"Fight me." I held my older sword in front of them. I was still not used to controlling my strength with Iudex.
"The two of us? On one of you?" Lithia was wiping Javes' sweat off his brow.
"Do you think I can't beat you?"
"I meant to ask if it was just the two of us against you. No one else?" They were strong but they knew they couldn't beat Xen. And they knew that I could easily beat Xen. Smart as they were, they knew the hierarchy here quite well.
"Don't worry. I won't use Prana of Time or any Prana at all for that matter. I need to ascertain your level." And practice while I was at it. Taking away all my powers, how would I win? I was not a perfect fighter. I, too, had weaknesses to exploit. So far I had only met enemies I could pierce with a sword. But what if I were to face a being so strong that my sword could not fall? No amount of time would save me then. The best I could do would be to run away.
Moreover, I wasn't completely acclimated to using my abilities in actual fights. With becoming Apostle, came changes to the composition of my body. Changes that made me feel as if I had overcome the barrier that was holding me down earlier.
Whoosh!
I immediately ducked to one side. A fireball had rushed by the side of my helmet. I stumbled. I wasn't prepared. I didn't have my mind empty yet. I was thinking about a question. That was plenty of distraction.
Javes rushed in and swung an ax right at me.
'He took the ax metaphor from last week too literally.' Wait now is not the time.
Unable to fully dodge at that moment, I took his swing to my midrib. It hurt. A lot. But my armour did not let a lot of the physical damage pass. I was still standing in place still.
Deep breaths.
Pillars of fire erupted all around me. Unlike when the time was stopped, now I felt the heat. It was disorientating. The same was not true for the meat shield. He was surrounded by a veil of vapour. It seemed as if he had a way to cool himself off.
'I can't be struggling like this on the first day of training.'
"ARGH!" I shook off the pain and drew my fist in. "Dodge this." Grabbed his ax and punched him right in the centre of his clavicles.
It felt like hitting a wall. But walls were no obstacle to this fist.
He crashed into the ground and tumbled across the flat ground like he was rolling down a hill.
Without wasting a beat he healed and got down while his significant other launched an attack.
"Too slow." Once you get the rhythm you can predict her trajectories. Unfortunately, I didn't quite get the trajectories perfectly yet. I bumped into some of her attacks and the heat made the skin of my shoulder meld onto the inside of the armour. But a flesh wound.
I reached her before her attacks reached where she aimed.
"Y-you said you wouldn't use your skill." She tried to use wind to get away but I grounded her with a hand on her shoulder.
"I didn't use it."
I tried to kick her side, but before I knew it the meatshield got in the way. It was too late though and too crass. There were a plethora of openings to exploit at that point. Checkmate.
Throwing the sword to my side, I leveraged my foot, grabbed the sword by the blade and swung it like a bat. I could see both of their eyes slowly realising what just hit them. The arm meatshield was protecting her with shattered and since they were in a clean line, the swing shot them straight into the building as the sword in my hand imploded on itself.
Crash!
They weren't getting up from that for a minute.
"Phew." I walked to them slowly and found two people with their eyes rolled back. I softly kicked Javes. "Quick heal all of us. We need to go for a second round."
*
*
*
"That was a good first day." The three of us were seated on top of a castle wall as the sunset. I had brought the two of them some bread.
"Uhh." Javes groaned.
"You look dead inside." I slapped their back as I sat between them.
"Better than looking dead outside. The nuns thought we were corpses." He waves around like he was going to faint.
"You are too brutal, Miss Apostle." Lindy ripped a piece of bread aggressively in protest.
"Better look dead now than actually die on the battlefield." I patted the crumbs off her pants. "As long as you're with me you're safe. But the second you are away you're as good as dead. Unfortunately calling it quits from the quest wouldn't change much either at this point. I would end up going on this journey alone, and die. Then you'd be forced into war and die."
"I highly doubt you would die though. And if there is something out there that can kill you, I doubt we would make a sizeable difference."
"'You're different. You're special.' A person close to me once told me those words. I believe in them now more than ever. I think it is my turn now to pass the message forward." I got up and stood atop the teeth of the castle wall.
"Lithia you have great firepower. You are going to be the part of this team that deals with the hordes. What you lack is your independence. You lose the second you are alone and against a faster foe. Your ability to float around can protect you against weaker opponents, though. Your attack speed is also limited. You have no way of speeding it up. Your one option now is going to cover your weakness of leaving yourself open and your fixed attack speed. Think ahead. Not one step, but three, five, seven, nine. Your opponent should never win against you in preparation. At the slightest inconvenience your Prana becomes emergent. Sure it makes you stronger. But not strong enough to allow you to get away after giving up your entire plan. Also, use that prana stick of yours properly."
"You-" Her eyes glistened up. "You weren't just bullying us, you were actually looking."
"Javes, my advice for you is simple. Take hits only when you protect others. Any hits to yourself are pointless. Dodge. Loosen your joints up a little. And start healing before the injury so that you can protect yourself from the worst case scenario in case you lose consciousness."
The two of them looked at each other.
"We figured some of these already. Like how are you supposed to think that far ahead, and start healing before the injury? Unfortunately, these aren't scenarios you can just train."
"Generally speaking these are scenarios you only encounter in actual battles nearing death. Fortunately, there's someone here that can get you close to that state pretty effortlessly." I pointed to myself.
"That's foul."
"Look at this sunset, is it not a waste for us to let this world come to an end?"