In the end, Lieren ended up late by an entire hour. Not knowing the layout of the Mansion, he had no choice but to wander around the place endlessly like some lost fool.
And ended up getting scolded at… is what he originally thought.
But, no, reality was much worse than that.
"Gah!"
Straining his weak muscles, the frail boy ran with his all, feeling as his entire body broke itself apart and rebuilt itself over and over again in a virtuous cycle of destruction and augmentation.
His lungs burned as though it was a furnace of life. His heart beat faster than it ever had, pumping blood throughout his veins with stalwart rhythmic pulses. His entire body was aching and fatigued as his mind desperately urged him forward, willed by his dying spirit.
Lieren peeked at the blind woman with a despiteful glare.
Her fist was outstretched just beside his cheek, whistling through the air with a high-pitched sound. Her eyes were closed and her facial expression was relaxed, her mind completely clear of any and all unnecessary thoughts as though her serene form held wisdom beyond comprehension.
It was admirable, astounding… and terrifying.
The outstretched fist smoothly turned into a blade, her fingers uncurling and flattening. The visage of a deadly weapon of steel and sharpness seemed to loom behind her hand like a wistful ghost of a fallen warrior.
'Crap!'
Feeling a cold, menacing shiver run down his entire body, Lieren pushed off the ground with as much energy as his legs allowed. His muscles ached in apparent exhaustion, screaming at him to stop and rest, which to him sounded more on the lines of "lie down and die," and thus resisted with as much will he could muster.
A muscle tore in his thigh, making him kneel to the ground.
Just then, a blade-like hand sliced through the air and whistled a deadly tune of silent murder a few centimeters from his face, making his eyes grow wide with menacing surprise.
A morbid thought forced him to stand back up with nascent determination.
It would seem that the blind master of the Exousia Famiglia, Feng Xing Liu, intended to bisect his upper body from the rest of it with a downward diagonal chop. From his right shoulder down his left abdomen with one smooth, harrowing motion.
Lieren was certain that would happen, no matter how macabre the thought was.
And yet, he survived. By pure luck and intuition, he managed to stay live and standing… barely.
Then, another defeating blow came, and with it a terrible vision of what his future would be like should he not have reacted in time.
The blow was a punch, aimed at his left shoulder. His instincts told him to leap to the right and give himself enough room to dodge the next attack, but his intuition said otherwise. Dodging the blow that way would not only strain him even more, but give him a huge opening for his opponent to exploit. That would have brought him to Death's Edge much faster, not to mention much more painfully.
He did not want that. Nor did he want to suffer.
'It's now or nothing.'
Instead, he twisted his body just the slightest bit, letting the blow pass by him like the wind on a beautiful summer day. The passing wind felt smooth and sharp at the same time, smothering him.
The boy's eyes were alit with willful fury as he brought his tiny fist forward. Because of the height difference, he could not aim for her face. Instead, he aimed for her abdomen, focusing all his strength into this singular, desperate blow.
His body cried with either victory or pain, nevertheless, he used that pain to drown out the approaching sense of dread creeping at the back of his neck like a crawling spider.
With a pained scream that tore naturally from his throat, his fist connected to the blind woman's abdomen.
At the same time, his knuckles crumbled as though it was paper.
A ghostly whisper escaped his lips:
"…What?"
The woman — no, the monster's body was as tenacious as tempered steel; her body felt like a solid mass of earth grounded up and condensed into an immaculate moving statue with the battle knowledge of a master and the cunning experience of a veteran adventurer.
It was like hitting a mountain; a solid, steel-like mountain.
The pain traveled up his arm in waves of mind-numbing pain, spreading to his shoulders and passing by his ribs and pushed down into his toes and up his neck. The pain reverberated throughout him like the deafening shriek of demonic smoke that the diametric Mistcaster exuded after his gruesome death.
His bones felt brittle and frail. His entire body felt like it was about to fall down and destroy him from the inside.
Still, he did not falter.
Pushing heat into his body, he brought up his other fist and aimed it at the same point in her abdomen. It was a foolish decision, that was for sure, especially with how much his right hand suffered from it, but it was worth the gamble. Chances were — and this is a big if — was that her entire body was built like a mountain despite her seemingly slender figure. If that was the case, and he certainly thought that, then he might as well aim for the same place, to at the very least focus the damage on one part of her body and accumulate damage that way instead of wasting this precious chance with all he has.
Lowering his center of gravity to avoid the blind woman's other sweeping strike, he put his fist beside and tightened his pitiful muscles as much as he could, pushing as much of his remaining heat into it with the fury that burned inside of him ever since that fateful day.
His blue eyes flashed with vindictive radiance as his fist flew for her exposed abdomen.
"Gah!"
A pained groan escaped from Lieren's lips as his fist connected with the woman's mountainous body once again.
It was much worse this time.
The tenacious skin, bones, and body of the woman was much harder this time, even harder than steel or a mountain. Waves upon waves of harrowing, despicable, destructive pain flew all across his body as his other knuckle shattered into tiny fragments of pale white bones.
The following pain almost broke his will.
Almost.
Gritting his teeth, he lifted his leg to strike the woman again… But then, and only then, did the sky meet him once again with its infinite expanse.
He was falling, his legs failing him at the last second. The last saving grace that his body offered him, lest he dies on the spot.
A confused question escaped his lips:
"Huh?"
Dull pain spread throughout his back. It was much weaker and less reverberant than his broken knuckles, but it is still hurt like hell.
The blind woman's figure towered over him like some kind of divine statue, her shadow covering his entire body.
"You did great for our first spar. Well done," The tone of Feng Xing Liu's voice was sincere and serene, her voice perfectly even without the slightest ripple of exhaustion.
She clapped calmly, evenly, and genuinely.
However, to the boy who had given it his all, and had pains all throughout his body in places he didn't even know existed, the rhythmic clapping was soothing and calming his mind, putting his spirit to rest.
…Until she said those words:
"Sleep well. You're going to need it," Then, she smiled, cold and expressionless. "Vesba's up next."
Lieren sighed inwardly.
'Figures…'