What Deckard and the bouts with the mossbears taught me was that in cases like this, when I was the weaker one and managed to gain momentum, it was important to push it as long as possible. So when I managed to surprise Palemoon by shifting down a tier and sending her flying, I went after her.

Sure, the bitch was good. She managed to correct herself in mid-air and land on her feet. That was all the time I gave her, though. Well-placed round-house kick to her injured arm, followed by a front kick and another round-house kick at leg level, kept her on the defensive. She tried to dodge my attacks, make herself some room, and even storm back; I didn’t give her breathing room for any of that.

Then there was her sword, I had to be wary of the damn thing. When her attempts to dodge my kicks failed, the bitch tried to block them with her weapon. I admit it wasn’t that stupid. It was actually quite clever, especially her efforts to set the blade, so I cut myself on it.

Was I dumb enough to let her do that? No, I wasn’t. The well-timed barriers made it impossible for her.

The focus it required to form them in time and in the right place was killing me, though. Never taking my eyes - nor my ears - off her, my mind immersed in my domain; basically, my entire perception focused on her every single motion was putting a palpable strain on my brain circuits, giving me a killer headache while I was using [Indomitable Will] to the limits to ease my mind.

Hell, the last time I was this focused was during the egg on the spoon race, and I lost that one.

On a more serious note, dealing with rabbits or foxes while keeping an eye out for rocks hidden in the grass was a nightmare. Still doable, but just a fucking nightmare. This, though, was a whole other level. Palemoon was more swift than anyone of my level I’ve ever faced in a bout, reaching the point where I was barely able to form barriers and respond with my kicks in time.

No doubt the ever-changing aura the bitch was boosting herself with had something to do with it. I wasn’t much of a mage; I admit. If anything, I just took a peek at being one. So, to feel the changes in someone else’s mana, or aura if you will, while I was unaffected by it, was beyond my abilities. Yet I would have to be blind not to notice visible changes in Palemoon’s aura, let alone those in her movements. As time went on, she got faster, more confident, and more precise while I sweated my ass off more and more.

One mistake, one failing to form the barrier in time or just a bad positioning of it, and I could have lost my foot. Now more than ever, I saw the need for boots. Having them pop up on my feet now was not an option, though. It would just throw me off.

Needless to say, I regretted not looking for something like instep guards to protect the top of my foots. In fact, I hated Deckard for not suggesting something like that. The bastard just told me I had to get used to kicking the hard stuff. Fucker! As if that was of any use to me now. How the hell could he believe that my leg would stand up to the blade of a sword?

Nevertheless, giving him a piece of my mind was an issue for later.

With my heart beating so hard in my chest that it was pretty much all I could hear, I was pushing myself to the limits trying to press Palemoon for as long as possible, one kick at a time. Sadly, to my ire, the kicks, no matter how fast and hard I landed them, didn’t seem to do much damage to her.

***

Sandbag!

Stella felt like a fucking sandbag. A thoroughly bludgeoned one. Grey, that cunt, managed to catch her off guard again. Her own fault, though. That much, she admitted. The one she was dealing with was a shifter, at least in the general sense. Yet, in all the comparisons to the others, she forgot the biggest advantage they possessed: to shift from one form to another, each bringing its own edges and drawbacks.

The cunt was clearly more agile in this one, trained in the martial art of booting. No wonder there, Deckard, Castiana’s famous solo seeker, was her mentor. ‘Fuck you both!’ Stella couldn’t help but curse mentally at the thought. After all, her mother, after she begged her, tried to get him to teach her, yet he refused every time despite all her mother offered. Yet…Deckard now had an apprentice.

What this weirdo broad had that she didn’t was just beyond her.

Sure, Grey’s technique was acceptable, given things. No master herself, Stella was still able to tell that much. That and the fact that it hadn’t been long since she started learning - there were so many flaws in her moves. However, to her utter disbelief, she was unable to take advantage of what she saw. Grey was relentless, battering her constantly, never giving her a chance even to catch a breath.

Was that what caught Deckard’s eye? The determination? If so, she wasn’t lacking in that regard either.

It was her determination that got her to where Stella was at the age of twenty-one. Her determination pushed her far ahead of her peers. Yet now, she was unable to break free from the onslaught Grey unleashed on her. That in itself was so very frustrating for her. After all, she was using Tier V of [Defying Might], a boast among her skills that boosted her body’s overall performance, from strength to agility to speed. And Tier V of it, something she wanted to show off in front of the master guards, now because of her arrogance not to use the tier from the beginning of the fight, as she should have, seemed short sighted, even against someone like [Slave: lvl 121].

It hurt; it hurt so much that she wanted to cry.

All those years of toil, sweat, and tears for this...this humiliation! Sure, Stella knew there was no chance of winning if she faced master guards or senior guardsmen, and she was fine with that. In the light of things, she would be the underdog for whom the other guards were supposed to root. And even if she were to suffer defeat, others would applaud her for her efforts. It all fell apart with this fucking Guardian, this half-terran that didn’t make sense...this cunt. [Stellar Mind] or not, under the rage, she couldn’t think of Grey any other way.

After all...

No! Actually, it was Rayden who had put her in exactly the opposite position she had hoped for. Stella was the stronger one in their bout, and Grey, the underdog the guardsmen were rooting for. It was so unfair, making her feel wronged, so wronged. After all, whoever won the fight, it didn’t matter, not to her. There was no glory waiting for her at the end. Either she does what is expected of her and thrashes Grey or loses and becomes a laughingstock. As one of her teachers would say, a bitter lesson important for character growth, yet one hard for her to swallow.

Grey was making it very difficult for her to do something about it, though. The cunt was good; she had to give it to her. She was good and, despite her overall illogicalness, not so stupid. The first attack that destroyed her arm rendered at least half of her power useless. The spear was essentially a two-handed weapon, and while it could be held in one hand, what good was it when she could only unleash less than a quarter of its potential that way? She was a little better with swords. Dual wielding them was her forte. But even that lost its beauty and effectiveness when you only had one hand. Two swords simply couldn’t be held with only one, right-handed or not.

At least Stella found some comfort in the fact that, as a dual wielder, she trained her left hand to the standards of her right. If that wasn’t the case, this fight could have been over a long time ago. And truthfully, she wished it were so in the back of her mind.

Though the shame would fall on her name, Stella wouldn’t have to take the beating she was taking. One kick after another - one heavier than the other - landing on her body, and she found herself unable to do anything about it. Every time she tried to block one, a barrier stood in the way of her sword, and it was driving her insane. A skill that should be useless to a shifter like Grey, the cunt held like some kind of barrier master.

Mercifully, her kicks carried nothing but brute force. Were it otherwise, Stella would be in deep shit as Grey spared no part of her body, not even her head. Simply, no intrusive mana or extra damage that usually accompanied the strikes of close combat masters. Thus all she got to deal with was an enormous amount of bruises, that her body and skills were able to withstand...and the pain she’s long since turned off.

Of course, other than blocking, she tried to avoid the kicks. But Grey, matching her speed, always seemed to sense her intent, changing the direction of her feet accordingly in a heartbeat. If she didn’t know better, she’d say she was facing a true beast, acting on her instincts honed for centuries.

However, Trier V of [Defying Might], despite her boneheaded decision not to use it from the beginning, played into her hands; the longer she used her aura abilities, the more effective they became. With each breath, with each heartbeat, she grew stronger, and Grey - no wonder there - seemed to be aware of the fact, getting more desperate as her barrage of kicks raged on.

Slowly but surely, Stella was gaining the upper hand.

Not the ending that was brewing in her mind, though. The cunt humiliated her, it was because of her that she went far beyond what she ever intended against the members of Squad Four, basically robbing her of her grand first step into the Castiana City Guards. There was no reason to hold anything back any longer.

[Brightest Heart], a General Skill, an offshoot of her Class Skills, Stella acquired a few months ago. She barely managed to get it to Tier IV, level 63, yet a feat of which she was duly proud. The skill that was fueled by the fierceness in her heart, one that let her enemies taste her fury. Or so the description of the skill said. The reality was a bit different. Essentially, it was a matter of accumulating the residual aura from the prior use and unleashing it all at once in a massive torrent.

Accumulating residual aura was the hardest trick of the skill to master and no easy feat to accomplish during combat. Yet thanks to the overabundance of aura Grey was forcing her to use, her heart shone like the sun now that she looked at it through mana perception. The sun that was ready to blast the cunt for all the wrongs she had to endure.

Stella braced herself, taking a kick to her knee, covering another with her thigh guards by timely twisting her leg before she made room to breathe with the swing of her sword for the first time in a while. Her patience had paid off, aura skills got her where she needed to be, and now it was time for Grey to pay her due.

Wasting no time, she pointed her sword at the cunt and unleashed all the fury she had in her heart through the blade.

***

That I was screwed, I realized even before the bitch guarded my kick, and I had to dodge her sword. Actually, it was just a matter of time and the point I was dreading. Palemoon was getting stronger and more agile with every breath she took. And worst, I've run out of options. Apart from using Sage there was nothing I could use to my advantage, no room for me where I could push myself further.

Unlike my fight with Squad Four, I wasn’t explicitly forbidden to use my poison anymore - the word got around. But I reckoned it would be useless in Palemoon’s case anyway due to the low level of the skill. That bitch’s aura was too versatile for me to think she wouldn’t be able to deal with poison. Speaking of which, her aura had been giving me the creeps for some time now. In fact, as she grew stronger, so did this unnerving feeling I got from it, up to the point where my instincts were screaming at me to get the hell out of there.

I didn’t. To do that was to lose; something that rubbed my beast pride the wrong way. The bitch hurt my pack.

Well, what could I say? That was where my instincts were at odds; some telling me to bolt, others making her pay. My rational human self, for its part, reasoned that as long as I had the initiative, there was still a little hope of coming out victorious. So, as I said, I didn’t put my tail between my legs and bolt when I should have.

A mistake I now regretted.

With Palemoon distancing herself from me, the chills she was giving me got even worse. In fact, whatever she was doing sent shivers down my spine so intense I would think she grabbed me by the tail if I didn’t have her in my sight. This time I didn’t go against her sword, didn’t pursue her further and tried to push her on the defensive again, but I heeded my instincts.

She got the upper hand!

Worse, according to my instincts, what was to come was something I didn’t want to stand against, no matter what.

But knowing that and being able to do something about it were two different things. What the hell could I do in that split second, being so close and yet so far from her? There was no chance for me to escape her attack nor time to go against her blade and interrupt it with a kick. All I could do was try to avoid it and simply prepare for the worst.

Except for Palemoon’s scream, there was no buzz, yet the light green-ich aura that gushed forth from her blade seemed like a raging torrent upon my senses, overshadowing them with a dreadful noise. A heartbeat later, I joined Palewood’s shout with my own as I failed to avoid her magic attack, and it tore through my defenses, the barrier totally useless, melting in contact with the stream of mana like it was made of sugar. My wings - next in my line of defense - I put in the way of the torrent in a frantic effort to stop it from reaching my body, ended up just like the barrier, burned through.

That’s when it hit me, both physically and thought-wise. Her magic, her aura burned. And if it burned, my mane was the answer - one that came too late. The stream of the green-ish aura cut into my chest armor, enchantments and the runes placed on it flaring up while my exposed body parts burned. My stomach, sides, armpits, neck, just anything that wasn’t covered by armor, and even in that, I felt like I was cooking alive.

To avoid becoming a baked hybrid, I crossed my arms in front of me, the forearm bracers faring no better than the chest armor. My hands burned and baked at the same time.

My mane!

Roasting alive, I pumped what I could into my mane, finding it growing too slow for my liking.

‘Come on!’ I screamed in my mind, despair striking my heart. Why was it growing so slow?! Then it came to me. My heart slowed its beat, almost stopped in my fright, and with it, time. A phenomenon I had no control over, and I found it not so useful right now. If anything, it came at the wrong time and ate an awful lot of mana - mana I needed to pump into my mane - while it had no benefits to me except more time to think about what to do and to let me feel the drawn-out effects of the aura on my bare skin.

Rather abruptly, it turned into a fight on two fronts: with the bitch and my own heart.

Decision made, knowing that even if I pumped all the manna I could into it, my hair wouldn’t grow fast enough to cover my body, I dropped to my knees to make myself a smaller target. The bitch followed my movements with her sword, a torrent of aura, not giving me a second to breathe. Despite my constitution, regeneration, toughness, and who knows what else, my exposed flesh burned, the energy getting deep to the bones. All that in the excruciating time slowdown, where I was trying to cut off the flow of mana to my heart, turned into a ravenous beast.

A beast that had proven to be more adept at mana manipulation than I was, denying me my efforts to deprive it of its nourishment I so desperately needed for my mane. It grew so slow I was forced to act, or my body would have been burned to ashes. I leaned forward and exposed my head, the mane, to the torrent.

Crazy, I know. Yet, it worked, it really worked, and what little of my body I managed to cover was protected from the onslaught, cooling under the effects of my mane.

A bit late, though.

Given what I saw of myself in my domain, I would have thought I should be in excruciating pain. After all, there was no pain-suppressing skill among my abilities, nor did I control my mind through [Indomitable Will] as Blaine suggested. Yet, for some reason, my body ignored the rapidly deteriorating burns. Almost as if it was in shock as much as I was.

Pride or not, I had done my best, got revenge for my squadmates, and now it was time to admit defeat.

“I s-surrender,” I spoke in a whisper, which was all my cooked lungs would allow me, with an effort against slowed down time as I shifted back into my human-ish self to save my energy and not inadvertently get myself trapped in an insidious cycle of death and regeneration.

Either Palemoon didn’t hear me over the torrent of her own aura trying to force its way through my mane, now finally covering most of my body, or she really was such a bitch and wanted to finish what she started blindly, regardless of the consequences.

I was leaning towards the former. My surrender was weak, barely a whisper. But that was all I could give her. Short of mana, short of strength, and short of breath, I was unable to utter another word and declare my surrender.

Despair gripped me as I tried to figure out how to let Palemoon know she had won, beat me, and showed me who the boss was.

Hidden behind the veil of my mane that was gobbling up my mana no slower than my heart, I was at my wit’s end. Whatever skill that bitch was using, countering it drained my mana reserves at the speed of a blink of an eye. The fumes of it were basically all I had left. My strength was burned away. The chances of surviving this senseless nightmare dwindling with every second stretched by my heart into long minutes of suffering as the pain finally caught up with me.

My powers just weren’t enough to withstand this kind of attack.

Brought on by despair, tears welled in my eyes just as my body, hungry for mana, reached for the one set aside in my core, the one place I’ve managed to forget successfully, a reminder of what I lost and what could have been. And it answered, hummed to life, opening its floodgates. Even though the core itself was smaller than a pea in size, the mana hidden in it washed over me like a wave quenching my heart’s and mane’s hunger for it.

There was so much of it actually, uncontrollable, I could feel it overwhelming my brain, igniting my heart.

They say that in your last moments, life flashes before your eyes. My thoughts turned to my family on Earth, to those I knew here on Eleaden. To Idleaf, Esuden, Ria, Ennola, Deckard....fuck! Deckard!

‘Union rings!’ the thought flashed through my mind, followed by a desperate cry as the world before me folded into darkness.

“Deckard, I surrender....”

***

“Come on...!” Stella bellowed, almost screaming, as [Brightest Heart] strained her already battered body more than she found bearable. This was the longest her heart had ever been lit up in the state she was currently in. But this was her chance to make Grey give up. Simply stopping would mean risking having Grey pounce on her again or pulling another trick out of her sleeve. Her opponent lacked any logic, a shifter who turned out to be as much of a magic fighter as she was an aura warrior. That was the only possible explanation making any sense. Otherwise, she couldn’t explain Grey’s long hair that could defy the heat of her heart.

And so, fearing her own defeat while longing for victory, Stella fed her heart with all the aura she could give off and push on with blind determination.

Grey held on, though.

“Come on!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, reaching her limits. But to her anguish, Grey’s hairy defense was still up.

Utter despair seized her. Stella was at her end. With her chest burning, her mana almost gone, and her auras fading, there simply wasn’t much else she could do but cut off the aura stream and do the only thing she was still capable of at that moment. She lunged at Gray, swinging her sword, hoping she’d be quick enough to find her off guard.

Her blade never reached her opponent, though.

Stella hadn’t been slow or misjudged her swing, nor had Grey pulled another trick as she feared. No, one blink was all it took, and - out of nowhere - Deckard stood before her, the blade of her sword clutched in his hand, unmoved by the force of her attack. She staggered, not understanding what had happened, only to realize that he had stopped her just as she was about to take back her victory, the humiliation she had suffered.

Anger flared up in her.

“That’s enough, Palemoon!” Captain Rayden spoke from behind her, the soothing aura of hers Stella was familiar with washing over her mind.

Her heart raged, though. “But C-Captain, ma’am...”

“She surrendered,” Deckard bellowed so loud she flinched. Only then did she glance from him to the kneeling woman behind him, her rival, and saw what she did to her. She was sitting there on her feet, her mane gone, head hung down so her wings, motionless, covered in blood, burns, and cinders all over.

“Is...is she...” The system didn’t let her finish her sentence, a dreadful thought that crossed her mind at the sight of her opponent.

You have defeated [Korra’leigh Grey - Deviant of Humanity: lvl 122]

‘I fucked up. I fucked up big time.’ Stella was in shock, the implications of what she had done slowly dawning on her. ‘I killed a Guardian of the World Tree.’