Chapter 20: A Single Opening
Caelus gripped his sword.
His gaze stayed fixed on Eve.
She stood several meters away, apparently relaxed, her black hair falling around the edges of her mask. There was no visible tension in her shoulders, no restless movement of her weapon, nothing that suggested she was preparing to attack.
That was precisely what bothered him.
At C-rank, an Awakened normally committed to a single path. Knights developed Heart Cores, Mages Mind Cores, and Martial Artists Lower-Body Cores.
Eve had two.
A Lower-Body Core and a Mind Core.
It was an absurd combination for someone at her rank. Her body could reinforce itself for close combat while her Mind Core gave her the control necessary to shape mana and manipulate her Shadow Affinity with precision.
Eve had managed it anyway.
The combination was one of the reasons she had eventually taken first place in the Primordial Academy entrance examination.
He knew exactly what that combination could do.
Unfortunately, his body hadn’t received the same memo.
Eve moved.
Her rear foot pressed into the floor.
Caelus caught the shift a fraction before the rest of her body followed.
Left.
He raised his sword.
Eve crossed the distance in a blur.
Her blade crashed against his.
The impact rang through the room and drove his arms downward. His elbows buckled before he twisted his wrists, letting the force slide along his guard rather than allowing it to break through. His boots scraped several inches across the floor.
He twisted with the force rather than resisting it head-on, turning his shoulder away as Eve’s blade slid from his guard.
His wrists burned.
C-rank.
The difference wasn’t theoretical anymore.
It was pressing his bones backward.
He barely held his ground.
Her wrist snapped, the blade reversing direction.
Caelus barely caught it.
Steel scraped against steel as he turned the edge aside, but the follow-up came too quickly.
Her shoulder dipped.
He moved before the next strike fully committed.
Her blade passed across his shoulder instead of through his chest, opening a shallow line of red.
She’s not even trying.
That was the worst part. She wasn’t using her full speed. She was testing him.
He needed to survive long enough to make her take him seriously.
Eve vanished.
Her silhouette collapsed into the shadow beneath her feet, darkness spreading outward like spilled ink.
Shadow Step.
Caelus stepped forward instead of back.
His sword swept through the space where she should reappear.
The blade whistled through empty air.
A figure emerged beside it.
Eve twisted around the swing, her body bending away from the edge by a fraction. Her hair whipped across her mask as she planted one foot against the floor and rotated around his blade.
His eyes widened.
She had altered the exit at the last moment.
Her elbow drove toward his ribs.
He abandoned the swing, folded his arm across his side, and took the impact on his forearm instead.
Pain shot up to his shoulder.
He staggered away.
Eve didn’t pursue immediately.
She simply watched him. For the first time, her mask tilted slightly. She was acknowledging that he had read her.
Then she changed the pattern.
Caelus’s next prediction came half a heartbeat late.
Her blade cut across his ribs.
He twisted away before it could sink deeper, but the edge still tore through his clothes and opened skin beneath.
Blood warmed his side.
She noticed.
That was all he had time to think before she came again.
Eve pressed forward.
Her next step landed inside his guard.
Caelus brought his sword down.
She slipped underneath it, her palm brushing against the floor.
Shadows erupted beneath his feet.
He jumped.
A black spike tore through the space where his ankle had been.
He landed badly.
Eve was already there.
He caught her kick with his sword’s flat, but the impact launched him sideways. His shoulder slammed against the reinforced wall.
Before he could recover, her silhouette fractured.
Three shadows moved at once.
Caelus’s eyes narrowed.
False bodies.
He ignored the first.
The second lunged.
He cut through it.
The third came from behind.
He ducked.
A blade of condensed shadow passed over his head and buried itself in the wall.
Caelus rolled away and came up on one knee, his breathing had already become uneven.
She can chain them.
Shadow movement wasn’t a trick she used between attacks. It was part of the attack itself.
That changed everything.
He couldn’t simply predict where she’d appear.
He had to predict what she intended to do after appearing.
Which was considerably less convenient.
Eve stepped forward.
Caelus raised his sword.
She disappeared again.
He moved before she emerged.
Her blade struck where his neck had been.
He twisted, felt steel brush his hair, and drove his elbow backward.
It missed.
Her knee slammed into his stomach.
Air left his lungs.
He folded.
Her next strike came toward his temple.
Caelus threw himself sideways.
The blade whipped past his forehead instead.
This is going terribly.
He stepped back. She followed. He predicted a Shadow Step and moved accordingly. She emerged where he expected, but she altered her trajectory at the last instant. His block was too slow. Her strike grazed his forehead.
Blood slipped into his eye. He wiped it away with the back of his wrist just as Eve disappeared again.
The shadows moved.
Caelus swung toward the darker patch at his flank. His blade struck something solid with a dull crack.
Eve recoiled a step.
He had bought himself another second.
---
Veyra’s eyes narrowed.
Caelus moved strangely.
He was not faster than Eve, or stronger. If anything, his movements were painfully economical, as though every unnecessary motion had been cut away before the fight even began.
Several times, he moved before Eve committed to an attack.
Coincidence?
Perhaps.
Veyra didn’t believe in that many coincidences.
Still, she said nothing. There would be time for questions later. For now, she wanted to see what happened when his foresight stopped being enough.
---
Eve appeared behind him.
Caelus heard the displacement of air a fraction too late.
He dropped his shoulder and threw himself forward. Her blade sliced through the space beside his neck, close enough that he felt the cold of it against his skin.
He hit the ground, rolled, and came up with one knee planted beneath him.
Eve was already turning.
He raised his sword just in time.
Her kick crashed into the flat of the blade and sent him skidding sideways. His fingers nearly lost their grip.
He tightened them around the hilt and forced himself upright.
She came forward again.
Caelus barely raised his sword in time.
Her first strike crashed against his guard. The second came low, forcing him another step backward.
Shadow gathered beneath her feet.
Caelus watched the shift in her stance.
His body moved before he could second-guess it.
She vanished.
Caelus stepped toward the darkness instead of away from it.
The shadows erupted behind him.
He spun, his sword already cutting through the space where she would emerge.
For one terrible instant, there was nothing there.
Then Eve appeared.
Steel rang.
The edge caught her upper arm before she could fully redirect herself.
A thin line of blood opened beneath her sleeve.
The force of her arrival drove Caelus to one knee, but his sword remained raised.
Silence settled over the training room.
Eve looked at the cut.
Then at Caelus.
For the first time, her eyes widened.
Blood marked the edge of his blade.
He had touched her.
His legs suddenly stopped cooperating.
His vision darkened at the edges, and the strength he’d been forcing through his body finally gave out.
His fingers loosened around the hilt.
His consciousness disappeared.
Yet, he remained standing.
His sword stayed in his hand, his body locked in the defensive posture he’d forced himself into moments earlier.
Eve stared at him for several seconds before turning toward Veyra.
Veyra’s lips curved faintly.
"Interesting."