Break... me?
I stared at her, my jaw practically hitting the floor. Even Commander Kael was looking at her with an expression of pure bewilderment.
Does she have something against me? Did I mess up the sleeping act? Or was this just her twisted version of sisterly love?
"Begin!" the commander shouted, dropping his hand.
Shit!
Bale’s messy yellow hair began to levitate, standing on end as a faint, golden aura erupted from his skin. He dropped into a low, bestial stance I didn’t even recognize.
Then, in a split second, he launched.
CRACK.
The stone ground where he had been standing shattered in a perfect circle from the force of his take-off.
Whoosh!
I couldn’t even track his movement. To my eyes, he didn’t run; he simply ceased to exist in one spot and reappeared in front of me. All I saw was a blur of golden light.
THWACK!
A bone-shattering punch landed squarely on my jaw. The world spun. I felt my feet leave the ground as I was launched backward like a ragdoll. I soared across the training field, air whistling in my ears, until—
BOOM.
I slammed into the far stone wall with enough force to leave a visible spiderweb of cracks in the masonry. My wooden sword clattered uselessly to the dirt, yards away.
I slumped to the ground, a cloud of dust settling over me.
"Urg..."
My jaw felt like it had been hit by a hammer. I tentatively ran a finger along my gums and felt a tooth wobbling. That punch was absolute hell.
However, other than the dull throb in my jaw and the loose tooth, I didn’t feel... broken. The expected agony of shattered ribs or a punctured lung never came.
The rest of my body felt remarkably stable. Is it because of the Supreme Physique? The impact that should have turned my ribs to powder had been absorbed. Seems like my endurance has gone up a spike.
I looked up. Bale was already walking back to his starting position. He stopped right above the crater he’d made and waited for me.
Then my gaze shifted to Elena. She wasn’t looking at me with pity. She wasn’t even looking at me to see if I was okay. Her focus was entirely on Bale, and I felt a chill run down my spine.
She was livid.
Her fists were clenched very tightly, and her brows were furrowed in a dark, dangerous line. A faint, red mist of mana was beginning to leak from her shoulders. I could tell she was barely holding herself back from leaping onto the stage and vaporizing Bale herself.
Well, at least she’s worried about me... I think? Or maybe she’s just mad he didn’t hit me harder. With her, you never really know.
I wiped a trail of blood from my lip and pushed myself up from the soil. I walked back toward the center of the grounds, my steps heavy but certain. I saw my wooden sword lying in the dirt. But I didn’t grab it. I didn’t even slow down as I walked past it.
Against a guy who moves like a lightning bolt and hits like a falling star, that stick was just useless. It wouldn’t make a bit of difference. It would be better if I just fought bare-handed and relied on my instincts.
I stepped onto the ground, facing Bale once more. The soldiers who had been whispering were now dead silent. They were looking at me like I was a ghost walking back to its own grave.
Bale’s eyes widened slightly, his slitted pupils flickering. "You’re... still standing, Prince?"
I didn’t answer him. I just let my arms hang lose at my sides. If I was going to survive this, I needed to stop playing by the rules of a spar and start using the things I’d been gifted.
"Again," I said, the word coming out as a growl.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elena’s expression flicker. The rage was still there, but beneath it, a dark, terrifyingly proud smile began to take shape.
Bale’s eyes also snapped toward Elena again, looking for a signal—permission, a warning, anything. But she remained silent. Finding no response there, he turned his focus back to me, his golden aura pulsing with renewed irritation.
It was time. I had felt the physical boost of the Supreme Physique, but now I needed to test the real wildcard.
I raised a hand, hovering my fingers near my eye. Before, the transformation had happened on its own, it came and went before I could grasp it. I had no manual, no "how-to" guide for the Void Gaze.
But I had a theory. If these eyes reacted to bad intentions and raw conflict, then I needed to dial the hostility up to eleven.
If I could make Bale truly want to crush me, maybe the eyes would finally answer the call. Plus, an angry dragon is a predictable dragon.
"Hey, Bale," I spoke up, my voice carrying a mocking edge that seemed to echo in the sudden silence of the grounds.
He narrowed his slitted pupils. "Yes, Prince?"
"Didn’t you eat breakfast?" I let out a dry, irritating laugh, wiping a smudge of blood from my chin. "The punch felt like a pillow hitting me. Honestly, I’ve had more painful encounters with the palace kittens. It felt like a child’s punch at best. Is that the peak of a Vice-Commander’s strength?"
The soldiers in the background let out a collective gasp. No one spoke to a Vice-Commander that way, especially not someone like me.
Bale’s jaw tightened, and the golden aura around him turned a shade darker. The bad intentions I was looking for were there. He wasn’t just following Elena’s orders now; he was personally offended.
"A pillow?" Bale’s spoke in a low tone. "Then I suppose I should stop worrying about ’keeping you alive’ and focus on making sure you can’t speak for a month."
He lowered his center of gravity even further. The killing intent pressed against my skin... and something behind my eyes answered
And then, I felt it.