“Haah… haaah… haaaa….” Kina panted heavily, propping herself against her blood red sword that was stabbed into the granite below her feet. Fresh beads of sweat glistened in the mid afternoon sun. Over the course of the past year, she had grown considerably taller, entering her growth spurt in her teen years. Right now, her usual shoulder-length hair had been cut so short it gave her a genuine tomboy look. Her body had grown as well, her muscles defining her body, yet not compromising her feminine features.

“Take a break. We will resume in 10 minutes,” Kiefer instructed, to which Kina quickly slumped onto the ground to calm her mental and physical fatigue. They had been training the whole day and yet, the conditions of the father and daughter were worlds apart. One was tired to the bones while the other was yawning nonchalantly.

However, Kina’s growth was not limited to her physique. Her combative abilities had skyrocketed under the constant guidance of Rose, Isana, Kiefer and even Finnel. Even then, she knew her schedule would only intensify considering that Eril and Jielin had finally re-joined the team. She had learnt to control her mana with more finesse and also managed to open her own personal Pocket Dimension. With her intensive training, she’s made progress in not only her magical abilities but her swordsmanship as well as leadership skills and battlefield tactics which Kiefer deemed somewhat primitive. Even then, she still learnt how to control her squad effectively.

Mayheir city, on the other hand, had shown an even greater change than observed in Kina. Her population size surged and the city expanded outwards rapidly. Right now, the second layer of walls was being constructed where the perimeter of Broodmothers used to be. The demons in the area had been wiped out in the process of training the army as well as the Specialised Combat Unit (SCU). This new wall was not as grand, but it served as a frontline firebase where 30% of the city’s soldiers were situated. These soldiers were the elites of the City, keeping the borders safe while new recruits trained within the safety of the inner wall.

Through the development of the city, the citizens became aware of threats much greater than what they used to face. In the past, their worst nightmare was a broodmother appearing. And yet now, they would celebrate when they came across a broodmother for it was a fortune falling unto their laps. Broodmothers were easy to kill with the new squad tactics developed by Finnel and the SCU. Their blood could be made into excellent potions and their carapace into shields and armour. If a broodmother was found surrounded by her swarmlings, the soldiers were even happier because it meant free metal for the city.

This change in attitude was only because they came across much more fearful opponents within the demonic jungle in the process of expanding the city. There were the Pritors, which were large felines with three sharp-daggered tails. They were not considered demonic beasts but were frightful nonetheless for their ambush-style hunting and impeccable agility. Difficult to spot, but even harder to defend against. Then there were the abductor toads which made these Pritors seem like domesticated house cats. The demonic toads would stretch their tongues for kilometres on end until the tongues became as thin as silk. As long as you get caught in this nigh invisible tongue, it would snap back instantly, pulling its victim straight into the maws of the giant toad which would be too far to attack. Once caught, there is no way to save the victim since he would be dead from the mere G-force experienced from the abduction.

And then, there were the monster apes which showed near human intelligence, capable of organising ambushes and coordinated attacks against patrol groups. And speaking of coordinated attacks, the most fearsome would without a doubt be the demon ants. They were the size of a small dog, but they came in the millions. You could come across a single lone worker wandering about, but your only options were to either run away or hope that it didn’t notice you. There was no way to fight the lone ant since its battle pheromones would soon attract the attention of its colony mates. Once a battle started, you could only live if you could fly to a height that the swarm of ants could not reach.

And while talking about flying, even though no flying demonic beast had been observed thus far, the soldiers had come across demonic worms that could leap up to ten metres vertically. An adult worm would be the size of a man’s forearm. They had rows upon rows of tiny needle sharp teeth lining their mouth holes and would shred anything that they came across. Granted magic immunity by their demon god, these worms could withstand the barrage of spells from mages and still come out without a scratch, ready to leap and latch onto anyone slow and unlucky enough to expose any soft tissue. They were truly a mage’s bane.

Returning to the outskirts of the city, Kina had finally stood up once more, wielding her sword with ease in one hand. From the side, Isana, Rose and Eril were watching calmly as Kina and Kiefer faced off against each other once more.

“Come on then. You have yet to touch me even once today. We will keep going until you succeed,” Kiefer warned, standing perfectly still with his hands behind his back.

“But that’s not fair! You said no using skills. You are clearly using your mana void skill so that my magic doesn’t reach you,” Kina complained, wracking her brain to find a solution. She had to get through several layers of Kiefer’s defence. The first being the mana dome that could repel physical attacks. The next layer was the entire space within the dome that was completely void of mana, quickly reducing the efficacy of any magic spells that she cast. And even if she managed to get past, Kiefer still had his orange orihalcom metal swirling around his arm like a slithering snake. He could manipulate it to form a thin shield to absorb any magical attacks and fend off physical attacks as well. Not to mention he still had his mana armour and his mithril skinsuit.

“I said you can’t use your skills. I never said I couldn’t. Life’s not fair, get used to it or it’s gonna bite you from behind,” Kiefer retorted, standing there like an impenetrable fortress. “if you can injure me today, you won’t have training from me for the next 2 weeks,” he added, hoping to entice her to try harder.

Kina frowned, before turning to look at her mother with pleading eyes. Kiefer shot Isana a glare and shook his head, to which Isana could only sigh. Kiefer knew full well how soft Isana was on her daughter. Seeing her mother being unable to help her, Kina’s face revealed a look of hopelessness. She could only continue to attack her father relentlessly until dusk and hope that he would sympathise with her enough to let her off.

With a loud bang, her blood sword clashed with Kiefer’s dome, the shock from the clash causing her arm to go numb. She could see a faint ripple in the translucent yellowish dome, but nothing more. Her full brute force strike could only affect her father’s mana dome to this extent, making her feel helpless. If she refused to continue with the training, her father would only punish her even more than if she failed to accomplish the goal of the day. Memories from the past year began to resurface where she was forced to wear the mana suppressing cuffs and made to train relentlessly under Rose as punishment. And then, an idea surfaced. She quickly suppressed the urge to smile at the genius of the plan, lest her father notices something.

“Ahhh…. No more. I give up. I don’t want to do this anymore!” Kina yelled, tossing her sword to the ground in a temper. She pouted her lips and sat down on the ground, reluctant to move even an inch. “There is no point in this training anyway. I might as well just train my strength until I can break your defence,” she said begrudgingly.

Kiefer frowned unhappily. Even at this stage of the war, his daughter was being selfish and childish. He had expected much more, hoping that she would mature quicker. But it would seem that he had expected too much. His disappointment could be seen clearly. At this point, he began wondering if his method of disciplining his daughter was the right way to go. He did not want to use violence since his own father had once abused him as a child. However, as things stood right now, it would seem that Kina needed a spanking to put her in place. Maybe he needed to adapt his disciplining methods according to how she grew, but he knew not how to change.

Sighing audibly, Kiefer walked over to his daughter’s side, taking out a pair of bracelets and handing them over to Kina. Kina simply ignored him, still seated on the ground with her arms folded and lips pouting. She glared at him angrily, before standing up, towering over him. Then with a flash of her hands, she had taken out a green orihalcom shard no larger than her palm and stabbed towards her father’s left shoulder.

“Crap!” Kiefer thought as he realised that he had been careless. He moved to erect his mana armour while delivering a merciless punch towards his daughter’s stomach to create some distance. However, in an instant, before he could do anything, even with his enhanced senses and reaction speed, the shard was already embedded in his shoulder. A surge of electricity flowed through the shard, numbing his nerves as it quickly warped into a saw blade.

*thud*

A deadly silence followed as everyone watched Kiefer’s left arm fall to the floor, not knowing how it happened. They saw a flash of green return to Kina’s hands as she stood several metres away from her father, seemingly having teleported away after performing the instantaneous attack. Kiefer winced in pain as he picked up his arm and held it against his bleeding shoulder. The wound healed at a visible rate as his regeneration kicked into high gear, reattaching his torn off arm to his shoulder.

“I win,” Kina smirked. Her announcement brought everybody back from the temporary shock as they realise that the blood sword was floating behind Kiefer’s neck, being controlled by Kina’s own mana threads. “Before you say anything,” Kina spoke out, seeing as he father was about to speak. “You were the one who said that life is unfair and that I had to deal with it. I may have used my time stopping abilities, but rules don’t apply in a real fight for my life does it. If I kept playing by my enemy’s rules, I would be serving my neck up to them on a silver platter,” she explained.

Eril’s face transformed into a wide grin. Right now, he couldn’t be more proud of his student. He was the master of deception and trickery, and yet he knew that if he was in Kina’s place, he might not necessarily have done better. Tricking her own father into lowering his defences, and then even breaking his rules while mercilessly attacking him, this decisiveness and scheming ability were almost on par with his own, except her individual abilities were much better than his own.

“Well done,” Kiefer praised, not the slightest bit angry. What his daughter said made sense, even if just a little bit. He had gone back on his word to not use his abilities and argued against her. Now she had fed him his own medicine. “As promised, your training with me for today ends now. You can take a break until night time where you will resume Eril’s training. I’ll arrange for Rose and Finnel to use my timeslot to train you,” he smirked, before walking towards Isana.

“What!?” Kina exclaimed. Right now, she realised that her father never had the intention to go easy on her even if she had won fair and square. Instead of getting her much-deserved break from his hellish training, he just assigned her to the other instructors.