Alice remained motionless on the golem’s hand, looking at Shura as if she were facing an awkward choice, not an enemy. The corridor around them was partially destroyed, blocks of stone still slowly crumbling after the previous impact, but that didn’t seem to affect her. Her eyes were fixed on him, assessing, pondering, like soone still deciding whether it was worth spending ti there.
"I really don’t want to fight," she said, her voice low, without provocation, without fear. It was simply a fact.
Shura, a few ters away, tilted his head slightly, as if he had just heard sothing curious.
"But I want to," he replied, simply, directly.
There was no hostility in his tone. Only intention.
Alice let out a small sigh, almost inaudible, and looked away for a second, as if she were tired before she even began.
"This is a waste of ti..." she murmured.
Shura took a step forward.
And that was enough. Alice raised her hand.
There was no visible preparation. No complex conjuration, no elaborate magic circle. Just a small, almost lazy gesture.
But the air in front of her compressed.
Gravity.
Direction.
Force.
Everything was distorted into a single point.
The impact ca without warning.
Shura was struck as if a mountain had decided to advance against him. The ground beneath his feet shattered instantly, and his body was thrown backward with absurd violence, crashing through the first wall as if it were paper.
The second ca soon after.
Then the third.
Fourth.
Fifth.
The sound was no longer of individual impact—it was a continuous wave of destruction, stone being pulverized, runes shattering, structures collapsing in sequence.
Alice watched, emotionless.
Shura’s body disappeared as it passed through the tenth wall.
Eleventh.
Twelfth.
Thirteenth.
The fifteenth wall gave way before he finally disappeared into the darkness beyond.
Silence fell.
Fragnts still slid across the floor.
The golem didn’t move.
Alice slowly lowered her hand.
She looked at her own fingers, opening and closing her palm as if testing her own strength.
"...Did I overdo it?" she murmured.
It was then that sothing broke through the air.
A dry sound.
A brutal shift in pressure.
Alice didn’t turn her body.
But her eyes moved at the exact instant.
Shura reappeared.
There was no hesitation.
There was no pause.
He erged from nowhere, traversing space with absurd speed, his arm already in motion, the punch coming straight for her face.
The response was instantaneous.
A barrier.
Transparent.
Dense.
The impact occurred.
The sound reverberated like compressed thunder.
Shura’s hand t the invisible surface and, for a second, the pressure was enough to crack the very structure of energy. The surrounding air distorted, creating a shockwave that swept through the corridor, raising dust and fragnts.
The golem slid a few centiters back.
Just a few.
Alice didn’t move.
She didn’t blink.
She showed no surprise.
She just watched.
Closely.
Very closely.
Her eyes were focused on his arm.
On the rotation of the shoulder.
On the alignnt of the elbow.
On the distribution of force.
On the timing of the impact.
She wasn’t reacting.
She was analyzing.
"Interesting..." she murmured.
Shura pressed a little harder, then stepped back, landing a few ters away. His feet touched the ground effortlessly, his posture firm, his balance perfect.
He smiled.
"Now that’s more like it."
Alice tilted her head slightly.
"You use your whole body in the strike..." she said, as if narrating to herself. "Weight transfer, axis rotation, center adjustnt..."
She raised her hand again.
But this ti it wasn’t to attack.
Magic circles opened around her.
Several.
Small.
Precise.
From the ground, forms erged.
First brute mass.
Then structure.
Then joints.
And then...
Golems.
Smaller.
Faster.
Lighter.
Each with an energy exoskeleton enveloping its stone body, shimring lines running through its joints like artificial muscles.
They stood up.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
All facing Shura.
Alice watched them with clinical attention.
"I need more data."
The golems advanced.
Not in disarray.
But in patterns.
The first attacked with a straight punch.
Shura dodged with minimal movent, twisting his body and breaking the golem’s arm with a sharp counterattack.
The second ca from the side.
High kick.
He blocked with his forearm and responded with an elbow strike that crushed the creature’s core.
The third tried to grab him.
Error.
Shura spun, using his own montum to hurl it against the room.
Alice watched everything.
Every movent.
Every micro-adjustnt.
The map was no longer present.
Now, what floated beside her were lines of data.
Trajectories.
Vectors.
Sequences.
"Reaction speed... high."
Another golem was destroyed.
"Precision... above average."
Two more fell.
"Adaptation... fast."
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
"But not perfect."
The golems began to change.
The next attacks were not the sa as the previous ones.
They adjusted the timing.
They altered the rhythm.
They varied the angles.
Shura noticed.
And smiled.
"So that’s how it is..."
He advanced.
This ti, he didn’t wait.
He entered the midst of the golems, his body moving with absolute fluidity. Each blow was clean, efficient, without waste. Stone shattered at the slightest touch. Structures collapsed before even completing their movents.
But there was sothing different.
The golems weren’t trying to win.
They were testing.
Forcing responses.
Alice raised a finger.
The patterns changed again.
Now they attacked in sequence, chaining movents that didn’t originally belong to them.
Imitation.
Refinent.
"Copying structure..." she murmured.
Shura broke another golem, but this ti... he needed to adjust the timing.
For a fraction of a second.
Alice realized.
"I understand."
She raised her whole hand.
The golems stopped.
They retreated.
They reorganized themselves.
The energy lines surrounding them intensified.
The following movents were no longer tests.
They were techniques.
Refined.
Adapted.
Optimized.
"Protocol completed," Alice said, with her usual calm.
Shura brushed so dust from his shoulder, looking at her with genuine interest.
"You learn quickly."
Alice tilted her head slightly.
"I don’t learn."
She raised her hand.
The golems advanced again.
But now...
They fought.
"I optimize."
The first strike ca with the sa base as Shura’s style—but adjusted.
Faster.
More precise.
More efficient.
Shura blocked.
But this ti...
He was pushed a step back.
And his smile widened.
Alice didn’t look away for a second. As the golems advanced and were destroyed one after another, her mind wasn’t on the fight itself, but on the flow behind it—each of Shura’s movents was absorbed, fragnted, analyzed, and reorganized into comprehensible patterns. For her, this wasn’t combat. It was data collection. It was a real-ti experint.
Each impact generated more than destruction. It generated information.
The hip movent before the blow. The muscle contraction at the exact instant of acceleration. The adjustnt of the foot on the ground to maintain balance after a heavy attack. The way he absorbed impact, how he redirected force, how he interrupted an opponent’s flow before it was even complete.
Alice saw everything.
And more importantly... she understood everything.
Another golem advanced, attempting to replicate a recently observed sequence—a low blow followed by an upward spin. Shura broke the creature’s arm before the movent was finished and destroyed it with a sharp blow to the core. Another one ca from the side, but he was already expecting it. One step, a minimal dodge, a direct counterattack. Another structure crumbling into fragnts.
But there was a difference now.
They were improving.
With each new group, the movents beca more refined. The transitions smoother. The errors decreased.
Alice adjusted in real ti.
"Entry angle... inefficient."
A subtle gesture of her fingers.
The next golems corrected.
"Reaction ti... delayed by 0.03 seconds."
Adjustnt.
"Weight distribution... inadequate for continuous impact."
Correction.
The battlefield was a living laboratory.
Shura realized.
And began to smile less.
The attacks continued to destroy the golems, but now there was resistance. Small. Brief. But real. A block that lasted longer than it should have. A counterattack that almost connected. A step that forced him to recalculate.
He advanced with more force.
The blows beca heavier.
Faster.
More aggressive.
He stopped rely reacting.
He began to press.
One of the golems tried to grab him from behind, but Shura spun his body, plunged his elbow into the creature’s torso, and split it in two before it could finish the movent. Another ca from the front, trying to replicate a direct blow. He dodged by milliters and responded with a punch that completely pierced the stone chest.
But Alice remained there.
Sitting.
Observing.
Cold.
Distant.
"Adaptation detected..."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"He learns too."
And that... was interesting.
More golems appeared.
This ti, in greater numbers.
Denser.
Faster.
Their exoskeleton structures shone more intensely, reinforcing joints, increasing power, adjusting balance. They weren’t just imitations now—they were improved versions.
Shura charged at them without hesitation.
The impact was imdiate.
The first was destroyed.
The second resisted for a second longer.
The third managed to force him back half a step.
That was enough.
His smile vanished completely.
The air around him shifted.
The pressure increased.
"That’s enough," he murmured.
And then he accelerated.
It wasn’t a gradual increase.
It was a burst.
His body disappeared for an instant.
And reappeared amidst the golems.
The blows were no longer visible.
Only the results.
Explosions of stone.
Fragnts being hurled.
Structures collapsing before even completing a movent.
He was no longer fighting them.
He was passing through them.
Each blow was definitive.
Each movent was absolute.
Alice watched.
Registering.
Comparing.
Updating.
But... the rate of destruction had surpassed the rate of generation.
The golems could no longer keep up.
"Limit reached..." she murmured.
Even so, she didn’t stop.
More appeared.
Faster.
More complex.
More aggressive.
But Shura didn’t slow down.
He advanced directly toward the source.
The largest golem.
The one that held Alice.
One step.
The ground cracked.
Another.
The air distorted.
He appeared before the colossal structure.
And he struck.
The impact wasn’t a simple attack.
It was a rupture.
The golem’s arm instantly shattered. The runes along its surface sharded, the entire structure trembled and began to collapse from the inside out.
Alice didn’t react.
She just watched.
The second blow ca.
Stronger.
More direct.
The golem’s core cracked.
And then... it gave way.
The hand that supported it crumbled.
The entire structure began to crumble.
Stone.
Energy.
Fragnts.
Everything falling.
Alice was in the air.
Falling along with it.
But her face... didn’t change.
Her eyes were fixed on Shura.
And then she spoke.
"Analyzed."
Her body stopped in mid-air. Not by visible magic.
But by decision.
And in the next instant...
She disappeared.
The sound ca after.
A dry impact.
Shura didn’t have ti to react.
Alice appeared in front of him.
No magic circle.
No preparation.
No distance.
Her fist was already in motion.
And it hit.
Directly.
In the face.
The impact was absurd.
There was no refined technique.
No traditional style.
But there was precision.
Transfer of force.
Perfect alignnt.
Exactly as he did.
Only... optimized.
Shura’s body was thrown backward with brutal violence, crashing through a wall before the sound of the impact even ended. Stone exploded around him, fragnts being dragged along as he was pushed away.
A second wall gave way.
A third. The entire corridor warped from the force of the blow.
Alice landed lightly on the ground.
Silent.
She looked at her own hand.
Opened it.
Closed it.
Testing it.
"I understand..." she murmured.
She looked up.
Shura was still recovering in the distance, rising from the rubble, a smile beginning to reappear, even after the impact.
Alice tilted her head slightly.
"Thank you for teaching your combat skills," she said, with her usual calm.
There was no sarcasm.
There was no provocation.
It was just recognition.
"I had little repertoire," she continued, taking a step forward. "I spend a lot of ti in the Witch Kingdom."
Her eyes fixed on him again.
But now...
They weren’t the eyes of soone watching.
They were the eyes of soone ready.
"Co on, teach more about martial arts so I can make my dad proud."
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