With the weeks that followed, Liam dedicated himself entirely to rebuilding his body. Deep within the underground chamber constructed to keep him hidden from the world above, Queen Lucy had ensured a training hall was added to the facility. It lacked the polished refinent and advanced chanisms of the palace's training arena, yet the space served him well enough. With nothing but ti and determination, Liam made every corner of it count.
He directed all his focus toward his physical form, deliberately avoiding anything related to magic. The reasoning behind this was simple, even if the execution wasn't—his body needed to catch up, or at least co close, to the experience and developnt his mind now held. With more than two years' worth of combat, technique, and myst experience packed into his consciousness, his physical form—still lagging behind—would not withstand the kind of myst manipulation he had grown accustod to in the Mind Realm.
Liam knew without needing to test it that once he tried to use myst, his muscle mory and instincts would imdiately attempt to operate at the Mid-Tier Six-star level he had reached ntally. But with his actual body only at the high-end of Tier Five-star, the resulting backlash from forcing myst beyond its natural limits would be catastrophic. His body would simply fail him. And he wasn't willing to gamble on even a sliver of that risk.
So he trained his body—relentlessly.
On the first day, he pushed himself with the singular goal of assessing where his weakened physique currently stood. He ran lap after lap around the training hall, drove himself through sets of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and every other exercise he had once used to build himself up years ago. By the ti he reached the end of the routine, he learned the truth of what six months of complete stillness had done to him.
While the weakness wasn't dramatic, it was more than enough to be a problem considering the sharp contrast between his mind and body. Once he understood his limits, Liam drew up a strict regi designed not only to restore him to his forr state but to push his body beyond those restraints until the gap began to close.
He denied himself any use of myst to speed the process along—no healing, no boosting, no enhancent of strength or stamina. Every strain, every ache, every burning sensation in his limbs had to co solely from physical effort. It reminded him faintly of the early days when he first trained under the guidance of his ntor, Draven, in the Forest of Kyrell, though this wasn't nearly as brutal. Still, the exhaustion that settled into his muscles at the end of each day carried a strange, almost comforting nostalgia.
Days bled into weeks, and the results ca sooner than he expected. His body responded quickly, faster than he had anticipated. The slackness caused by his long slumber lted away, replaced by the steady return of tone and strength. His muscles began reforming their familiar definition, reshaping him back into the lean, sharp, battle-honed physique he had possessed before falling into his six-month sleep.
Within the confined expanse of the training hall, Liam sat on the cool marble floor, leaning back slightly with his weight supported on his arms. Sweat clung to every inch of his skin, catching the glow of the myst-empowered lights overhead and making him shimr faintly in the artificial brightness. The scars scattered across his body—running along his back, tracing the length of his arms, and cutting across his sides—were revealed in the sheen of perspiration. Most of them blended almost seamlessly with his skin tone, but under the right angle, they were clear reminders of everything he had endured.
His breaths ca slow and controlled, each inhale steady and deep, each exhale deliberate as he forced his heart rate down. His chest rose and fell in an almost rhythmic pattern as he worked to regain complete control over his breathing. He had just finished the last stretch of his endurance set—fifty full laps around the hall without a break.
After a few more monts of letting his body settle, Liam finally pushed himself off the floor and stood. He moved toward a clean cloth folded neatly on a bench, grabbing it and dragging it across his face, neck, and shoulders to wipe away the sweat.
As he did, the soft, steady sound of approaching footsteps reached him. Without any urgency, he turned his head slightly, glancing over his shoulder. Mabel's familiar figure ca into view, approaching him with her usual composed grace. Her uniform was crisp, her expression clear and focused, but this ti there was a subtle difference—she had co without her sword, neither strapped behind her back nor hanging at her hip.
"Wow, you didn't even waste ti," Liam said calmly as he wiped the sweat from his neck.
"You told to give you five minutes, and those five minutes are up." Mabel's tone carried no irritation, just simple honesty as her eyes remained fixed on him.
"Yeah, I guess I did say that," Liam replied, tossing the cloth aside. He turned fully toward her, taking a few steps forward until only a short distance separated them.
Facing each other, Liam shifted into his stance. He grounded his footing, lowering his center of gravity, both fists raised—one extended forward, the other held slightly behind, ready to transition between offense and defense in an instant.
Mabel mirrored him in her own way, though her approach was markedly different. Her posture was looser, far more fluid, her hands open instead of closed into fists, her stance built on effortless movent rather than rigid form.
"Ready when you're ready," Mabel said quietly, her voice calm and even.
"Ready," Liam murmured under his breath, his tone nearly lost in the air between them.
The space held only a heartbeat of silence.
Then, without hesitation, they launched at each other, only to et in the center with a sharp snap of movent.
The marble beneath them almost humming from the tension that had gathered in the air. For the briefest sliver of a mont, their blows collided with perfect symtry—Liam's guarded jab eting Mabel's testing palm strike, her foot sliding forward just as his pivoted back. It was a fleeting equilibrium, a single heartbeat where they mirrored each other's pace and intent.
Then Mabel's pace surged.
Her body shifted like water breaking free of a dam, fluid and relentless. She stepped inside Liam's guard with a faint twist of her hips, her open hand slicing toward his ribs in a whipping arc. Liam barely redirected it with his forearm before she spun, her heel brushing past his jaw in a smooth, arcing kick that forced him to drop into a crouch. She flowed around him, light on her feet, weaving her limbs with a dancer's ease and a fighter's precision. Every strike was chained into the next—her elbow cutting toward his shoulder, her palm striking for his sternum, her knee lifting toward his abdominal line.
Liam parried, deflected, absorbed each hit with gritted control. His backward steps were tight and calculated, never stumbling even as Mabel's montum pressed harder. He caught her wrist once, tried to tug her off balance, but she slipped out like smoke and answered with a sweeping kick that he hopped over by a hair.
But soon, Mabel's rhythm shifted.
And Liam shifted with it.
He snapped forward just as she adapted, his counterattack sliding into the narrow spaces between her movents. A sudden low sweep forced her to lift one foot, and before she landed, Liam shot upward with a sharp, rising palm that aid for the underside of her chin. She barely twisted aside, but the faint brush of his knuckles against her jaw told her she'd been half a second too slow.
He followed with a barrage of feints and unorthodox angles—wild only on the surface, but intentional beneath. A backhand he disguised as a hook, a knee faintly telegraphed only to convert into a quick shoulder strike. The unpredictability forced Mabel to abandon so of her fluidity for sharper, more defensive movents, and she clicked her tongue softly when one of his heel checks nearly caught her mid-step.
But Liam wasn't done.
He closed in suddenly, letting her attempt another palm strike so he could seize the opening. When her hand cut toward his shoulder, he shifted just slightly off-line and coiled around her arm with a serpent's glide—shoulder brushing hers, forearm snaking beneath her elbow, his other hand slipping behind her back. His entire body wound around her in a spiraled maneuver, one he had stolen from Lady Seraphina's arsenal of humiliatingly efficient techniques.
His weight aligned perfectly. His leverage locked into place.
He felt her balance teeter.
He had her.
Or so he thought.
Before he could fully cinch the hold, Mabel's muscles reacted with a reflex that belonged to soone who had drilled escapes since childhood. She dropped her center of gravity without warning, her shoulder rolling forward and her hips snapping sideways beneath Liam's arm. The sudden collapse in height made Liam's leverage slip for half a breath—and she took that breath and weaponized it.
Her leg hooked behind his knee.
Her torso twisted with explosive precision.
And in an impossible-feeling blur, she lifted herself upward, using the torque of her hips to swing both legs around Liam's upper body. Her calves clamped across the back of his shoulders; her inner thighs locked themselves around his neck in a triangle-like choke, her montum dragging him off his feet.
The world snapped upside down.
Liam hit the floor hard on his back as Mabel's grip tightened with frightening efficiency, her weight shifting to keep him pinned in place. Before he could fully plant an elbow or initiate a counter-roll, she transitioned again, uncoiling her legs only to reassert control by sliding one knee across his throat while stabilizing herself with the other planted beside his ribs. Her hands were light but ready as she leaned just enough pressure onto his neck to make the point clear.
"Tap," she murmured, breath steady, eyes calm.
Liam's jaw flexed in frustration before he exhaled and tapped twice against her thigh.
Only then did she release him, her movents controlled, her pulse steady—as though she hadn't just bent physics and technique to choke out soone who fought like a cornered animal.
And Liam lay there for a mont, staring up at the ceiling, half-winded and entirely aware that she had taken him apart in the kind of way only she could.
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