The day passed with laughs and half-hearted curses as Zachary continued to tell stories and crack jokes. Now, as the sun began setting, bathing the sky in pale pinks and deep crimsons, the cohort was finally properly dressed—much to Zachary's absolute delight.
To be honest, even with the cohort being as unjudgmental as they were, going around displaying his ruined, scarred body wasn't something he particularly enjoyed. So as silver sparks shimmered and coalesced into the dark, familiar form of the Witness's Testament, Zachary walked to the edge of the marble arch, where Nephis and Caster were about to begin their spar.
"Do you mind if I sit here?" he asked aloud, dropping down heavily without bothering to wait for an answer.
Nephis looked at him for a split second and simply shook her head, pulling her longsword from where it was pinned in the stone and executing a few crisp practice swings. Caster glanced at him for a brief moment, squinting his eyes slightly before returning his focus to Nephis, his jade jian materializing in his right hand.
There was no exchange of words.
After a single sharp nod, both Legacies moved at the exact same instant, their weapons turning into blurry streaks of light as they exchanged dozens of strikes without a single break. Speed, power, and refined technique fused into a breathtaking display of legacy heritage and elite swordsmanship...
And Zachary watched everything.
After coming to this world and surviving a gauntlet of deadly encounters, Cinder Eyes had easily become his most trusted tool. Despite having the word "Eyes" in its name, his Innate Ability enhanced his perception as a whole. Through this heightened awareness—even while missing an eye—the world Zachary perceived was infinitely vaster, more detailed, and far more complex than what normal vision allowed.
Right now, his entire sensory focus was locked onto the exchange between the two Legacies, tracking every micro-movement and subtle shift in their postures. The way Caster's eyes darted to follow Nephis's blade; the way Nephis rooted her feet to absorb Caster's fast impacts. Beneath the chaotic speed and flying sparks, there was a deeper, rhythmic pattern governing the clash of steel.
Immersed in their duel, Zachary accepted a quiet truth with a soft sigh: even with everything he had survived, true swordsmanship still remained largely uncharted territory for him.
Eddard's strict teachings had laid a solid foundation in the Simple Sword. Nephis had broadened those fundamentals and built upon them, gifting him an adaptable, constantly shifting edge through her family's inherited style. And his brutal life-or-death battles against the Stone Saints had helped him break through some of the inherent limits of human potential.
Yet the more he fought with a sword, the more he understood a deeper, almost frustrating truth.
As steel clashed against steel, sending sparks flying across the stone arch, Zachary became entirely engrossed in the complex trajectories of their blades. Cinder Eyes drank in every detail—tracing the precise motion of their weapons, keeping time with their cadence and tempo until, little by little, something extraordinary began taking shape within his vision.
Attack lines.
Even though their swords weren't directed at him, and even with his Danger Sense remaining completely dormant, his perception was so hyper-focused that he could actively track the translucent, shifting webs of intent radiating from their bodies. The attack lines for both Nephis and Caster twisted, snapped, and dissolved as their blades collided, instantly spawning new, branching lines that signaled potential angles of attack. And as fast as they were created, they were destroyed by the micro-shifts in their footwork and body weight.
It was a brilliant spectacle that only his single eye could witness, leaving Zachary pleasantly surprised. By stepping back from the immediate danger of combat, he could finally appreciate the intrinsic communion of offense and defense. There were distinct, foundational roles to the sword lines the Legacies generated—something he could never properly analyze in the frenzy of a real fight, where he was forced to react purely on instinct.
Sitting here as a mere spectator to a higher level of combat, the underlying logic was fully revealed to him.
'So that's how it works...' Zachary muttered under his breath, squinting his eye. It was a concept he had intuitively grasped since discovering this perception, but seeing it mapped out so clearly expanded his worldview tenfold.
The attack lines were simply a visual grid of probability—the possible paths an attack could take to reach an opponent. Leaning a fraction of an inch in one direction eliminated certain angles while exponentially multiplying the possibilities in another. But it went deeper than that...
The lines possessed clear, distinct functions: Offense and Defense. They constantly intersected and morphed; occasionally, an offensive line would twist mid-motion to catch an incoming strike, transitioning instantly into a defensive state. Within those two fundamental roles, a universe of reactions occurred—lines canceled each other out, redirected trajectories without direct contact, or simply vanished into thin air.
They were polar opposites, yet their relationship was absolute. A true master was simply someone capable of shifting between offense and defense without a single wasted movement.
The mechanics were simple and absurdly complex all at once. An Attack line couldn't truly interact with another Attack line—it required a collision with a Defense line to trigger a physical reaction. It made total sense; you couldn't block a strike that wasn't aimed at you. But from that basic principle, the promise of an ultimate path revealed itself to his mind.
Perhaps the absolute pinnacle of swordsmanship was blending attack and defense into a single, unified path—a strike that, in its pure simplicity, existed in both states simultaneously.
Shaking his head to clear the ambitious thought, Zachary re-immersed himself in the duel before him. Nephis continued to absorb Caster's relentless assaults with a stalwart, rigid posture, focusing on defense and patiently waiting for a gap in the scion's tempo. Her athletic body shifted as she executed a calculated step backward, a cluster of attack lines dissolving the moment her weight transferred.
Yet despite the masterclass in technique she was displaying, she was clearly being pushed back by Caster.
Zachary wasn't paying much attention to her stiff, restrained style—he knew better than anyone that it was just a deliberate facade to hide her true style. Instead, he was completely captivated by Caster's terrifyingly swift, razor-sharp form. It wasn't just the speed provided by his Aspect; the way his jade jian flowed through the air, changing direction in the blink of an eye, was pure, unadulterated skill.
The Swift Sword... The single style among those he had inherited from Eddard that Zachary had never been able to push past the limits of mundane potential.
CLANG!
A sharp, ringing clash shattered his train of thought as Nephis was forced back two full steps. Her face remained entirely impassive as she swapped her grip on her longsword, flexing her off-hand to shake away the residual numbness from the impact. Caster held his ground a few meters away, politely granting her a moment to catch her breath.
Before they could raise their blades to resume the spar, Zachary stood up from the marble edge, casually dusting off his pants.
"I'm next," he said calmly, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"You?" Caster asked back immediately from where he stood, his nose scrunching in a barely contained frown of distaste.
"What, you don't want to have a round with me, Speedy Gonzales?" Zachary asked with clear amusement, cracking his knuckles with a grin.
The rest of the cohort resting by the fire suddenly turned in their direction with sharp interest. By now, they knew that whatever Zachary was doing promised to be entertaining. Nephis regarded him with a raised eyebrow for a long second before unsummoning her longsword, turning to Caster instead.
"I want to catch my breath a little bit," she simply said, sitting down in the exact spot Zachary had just occupied. The cohort drifted over to sit beside her.
"Come on, I promise it will be fun," Zachary pushed, stepping toward the scion. He stretched his arms behind his back, displaying an impressive range of motion and flexibility.
Seeing that he couldn't really refuse without looking bad, Caster let out a tired sigh before his face immediately shifted into a focused, cold expression.
"Fine. How do you want to do this?" he asked, returning to his stance with firm, steady eyes.
"Hmmm, I don't know. What do you have in mind?" Zachary asked as silver sparks began coalescing in his left hand, taking the shape of an austere tachi.
The Midnight Shard.
At the sight of the dark blade, Nephis's eyes sharpened for a brief second. This was actually the first time she had seen it in Zachary's hands since he obtained it from the Carapace Demon. Yet by the look on her face, she recognized what it was instantly—another Shard Memory.
Oblivious to her reaction, Caster spoke in a flat voice, pointing his jian toward the stone. "First blood?"
Zachary simply shrugged, brandishing the blade twice before relaxing his shoulders. "Fine by me."
The reason he had chosen to use the Midnight Shard instead of Ender's Solace was simple: Caster favored the Jian, and as a Legacy, he would have far more experience against that style of straight blade. He'd be able to spot any subtle flaws in Zachary's execution much more easily.
Zachary wanted to bridge any potential technical gaps between them, as small as they might be.
There was another reason he decided to spar with Caster—a realization that had hit him while witnessing the clash between two of the most dangerous Sleepers on the Forgotten Shore.
He had become far too reliant on Flow Control.
Ever since he managed to unlock the full potential of his Noble Truth, Zachary had leaned on it at every turn. True, the monsters he faced had forced his hand, but now that his trump card was temporarily offline, he saw the blueprint for his future growth.
If he could stand shoulder to shoulder with the powerhouses of the Forgotten Shore through pure, unassisted combat skill, then the moment he re-activated Flow Control, he would be miles ahead of everyone else.
'Mastery of the Body... back to the basics, I guess,' Zachary thought, cracking his neck as Caster raised his jian once more. 'That said...'
Focusing inward, he probed for the small trickle of essence he had digested earlier. It was nowhere near enough to attempt forming a temporary core in his heart, but it was something. Taking hold of that small trail of energy, Zachary guided it upward through his bloodstream.
Right to his remaining eye.
Instantly, the tiny blood vessels bulged and reddened, his white sclera matching the intense crimson of his iris. Something fundamental shifted in his perception—time began to drag. It wasn't as drastic as that final, desperate moment in the Ashen Barrow, nor as dramatic as his encounter with the Spire Messenger, but it was slow enough to watch a green jian darting straight for his chest.
Thankfully, Danger Sense had fired off long before his vision caught up, pulling the dark tachi into a swift upward arc to block Caster's strike with a sharp CLANG.
'This fellow...' Zachary laughed nervously on the inside, taking two rapid steps back. He had fully expected a surprise blitz.
Knowing Caster's pride, the Legacy wasn't the type to indulge in a casual, back-and-forth spar with someone like him. His first instinct would be to end it instantly with pure speed from the very start. That was precisely why Zachary had forced essence into his eye.
Essence inherently enhanced physical traits, so reinforcing his vision to a limited degree was a logical stretch of the mechanics. Now, his sharp sight felt even vaster, as if extra frames had been inserted into the world around him, slowing everything down... including himself.
Zachary watched Caster's brow furrow in subtle surprise; he clearly hadn't expected Zachary to parry that opening burst so easily.
As his mind adjusted to the slowed world, Zachary reached a quick conclusion: this was a one-time trick. The raw reinforcement lacked the refined distribution that came from placing a core in his heart, putting immense strain directly on his optic nerve.
Once he gathered more fragments and fully reactivated Flow Control, forcing that volume of essence through the delicate vessels of his eye would tear it apart. Even now, with just a tiny sliver of essence, his eye was beginning to feel like it was burning.
Smiling sharply through the increasing pain, Zachary crossed the dark tachi over his chest in a defensive posture.
"My, you really are fast!" he said with a nervous chuckle. "...I hope that's only true for your swordsmanship, because if you're fast in every aspect, I'm afraid you're going to have trouble finding a girlfriend."
Effie laughed loudly at the sudden joke, while Cassie and Kai followed with mortified chuckles. Nephis was the only one incapable of understanding how someone's speed could be detrimental to getting a girlfriend... Not that Zachary was planning on explaining it to her, though.
"When will you finally mature?" Caster said flatly, a tint of contempt bleeding through his polite voice. "...You need to stop being so childish, Zachary."
Zachary simply chuckled at the underhanded provocation, shaking his head as he looked down at the hand holding the tachi.
"That's where you're wrong, my friend..." He sighed, clenching the Midnight Shard harder. "But I can't really blame you. You're still too young to understand."
Caster paused for a second, clearly confused by his words. Seeing this, Zachary continued calmly. "You see... only a child has the desire to be grown up. One day you will finally grow old enough, and with age you'll shed childish things... including the fear of childishness."
"There's nothing wrong with being a child."
Without waiting for an answer, Zachary took the initiative. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the cohort's expressions shifting at his words, but as Caster's jian rose to meet his advance, Zachary couldn't afford to pay attention to them.
A sharp clang finally announced the true beginning of their duel. Through their locked blades, Zachary saw Caster's eyes tremble for a fraction of a second before sharpening back into the focused mask he always wore.
Zachary twisted and shoved their swords apart, immediately stepping toward Caster's unguarded side to maintain momentum. But the Legacy simply twisted his body and was already thrusting his sword toward Zachary's chest. Seeing the incoming strike, Zachary raised the tachi, meeting the tip of the jian with the flat of his blade. He relaxed his whole body, letting the attack glide harmlessly away from him.
The Gentle Sword.
The deflections and parries that characterized this style were the only way Zachary could respond to Caster's fast, precise attacks. Even then, it had only taken two clashes to understand just how unfair a speed-focused Aspect really was.
'No, wait...'
Zachary mused under his breath as he once again created distance between them. In this brief exchange, he had realized something. The way Caster moved away from his sword and attacked in the very same motion was special—a subtle distinction that perhaps only his enhanced awareness could pick up.
Velocity was a vector quantity, meaning it depended on both direction and magnitude. An object traveling in a specific direction at a certain speed ultimately had to alter its velocity to change directions... Yet Caster showed zero loss in momentum while nimbly dodging his initial attack. That simple observation brought Zachary to an instant conclusion.
'Caster's Aspect isn't merely a boost in physical speed... It's time dilation,' Zachary realized as Danger Sense warned of an incoming attack. 'His personal time flows faster, allowing him to bypass certain physical limits... That's where his Flaw comes from.'
The Legacy's jian was reaching for his neck at that precise moment. Zachary twisted his head out of its path, choosing to attack instead of block. But the Midnight Shard felt unbearably slow in his altered perception. Caster simply sidestepped away and slashed down just as Zachary barely managed to raise the pommel of his sword to catch the hit.
"Fuuu..." Zachary exhaled heavily, clicking his tongue in annoyance.
There was a jarring dissonance between the slowed world he was currently perceiving and the sluggish speed at which his body could physically move through it. It was maddening. Zachary could see Caster's attacks coming clearly, but barely had the physical velocity to react.
Yet Caster was using short bursts of his Aspect out of fear of his Flaw, which meant his time was actively moving faster. It was simple relativity: if Caster's time was flowing faster, everything else was flowing slower for him. Caster was witnessing the exact same slowed world as Zachary...
The only difference was that Caster was allowed to move normally inside it.
But Zachary was nothing if not resourceful, his sharp Mind already racing for a countermeasure. A second later, his lips curled up into an amused smile.
"You know... there are two ways to deal with a speedster," Zachary said as Caster's sword aimed straight for his abdomen. "The first one is the most difficult: predicting where they're going to move."
'And that's exactly what I'm going to do,' Zachary wheezed internally, rolling away from the thrust and blocking the follow-up slash, letting the impact push him back to reset.
One of the first things Zachary had realized Cinder Eyes allowed him to do was predict how an opponent would attack. It was a simple byproduct of tracking an opponent's micro-movements and letting his enhanced Mind deduce the rest—knowing "1, 2, 3, 4" and immediately calculating "5." This predictive edge had only grown sharper as his ability matured.
And yet, it was proving entirely insufficient in his current situation.
Zachary leaned backward, placing his sword over his right shoulder to catch Caster's incoming strike. He shoved it away with a sharp shoulder check and immediately tried to thrust into the scion's uncovered flank, but failed to connect.
'Shit.' He winced, squinting his pained, burning eye as he stepped back, only for Caster to pursue instantly.
Even in this artificially slowed perception, Caster was simply too fast. It wasn't just his Aspect, either—his swordsmanship was something else entirely, a lethal art truly worthy of a Legacy. It was sharp, swift, precise, and constantly shifting, wielded with a mastery that pushed even the brief, restrained bursts of his Aspect to a terrifying level.
Zachary was seeing this level of technique firsthand for the very first time, yet he felt a vague sense of familiarity from it.
The Swift Sword.
His arms felt painfully slow as he managed to deflect another razor-sharp slash from the green jian. Relaxing his knees, Zachary allowed his body to glide gently backward, disengaging from the exchange. He was pushing the fundamentals of the Gentle Sword to their absolute limits—keeping the Midnight Shard tucked close to his chest to minimize his range of motion, barely managing to deflect Caster's flurry. But staying on the defensive was becoming unsustainable.
The problem remained the massive disparity in velocity. No matter how clearly Zachary perceived Caster's attacks, his physical body couldn't move fast enough to block them properly, let alone launch a counter.
He had to pivot. Zachary didn't need to be faster... he had to be earlier.
If his Body couldn't keep up, he would bet everything on his Mind.
His remaining eye burned like a hot coal; he couldn't even afford the fraction of a second it took to blink. Grounding himself in the blinding pain, he pushed his analytical capabilities into overdrive.
He tracked the minute twitch of Caster's shoulder, the shift in his weight, the rotation of his waist, even the quick dart of his eyes. Through these micro-observations, Zachary deduced the intent behind every incoming strike. But prediction alone wasn't enough—he needed context.
Right now, he couldn't insert hidden variables between "1" and "2." Perhaps in the future, as his perception evolved, he would process data at that granular scale. For now, he looked backward instead.
Zachary drew on the past.
He recalled the exact way Caster fought in the dark catacombs, along with the minute details he had absorbed while watching him spar with Nephis just moments ago. It was pure data—a clear blueprint of the scion's habits, tempo, and combat instincts. His Mind integrated it instantly: "-3, -2, -1, 0." Combined with his present observations, it yielded a vastly more accurate "5."
Zachary crossed his dark tachi diagonally over his chest—precisely where Caster's strike was destined to land. Using the momentum of the blow, he let his blade be knocked back just far enough to intercept the follow-up slash.
The core tenets of the Gentle Sword had been hammered into his muscle memory through countless brutal "spars" against the Forsaken Knight—if getting repeatedly smashed before being tossed out of the Cathedral counted as sparring.
The muscle memory remained. By keeping the tachi tightly within his center of gravity, Zachary redirected every strike that breached his guard. He relaxed his frame to absorb and flow with the foreign impact, locking his joints at precise angles to guide lethal slashes harmlessly into empty air.
He also put his observations of the attack lines into practice. The way he yielded ground wasn't just to buy time to react; every step was deliberate. By receiving an attack at a specific angle, he forcibly collapsed Caster's follow-up options, actively reading several moves ahead in the flow of combat.
And yet, Caster was a Legacy for a reason.
Conditioned for battle since childhood, the scion was an absolute master of combat logic. Through sheer martial experience, Caster began reading moves ahead as well, angling his lightning-fast strikes so that every block Zachary made actively compromised his stance for the next incoming hit.
With a longer burst of speed that took Zachary off guard, Caster suddenly altered his grip, knocking the Midnight Shard out of position and leaving Zachary's chest completely exposed for an ascending slash.
He couldn't move the tachi back in time to block. But just as the Legacy's blade was about to bite into his flesh, Zachary's foot shot upward, kicking lightly into Caster's inner thigh. The subtle disruption broke the scion's footing, creating just enough space for the green jian to whistle past his chest, missing him by a hair's breadth.
A single drop of blood dripped from Zachary's nose as he quickly backed away, a sudden shiver running down his spine at how close that exchange had been. His head was beginning to throb violently. He wasn't just straining his eye by forcing his vision to process the slowed perception—his Mind was also being pushed to its absolute limits, filtering the vast torrent of information flooding his senses.
But it was working.
Caster occupied the exact same slowed world he did, but the scion lacked the raw perceptual depth to process it as fully.
"Preoccupied with a single leaf, you'll miss the tree. Preoccupied with a single tree, and you'll miss the forest."
The old, sardonic voice of Eddard echoed clearly from the back of his mind, bringing a faint, wry smile to Zachary's marred face.
That had been the very first lesson the old captain had drilled into him. Judging by how Caster lacked that exact global awareness, it meant that the old fossil's martial insight reached far beyond the Awakened who had trained this Legacy—despite Eddard being nothing more than a mundane human.
'Ned...' Zachary thought, a sudden pang of sadness touching his heart.
That was the deeper, frustrating truth he had accepted while mastering the blade: the Simple Sword and the envisioned peak it promised were fundamentally flawed. The true path of the sword was simply too vast, overflowing with endless possibilities to ever be bound by the strict dogmas declared by Eddard.
Perhaps to a mundane human, bound by a normal worldview, those rigid principles felt like a groundbreaking discovery. But at the Awakened level?
Look at Caster's swordsmanship, for instance. It contained clear traces of the Swift Sword in the way his arms relaxed, allowing the blade to glide without resistance at incredible speed. But that was only secondary. The true core of the Legacy's style relied on the unique way he held his weapon.
He gripped the handle of the jian using only two primary points of contact: his thumb acted as the absolute anchor, while the rest of his fingers constantly shifted and relaxed along the hilt, never locking into a hard grip. It was a light, almost fragile hold, yet it allowed Caster to alter his angles and sword paths in the blink of an eye.
Combine that with his impossible speed and lifetime of elite training? Caster truly deserved his place as one of the deadliest Sleepers on the Forgotten Shore.
Yes, the foundational traces of the Simple Sword remained, but Zachary had seen the true, terrifying potential of the weapon in Awakened hands through the Stone Saints. Once a warrior began climbing the Path of Ascension, mundane human limits mattered less and less.
Eddard's dream had been flawed from its very inception.
'And yet...' Zachary dared to think as he continued to flow through Caster's onslaught.
In this world, a Flaw wasn't inherently bad. The Law of Imperfection simply revealed the potential for future growth. What if the Simple Sword was flawed? He had already made up his mind the very day he parted ways with the old geezer.
Zachary was going to perfect the Simple Sword and carry it to unimaginable heights... What was one more heavy promise on his shoulders?
'And to do that... I'm going to steal your swordsmanship right out from under your nose,' he thought, looking at Caster as his smile grew wider.
The duel continued with the unrelenting clangor of steel meeting steel. Zachary completely abandoned offense, focusing entirely on defending and guiding incoming attacks away from his body. The Gentle Sword remained the foundation of everything he did.
Like a stone sitting in a rushing river, his posture became a monument of endurance under the environmental onslaught.
No... that wasn't quite accurate. A stone was rigid and unchanging, destined to wear down under the continuous flow of time and water. What Zachary was emulating was something far more adaptable...
A Cloud.
He was actively incorporating the principles of the Witness Battle Arts, weaving its fluid posture directly into his swordplay. As Zachary yielded ground, he could see Caster growing visibly restless. The Legacy clearly hadn't expected him to last anywhere near this long.
Zachary had tapped into a rhythm, matching Caster's tempo even while lagging behind in raw physical speed.
And yet, his Body was ultimately reaching its physical limit.
"Ngh..." Stepping back, a heavy, blood-tinged tear leaked from his remaining eye, forcing him to squint violently. His enhanced sight had finally reached its breaking point—and the scion was instantly there to punish the gap.
His remaining senses immediately rushed forward to bridge the gap left by his closed eye, Danger Sense screaming a warning of a precise slash aimed straight for his chest.
Squinting his eye open, Zachary brandished the Midnight Shard, but he was too late to execute a proper clash against Caster's blade. He opted for the next best thing. Aligning his grip, Zachary slashed forward, letting the jade tip of the Legacy's jian strike the pommel at the bottom of his hilt.
He released his grip on the Midnight Shard the very next second, letting the dark blade shoot away behind him, propelled by the stolen momentum of Caster's own strike.
He didn't stop there. Continuing his motion even without a sword, Zachary's hands shot downward, clamping onto the scion's wrist and elbow to force the jian away from his body. He was on the verge of stripping the sword from Caster's hands when a heavy boot slammed into his stomach, shoving Caster back and creating space between them.
Zachary instantly pivoted on his heel, bursting forward the moment Danger Sense flared again. He leaned his head to the side, letting the green blade barely graze the skin below his cheekbone as he thrust his right fist forward, channeling the Thunder Insight of the Witness Battle Arts.
"Stop."
A soft but stern voice cut through the air, forcing both men to freeze in their tracks.
"I win," Caster said instantly, only to flinch a second later at how overly defensive and hurried his tone sounded.
The Legacy grounded his teeth, taking a slow, deep breath until his usual calm, composed mask settled back over his features. Raising his green eyes, he looked ahead at Zachary's marred face, spotting the fresh cut he had just inflicted beneath his missing eye. Their duel had been agreed upon as first blood... which meant he had won, right?
Except no blood was flowing from the wound.
Noticing the lack of blood, Caster's jaw tensed as he bit the inside of his cheek. It didn't feel like a victory at all.
It was a shallow graze after completely failing to land a decisive blow despite having every imaginable advantage in speed. Even worse... Caster looked down at the fist still hovering a breath away from his sternum. It looked like a simple punch—nothing noteworthy on the surface—and he was wearing solid armor... So why had every instinct in his body screamed at him to avoid it at all costs?
Caster shook his head, taking a step back with a quiet sigh, inwardly mortified that he had so hastily claimed a victory. His nose scrunched as he noticed Nephis standing up from where she had been watching, her grey eyes locked onto Zachary's retracting fist. Changing Star had felt it too—there was far more to that strike than met the eye.
Zachary ran his thumb lightly over the cut on his cheek. Fortunately, it was superficial enough that he could let Blood Weave handle the healing without drawing attention. He drew a deep breath to steady his racing heart, walking over to retrieve the Midnight Shard where it had lodged in the stone.
Releasing his weapon had been a risky move, but it had kept him in the fight. Still, if Nephis hadn't called an end to the spar, could he have held out much longer?
There was no point dwelling on hypothetical questions now. This duel had served its purpose—it showed him precisely where he stood among the powerhouses of the Forgotten Shore, and how much further he needed to push himself to ensure his larger plans succeeded.
Shaking his head, he pulled the dark tachi from the ground just in time to see Nephis walking toward him.
"Zach... do you want to have a round with me?" she asked in a flat voice, though a fiery spark burned behind her grey eyes.
Watching their exchange had clearly ignited something inside her, but Zachary wanted absolutely no part of it right now.
"Here? In front of everyone?" he shot back immediately, flashing her a roguish grin. "I mean, I'm a little shy... but if you really want to—"
His words were cut short as Nephis's fist slammed directly into his stomach. Surprisingly, Changing Star hadn't needed the joke explained to her this time—much to the visible amusement of Effie and Cassie, who were muffling their laughter nearby.
"Yeah... I deserved that," Zachary wheezed, watching Nephis quickly walk away with her shoulders set. 'Man... she really packs a punch.'