Williams and Asher’s bodies became streaks of blurring motion, they didn’t just blur around on the ground, no, they appeared on the roof of the training chamber, on the vertical walls, suspending themselves for a couple of seconds before gravity claimed them once more.

Although they couldn’t use their Astra energy, it didn’t mean they couldn’t stand on vertical surfaces for a couple of seconds without it, their physical conditioning and control more than sufficient to defy such limitations for a while.

One was a blur of purple, a streak of silver thrusting from him. The other was a blur of black, a streak of silver racing towards him from every direction, their movements clashing in a constant and endless exchange of speed of attack and evasion.

Even as Williams dodged, even in his Zone state, his mind still raced with thoughts, yet his mind was paradoxically clear. At this moment, his focus drifted to the beginning of their spar, when Asher was dodging with minimal ease and zero wasted movement, every action precise and deliberate.

He wanted to copy that, he wanted to replicate it, he had wanted to understand it... well, he understood a bit of it, but not wholly, not to the level where he could apply it seamlessly.

’He didn’t move more than needed,’ Williams thought as he remembered how his own attacks always seemed to miss by the shortest centimeters possible, never quite reaching their mark.

’He always waited until the last moment to eliminate any sudden mid-motion readjustments from me,’ he analyzed internally, his thoughts aligning with what he had observed.

’He read every attack as it came,’ he noted to himself as he dodged yet another incoming strike, his body barely escaping harm.

He could remember it, the calmness behind Asher’s motion, the finesse in his steps, the tranquility in his eyes as he read the attacks as though he had seen them before they even happened, as though the future unfolded before him.

’Muscle reading?’ Williams asked himself as he dodged another attack, his mind focusing on that aspect as Asher had once mentioned it briefly amongst many other pieces of advice he had given during their earlier exchanges.

At this moment, he was barely dodging Asher’s attacks due to him moving on pure instinct, with the wind also aiding his movement as he surrendered himself to it, allowing it to guide his motion naturally.

’It seems I can’t do it yet,’ Williams acknowledged internally, accepting the limitation without hesitation.

His knowledge of the muscles was abysmal to begin with, he could barely follow Asher’s movements at the moment, where would he even find the time to read his muscles on top of that, especially under such constant pressure?

And not only that, he couldn’t replicate Asher’s perfect timing, the ease, the attack reading, the tranquility, he couldn’t replicate any of it, he could barely even grasp the technique or whatever that thing was in its entirety.

’It seems I need more experience to step into such a level of mastery,’ he concluded to himself, his mind settling on the undeniable truth that mastering what Asher had done was impossible at this moment.

Williams wasn’t bothered by the impossibility, expecting to master one of Asher’s skills on the spot was just plain stupidity, and he knew better than to entertain such unrealistic expectations. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

’I can at least read the wind now, even if it’s just a bit,’ he concluded, at least he had gained something amidst the current impossibility before him, a small yet meaningful step forward.

The moment two minutes passed, Asher changed the rhythm of his attack, speed, and motion immediately, his attack still a thrust but now carrying a different feel, something sharper, something more refined.

But this time, Williams was ready, he had fallen out of rhythm once, but he wouldn’t a second time. His hands, which had rested for the past two minutes, finally moved, his sabre streaking in a blur of blackness as he met Asher’s attack head-on, but he didn’t just meet it, he parried it to the side with precision.

But Asher didn’t stop, he attacked again from the side, but Williams met it again, his hand and body reacting timely to every attack Asher unleashed at that moment, showing clear improvement.

’Good, he didn’t fall out of rhythm again,’ Asher thought to himself, observing the change with quiet approval.

He immediately changed his attacking pattern once again, this time, his attacks became erratic, they became madness, irregular, bizarre, and unpredictable. He had spoken to Williams about predictability, and now, Asher was unleashing attacks that embodied the complete opposite of that principle.

Williams’ composure seemed to collapse immediately as he couldn’t understand what he was seeing at the moment, his perfectly clear mind seemed to become jumbled as though his Zone state itself couldn’t comprehend what was unfolding before him.

’He stopped being predictable, hence making my reactions through sheer instinct and reflex useless,’ Williams thought to himself as he could only watch as Asher’s attacks tore through his body with increasing frequency.

A slash at his arm, a slit at his cheek, a rupture across his chest, a gash at his thigh, a rend at his shoulder, a gouge at his leg, each injury shallow yet accumulating rapidly.

Williams seemed to become a confused child at that moment, he had been able to parry Asher’s attacks after falling back into rhythm, yet that rhythm now seemed utterly useless. His sabre moved to the left, yet the attack came from the right, he tried to parry an attack from above, but it came from below, even when he tried to do the opposite of what his senses told him just so he could make sense of what was happening, he failed.

To his brain, to his mind, Asher’s rapier motion seemed no different from a newborn baby mumbling gibberish only the baby could understand, completely incomprehensible and chaotic.

Asher, seeing that Williams couldn’t adjust to his sudden shift in motion, simply shook his head, his erratic attacks were simply too much for Williams’ Zone state to even begin to comprehend in its current stage.

Just because Williams was in a Zone state didn’t mean he suddenly understood everything Asher unleashed, some movements and techniques couldn’t be understood even in fragments or bits until one reached a certain state or stage in the sword, something that required far more experience and refinement.

Asher immediately stopped his erratic attacks as he didn’t want to overwhelm Williams too much, the boy had already received tens of injuries. The goal was to show him what unpredictability was, and he had done just that, it was now left for Williams to find his own path into such a level.

And with that, Asher transitioned into another sword technique Williams knew nothing about, something he had tried once before, but had failed so miserably at, feints, a deceptive style that blurred intent and misled perception.

Whether Williams would adjust to it, or crumble again, was entirely up to him and his Zone state at the moment, as the next phase of the spar unfolded with quiet intensity.

____

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have two extra Chapters typed! Muahahahaha! As you know, a Magic Castle is one bonus Chapter, a spacecraft is two bonus Chapters, and a Golden Gachapon is three bonus Chapters.

Or, join my Discord, send a Ko-fi for the two Chapters ($100 is two Chapters). Thanks for reading.