Chapter 231: Even a God Needs Humbling

"Before we start, let me lay down the rules." Melisandre watched the Shadows take their positions, nodding in satisfaction.

"First, none of you are allowed to use weapons. That includes shields."

When no one objected, Magna included, she turned to him.

"The same applies to you, and no spells either. This is only a test of your physical abilities, so I expect you to hold back enough to avoid hurting anyone."

For Magna, that would mean watching the strength of every punch. His fists were weapons in their own right, powerful enough to kill with a single blow.

The Shadows’ durable armor wouldn’t necessarily save them from a fatal injury, so he would have to restrain himself carefully.

Magna nodded, keeping that in mind, though he still wasn’t sure how much strength he could safely use.

"Good. You can start whenever you’re ready." Melisandre stepped back with her paper and pen, ready to observe the fight and record every detail.

Once the area was clear, both sides fixed their attention on each other.

After both sides sized each other up for a few seconds, the Shadows moved first, the 5 in tank-like knight armor spreading out around Magna to form a pentagon.

Behind each of them, 4 members of the attack unit took their places, with the blue-armored Shadows and those serving the Life Witches arranging themselves farther back in support.

Magna had already thought their formation would be difficult to break. Now they had strengthened it further by surrounding him completely.

Even so, he made no attempt to interrupt them, calmly watching as they finished their preparations.

He kept his intimidating aura suppressed for the same reason. Breaking their spirits before the fight had properly begun would do little to help him get what he wanted from this spar.

He wanted more from this fight than a measure of his strength. He needed practice controlling it.

Fighting the Shadows would help him get used to his new body and learn its limits, but he also hoped it would help him deal with what was happening inside his head.

Lately, he had been struggling with how much his memories, growing power, and newfound identity were changing him.

The characteristics of a cold-blooded assassin were still part of him, mixed with memories of his previous life and experiences from countless VR games.

On top of all that, accepting that he was a God had begun to inflate his ego.

Combined with his sudden increase in strength, that knowledge made it dangerously easy to believe he was better than everyone around him.

He didn’t want that belief to turn into a God complex.

To stop himself from thinking that way, he needed a challenge that could remind him he still had limits. Facing the Shadows seemed like a good place to start.

He didn’t have to wait long to put that idea to the test, as one of the white-armored Shadows stepped in to attack.

Magna leaned back as a white-armored fist came toward his face, letting it pass just in front of him.

With 6123 Agility and 5826 Reaction, he could move and respond so quickly that the punch appeared to travel before his eyes in slow motion.

Yet the ease of avoiding it was precisely what worried him. Watching the fist miss, he could already feel the temptation to look down on the person throwing it.

The next Shadow corrected that attitude before it could settle in, reminding him that he was still a mortal who could be caught off guard.

The attack came from his left, where a fighter in the attack unit’s dark red armor was already closing in.

His punch was faster than the first, and although Magna still had the advantage in both movement and reaction speed, he hadn’t been ready for it.

He raised his forearm just in time, taking the blow with a dull thud of metal against flesh.

The impact barely hurt his body, but it gave his pride the correction he had been hoping for, followed by another surprise when the Shadow’s hand closed around his wrist.

’Oh?’

He could have broken that grip on its own, but the first Shadow hadn’t stepped away after missing his punch.

Instead, the white-armored fighter moved closer and seized Magna’s other arm.

Until then, Magna had wondered why the camp’s defense unit was so small. With only 5 Witches and 5 Shadows, it had seemed to have far too few members for its role.

The grip on his arm began to explain why.

That white-armored Shadow held him as firmly as an immovable mountain, resisting Magna’s attempt to wrench his arm back with what felt like several tons of weight.

For an instant, Magna found himself held in place between the 2 men, and the attack unit wasted none of it.

Another 2 fighters slipped through the gaps, one driving a fist into his stomach while the other struck his ribs.

Magna tightened his abdomen to take the blow, only to feel another strike land against his ribs almost immediately.

Neither caused much damage, but the attacks kept coming too closely together for him to think through a response.

The Shadows moved with such flawless coordination that they almost seemed to share a single mind, each making use of the opening another created.

Magna pulled his right arm inward again, this time dragging the heavily armored Shadow a full step toward him.

His boots scraped through the ash, yet the man refused to release his grip, holding on long enough for another Shadow to reach Magna from behind.

A hard kick struck the backs of his knees, buckling his legs beneath him.

Durable as his body was, its joints were still designed to bend, and the Shadows had struck exactly where that design worked against him.

He dropped to his knees before he could resist it.

With him lowered, 2 Shadows behind him grabbed his shoulders and head and began pressing him toward the ground, making their intention clear.

They weren’t trying to injure him. They were trying to force him down and keep him there.

It was a reasonable approach to a friendly spar, yet as they pushed his head lower, Magna felt annoyance rising.

His face came within a few centimeters of the ash before it stopped.

The Shadows pushed harder, but he went no farther.

A second later, the pressure began to turn against them as Magna raised his head and slowly straightened his back, forcing them all to give ground.

He had finally stopped watching and started resisting.