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She was sweating.

Just because Kira could act independently didn’t mean that Mira wasn’t doing anything. She was supplying her aura and controlling the general strategy of the battle, making sure she worked in sync with Kline, who had created clones and was battling once again with Mira on his back.

It was a high-speed back-and-forth that was exciting to watch.

"So much for teaching you!" Kyro cried. "This is three… five… eight on one!"

"This is us versus a monster!" Mira yelled.

Kori laughed in delight. "This girl… Her only two modes are cute plant! and talking shit."

Elana grinned as she watched Kyro fly around the battlefield, throwing dozens of aura blades in all directions while he avoided Kira’s strikes and dozens of Kline’s phantom claws coming at him from multiple clones.

Kira was good. She was bound to Mira’s mind and body. So, her speed was limited to Mira’s speed; her aura was limited to a portion of Mira’s. Even her "spell" mimicking was limited to Mira’s understanding. Yet despite being weaker than Mira in raw power, she was vastly stronger in battle capacity.

Kyro was far faster, and his mental fortification was staggering for his domain—but he was still in trouble. So, for the first time, he pulled off his backpack and yanked out the core, letting the small leather pack fall to the ground like a sword sheath.

"Guess he’s getting serious," Elana said.

Kyro was too strong for his domain, so his mana and soul force were limited. But there were ways to get around that, mainly through dangerous mana-siphoning techniques that pulled mana directly out of stones. It was very dangerous to do with soul cores because raw aura was corrosive, but it was relatively safe with mana cores, so long as the practitioner was skilled and didn’t overheat their channels with overuse. And Kyro was skilled enough.

The core lit up in his hand, and he waved the other, shooting ice lances at Kira and Kline’s clones en masse. One hit a clone, and the entire body froze, cracking with ice that formed and broke in rapid succession. The other Klines followed, dropping from the sky like hail—hitting the ground and bursting into raw mana.

"This guy’s good," Kori said. "What’s he dodged at this point? A few hundred attacks?"

"Yeah, but it’s over," Elana said.

Mira was sweating heavily, and Kline was the same. They were using proxies to fight the entire round, and now they were collapsing. Yet Mira didn’t give up. She charged up a final hurricane arrow.

Kira picked up the pace, attacking rapidly, forcing him on the defensive as Mira aimed.

Then she fired the arrow, hitting Kira, causing an eruption of water as Kira burst into thousands of pieces and rained down toward the earth.

Mira watched the mist settle with anticipation—

—but it was all in vain. When the smoke settled, Kyro was still dry, under a barrier.

"Well… there’s that." Kori leaned back and put his boots on Elana’s tea table with a dry expression. "No wonder no one survives the forest. The Drokai are monsters to the core."

Elana ignored him, watching Mira’s eyes droop and Kline revert to his normal form in her arms, conserving his power to keep them suspended in the air.

Come on… she silently said. She wanted Mira to win so badly.

2.

I had to give it up to Kyro—he was far stronger than I ever expected. He won against Kira, four Kline clones, and my hurricane arrows. He didn’t even have a droplet of water on his tiny body. All our combined power and tactics, and we couldn’t hit him with a single microdroplet of mist.

I hugged Kline’s tiny body to my chest, watching Kyro. He was waiting patiently, breathing hard as the mist settled. He refused to lose by any degree of technicality. He was a monster.

"You did good," Kyro said, panting hard. "I’m apt to let you go anyway."

"Don’t pity us," I said. "Bets mean nothing if you have nothing to lose."

"That’d sound noble—if we weren’t talking about betting."

I laughed bitterly. "Let’s just get this over with."

Kyro smirked, and then his body disappeared. I slowed time to the maximum, watching his body move toward me at lightning speed. And at the last moment, I called Kira back into my chest. Then, I spread my wings and launched into the air.

By the time Kyro processed what happened, Kline had already jumped out of my arms, swiping his paw with what I’d later learn was a weakened version of Silvern’s Triumph.

The invisible claws smashed into Kyro’s barrier, causing the tiny core in the fairy’s hand to light up like a flash bang. Then the world sped up, and Kyro—and his barrier—launched into the ground like a meteorite.

I took deep breaths, sweating like a swine, vision blurring as I watched the dust storm settle. When it did, I frowned deeply when I saw no one there.

I looked around and found Kyro right next to me, appearing out of nowhere, staring at the scene in horror.

"Were you trying to kill me?" Kyro cried.

"Wait… how did you get there?"

"I asked you a question first!"

"No, we weren’t trying to kill you! If he wanted to kill you, he’d have used his trump card and this whole place would be gone. Now answer me!"

"That was me." Reta flew toward us lazily. "Trump card or not, that last attack was really dicey. So I pushed Kyro out of the way and created a clone." She flicked her fingers and Kyro shot to the side and disappeared, and a clone popped up in his exact place. "Illusions look real in battle."

"Shit…" I said, flying in place with Kira’s wings. "Did we almost kill him?"

"No," Kyro said. "The barrier would’ve held, but it would’ve burnt my channels." He looked at his hands and winced. "Ugh… this sucks. I’m so weak."

"Weak?" I laughed. Then I looked away. "Whatever. Burnt channels or whatever—doesn’t matter. We hurt you. Admit it."

Kyro scrunched his nose, and we stared off.

"Just do it," Reta said. "She earned it. Besides, I’m the teacher here. I’m not even sure why you were fighting over going to the Misty when it was my call anyway. Now pack up your stuff. We’re leaving tomorrow morning." Without awaiting a reply, she flew back toward my little village as we watched.

Kyro snorted with a twitching eye. "Witch."

3.

Elana sighed when Kori burst into uncontrollable laughter, rolling onto his side.

"Witch!" he cried. "And that face!"

"Aren’t you the least bit excited she won?" Elana sneered.

"Of course… I am…" he laughed. "They’re one and the same. Lazy Sleeps saved his channels from Mira’s wrath, and he calls her a witch!"

Suddenly, the audio feed cut off, leaving only the sound of Kori’s laughter to haunt her ears.

"Are you done yet?" she asked.

"Of course not," he said. "She won. I’ll be celebrating for weeks."

"Then you’ll do it alone," Elana said.

"Unless you want to celebrate with me," Kori said, offering his hand.

Elana smacked his hand lightly, then looked away, hiding her facial expression. She refused to celebrate her disciple’s victory with the whims of a lower god. The fact that she even briefly considered it was a sign of her elevated mood. Elana had a feeling of… pride… for her disciple. She had come a long way since they began learning together, and she hoped that Mira would ask for a lecture soon.

Elana wanted to congratulate her.

4.

Words cannot express how ecstatic I was after winning against Kyro. It felt like the harder he brooded, the more euphoric I became until I felt like only life-crippling drugs could counter my enthusiasm.

I was literally humming as I made a mushroom vegetable stew with torok meat and freshly hunted meat the lurvine brought back the night before.

I partially felt bad.

It didn’t feel good to revel in Kyro’s misery, but his misery was proof of the results’ legitimacy, and I loved that.

He sat in the corner of the room, lurking in the shadows like the mysterious alcoholic adventurer in fantasy novels, just waiting to save Frodo Baggins or… whoever.

It made me giggle.

"So…" he said as I stirred the pot. "When’d you learn how to fly?"

"Oh… I can’t fly yet," I said. "Not in a battle capacity, anyway. But I’ve been practicing during the time Reta should’ve been training me."

"So a lot," he laughed quietly.

"Yep." I stirred salt into the stew, tasting it. It was far from seasoned, but I only had so much salt. Next year, I would pay for forty pounds of the stuff with other raw seasonings. In the meantime, I seasoned it with the herbs I picked and prayed it worked. It did that night.

"Well, good job," he said. "Genuinely caught me off guard."

I stopped stirring and put down the handle. "Well… you did good, too. Obviously. How do you even keep up? You’re actually nerfed, right?"

Kyro tried to drink but found his flask empty. "One sec."

He flew to his bottle, popped the cork with both hands and then used a form of separation to fill the flask. Then he put the cork back and sat on it, taking a drink.

"Ugh…" He swallowed hard and shivered, reveling in the taste before looking over. "I can see it."

He tapped his temple twice.

"It’s easy to suppress cores, but it’s really hard to suppress neara. Do it wrong, and you’ll turn someone into a broken puppet. To get around that, the domain just doesn’t touch it. So when I’m flying around, it’s like the world stops. So when I even see the hint of a problem, I can start moving and correct myself."

"That’s… ridiculous."

He laughed and took a drink. "I wish."

"Why not?"

"’Cause my body can’t keep up—and that’s worse." He shook his head. "’Cause then you can watch your people die and can’t do a damn thing about it. Acceleration only goes so far at my level."

"Oh…" I slowly picked up the soup handle and stirred, worried the action would come across as dismissive.

"Ahhh… save me the pity," Kyro said, stretching out. "I’m just rambling. Now gimme a scoop of that." He pulled out the original cup that I carved for him and brought it to the stew.

"You still have it…" I whispered.

"Well… yeah. It’s not like a throw away present. Know what? Forget it."

He turned away with the tiny cup, but I used telekinesis to pull broth and some meat chunks out of the pot and fill it up.

"Thanks," I said with a warm smile.

Kyro quickly turned away. "Just… focus on you. I’d rather you not die during our trip." He fluttered back to his corner, sat, and sipped the cup hesitantly. Then his tiny eyes widened. "It’s good."

I smiled warmly and nodded. "Yeah. It is…"

For sport, I served Sina next and got the same aggressively bashful reaction and giggled. Kline was waiting, so I served him and the rest, and we enjoyed a large feast, inviting Trent and waking Reta. It could be our last night in our little village together—so we made the most of it.

Once everyone left, I sat down to write a letter and hesitated. It was a battle between desire and practicality, as what was "practical" was still unknown. Regardless, it was the type of letter that could have a profound impact on my life, so I decided to write it all the same.

So I sat down with a pen and paper, which felt most comfortable, and I began.