Alright, Stargazer. You've got the speed, and you've definitely got the firepower," Adda grinned, her dark eyes flashing witChapter 12 The Sparh dangerous excitement. "But a real fight isn't against a brainless puddle of mana. Let's see what those daggers can do against something that actually fights back."
She didn't summon another slime. Instead, she stepped right past me and climbed onto the raised stone sparring platform.
Adda rolled her massive shoulders, the thick muscles shifting visibly beneath her tunic, and began cracking her knuckles. The sound was like dry branches snapping in a quiet forest. Even without a weapon, her sheer physical presence was suffocating. She was a Vanguard. She fought Calamity-class Void-Rot for a living. And I had exactly 1,000 hit points.
"Excuse me," Snow's telepathic voice cut through the tension, laced with sharp irritation. "What about me? Am I expected to simply sit here and watch you brutalize my human?"
Adda paused, looking over her shoulder at the silver cat. A wide, feral grin spread across her face, showing off her slightly pointed canines.
"Don't worry, princess," Adda chuckled. "I wouldn't leave you out of the fun."
Adda snapped her fingers, but this time, the pulse of mana wasn't a weak, gelatinous green. It was a blinding, heavy flash of crimson and gold Chakra that physically pushed the air out of the room.
When the light cleared in the smaller sparring ring, a colossal figure was standing there.
"This is my bond, Arlo," Adda introduced proudly. "He'll be your sparring partner."
I stared, my jaw dropping slightly. Arlo was an armadillo, but that word barely did him justice. He was the size of a small compact car. True to the Beast-Men's technological affinity, Arlo looked like he had been ripped straight off the cover of a sci-fi comic book. His natural, segmented shell was heavily reinforced with sleek, interlocking plates of dark, gunmetal alloy. Faint, crimson energy lines pulsed between the armor joints, humming like a high-powered engine.
He was a living, breathing tank.
Arlo let out a low, metallic chitter that vibrated the stone floor. Then, before Snow could even process the sheer size of her opponent, the massive armadillo tucked his armored head down. He curled his massive body into a flawless, metallic sphere, the crimson lines glowing brighter as he revved up in place.
With a screech of metal against stone, Arlo launched himself. He sped across the ring directly toward the tiny Lunar Cat like a high-tech, supersonic bowling ball.
Snow's silver eyes went wide, all her previous arrogance vanishing in an instant. "Oh, dear."
"Eyes on me, Stargazer!" Adda barked, snapping my attention back to the main stage as she dropped into a loose, heavy brawler's stance. "Let's see if you can actually dodge!"
Adda lunged forward, closing the distance terrifyingly fast for a woman of her size.
"Voltaic Step," I muttered, pulling on that dormant spark in my chest.
CRACK.
Sapphire lightning surged through my nervous system, and the world instantly submerged into that thick, heavy stillness. I lunged hard to the left, putting my anomalous Dexterity to work as I dove out of the path of Adda's incoming strike.
But as I moved, a spike of pure, unadulterated horror shot down my spine.
Adda wasn't frozen.
Through the blue-tinted haze of my time dilation, her dark eyes were perfectly tracking my blurred form. Her massive shoulders were already shifting, her torso rotating to follow my new trajectory. She couldn't quite match my hyper-accelerated speed, but she was literally pushing through the time dilation through sheer, overwhelming physical stats. Vanguard rank was no joke.
I risked a split-second glance over at the adjacent ring.
Snow was suspended mid-air in a frantic, desperate dodge. Her usually sleek silver fur was puffed out to three times its normal size, and both of her starlight tails were bristled like angry bottlebrushes as the car-sized metal armadillo barreled toward her. But in her absolute panic, her survival instincts had taken over—a jagged, beautiful radial bloom of dense blue ice was rapidly flash-freezing the stone floor in every direction around her paws.
I snapped my attention back to my own fight. Adda's massive fist was getting uncomfortably close, cutting through the air like a battering ram.
Knowing I was strictly on the clock before my skill's cooldown hit, I darted in. I lashed out with the wire daggers, delivering three rapid, precise slashes against her forearms to force her on the defensive, and then immediately kicked off the stone, retreating backward just as the sapphire lightning fizzled out.
[ SYSTEM PING: VOLTAIC STEP - COOLDOWN ACTIVE ]
Normal time slammed back into place.
Adda stopped her punch mid-swing, the sheer force of her halted momentum cracking the stone tile beneath her boot. She dropped her stance and let out a booming, echoing laugh.
"Well! Good, good!" Adda beamed, clapping her hands together. "You didn't panic when I tracked you. That's great, Stargazer!"
She turned toward the other ring, cupping a hand around her mouth. "Arlo! Stand down! Stop picking on the poor, small beast!"
A loud, metallic huff echoed from the giant armored sphere. Arlo broke off his supersonic charge, his metal plates scraping against the ice Snow had frantically laid down. He spun out of the turn and rolled rapidly back toward our stage.
Before he even crossed the boundary line into our ring, his massive metal form dissolved into a brilliant flash of crimson and gold Chakra, flowing seamlessly like a river of light right back into Adda's chest.
Adda shook her head, brushing a speck of dust off her tunic. "Arlo's not big on people," she said casually.
"I despise him," Snow projected into my mind. The cat was sitting in the center of a frozen crater, aggressively trying to lick her puffed-up fur back down flat so she could reclaim her dignity. "I despise him, and I despise his incredibly fast, rolling geometry."
Adda stepped off the platform, walking over and delivering a congratulatory slap to my back that nearly sent my frail, 1,000-HP body sprawling face-first into the stone.
"Come on," Adda grinned, ushering me toward the exit. "Let's go get some actual food in you, get your official Guild Card and your communication device set up, and then we'll see how you really do out there."