[Chapter 103. Brutal Training]
Iris leaned heavily on the massive, ornate crossguards of her Zweihänder, her knuckles turning a stark, porcelain white against the cold, dark metal of the hilt. The morning air was crisp, but the atmosphere in the clearing was thick with a suffocating, stagnant tension. Her silver eyes, sharp and predatory, swept over the four women standing before her, lingering just long enough on each individual to make them shift their weight uncomfortably against the dew-slicked grass.
"Vanessa," Iris said, her voice cutting through the silence and carrying across the clearing with a low, vibrating resonance that removed any need for shouting. "Target practice. That tree over there." She gestured with a sharp, obsidian-colored claw toward a massive, scarred trunk that already bore the jagged scorch marks and splintered bark of previous sessions. "You will fire your offensive spells until your Mana is completely drained. Only when you are empty can you permit yourself to rest."
"Lana, Sarah," her gaze shifted between the two, her eyes narrowing as she assessed their stances, "you two will spar. Full contact."
Sarah offered a slight, jerky nod of acknowledgment, her dark eyes darting nervously to Lana and then back to the imposing figure of their instructor.
"Lana," Iris continued, her tone hardening, "do not simply stand there and deflect. Do not be a passive observer of your own defeat. Anticipate the movement. Counter the strike. If you only defend, you are merely waiting for the moment you finally fail."
Lana's usually stoic composure faltered for a brief second, her brow furrowing. "B-but what if I actually hurt her?" she asked, her voice small and uncertain. "The blades are real."
Iris's gaze snapped instantly toward Carmen, and a low, gutteral growl began to rumble deep within her chest—a sound that was more beast than woman. "That is precisely why she is standing here," Iris replied, her voice dropping an octave. "As you two fight, she is the one responsible for keeping you both alive. Do not insult her utility by holding back."
Vanessa muttered something unintelligible under her breath as she turned to face her designated tree, her shoulders slumped in a display of quiet resentment. It was something about not needing basic target practice after her previous encounters. She raised her hand, mana beginning to swirl in a frantic, uncoordinated whorl around her fingertips. Her first spell, a jagged bolt of energy, sailed wide of the mark, splashing uselessly against a completely different tree and leaving a faint, smoking pit in the wood.
Lana raised her heavy shield, her knuckles white as she gripped her sword hilt. Her eyes locked onto Sarah, desperately trying to track every subtle shift of the smaller woman's weight, every twitch of her shoulder.
Then, without warning, Sarah vanished.
There was no smoke, no flash—just a sudden, unsettling absence. A faint whisper of displaced air was the only warning, followed by the tiniest prickle of awareness from Lana's left flank. Before Lana could even begin to pivot, a white-hot fire erupted in her side. She looked down, her breath catching in her throat, to see the blade of Sarah's dagger buried to the hilt in her ribs. Sarah’s face, which had flickered back into view, was ashen and streaked with a sudden, panicked realization of what she had done.
"You stabbed me!" Lana screamed, the sound raw and shrill as she stumbled back, clutching her side. Dark, crimson blood began to well up between her fingers, staining the leather and cotton of her armor and dripping onto the grass.
Sarah's voice came from Lana's right this time, her shimmering form fully materializing as the illusion broke. "It’s not my fault you're too slow to see it coming," she retorted, though her voice lacked its usual confidence.
A sudden, sharp whisper of instinct had Lana raising her shield just in time to catch a follow-up strike. Metal scraped harshly against the wood of the shield, a brilliant shower of sparks erupting as Sarah's second dagger skittered across the heavy metal fittings. The dull thud of Sarah's body colliding with Lana's defense followed immediately after, the smaller woman recoiling from the force of the impact.
A faint, soothing white light suddenly enveloped Lana's torso. Under Carmen's focused, silent gaze, the torn skin and severed muscle began to knit themselves back together with an unnatural, sickening speed. Barely seconds had passed since the wound was opened, yet the bleeding had already stopped.
Iris, still leaning motionless on her sword, slowly shook her head. A wave of silent, heavy judgment passed through her mind as she watched the display.
The spar continued for several minutes, devolving into a clumsy, hesitant dance of mutual frustration. Lana remained largely rooted in place, acting as a reactive, stationary target rather than a proactive fighter. Her movements were always delayed responses—sometimes successful in catching a blade, but more often than not, she was a fraction of a second too late.
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`Weak. They are playing around. They treat this like a game because they know the healer is standing there.` Iris thought.
The thought sliced through her mind, cold and sharp as a razor.
Sarah, for her part, was a blur of frantic motion—a flurry of shallow stabs, erratic feints, and wasted energy that chipped away at Lana's guard. She was inflicting a constellation of minor, superficial wounds that Carmen healed almost as soon as they appeared.
In a single, fluid motion that defied the laws of inertia, Iris wrenched her Zweihänder from the earth and activated Blade Step.
The world around the clearing blurred into a streak of green and brown.
Lana's shield came up again out of habit, but it was a futile gesture against the momentum Iris carried. Iris’s heavy boot slammed into the center of the shield with the concentrated force of a battering ram, the impact ringing out like a gong. The force sent Lana flying backward through the air, where she landed hard in the dirt several meters away, the breath driven from her lungs in a wheezing gasp.
Sarah, caught mid-lunge and unable to check her momentum, could only stare with wide, dilated eyes as the massive, turquoise-glowing blade of the Zweihänder descended toward her like the hand of fate.
The edge of the heavy sword sliced through the air and Sarah's chest in one motion, carving a deep, jagged gash across her ribs. Her scream tore through the morning air, a high-pitched sound of pure agony, as she collapsed into a heap on the ground. Her hands fluttered uselessly over the pumping wound, her fingers slick with her own blood.
Vanessa and Lana froze where they were, the color draining from their faces until they were as pale as ghosts.
Carmen was already moving toward the fallen girl, her expression fixed in a mask of grim determination. She didn't hesitate as a brilliant white light flared from her palms, bathing Sarah's mangled, heaving torso in a warm, artificial glow.
"Vanessa," Iris's voice cut through the lingering echoes of the screams, sounding as cold and unforgiving as tempered steel, "you are supposed to be hitting the tree, not wasting your magic on the dirt beneath it."
Sarah's screams eventually dissolved into ragged, wet whimpers as Carmen's magic forced the flesh back together. The white glow intensified, knitting the torn muscle and sinew with an impossible, agonizing speed that made Sarah's entire body tremble. Her muscles spasmed and jumped from the forceful, rapid healing, her back arching off the ground.
Vanessa flinched at the sound of Iris's words, her gaze snapping from the suffering girl on the ground to their brutal instructor. Fear coiled in her gut, hot and suffocating like a physical weight. She clutched her weapon, her knuckles white and shaking against the hilt.
A whispered, terrified thought escaped her lips, barely audible even to her own ears. "She'll kill us all. She’s actually going to kill us."
Vanessa's whisper caught Iris's enhanced, supernatural senses, the words hanging in the air between them like a death sentence. The massive Zweihänder shifted in Iris's grip, its turquoise-etched edge glinting dangerously in the morning light as she pointed the tip of the blade directly at Vanessa’s throat.
"Worry about yourself," Iris said, her voice dangerously soft—a sudden, terrifying quiet that followed the visceral brutality she had just demonstrated. "Your target is the tree. Your accuracy is shit. One more miss, and you will be joining Sarah on the ground. I have no use for a mage who cannot aim."
The unspoken threat was all the more terrifying for its complete lack of emotion. It wasn't a punishment; it was an observation of utility.
She turned her gaze back to Lana, who was still sprawled in the dirt, gasping for air. "You know how to block. That is progress, I suppose." Her gaze then slid to Sarah, who was still twitching and sobbing in the dirt. "But your attacks are weak. She wouldn't have died from one of those pathetic scratches you gave her. You were playing at combat."
Iris drove the tip of her blade back into the earth with a heavy thud, leaning her weight against it once more.
"You are predictable, Sarah. There is no room for showing off or unnecessary flourishes in a real fight. Your entire style is built on a few cheap tricks and illusions. Once you show them all to an experienced opponent, you are dead. Make your first hit count—then finish the job if you have to. Stop looking for applause and start looking for an opening."
Lana pushed herself up from the dirt, her palm pressed flat against her ribs where Sarah's dagger had pierced her earlier. The skin still tingled with residual magic, the memory of the cold steel sharp in her mind despite the healing. She turned to watch Sarah, who was already scrambling back to her feet. Sarah’s face was streaked with tears and dirt, but her movements were now stripped of any of the flashy, arrogant bravado she had shown earlier.
Vanessa, her face still deathly pale, turned back to her target. Her hands trembled violently as she raised her weapon again, focusing every ounce of her remaining willpower. The next spell—driven by a potent cocktail of adrenaline and raw, primitive terror—slammed into the dead center of the tree trunk. The bark blackened and vaporized, splintering outward in a perfect, charred circle.
Vanessa kept her eyes locked firmly on the target, already drawing deep on her mana pool for another shot, not daring to glance back at Iris.
Iris watched them all in silence, her expression a flat, unreadable mask.
`Fear is a much better motivator than any inspirational speech I could ever give them.`
The realization was cold and sharp. Her silver eyes tracked their every movement, assessing the change in their rhythm.
`Now, we shall see if they can actually apply these lessons under pressure.`
"Lana, stop merely reacting; you are not just a wall for her to hit," Iris's voice was as cold as ever, cutting through the sounds of combat. "Sarah, stop playing around and make her truly fear your attacks. Carmen will tell you when you are allowed to stop."
With that command, they began to face each other again. This time, the strikes were harder, the movements more desperate. Vanessa was still hurling spells at the tree with a frantic, renewed energy.
"All of you should be using your skills constantly," Iris added, her voice echoing. "They are what make you strong in this world. Without them, you will fall apart the moment things go wrong. Use them, understand their limits, and most importantly, learn exactly when to use them to end a life."