From the edge of the training ground, Talyra was watching with the expression she used when she had assessed sothing and found it more interesting than she had initially expected.
Aisella stood beside her with the calm attention that she brought to everything, and her expression had the diagnostic quality that she used when she was learning sothing.
Nerith was at the far end of the spectator group, and the leaves in her hair had gone to the amber that Rex had learned indicated sothing she had not yet processed out loud.
Nerith’s fingers were still at her side.
She was watching the vines hold Alexander in place and Rex stand behind him with the relaxed posture of soone who had already won the fight before the other person knew it was over. She wasn’t processing it as quickly as she usually did.
She thought, "He used plant growth... He just did it, as if it were nothing."
The leaves in her hair changed from amber to a color that was more like gold.
"That was an application of druid-level magic... The thermal conversion alone requires a steady channel that most druids cannot maintain under pressure."
"He sustained it through three layers while analyzing Alexander’s strategy and preparing for the counter—"
She ca to a stop.
She was doing it again—compiling a list. It felt as if breaking it down into smaller parts would make it more manageable.
It didn’t make it smaller.
"He saw ," she recalled, a sudden clarity striking her—a clarity that felt inconvenient. "Before the vines. He looked at first."
She didn’t know how to handle that.
The amber in her hair got darker.
"He’s still holding him," she noticed, watching Rex’s unhurried expression as Alexander struggled against the vines.
For about two seconds, she pressed her lips together and stared at a spot on the ground.
She told herself it was silly.
The leaves didn’t go back to how they were.
Rex let the vines go.
But he did not step back.
Alexander’s arms ca free, and he rolled his shoulders, checking the range of motion, assessing the damage with the automatic efficiency of soone trained to do that after every exchange.
His forearms had the compression marks on them. He looked at Rex with the expression of soone who had reached the end of a specific road.
Rex looked back at him.
"You’re decent," Rex remarked. "You demonstrate three elents at that output level, with coordinated timing and six years of refinent."
"That’s real work."
Alexander said nothing. He was watching Rex as if he were observing sothing while still deciding what it was.
"But you’ve been fighting like soone who expects the other person to respond the way they’re supposed to," Rex said. "And that’s the problem."
Alexander’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Rex said, "Let show you what that problem looks like."
’I’m going to fuck this guy up right in front of his fiancé.’
He didn’t wait for a response.
The soil split open in a ring around Alexander’s feet, not with an explosion but with the quiet, deliberate speed of sothing that had already determined its path.
Six root structures ca up simultaneously, each one as thick as a wrist, erging from the loosened earth at angles that made a clean upward exit from the ring impossible without moving through at least two of them.
Alexander moved imdiately, which was the right thing to do. He went left, burned through the root on that side with a tight fire application, and cleared the ring.
But then he was caught by Rex, who was already there.
He had reacted the instant Alexander committed to his direction, anticipating the lean before the step occurred. By the ti Alexander erged through the gap he had created, the distance between them had vanished.
Rex struck him in the sternum with the heel of his palm.
"GAGGHHH!" Alexander spat so saliva after taking the hit.
It was not a dramatic strike, nor did it need to be.
The chanics were straightforward: the full weight of Rex’s body was delivered through a single point of contact at the precise mont that Alexander’s montum was pushing him forward. Alexander’s own movent beca part of the force.
Alexander stumbled backward, managing to catch himself just in ti, and flas erupted around both his hands instantly.
Rex allowed him to unleash the fire.
He dropped low, moving beneath the effective range of the fire, and swept Alexander’s front leg with an economical motion that lacked any unnecessary flourish.
When the leg was swept away, the entire posture collapsed, leading to the fire being unleashed erratically, as a person who is falling cannot aim accurately.
Alexander hit the ground on his side.
He was back up in under two seconds, which Rex noted.
"You get up fast," Rex said. "That’s good."
He placed both hands into the soil, and the vine growth erged not as a wall this ti, but as a cage structure, rising on three sides around Alexander with the speed characteristic of the rapid-ergence variant. The thick stems ford a lattice that provided Alexander with only about one second to react before the third side closed.
Alexander destroyed it. All three sides, fire and wind together, are the output level of soone who has trained themselves to respond to enclosure with imdiate maximum force.
The vine structure disintegrated, and the burning fragnts scattered across the training ground.
Rex stepped through the smoldering vine. "Don’t let your guard down again, okay?"
"I’ll be sure to give it my all, too." Rex cracked his fists.
Throughout the destruction of the vine structure, Rex had been moving toward Alexander, using the noise, fire, and scattered debris to distract him.
Alexander turned, and Rex was already inside his guard.
Rex attacked him three tis.
BAM!
The first strike landed on the floating rib, a quick blow delivered with the first two knuckles. It was executed with precision, ensuring that it was effective without requiring excessive force.
BAM!
The second strike targeted the side of Alexander’s neck, specifically at the junction where the trapezius muscle ets the shoulder. This blow was not intended to inflict pain; rather, it aid at the nerve cluster located just beneath the surface in that area.
BAM!
The third strike landed on Alexander’s leading wrist, targeting the precise point where the tendons converged. While it didn’t result in any breaks, it extinguished the fire in that hand, causing it to flicker like a candle struggling against a draft.
"Gugghhh!" Alexander stepped back.
His hand was opening and closing without his permission while the nerve response worked its way through.
"That hand is going to be inconsistent for about forty seconds," Rex said. "You can try to use it, but the output is going to drop."
Alexander gazed at his hand, his expression mirroring the realization of a truth unfolding before his eyes.
"I don’t need your instruction!"
He switched his fire output entirely to his other hand and threw it.
"Suit yourself then."
Rex turned sideways and let it go past him and used the exact sa movent to put himself back in close range.
"Now, now, ain’t that move just cheap?"
He gripped Alexander’s extended arm at the elbow and wrist, twisting it in a way that the joint was never ant to move. With that leverage, he redirected Alexander’s entire body into a throw, slamming him onto the ground for the second ti.
This ti Alexander stayed down for a mont longer than two seconds.
Rex stood over him.
"That’s my second win, right?" Rex raised his right arm. "Unless this ti you really are going to take that L."
Alexander gritted his teeth, and then he punched the ground so hard that it cracked. "Best of three...!"
"You never learn at all, huh?" Rex said. "Well, fine by . I’ll just have to win this with sothing that is not luck anymore."
Alexander got up. "Consider yourself strong enough to make like this."
"Well, I am. But I’m stronger just because I didn’t whine when I lost."
"Ggghhhh!" Alexander’s face had passed through anger and arrived sowhere quieter and more focused, which Rex recognized as the place so people reached when they stopped reacting and started actually thinking.
"Looks like I hit a nerve there, but eh... no one cares." He didn’t give Alexander ti to use that.
The vines ca up again, not as a structure this ti, but as individual units, each one targeting a different limb, moving with the coordination of sothing directed rather than grown.
Two vines lunged for his ankles. One targeted his left wrist. Two more erged from directly beneath him, positioned to sweep his legs out rather than restrain them.
Alexander burned them—every single one. It was, in fact, quite impressive.
The response to the fire was quick, and the targeting was precise; he managed to eliminate every vine before any could make contact.
Rex had been counting on him doing that.
While Alexander focused on incinerating the vines, Rex dashed across the distance and executed a forceful shoulder charge that bore his full weight. Alexander, positioned for a standing fire application, was unable to brace for the impact.
They both went to the ground.
Rex ca up first.
He had planned to.
Alexander was on his hands and knees, getting his breath back. Rex walked to the side, not away, just to a position where the angle was better.
"You’re fighting like soone who’s never lost," Rex said. "That’s the actual problem."
"Not the technique... not the output level..."
"You lack a plan for when your efforts fail, because you’ve never had to navigate that situation before."
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