Chapter 505. A Mutual Attempt at Each Other’s Destruction

Chapter 505: 505. A Mutual Attempt at Each Other’s Destruction

Kaela fell several feet away, landing hard on her hands and knees before her strength gave out completely, sending her face first into the dirt.

For a long, suspended moment, there was only silence, broken by the distant sounds of the palace and the ragged, synchronized gasping of two exhausted warriors.

Neither moved.

Neither spoke.

They simply lay there, staring at the sky through the settling dust, their chests heaving in violent, uneven motions.

"Tie," Lia finally managed to choke out, her voice barely a whisper, her eyes fixed on the passing clouds.

"Again," Kaela groaned from the dirt, her voice muffled by the earth. "This is... so... annoying."

They lay there for several more minutes, two broken statues of sweat, grime, and fading magic.

The only sounds in the courtyard were the distant chatter of the dispersing crowd and the ragged, wet gasping of two women who had pushed their bodies past every reasonable limit.

Blood from Lia’s eyebrow had dried into a dark streak down her temple, and Kaela’s knuckles were raw and split from where the Tempest Fang gauntlets had scraped against the stone.

Finally, Kaela slowly rolled her head sideways. Her hair was matted with dirt, and her cheek was flushed crimson from exertion.

She looked over at Lia, who, sprawled like a fallen soldier and staring blankly at the sky, caught the movement, and something in her exhausted, battered expression cracked. A small huff of air escaped her nose, and then, unexpectedly, she began to chuckle.

Lia caught the movement. She turned her head slowly, seeing Kaela’s face twisted in a grin that was half pain, half absurdity.

Lia felt her own mouth twitch, a muscle spasm that quickly spiraled into a genuine laugh that made her ribs ache painfully.

Within seconds, the two of them were laughing freely, a raw, cathartic sound that echoed off the courtyard walls, dissolving the last poisonous traces of competitive tension into something warm and familiar.

"We do this... every single time," Kaela panted, pushing herself up onto one shaking elbow.

Her muscles trembled visibly. "Every goddamn time since the academy."

"I don’t think either of us has ever actually landed a decisive blow."

Lia sat up with a groan, wincing sharply as she rubbed her left shoulder. She could feel the dull throb of a bruise forming where Kaela’s gauntlet had connected earlier.

"Maybe that’s the point," Lia said, wiping sweat from her eyes with the back of a dirty hand. "Maybe we’re just too damn stubborn to let the other one win."

"Fighting over William was always going to end in a stalemate."

"So we share him properly then," Kaela said, her laugh fading into a tired smile as she finally managed to haul herself upright, swaying slightly from the adrenaline crash. "No more pathetic scheming."

"No more pretending we both desperately need impromptu greatsword lessons at the exact same moment he’s trying to eat breakfast."

"Agreed," Lia said, reaching out a hand to Kaela to help steady her. "Though I reserve the right to still win eventually."

"Someday... Next time, I’m not holding back."

Kaela rolled her eyes, though there was no real heat in it. "You’ve been saying ’someday’ since like years before, Lia."

"You’ve been trying to catch me off guard for years."

"Someday," Lia repeated, her voice carrying that unmistakable, stubborn confidence—the kind of confidence that only comes from someone who has survived countless battles and knows exactly how much punishment they can take.

"You can reserve whatever you’d like, Commander’s pet," Kaela countered, wiping a smudge of blood from her chin. "But it’s not going to happen."

Catherine rose from her shaded bench with the effortless grace of a vice headmaster, crossing the yard toward them. She didn’t look concerned; she looked delighted.

A deeply amused smile remained firmly in place as she approached the two battered warriors.

"You two are remarkably consistent," Catherine said softly, reaching them and looping an arm around each of their shoulders to provide much-needed support. "I’m impressed by your skill and, frankly, exhausted in equal measure just from watching you two tear each other apart."

Kaela leaned gratefully into Catherine’s side, letting her weight settle.

"Welcome to our friendship, vice headmaster," she said with a tired smirk. "It’s less of a bond and more of a mutual attempt at each other’s destruction."

Ellie and Clara arrived a moment later, though the two approached with vastly different energies.

Ellie was already in a state of mild panic, her hands hovering uncertainly over Kaela and Lia as she fretted over the faint purple bruises blooming along their arms and the dried blood staining their clothes.

"Oh gods, you two really went at it, didn’t you?" she fretted, already rummaging through her satchel for soothing salve. "Next time, please just once, not to act like you’re trying to kill each other!"

Clara, meanwhile, followed close behind with her quill moving at a frantic pace. Her journal was still open, her eyes darting between the two battered women and her parchment.

"Fascinating," she muttered, scribbling with evident satisfaction. "The physiological response to prolonged magical exhaustion is remarkable."

"Though, from a narrative perspective, I would categorize this as... a productive and conclusive resolution to the romantic rivalry subplot."

"It wasn’t a subplot, Clara; it was a war zone," Kaela grunted, though she didn’t pull away when Ellie began dabbing a cool ointment onto a particularly nasty scrape on her elbow.

...

By evening, however, the bruises and scrapes were secondary to the celebration. The whole group gathered in a private dining hall that the palace staff had prepared specifically for them—a sanctuary of warmth and opulence.

Long oak tables groaned under the impossible weight of the feast: platters of roasted meats glistening with herb-infused juices, crusty loaves of fresh bread still steaming from the oven, and an enormous, overflowing bowl of spiced fruit that Ellie had declared, after what she claimed was extensive market research, to be the single finest discovery of their entire journey.

The atmosphere was thick with more than just the aroma of roasting rosemary and honey; it was thick with genuine relief. Laughter filled the room from nearly the first course onward, the conversation hopping freely from one topic to the next.

This was the kind of ease that only existed among people who had faced death together—a trust so deep that no word was guarded, no joke too risky.

"And then," Ellie said, her voice bright and carrying a new edge of authority that surprised even herself, "I realized that if I channeled the mana through the fingertips rather than the palm, the concentration increases tenfold."

To demonstrate, she cupped her hands, and a small, controlled burst of pure, golden healing light spiraled between her palms.

It wasn’t the hesitant, flickering glow of the girl who used to mutter percentages under her breath in the back of the classroom; it was steady, brilliant, and confident.

The table erupted into genuine applause.

"Impressive, Ellie... Truly," Catherine noted, raising her wine goblet in approval. "The girl who used to apologize to her own spells has finally found her spine."

"I didn’t apologize to them! I was... assessing their emotional state before deployment," Ellie countered with a flustered but proud grin.

Not to be outdone in the performance department, Clara cleared her throat and announced she would be reading aloud several of her more ’colorful’ journal entries from their recent market excursion.

The table fell into curious silence as she began a detailed, deeply unnecessary account of the architectural proportions of every single bakery they had passed.

She spoke of lintel heights, cobblestone angles, and bread crust thickness with such deadpan solemnity that by the time she reached the third bakery, the entire table was in tears of laughter.

"You genuinely measured the doorway of the croissant shop, Clara?" Olivia asked between gasps for air, wiping tears from her eyes. "With what, exactly? A surveyor’s chain?"

Clara looked up from her journal, her expression entirely unreadable and utterly serious. "My own forearm, obviously."

"It is a reliable, portable unit of measurement in a pinch."

"That is not a unit of measurement, Clara," Lia pointed out, leaning back in her chair with a smirk, feeling the pleasant ache of her muscles finally relaxing. "That’s just... you being you."

"It is a perfectly valid metric for my purposes," Clara insisted, already turning the page to continue her report on the structural integrity of a pastry stall.