Like the day before, we woke up and had stale bread and jerky for breakfast. The sores that we felt wasn’t as obvious and I guess that means that our bodies were slowly getting used to the demanding trainings. With great anticipation for the last day of the training, we packed our camp in high spirits.

Unlike before, Gracie walked alongside us as we hunted. She also joined into the fights and we breezed through the enemies. Barely an hour had past since we started fighting when we reached a dead end.

“Eh? Did we moved on to a wrong path? Is there some secret path?”

Slyvie asked as we all stopped in front of a huge wall.

Aston tried to hit the wall with his weapon and his axe dug itself into the dirt and stone.

“Seems unlikely, this is a natural wall.”

Ignoring that fact that Aston’s casual hit caused more than a dent in the wall, it really seemed like the cave had ended. What Gracie said only further helped to prove that point.

“Yes, this is the end of the cave.”

“Eh? So we’re done? With the training?”

Raoul asked Gracie in disbelieve.

“Nope.”

There was a silences before Gracie continued.

“Here is the last part of the training. All of you shall fight me once more.”

Gulps could be heard as the air was otherwise still.

“The catch, you need to defeat me or make me accept defeat before I exit the cave.”

“Huh?”

The stupid response came from Aston as he wondered why she would do that. I heard his thoughts,

“Why would she make exiting the cave as the condition for her winning? Couldn’t she just defeat all of us?”

“Let me answer your question Aston,”

“What- Hey! Stop reading my mind!”

Ignoring Aston, I continued.

“It is a fact that we had been training for the past two days while Gracie just laid back and relaxed. Other than the beatdown that she gave us two days before, she did not improved her skills. In the other case, we were constantly polishing our skills and we had also leveled quite a bit. I believed that right now, if the five of us were to fight her at the same time, we have a chance of defeating her.”

“That’s right. I may be strong, but I’m not arrogant. I have personally seen the effort each of you put into your training. I’m pretty sure that I can solo each of you one at a time but I doubt that I could fight all five at the same time. Even I have a limit that can’t be broken in such a short while.”

Understandings rises from each individuals as they finally understood the reasoning for her conditions to winning. As the understanding rises, the dread did at the same time.

“But that means that we’ll be running while we’re fighting.”

“No one says that one must stand their ground while fighting. One must adapt to the ever changing terrain as the fight progresses.”

Gracie shot down Raoul who couldn’t be sure if Slyvie’s stamina could hold out. Fighting in a fixed location for long duration saps a huge amount of stamina. Only by staying at the back of the fight and rarely appearing on the front line did Slyvie managed to last with the low stamina pool that she had. With the conditions of the fight, it would be hard for Slyvie to follow us throughout the fight, even more so if she had to contribute towards the fight.

“Don’t worry brother! I’ll do my best!”

Slyvie’s shout could only managed to put a weak smile on Raoul.

“Now, if there aren’t any more questions, we shall begin.”

With the end of her words, she ran off. We could barely react as she suddenly ran off. With the small head start she had, we chased after her.

With the high dexterity that she had, it wasn’t an easy task to chase after her. If we were just comparing running speed, the only one who could keep up with her would only be Raoul and myself. While Aston was tuned more towards strength than speed and Chris a mix of both, Raoul needed to be agile enough as a martial artist.

With that in mind, I got Raoul to follow me as we chased Gracie. I knew that we needed to slow her down so that the others could join into the fight, but trying to slow her down myself would be futile, so I waited for Raoul to catch up too.

With myself running to the left of Gracie and Raoul to the right, we did a pincer attack on Gracie. While Gracie agily blocked the rain of punches from Raoul with her mace, she blocked my dagger attacks with her large shield. It was hard for her to maintain her attention on both of us, but she still managed to blocked all our attacks. I started to attack with more feints and attacked while changing my position to herself and I could finally see the effects on slowing her down.

The first successful strike was when she barely turned back to glance at where Raoul was attacking and I dodged out of her vision by slowing down. Surprised when she glanced back to not see myself, I managed to stab into her legs before she could detect my attack. With the injury, she couldn’t maintain her speed and had to slow down. I went on to injury her while she remained distracted by the pain and Raoul’s attacks.

Although most of my other attacks were superficial wounds, it all adds up to slowing her down and soon Chris joined into the fight. With one more opponent to handle along with her injuries, she started to get hit by the others two in addition to myself.

When Aston came catching up, ready to unleash his attacks, we believed that she would be defeated soon, but she surprised us. Without thinking, Gracie suddenly stopped and turned back, whacking her mace hard on to the oncoming Aston. He barely reacted in time and held his axe up to blocked the attack, but the combination of his running speed and her swing caused him to be blown back to nearly ten metres away.

He would have been injured quite badly if he hadn’t blocked it in time. Still, the damage wasn’t light. With the way he was hanging his right arm limply by his side, it would seemed like he had broken it. Luckily, Slyvie caught up to where Aston managed to get up from and begin healing him. His arm that was hanging by his side twisted a bit before it went back to normal. Aston tested his arm by swinging it side by side. It looked as good as new.

Gracie was impressed with how Aston had managed to blocked her attack and how fast Slyive had managed to fixed it up. She then looked towards us who surrounded herself and then at her own wounds. We then noticed that the exit of the cave was only a short distances away as we could see that there was light straight ahead. Happy with what she saw, we expected her to make a mad dash for the exit but was disappointed.

“I give up.”

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Author’s Notes: I may not be able to release a chapter next week as I will probably not be having access to the internet for the next 7 days(or maybe slightly more). Sorry that you wouldn’t be seeing another chapter next week.