The sound of wooden swords repeatedly striking flesh echoed throughout the training ground.
Every single time, Aiden's attacks hit nothing but empty air, followed by Astrea's wooden sword tapping lightly against his body.
Arms, shoulders, back, thighs...
With his current Level 4 Endurance, strikes of this caliber didn't even qualify as a tickle.
However, the complete inability to land a single blow while being subjected to a passive beating left Aiden feeling an unprecedented sense of stifling frustration.
It felt exactly like a charging bull giving its all, only to realize its opponent was a red flag fluttering in the wind; no matter how much force he exerted, he only ended up making a fool of himself.
"Huu!"
Aiden took a deep breath, pushing his speed and power even higher.
His figure blurred into a series of afterimages, his wooden sword swinging so fast that the friction against the air produced a faint smell of burning wood.
Yet, Astrea's response remained as unhurried and composed as ever.
Her intuition—or rather, the "pre-reading" unique to deities—had reached an incomprehensible realm.
No matter how fast Aiden moved, in those beautiful eyes of hers, his actions seemed to be playing out in extreme slow motion.
The moment Aiden raised his sword, she already knew its trajectory, its force, and its exact landing point.
She didn't even need to consciously "react"; her body's instincts naturally executed the most flawless, effortless countermeasure.
Once again, Aiden's full-force strike was evaded by a deft spin, and that seemingly feather-light wooden sword traced an unavoidable path straight toward his ribs.
This time, Aiden chose not to take the hit head-on.
Having reached the absolute peak of his frustration, his mind suddenly achieved an unparalleled state of clarity and calm.
He abandoned thinking, abandoned his anger, and let go of all the distracting thoughts screaming at him to "land a hit."
His eyes locked intently onto Astrea's every movement—her breathing, the shifts in her center of gravity, every minute twist of her wrist...
In that moment, he ceased to be a warrior rushing for a quick victory, transforming instead into the most focused and devout student.
He began to learn.
Just as Astrea's wooden sword was about to tap his ribs, Aiden's body executed a maneuver he hadn't even anticipated himself.
He didn't block, nor did he dodge; instead, he rode the faint current of air trailing off her weapon, tilting his body ever so slightly while gently guiding his own sword upward at an equally masterful angle.
For the very first time, the two wooden swords met, emitting a crisp clack.
Astrea's guaranteed strike was deflected by a force that merely borrowed her momentum, grazing past his clothes to strike empty air.
Though his movements were still somewhat stiff and unpolished, this was the first time he had successfully neutralized Astrea's attack.
"Oh?"
A flash of surprise crossed Astrea's eyes, swiftly melting into a deep, appreciative smile.
She could see it.
After enduring his initial bout of recklessness and impatience, the boy standing before her had finally settled his mind, beginning to "read" her swordplay with his eyes, his body, and his soul.
"Fascinating. In that case, I'll let you see things a little more clearly."
A breathtaking smile tugged at the corner of the Goddess's lips.
In the next heartbeat, her entire aura shifted.
If she was a drifting fallen leaf before, she had now become a butterfly dancing gracefully through a field of flowers.
Her swordplay was no longer just about evasion and counterattacks.
She began to freely display a level of swordsmanship belonging purely to the divine realm—techniques that mortals could never hope to touch, even if they spent a lifetime trying.
The tip of her sword fell like raindrops, yet the moment it made contact, it transformed into a gentle spring breeze, dissolving Aiden's force into nothingness.
Her blade slithered like a spirit snake, constantly tangling with Aiden's sword and trapping him in a dilemma of advance and retreat.
Her footwork was sometimes as light and agile as a soaring bird, and at other times as steady as a boulder, flawlessly switching between offense and defense within a hair's breadth of space.
This was a completely unreserved lesson.
Aiden wanted to learn, so she was going to teach him.
And Aiden, like a parched sponge, madly absorbed everything unfolding before him.
His brain had stopped thinking; instead, his physical instincts, bolstered by his Trailblazer skill, frantically began to mimic, analyze, and reconstruct Astrea's every move.
The scene on the training ground turned bizarrely magnificent.
The two figures wove through the air, the sound of their wooden swords clashing growing increasingly rapid. What started as sporadic "clacks" evolved into a dense, torrential downpour beating against plantain leaves.
Aiden remained at an absolute disadvantage, still taking hit after hit, yet his movements were becoming visibly smoother and more exquisite at a terrifying pace.
He was starting to catch up to Astrea's rhythm, occasionally managing to successfully block or dodge one or two strikes out of every ten.
It was an intoxicating dance of blades.
However, while a deity's techniques were limitless, a mortal vessel ultimately had its limits.
Astrea's swordsmanship could rely on peerless skill to bridge the massive gap in strength and speed, but stamina was the one thing no amount of technique could replace.
As the spar dragged on, fine beads of sweat began to surface on her smooth forehead, sliding down her cheeks.
Her usually steady, drawn-out breaths grew ragged and hurried.
Her fair face, flushed from the intense exertion, was painted with a captivating rosiness.
Finally, after masterfully deflecting Aiden's heavy cleave one more time, Astrea borrowed the momentum to leap backward, putting distance between them as she held up a hand.
The Goddess braced her hands against her knees, gasping for air as her breathtaking curves heaved violently.
By the edge of the training grounds, Cecil Brakelisa and the others, who had been watching in stunned silence, practically had their jaws on the floor.
What... what were they witnessing?
Their Astrea, the Goddess who was always so elegant, calm, and aloof, was actually... panting from exhaustion after a sparring match?!
Normally, when their Goddess trained them, she never even broke a sweat, let alone had her breathing disrupted.
This was the first time they had ever seen Astrea display such fatigue after combat.
They looked back at the white-haired boy in the center of the arena, who was also gasping heavily but had eyes shining with terrifying intensity, and an involuntary sense of awe welled up within them.
From a bystander's perspective, they finally gained a crystal-clear understanding of exactly how much immense pressure the Captain of the Focalors Familia was placing on their Goddess.
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