I furrowed my brow. “That makes sense, but he was still attacking to subdue us. I’m sure you could hold back somewhat, too.”
“I could, but I still might hurt you. Derek is a fairly balanced fighter, since he’s assigned his contracts to enhance his fighting in a number of different ways. I’m specialized in offensive melee combat. I don’t have a traditional shroud, so I don’t have the kind of defensive strength that someone like Derek does. But if I was attacking with any degree of seriousness…” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t like the result.”
Marissa put her arms back up. “Aw, c’mon. It’s no fun if you don’t fight back. Just for a minute?”
Keras narrowed his eyes. “Corin, do you agree with Marissa?”
I nodded. I knew that Keras was probably the most dangerous person I’d ever fought against, but I wanted to see how much of a gap there was in our fighting ability. It would be useful to see just how far I had to grow. “Just try not to snap us like twigs.”
He grinned. “I’ll hold back as much as I can. Are you two ready?”
Marissa shifted to a ready stance. “You bet.”
I raised Selys-Lyann defensively, moving close enough to Marissa that we were nearly touching. It would be easier for us to guard for each other that way. “Ready.”
Keras bowed his head. “Begin.”
One moment, Keras was still sitting several feet away.
The next, there was a sword at my throat.
And Marissa’s throat, because we were next to each other, and the blade was pretty long.
I’d say that I froze, but that would have implied I ever had a chance to move in the first place.
Keras removed the sword slowly, deliberately, and slipped it back into the scabbard at his side.
I’d known he could move fast when he wanted to. He’d been a blur during some of the fight against Derek, and even faster when he’d cut one of Katashi’s attacks out of the air.
But I hadn’t experienced being on the receiving end of it.
It was…not a pleasant experience.
Humbling would have been one way to put it. In that regard, Keras was right. He’d shown us just how absurd the idea of even the two of us fighting against him was.
There was more to it, though.
There was a sort of dysphoria in my mind, a degree of disbelief that anyone could move that quickly. Even if he had magic to make him move faster physically, how could he perceive that much faster than I could?
It wasn’t just that he teleported — he had to be able to stand up, move his arms to a completely different position, pick up the sword from the ground, unsheathe it, and then move to put his sword at our necks.
Did he experience the passage of time in a different way than I did when he was moving like that? Or perhaps permanently? The latter was an even more daunting concept, because it implied a way of seeing the world that was completely alien.
Maybe they were good questions, but all I managed to stammer was, “How?”
Keras leveled his now-sheathed sword in front of him. “A fair question, but we’re not done yet.”
As if to punctuate the point, Marissa swung a fist, impacting the scabbard and battering it out of the way. She tried to follow-up on the opening, but he kicked her in the chest, doubling her over.
I swung Selys-Lyann downward, but it was a feint. As he stepped back and avoided it, I tried something new.
The ring of jumping used transference mana — the same type I used for enchanting all the time. I could feel it, and, to some extent, control it.
I activated the ring again, but I didn’t let the mana seep into my legs and launch me forward.
I refocused it, channeling it all into my left arm as I swung my fist at him.
My own arm’s motion was a blur, too fast for me to follow.
It had worked.
Keras grabbed my fist out of the air anyway.
“Interesting.” He held my fist in an iron grip with a single hand, dodging effortlessly as I used my main hand to swing Selys-Lyann at him again. “Didn’t think you’d be able to use the ring with that level of flexibility yet, but it was a good idea. You would have hit a slower opponent hard.” He smiled. “Unfortunately, you asked for me to put in more effort, and I have no intention of letting either of you hit me again.”
Keras released my hand — then flicked it with a finger, like he had with the fireball earlier.
My hand flew back, smashed by sudden kinetic force. The impact spun me, throwing off my next attempt at a swing.
Marissa coughed, straightened, and flung her right arm out to her side.
Her arm was encased in a blade-like aura, like the one Keras had shown us earlier. It looked considerably thicker than when she’d tried to use it in our dueling test a few days earlier.
She swung the aura blade at him. He raised the scabbard to block — and the aura cut right through it, and the sword within.
Keras dropped the weapon with a surprised look, stepping back just before the aura connected with his body. “Not bad. You’ve been practicing without me.”
Marissa grinned. “Every night.” Then she lunged at him.
Keras side-stepped, blurred, and then he was behind her. I tried to step forward, but he moved too fast. He brought an open hand down on Marissa’s back. The impact blasted her downward and into the ground, cracking the stone floor.
I backed off rather than lunging, swinging at the air and producing another crescent of ice. Keras had admitted to being a close combat specialist, so my best bet was to keep him at a distance.
Keras stepped out of the way of the crescent, forming a ball of flame between his hands. I didn’t like the look of that, so I activated the ring again, blasting myself backward, almost to the opposite side of the roof.
He threw the sphere at Marissa, while she was still pulling herself off the floor. It was a direct hit. Her phoenix sigil’s barrier flickered and shattered on impact, but her shroud absorbed most of the rest of the blast.
Most, but not all. The back of her shirt had a hole burned in it, and the skin beneath was reddened and burned. I heard her let out a pained shout.
“Mara—” I started, but then Keras was in front of me. I took another swing at him out of instinct, but he just batted it to the side with an open hand.
I grabbed him with my other hand and activated the ring of jumping, focusing the energy into him.
The blast shot him backward, almost off the roof.
Almost.
He stopped right at the edge, shaking his head. “Not bad, Corin. But not enough.”
Marissa hissed, tensed her hands, and pushed herself to her feet. She extended her right arm, her shroud sharpening back into a blade shape. “Again.”
Keras raised an eyebrow at her. “…Really? You still want to fight?”
She balled her hands into fists. “I’m just getting started.”
The swordsman laughed, shaking his head. “You don’t know when to give up.” He took a few steps closer, then sat back down. “Let’s start over.”
I walked back over to Marissa, shrugging off my uniform coat and putting it over her shoulders. She winced as she slipped it on, so I reached into my bag to retrieve the ring of regeneration and handed it to her. She put it on, activated it, and nodded in thanks.
“Let me see your phoenix sigil for a minute.”
She turned toward me so I could grab the sigil. With my new attunement, it only took me a few seconds to recharge, although I could feel my hand burning from the effort of using that much mana that quickly.
“Thanks.” She turned back to Keras. “Ready.”