Chapter 391. Show Me What’s Left When You Have Nothing to Hold Onto

William didn’t wait for her to finish her thought. The moment the last syllable left his lips, he exploded forward.

The air itself seemed to split with the sudden release of Aetherion’s energy. He opened in Single Wield configuration, the blade singing as it carved through the air.

He closed the distance not with a sprint, but with a sudden, deliberate burst of speed that left no room for hesitation.

Clang!

Kaela’s reaction was instinctive. Her Tempest Fang gauntlets met his blade with a bone-jarring impact that sent sparks cascading across the sand.

But she didn’t just block; she rolled the energy of his strike into a parry, immediately snapping forward with a sharp, piston-like jab aimed at his sternum.

William felt the wind of the attack whistle past his ribs, his muscles tensing as he twisted his torso mid-motion to redirect the force.

"Good," William grunted, his teeth bared in a focused snarl. "But good isn’t enough."

Without breaking his momentum, the mechanisms of Aetherion shrieked a metallic, grinding sound that signaled a rapid transformation.

Before Kaela could even register the sound, William had shifted fluidly into Double Wield. Two blades now hummed with lethal intent, striking from opposite angles in a devastating X pattern.

Shink shink!

The speed was overwhelming. Kaela stumbled backward, her boots skidding through the grit as she barely managed to raise her forearms.

One blade grazed her left guard with a screech of metal on metal, the vibration sending a painful shockwave up her arms that made her elbows tremble. She twisted her body violently to avoid the second blade, which missed her throat by less than an inch.

"That’s not fair!" she gasped, her chest heaving as she scrambled to regain her footing. "You didn’t warn me you were switching!"

"That’s the entire point, Kaela!" William roared back, his eyes cold and focused.

He didn’t give her a second to breathe, pressing the advantage before she could reset her stance. "Nobody warns you in a real fight!"

"The man trying to gut you doesn’t give you a countdown!"

Kaela’s initial shock curdled into something fiercer. Her pupils dilated as she forced herself into a deeper crouch.

She stopped trying to think about the ’correct’ way to move and started listening to the blood rushing in her ears. Her fists moved with a surprising, brutal economy, blocking, weaving, and striking back at the whirling blades.

She wasn’t just defending; she was hunting for an opening.

Thwack! Crack!

William’s blades danced around her, each strike carrying a different weight, a different rhythm. He was a whirlwind of steel, testing every nerve she possessed.

Then, the weapon screamed again, a deeper, more resonant mechanical howl.

In a flash of shifting plates and expanding energy, Aetherion transformed into its Greatsword configuration. The sudden increase in mass was terrifying; the weapon now possessed a devastating reach that dominated the space between them.

The sheer force of the transformation created a small gust of wind that kicked up dust around their feet.

Kaela’s eyes widened. The sudden change in physics forced her to abandon her aggressive position entirely.

She had to abandon her entire plan, scrambling backward with desperate lunges just to avoid being crushed by the sheer momentum of his swing.

BOOM!

William brought the greatsword down in a vertical cleave. Kaela threw herself sideways, but the shockwave of the blade hitting the sand beside her sent her tumbling across the yard.

Her shoulder hit the ground hard, the impact sending a sharp, white-hot spike of pain through her collarbone.

"You’re doing this on purpose!" she accused, pushing herself up, her voice cracking with exertion.

Sweat was pouring down her face now, stinging her eyes, and her breathing came in ragged, desperate gulps. "You’re deliberately messing with my rhythm!"

"Completely on purpose," William confirmed.

He stood like an immovable monolith, the greatsword resting on his shoulder. He began to test her, sending slow, deliberate arcs through the air each swing carrying a terrifying amount of visible weight.

Each time the blade cut through the air, it made a low-frequency whoosh that seemed to vibrate in Kaela’s very bones. "Rhythm is exactly what I want you to stop relying on."

"Rhythm is a crutch, Kaela. And in a real battle, crutches get broken."

He stepped forward again, the heavy blade beginning to glow with an ominous, pulsing light. "Now, get up."

"Again."

The training yard had become a crucible of violence. The air was no longer still; it screamed with the sound of displaced air, grinding metal, and the ragged, desperate gasps of two combatants pushed beyond their limits.

William swung the greatsword in a devastating horizontal arc, the massive blade whistling with lethal intent. Kaela saw the killing blow coming; she could feel the displaced air pressing against her skin.

Instead of trying to block an act that would have shattered her wrists and sent her bones splintering through her skin, she threw herself sideways. Her body moved before her mind could process the danger.

The Greatsword missed her skull by mere inches, but the sheer wind pressure from the pass slapped her face hard enough to sting.

Thump thump. Thump thump.

Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.

William didn’t pause. He saw her tumble and saw her vulnerability, and he pressed.

But as he stepped into his next move, the mechanical shriek of Aetherion echoed across the yard. The massive sword collapsed inward, its weight redistributing in a blur of shifting plates.

Vreeee shink!

He shifted into Arcane Wield. The weapon’s tip glowed with a sickly, unstable violet light.

Without warning, William extended his arm, discharging a controlled but vicious mana bolt aimed directly at her center mass.

"Watch out!" Kaela screamed to herself, though the warning came too late.

The bolt streaked across the sand like a comet. Kaela threw herself into a desperate dive, the magical energy passing so close to her that she felt the searing heat singe the hairs on her neck.

She rolled across the dirt, coming up on one knee, her training clothes torn and caked in grit and sweat. Her lungs burned, each breath feeling like she was inhaling broken glass.

"That... that felt like cheating!" she spat, wiping blood from a small cut above her eyebrow where a spray of sand had peppered her skin. "You’re not supposed to use ranged attacks mid-meloe!"

William stood thirty feet away, his silhouette framed by the afternoon sun, the Arcane Wield humming with residual energy. A cruel, exhilarated grin split his face.

"There is no cheating in a massacre, Kaela."

"There is only surviving or dying, and that bolt was a variable... Now adapt!"

The fight descended into a chaotic symphony of violence. William became a nightmare of shifting geometries.

He would hold the greatsword long enough to force her into a defensive shell, making her brace for heavy, crushing blows only to abruptly collapse the weapon into double-wield blades.

Clash, clash, clash!

The exchange became a blur. Kaela was fighting a ghost that kept changing its shape.

One moment she was parrying heavy steel; the next, she was dodging magical projectiles; the next, she was weaving through lightning-fast stabs.

Kaela starts to think. ’Think. Don’t think. Just move.’

’If I try to predict him, I’m dead.’

’He’s playing with me, testing my breaking point.’

’Every time I think I’ve found his rhythm, he shatters it.’

’My arms feel like lead... my ribs ache where I hit the ground... I can’t let him break me.’

William’s cruelty was methodical. He deliberately elongated the time between transitions to lull her into a false sense of security.

He would deliver three slow, deliberate greatsword swings, fodouble-wield mid-swing.o find a defensive cadence, only to switch to Double Wield mid swing.

CRACK SHINK!

The transition caught her completely off guard. Kaela was still braced for a heavy impact when two blades suddenly lashed out at her shoulders.

The twin strikes landed with terrifying precision. The first blade bit into her left shoulder pauldron, the force spinning her violently; the second struck her right, the combined momentum sending her into a nauseating spiral.

"Augh!" she cried out as her boots dragged through the sand, unable to find purchase.

She stumbled three steps before her legs finally locked, preventing a full collapse.

She stood there swaying, her chest heaving in wet, ragged gasps. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth where she had bitten her tongue during the impact.

Her vision swam, the edges blurring as adrenaline began to crash against exhaustion. Her shoulders throbbed with a deep, grinding pain that suggested more than just bruising; her bones felt bruised to the marrow.

William didn’t give her time to recover. He saw the tremor in her knees, the way her grip on the Tempest Fang wavered.

He began to circle her like a shark sensing blood in the water, Aetherion shifting again, the mechanical sounds growing more complex and more unpredictable.

"You’re breaking, Kaela," William said, his voice low and menacing, his eyes locked on her unsteady form. "The rhythm is gone."

"Now show me what’s left when you have nothing to hold onto."