Chapter 36:Tough Nut
"Signifer. Hand me the case." She said, grinding her teeth. She wanted something, an excuse, to tear the man before her limb through limb.
Ethan locked eyes on her, knowing full well what would happen next. "No."
"That is not a request sir. I believe the package is too valuable to risk in open combat. Protocol—"
"I said no. That should be the end of it, just do what you want to do...no one here is stopping you, mage."
The soft click of her boots on stone was the only warning.
"Okay then..."
She moved first.
A mage’s body should not be that fast, but Seris closed the distance in three heartbeats, palm already glowing with condensed mana. Meanwhile Ethan met her with pure physical force.
Fist against palm.
Doom!
The impact cracked the air. Stone chips flew from the ground where they stood and something from the package moved inside him, without Ethan even knowing.
But he could feel it, the shockwave rolled through his arm and into his shoulder, but his bones held. Seris’s eyes narrowed a fraction. She had expected the Signifer to give ground, but he did not.
Ethan grinned through the pressure.
So this is how a mage feels up close.
He had wanted this. Ever since the cliff meeting, when she stood there with that cold, measuring stare, he had wondered how far empire training would carry her against raw, overclocked stats.
Now the chance had arrived gift-wrapped in betrayal, and he knew it. Strength was his.
He drove a shoulder into her chest and sent her skidding backward three meters. Seris twisted mid-slide, boots finding purchase on the uneven stone, and came back even faster.
Her speed was higher. Every counter landed half a second earlier than it should have. Elbow to ribs. Knee toward his thigh. A spinning heel that would have cracked a normal man’s jaw.
Ethan took them all, and he didn’t even flinch.
But each hit registered. He was figuring out what martial art she was using—pressure, force, the clean technique of someone who had drilled the same forms for years.
What was this technique called? Mixed martial arts?
She didn’t reply. She just moved forward, slamming hit after hit. But the damage never stuck as his vitality simply swallowed it.
Skin that should have bruised stayed unmarked. Muscle that should have locked stayed loose.
Ethan felt the impacts like someone knocking on a thick door, but the door did not open.
Seris’s eyes narrowed further. She backed off two steps, breathing harder than she wanted to show. A thin line of blood had already formed at the corner of her mouth from the earlier exchange.
"Tough nut," she spat. Rage finally leaked into her voice.
"I’ll beat you into a pulp worse than anything my friend the defense mage ever managed. You remember him, don’t you? The one who made you bleed for three days in the training pits?"
Ethan rolled his neck. The vertebrae cracked once. "You can try, sugar..."
He stopped holding back the strength.
And then he stopped holding back the speed.
The difference was immediate. Seris’s next combination met empty air and Ethan slipped inside her guard like mist. One clean, bloody punch cracked against her chin.
Doom!
Her head snapped sideways. Blood sprayed in a thin arc. The force lifted her clean off the ground, but...
She did not fall.
Gear on her boots and palms flared. Blue ember wings of pure force bloomed under her feet and hands. She hung in the air for a heartbeat, then shot upward into the open sky above him, circling like a hawk that had just been punched in the face.
Lightning still slept inside Ethan’s veins. He wanted to see how far pure stats would carry him against a real attack mage, and it seemed Seris gave him the answer.
Having the very sky as their playground is what makes them lethal.
She came from every direction at once and dived like a missile, with slashes of condensed ember. Later, she climbed. Spun. Another dive from a different angle. The air itself announced where her force-blades cut.
Ethan’s high vitality let him eat glancing hits that would have opened lesser men, but every second she stayed airborne the pressure mounted ever more.
Her blade of compressed air scored across his left forearm. The skin split and blood began to flow from the wound.
She wanted to use the gun.
He saw her hand twitch toward the holster twice. Both times she stopped herself. A bullet through the Signifer’s heart would end her career faster than any report.
The Empire could forgive a lot of things. Killing a golden-eagle officer in front of witnesses was not one of them.
So she stayed with magic and speed.
Ethan tracked her with pure physical perception. Storm Sense was still half-dead from earlier overuse, but his eyes and instincts were enough.
He waited, feet planted, body loose.
Seris banked high for another diving strike. Her free hand flicked a small crystal from her sleeve. The recording rune lit up, hungry for footage of the Signifer using forbidden power.
Ethan decided the experiment was over.
A thin, precise bolt of lightning left his fingertip. It cost only a thread of the ember still locked inside him. The bolt was no bigger than a finger. It struck the crystal mid-air and turned it into white dust, and so did her recording.
Seris’s eyes went wide.
"You—"
"I told you what would happen if you recorded me again."
She snarled and changed targets.
Instead of diving at him, she angled toward the small figure on his shoulder.
She had seen it, something crawling out from his precious package.
[Package in danger]
A system notification came and something inside Ethan snapped.
The careful control he had kept on the lightning tore open. White arcs exploded across his arms and shoulders.
The air around him ionized with a sharp metallic taste as his eyes went pure storm. The hair on Spark’s head lifted and stood on end. It made a small sound, half fear, half excitement.
Seris never even finished the dive.
The uncontrolled surge hit her like the fist of a god itself. Lightning crawled over her force-gear, overrode every safety rune, and flooded her body in a single white flash.
The smell of ozone and burnt fabric filled the tunnel mouth. Her mana wings shattered into blue sparks that died before they hit the ground.
She dropped.
Hard.
Ethan caught her by the collar before she could crack her skull on the stone.
Her body was still twitching with residual current. Alive? Dead? He didn’t know, maybe barely. Smoking at the edges of her uniform. Her eyes were open but unfocused as she moaned in pain, blood running from one nostril in a slow trickle.
Spark peeked over Ethan’s shoulder, tiny voice soft with something like awe.
"... you got...really loud."
"What...what the fuck are you?"
Ethan exhaled and the excess lightning slowly bled back into his skin. The ember inside him felt smaller.
The thing bounced off, revealing itself. Half of its body like a snake, and its upper body like a baby’s, its hair somewhat covered.
"I will deal with you...later." Ethan said, walking towards Seris.
He set Seris down against the wall carefully enough not to break her further. Her chest still rose and fell. That was enough for now.
Above them, on the ridge, someone’s distorted voice carried down through the smoke.
"Signifer. Hand over the package. Or I come down there and take it from your corpse."
The sound was so mumbled he couldn’t figure out who or what it was. He turned to the creature as it ran toward a rock.
That...is the package.
He figured as much, with the suitcase now empty and the egg inside it cracking.
What the hell is the revolutionary doing with this creature?
Ethan looked at the unconscious mage against the wall, then he sensed it. His storm sense was still active. Twelve elite signatures still waited above, then there was the small divine fragment child still clinging to a rock nearby.
The thing’s fingers tightened once, then relaxed. It trusted him to handle what came next.
He didn’t know what they were, but they had seen him use thunder, and that should be enough for them to die by his hands.
"Come and try me..." Ethan muttered.
I don’t need to control it now. I just need to let it flow.
He turned fully toward the open sky and let the remaining lightning dance across his knuckles like it was happy to be free.
The arcs jumped between his fingers in short, eager snaps as the air around him still carried the charge.
The twelve heartbeats on the ridge shifted. They were no longer waiting. They were already attacking. A familiar signature led them, distorted but still recognizably his.
Are they...part of the revolutionary?
The thing leaned closer. "Father. Loud is good. But more loud is better."
Ethan gave a short, quiet laugh. "Father...me? I’m still a virgin, you know."
He stood from the grass. "But yeah, more loud is better."