Kaiden moved first, far faster than Loki expected.
It wasn’t a reckless charge. It was a calculated step. His body slid across the dirt as if he wasn’t running, but flowing toward him.
And the blue ring around his hand gradually turned into a thin thread of light that coiled around his forearm.
"First Wind Chain!" Kaiden shouted, raising his hand in a confident circular motion.
A blade of compressed air shot out. It was almost invisible except for the faint ripple it left behind in the dust.
Loki tried to dodge by ducking to the side, the same way he’d done on instinct against the creature in the forest.
But Kaiden wasn’t a beast that relied on brute force you could read.
He felt a sharp pain slice across his left shoulder. A thin line of blood started seeping out immediately.
"Agh! What the—" He didn’t finish.
Because Kaiden didn’t give him time to think.
"Second Wind Chain, consecutive!"
This time he fired three waves in a row, each one following the last by fractions of a second, coordinated with the precision of a dance more than a random attack.
Loki threw himself to the ground, rolling away. He felt two waves pass just over his head, while the third slammed into the tree trunk behind him and split it clean in half with a sharp, dry crack.
Loki ended up on one knee, panting, staring at the split tree with wide eyes.
If he’d been half a second slower, that would’ve been his neck instead of that trunk.
"This... is not holding back at all." Loki muttered as he forced himself up.
Kaiden laughed from a distance. Not mockingly. With pure enjoyment, like a man showing off his talent to an audience.
"This is holding back, Loki. Trust me."
Loki charged this time before he could think, trying to close the distance before Kaiden could build another full spell.
He got close enough to throw a straight punch at his chest, but Kaiden leaned aside with a grace that was almost lazy, and whispered one short word as he waved his hand in front of his face.
"Air Push."
An invisible wave exploded from his palm. Loki hit it like he’d slammed into a concrete wall, and was flung several meters back before crashing to the ground hard enough to knock all the air from his lungs.
He lay there for two seconds, staring at the sky, ears ringing.
The pain was real. But it wasn’t the worst thing in that moment.
The worst was the feeling of total helplessness. The realization that every move Kaiden made was calculated, while he was moving on blind instinct supported only by dwindling luck.
"Loki!" Lucy shouted from far away, taking a step toward the field before Kaiden stopped her with his hand without even looking at her.
"He’s fine." Kaiden said confidently. "Isn’t he?"
Loki stood up slowly, wiping blood from his lower lip, and let out a dry laugh — the same laugh he’d given the night before in front of the hidden window.
"Perfectly fine." He replied, and got back into a fighting stance, even though every muscle in his body was screaming the opposite.
He watched Kaiden prepare for the next attack, and noticed something he hadn’t before:
Before every spell, no matter how fast, there was a tiny moment. Less than half a second.
The flow of the blue aura around Kaiden’s hand would freeze, right before it launched.
Like magic needed one fixed point to launch from, no matter how much movement surrounded it.
"Third Wind Chain!" Kaiden unleashed a new wave, wider than the last. It spread out in a broad arc that couldn’t be dodged with a simple roll this time.
Instead of running, Loki drove himself forward with everything he had left, aiming for that frozen moment he’d just spotted.
Trying to reach Kaiden before the spell completed, instead of trying to escape its result.
It was a complete gamble based on a passing observation. But it was the best option he had.
The wave tore through his arm, but he didn’t stop. He actually made it to within very close range of Kaiden. Closer than he’d gotten the entire fight.
Kaiden’s eyes widened for a moment. Real surprise on his face for the first time.
"How—"
Loki didn’t give him time to finish. He threw a fast punch toward his stomach.
The fist hit something solid and unexpected. A thin air barrier that had formed at the last second.
But it wasn’t enough to absorb the full blow.
Kaiden staggered back a step, clutching his stomach. His previous smile was replaced with a much more serious expression.
"You’re not bad." Kaiden said, regaining his balance quickly.
"But it’s still not enough."
This time Kaiden didn’t cast a single spell. He started chanting a rapid string of words.
The blue aura around him condensed more than ever before, rising from his forearms to surround his entire body like a light shield that shimmered under the slanting sunlight.
"Full Wind Vortex!"
The air around Kaiden exploded in a wide circular ring. It swept across the ground, lifting dust and fallen leaves into a small-scale miniature whirlwind, and shoved Loki back with a force he couldn’t resist no matter how hard he dug his feet in.
He fell onto his back and slid several meters before finally stopping at the edge of the yard.
He tried to get up, but his body refused to respond this time.
His muscles trembled from exhaustion and the accumulated pain.
He lifted his head with difficulty and saw Kaiden walking toward him slowly. The blue aura still surrounding him like a faint glow that was gradually fading.
"Yield." Kaiden said. Not with arrogance. With something closer to genuine respect.
"You proved your point. You’re not as weak as you looked at first.
But this match is over."
Loki looked at him from where he lay on the ground, breathing hard, a tired smile forming on his lips despite everything.
"Fine." He said finally. "You win."
Kaiden stepped closer and held out a hand to help him up.
Loki took it, and let himself be pulled into a sitting position.
Lucy finally ran over to them once she was allowed, her face full of worry and anger at the same time.
"You two are completely insane!" She said, examining the wound on Loki’s shoulder with trembling hands.
"He could’ve been killed!"
Loki didn’t answer her directly. His mind was busy with something else entirely.
That frozen moment before every spell. That air barrier that formed instinctively to protect Kaiden from his punch.
The way the aura flowed like it was following specific paths, not random ones.
He didn’t understand magic yet.
But he was starting to understand something more important:
Fighting in this world wasn’t just about raw strength.
It was about reading the pattern before it finished.
He looked at his trembling palm, then at the fading remnants of the blue aura around Kaiden.
He’d lost this fight. No doubt. And by a large margin.
But he came out of it with something he didn’t have a few minutes ago:
A nascent understanding of how to think about combat.
Not as exchanged blows. But as a language with its own rules.
Rules that could be learned.
And maybe, one day, broken.
"I’m going to need to train more."
Then he lifted his eyes to Kaiden.
"A lot more."