Elias's mind was churning over Lyle's unsettling news. An old man, murdered in the forest. Grey hair, bushy beard, tattered clothes, blue eyes, and a nasty personality. The description matched a person he'd met in town quite recently.
'S.K.' he thought, but shook his head, as it was just ridiculous, trying to dislodge the unwelcome idea.
'What would that old hobo be doing mixed up with foreign assassins?'
His thoughts were interrupted by Aina's voice, sharp and clear.
"I challenge you, Lyle."
Lyle's eyes widened slightly. He glanced at Elias, who only shrugged apologetically and, with a pained smile, gestured with his sling-bound arm.
"As you can see, I'm a wounded man. Have some pity."
"I have plenty of pity," she retorted, her gaze unwavering.
"Which is why I noticed the orange aura seeping into your shoulder. You're using 'Accelerate Healing' on all your wounds, though I'm wondering why you're doing it so subtly. Anyway, you'll be fine."
For a fleeting second, a shadow of what looked like genuine displeasure crossed Lyle's face. It was so quick Elias thought he might have imagined it. Then, the easy-going mask was back in place.
"Very perceptive," Lyle conceded with a sigh.
"But a sparring match? Now? I'm not really in the best shape..."
"Aina, maybe we should just–" Elias began, standing between them and raising his hands in an attempt to placate them.
"This isn't for my own amusement," Aina cut in, her tone leaving no room for doubt that she disliked him intensely.
"This is for your understanding, Elias. You need to see this. On the Ladder of Ascension, the gap between a mundane human and someone who has awoken their Flow is obvious. And even among Flow users, the difference between stages is a wide chasm. A Votary, like him," she nodded at Lyle, "should, by all rights, be able to crush an Acolyte like me without effort. The gap in raw strength is that vast."
She took a step forward, her boots scuffing the grass.
"That is why one must use every skill or weapon they have to build a bridge across that chasm and create conditions for a fair fight."
Elias noticed she didn't say 'win' but said 'fair' fight.
Before the last word had left her lips, she moved. She didn't lunge at Lyle directly. Instead, she slammed her foot into the ground. A crackle of blue lightning earthed itself through the ground, not attacking Lyle, but exploding the ground between them into a dust cloud.
As the smoke plumed out, Elias saw the glint of metal particles in the air, swarming to Aina's hand and coalescing with a sharp shing into a formidable double-bladed sword.
Lyle, who hadn't moved from his spot, simply chuckled from within the cloud.
"A smokescreen? A bit theatrical, don't you think?"
His Trait, known as 'The Death', granted him a frightening influence over cause and effect. At his current stage of development, the Votary stage, he could access two key abilities, or Resonants. The first allowed him to perceive the "causal weight" of small, immediate actions. He could see the threads of consequence tied to a single moment and then choose one natural effect and accelerate it to its final conclusion in an instant. The second Resonant allowed him to sense intercept a negative, incoming causal effect directed specifically at him and redirect it to another object or entity within a short radius of about ten meters. The first Resonant was limited by this range as well. This did not nullify the original cause, but simply swapped who or what suffered its effect.
From the heart of the dust, Aina shot forward. She swung the lower blade in a low, sweeping arc aimed at his legs. Lyle didn't dodge. He just tilted his head, his eyes, now tinged with a faint, shimmering orange, tracking something Elias couldn't see.
"Hmmm, that strike is definitely gonna hurt," Lyle commented, his voice lazy. He raised his good hand, not to block, but to snap his fingers.
'If it could hit me, that is.'
A stone in the ground that Aina happened to step on in order to move forward, chose that exact moment to crumble, disrupting her balance and causing her sweep to go wide, missing his shins by inches. He had perceived the natural weakness and accelerated its breakdown.
"Unlucky," Lyle said with a grin.
Aina recovered with a dancer's grace, pushing off her back foot. She didn't waste a second. This time, she thrust the spear-point directly at his chest. Lyle's orange eyes flickered.
Lyle brought his broken arm, still in its sling, up in a clumsy, warding gesture.
Elias expected a sickening crunch. It didn't come. Instead, the large, ornate wooden door of the keep, some ten meters behind Lyle, suddenly splintered with a violent thwack. A deep, fresh gouge appeared in its surface, as if an invisible spear had slammed into it. Aina's own weapon had met no resistance, passing harmlessly through the space Lyle's arm had been. He had intercepted the causal effect of her thrust and redirected its force onto the door.
"Oh, I see," Elias whispered in fascination, having figured out Lyle's Trait. Lyle winked at him.
"Enjoying the show?" he asked.
Aina's eyes narrowed. She was learning. Direct, targeted attacks were being redirected. She needed something he couldn't so easily define or pass on.
She leapt back, creating distance. The double-bladed sword dissolved back into a cloud of shimmering dust. She raised both hands, and the air around Lyle began to hum. The gravity in a sphere centered on him intensified dramatically. The dust at his feet was pressed flat. His posture slumped forward as if an invisible weight had been dropped on his shoulders.
"Ah, my back hurts," Lyle said.
"So you have two Traits? Cool."
"Just shut up and yield," Aina said emotionlessly as she increased the pressure. Lyle groaned.
"Maybe I should teach you a lesson as your senior. I can't stop you from making gravity, but... you're within range."
He gestured vaguely with his good hand. The intense gravitational pull vanished from around Lyle and suddenly manifested around Aina instead, as she was within his 10-meter range. She fell to her knees as the force increased.
Lyle straightened up, brushing dust from his tunic.
"Heavy stuff, ain't it?"
Aina canceled out the gravity and got to her feet, gritting her teeth. Her mind raced. He could redirect targeted forces as well. So, she would not target him. She began to move her hands in a wide, circular motion. The cloud of metal particles that had been her sword now swirled around her in a spiral. With a series of sharp gestures, she sent them flying not at Lyle, but made a circular pattern around him, trapping him in a dome.
'A Containment Array,' Elias realized.
Lyle watched, his head tilted in curiosity.
Aina, after reinforcing her Containment with an Enhancement Array, which manifested as a hexagon that bordered the circle from the inside, clapped her hands together. A brilliant arc of electricity leaped from her, not aimed at Lyle, but connecting the dispersed metal particles that formed the barrier in a vast, crackling web of lightning that filled the entire space. The air itself sizzled, and the hair on Elias's arms stood on end. It was not a single targeted attack, but a persistent, environmental field of energy.
Lyle's relaxed demeanor finally slipped. He could not redirect the entire, chaotic field of electricity; it wasn't a single, incoming effect with a clear target. It was everywhere at once.
He had to constantly flick his hand, redirecting the random shocks that jumped towards him away, but the Containment severely limited his ability to exchange effects with the objects still within range.
A spark leaping for his face was sent into a wall, scorching the stone. Another aimed at his leg was redirected to a patch of weeds, which instantly blackened and smoked. He was playing a frantic, endless game of whack-a-mole with causality itself.
Seeing him distracted, Aina pressed her advantage. She focused her power, and the gravitational field in the center of the courtyard suddenly went haywire. One second, Lyle felt twice his weight; the next, he was almost weightless, his feet threatening to leave the ground. He stumbled, his concentration broken for a crucial second.
Aina didn't close in. She learned from her first mistake. Instead, she formed a single, dense metal rod from the particles left in the air. She magnetized it, and with a gesture, she launched it like a ballista bolt straight at Lyle's center of mass.
Lyle's eyes widened. The causal weight of the projectile was immense and immediate. He couldn't destabilize the ground under it; it was already in the air. He had to redirect it. He swung his good arm in a sweeping motion.
The spear of metal vanished from its path just feet from his chest and reappeared, its kinetic energy transferred completely, directly into the center of the stone wall to his left. It struck with a concussive BOOM that shook the courtyard, embedding itself deep into the rock and sending a web of cracks racing outwards.
In that moment, as the echo of the impact died away, Lyle was completely open. Aina was already upon him, a fist wreathed in a corona of indigo Anti-Flow aimed at his jaw. It was a simple punch, but one that would feel like being hit by a falling rock.
Lyle's eyes met hers. He had no time to redirect it. He had exhausted his focus on the larger threat.
The punch never landed.
"That's enough, you two!" said Roric, who seemed to materialize out of thin air and grab Aina's arm, stopping her fist inches from Lyle's face, the distorting gravity field around it making the air shimmer. Both of them turned, as did Elias, towards the source of the voice.
Standing at the top of the keep's steps, having just emerged from the damaged main door, were Elias's parents, and Roric.
He looked around,his face a mask of stern disapproval as he took in the scene: the shattered door, the cracked wall, the embedded metal rod, and the two combatants in the middle of the scorched earth.