already watching him from a corner he hadn’t checked yet.

He slowed his breathing.

He paid attention to everything. The way the light fell between the branches. The way the leaves sat undisturbed on the ground ahead. The absence of birds. The absence of anything.

Then—

“Are you looking for me?”

The voice came from behind him.

Atlas froze.

He slowly turned.

Tongen stood there casually, hands in his pockets. No tension in his posture. No urgency in his expression. He looked the same as he always did — relaxed, unbothered, as if he had simply been waiting there the entire time and Atlas had only just caught up.

“It’s him,” Atlas thought.

He immediately prepared to turn and go find Jelo and Mira. That was the plan. That was what they had agreed on. Don’t engage alone. Call the others. Face him together.

But Tongen spoke again.

“Don’t you want to try?” he asked calmly. “Don’t you think you stand a chance of taking the ball from me?”

Atlas paused.

The words weren’t taunting. They weren’t cruel. They were quiet and even, delivered the same way someone might ask if you wanted more water at dinner. And somehow, that made them land harder.

Logically, he knew they didn’t stand a chance alone. That was the whole reason they had agreed to find each other first. Tongen was faster than anything Atlas had seen. The way he had moved earlier — the way he had simply ceased to exist in front of their eyes — wasn’t something a single person could overcome with effort alone.

But something inside him stirred.

It wasn’t arrogance. It wasn’t impatience either. It was something quieter than both of those things. A question he had been carrying for a while now, one that had no answer yet because he hadn’t actually tested himself against anything real.

He wanted to know.

Not whether he could win. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that.

He wanted to know where he stood. He wanted to feel the gap between them — not imagine it, not estimate it, but feel it with his own body so that he understood exactly how far he had to go.

There was no shame in losing to someone like Tongen.

But there was something valuable in knowing precisely how you lost.

He said nothing.

He simply took his stance.

Tongen’s faint smile widened, just barely. Not mockingly. More like recognition. Like he had seen this particular look before and respected what it meant.

The forest went still.

Five seconds passed.

Neither of them moved. The air between them held the kind of tension that didn’t crackle or hum — it simply compressed, like the moment before a door swings open and you still don’t know what’s on the other side.

And then—

Atlas moved first.

He closed the distance fast, faster than he usually allowed himself, because he knew that hesitation against someone like Tongen wasn’t a strategy — it was a gift. His right hand reached toward the pocket where the ball was kept, his body low, his approach angled so that Tongen would have to commit to one direction to avoid him.

For one fraction of a second, it almost felt like it might work.

And then Tongen was simply elsewhere.

Not behind him. Not to the side. Just — no longer where Atlas’s hand was reaching. The motion had been so clean and so complete that Atlas stumbled slightly from his own momentum, catching himself against the ground with one knee before rising again.

He turned.

Tongen stood a few feet away, still calm, hands still in his pockets.

“Again,” Atlas said quietly.

It wasn’t a question.

Tongen said nothing.

But he didn’t walk away either.

And that was answer enough.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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