Chapter 223. Every Blow They Throw Is Just Fuel for Your Next Strike
Lia stood opposite him, her fingers wrapped around the leather-bound hilt of her greatsword. She looked different than she had in the kitchen.
The softness of the last few days had been armored over, but this wasn’t the hollow, brittle shell she had worn before. There was something sharper underneath a focused intensity.
"Same principles as before," William continued, stepping closer to adjust her stance with the toe of his boot. "Read the momentum."
"Don’t meet force with force... because that’s how you break your own wrists." William held her arms to position them correctly. "Try to redirect it as well."
"Let the weapon’s own weight become your ally... and then let the strike flow through the target like water through a crack in stone."
Lia shifted her weight, the heavy blade lowering until it pointed toward the earth. "Read the momentum... Redirect... Let the weight carry through..."
She repeated the words like a mantra, but as she looked up at him, William caught something that made his pulse quicken. It wasn’t just dutiful obedience.
For the briefest of seconds, there was a spark in her eyes, which was a hungry, almost desperate eagerness to test the limits of what she was becoming.
"Show me," William commanded.
The silence that followed was unnerving, broken only by the distant drip of water from the dungeon’s maw. Then, the treeline exploded.
Three Ash Wolves, creatures of matted gray fur and eyes like burning coals, burst from the underbrush with bone-chilling howls that scraped against the nerves. They didn’t approach in formation; they came as a chaotic wave of teeth and claws.
Lia didn’t flinch.
The first wolf lunged, its jaws snapping inches from her knee. She moved with a lethal fluidity that made William’s chest tighten with a complex mix of pride and protective dread.
She didn’t retreat; she stepped into the attack, pivoting on her lead foot. The greatsword’s momentum swung in a vicious arc, catching the wolf mid-leap.
The blade didn’t just hit; it connected with the wet thwack of steel meeting flesh, cleaving through the creature’s flank and sending it spinning into the underbrush with a pained, gurgling yelp.
"Good!" William shouted, already moving.
His own blade was out, the steel singing as it cleared the scabbard. He began to circle, positioning himself to cover her blind spot as two more wolves broke from the trees, their claws tearing gouges in the dirt as they sprinted toward her.
"Keep the rhythm, Lia! Don’t overcommit to the swing!"
Lia’s breathing was already becoming controlled pants. The first kill had tasted of iron and adrenaline.
She could feel the vibration of the impact traveling up her arms, a raw, primal connection to the violence she was unleashing.
’Faster,’ her inner voice whispered, a voice that sounded less like the girl from the academy and more like the survivor William was forging. ’Don’t think about the technique...’
’Feel the weight... Feel the kill...’.
A wolf lunged from her left, aiming for her ribs. She pivoted, the greatsword coming around in a brutal horizontal slash.
The blade caught the wolf across its muzzle, spraying a mist of hot, crimson blood across her cheek. The creature collapsed, its skull shattered by the sheer force of the impact, its legs twitching spasmodically in the dirt.
"Don’t stop!" William warned as a third wolf circled behind her, its hackles raised, preparing for a killing strike to her spine. "They hunt in waves, Lia!"
"One death is just an invitation for the next!"
The air was suddenly thick with the metallic tang of blood and the guttural snarls of predators. Lia wiped the gore from her cheek with the back of her glove, her eyes narrowing.
The fear was there, but it was being consumed by something else: the intoxicating clarity of the fight.
Lia didn’t freeze when the second wolf lunged. Instead, her body responded to the instinct William had been hammering into her.
As the beast’s jaws snapped toward her midsection, she didn’t brace for impact; she surrendered to it. She performed a controlled, spinning pivot, twisting her hips so that the wolf’s own momentum carried it harmlessly past her shoulder.
In one fluid, devastating motion, she brought the flat of her greatsword around in a heavy, sweeping arc.
The sound was sickening, a wet, grinding crunch as the steel connected with the wolf’s ribcage. The force didn’t just knock the creature back; it collapsed its entire left side, vertebrae snapping like dry kindling under the sheer kinetic energy.
The wolf skidded across the dirt, leaving a trail of dark blood in its wake, before going limp.
The third wolf, sensing the sudden shift in power, hesitated at the treeline. Its hackles were raised, its yellow eyes darting between the girl and the mountain of a man standing beside her.
It saw the carnage and calculated its odds, considering a retreat into the shadows.
William didn’t give it the chance.
"No running today," he growled.
With terrifying speed that belied his size, he closed the distance. His blade flashed in a silver blur, an economical, brutal strike that severed the creature’s head from its shoulders before it could even whimper.
The head rolled into the grass while the body collapsed in a spray of hot arterial blood.
Silence returned to the clearing, broken only by the ragged breathing of the two combatants.
"You’re finding the rhythm faster than I expected," William said, stepping closer to Lia.
His eyes scanned her for injuries, his voice carrying an edge of something approaching approval. "Days ago, that redirect would have thrown your balance off completely."
"You would have ended up face down in the dirt with a wolf’s teeth in your throat."
Lia took a shuddering breath, resetting her stance. Her knuckles were white against the leather grip, and a thin smear of wolf blood glistened on her cheek.
"It still feels... wrong," she admitted, her voice quiet but steady. "Like I’m fighting against my own muscles."
"But it’s different than before... It’s less like I’m breaking and more like I’m... shifting."
"That’s because you’re learning to stop fighting the world and start using it," William said, his gaze hardening. "But wolves are predictable."
"They hunt with hunger, so right now... we need something that hunts with purpose." William gestures her to follow. "Let’s push it further."
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and began walking toward the darker, deeper throat of the dungeon. Lia followed, the weight of the greatsword feeling like an extension of her own limbs.
As they descended into the stone bowels of the earth, the temperature dropped, and the air grew thick with the smell of ancient dust and something far more mineral: the scent of stone.
They emerged into a wide, cavernous chamber where two stone golems stood motionless. These weren’t flesh and blood; they were hulking masses of enchanted granite and obsidian, their movements slow but carrying enough force to pulverize bone into powder.
"Two at once," William commanded, stepping back to give her space. "This isn’t about reflexes anymore, Lia."
"This is about coordination and pressure... If you fail to manage the space between them, they will crush you like an insect."
Lia squared her shoulders. ’Two of them... Massive... Unfeeling...’
Her heart hammered against her ribs not with fear, but with a strange, electric tension. ’Don’t resist... Redirect...’
The first golem moved. Its massive fist came down in a telegraphed but terrifying arc, each movement sending vibrations through the stone floor.
Lia didn’t meet the blow head-on; that would have shattered her sword and her arms along with it. Instead, she angled her greatsword at a precise forty-five-degree angle, meeting the descending fist at the exact moment of impact.
She allowed the blade to slide along the trajectory of the golem’s strike, guiding the monstrous force harmlessly past her shoulder while her body coiled like a spring.
"Now!" William’s voice rang out.
Using the momentum of the redirected strike, Lia pivoted on her heel, driving the tip of her greatsword into the exposed joint where the golem’s arm met its torso. The enchanted stone groaned and cracked under the concentrated pressure.
"That’s exactly it!" William shouted, already moving to intercept the second golem as it lumbered forward to flank her. "Feel how the redirect doesn’t fight the force; it simply reassigns it!"
"You’re not stopping the hammer, but you’re tilting the anvil!"
"I felt it," Lia gasped, her voice cracking with something dangerously close to genuine excitement. "The weight... it’s different from the Tide Stance with a lighter blade."
"With this sword, the redirect feels more... deliberate!"
"I’m not just avoiding the strike; I’m stealing it."
William grunted in approval as he drove his own blade into the second golem’s cracked shoulder joint, exploiting a weakness he had memorized through years of bloodshed. "That’s the entire philosophy, Lia!"
"Look at them! They think they are the predators because they are heavy and strong. But they’re just giving you ammunition."
He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes burning with the fire of a true master. "You’re not just defending anymore!"
"You’re converting their aggression into your own momentum!"
"Every blow they throw at you is just another way to fuel your next strike!"