Chapter 121: Sparring (2)

"Dead," Leon stated softly.

Snow froze, the heavy greatsword hovering above her head. She looked down at his leather-gloved fingers resting against her black crop top. If this had been a real battle, and he had been holding Epitaph or a dagger in his off-hand, that tap would have pierced her heart.

She lowered her weapon, the feral grin fading from her face, replaced by a deep, sudden frown. She was panting heavily, her chest rising and falling as she stared at him.

"You’re holding back," Snow accused, taking a step backward and planting the tip of her greatsword into the grass.

"I am allowing you to dictate the pace of the engagement," Leon replied, lowering his own sword. "You requested this spar to synchronize our combat styles. If I immediately override your rhythm, you learn nothing about how I move."

"Bullshit, baby," Snow snapped, her blue eyes narrowing with genuine frustration. She wiped a line of sweat from her brow with the back of her gloved hand. "You’re not just letting me dictate the pace. You’re treating me like glass. You’re pulling your punches, you’re capping your speed, and you’re intentionally leaving your guard open to see if I can exploit it. I asked to spar with a Level 100 Steadfast entity, not a training dummy."

Leon looked at her, his expression remaining perfectly stoic. "If I engage you with my full base attributes, the sheer physical disparity will end this spar in a fraction of a second. It would not be productive."

"It would be honest," Snow countered fiercely, stepping forward and pointing her finger directly at his chest. "I am your wife, and I am your partner. Out there, the monsters aren’t going to pull their punches because I’m a lower level. I need to know exactly what the gap between us looks like. I need to feel the pressure of a Steadfast rank. If you coddle me now, you’re just going to get me killed later."

Her words hung in the air, piercing through his calculated logic. She was right. He had been looking at the spar as a tutorial, an opportunity for her to practice her forms against a moving target. But Snow didn’t want a tutorial. She wanted a crucible.

Leon let out a slow, measured breath. The relaxed, accommodating posture he had maintained for the past five minutes vanished entirely.

"I am not holding back out of disrespect, Snow," Leon said, his voice dropping an octave. "I was just letting off some steam. I wanted to give you time to warm up your muscles."

He raised his void-steel longsword, dropping into a low, predatory guard. The air around him suddenly felt suffocatingly heavy as he stopped suppressing his Steadfast-tier physical presence.

"But if you want to see the summit," Leon warned, his dual-colored eyes locking onto hers with a terrifying intensity, "then brace yourself. Because I am going to charge at full strength now."

Snow felt a shiver of absolute terror and thrilling adrenaline rocket down her spine. The man standing across from her suddenly didn’t look like her husband. He looked like an apex predator that had just been taken off its leash.

She didn’t back down. She gripped her greatsword with both hands, dropping her center of gravity as low as possible, her blue eyes wide and entirely focused.

"Bring it, baby," she challenged.

Leon vanished.

There was no magical teleportation. There was no Abyssal Stride. It was purely his 265 Agility engaging simultaneously. The ground where he had just been standing exploded outward, chunks of dirt and grass violently tearing away from the earth as he broke the sound barrier with a single step.

Snow’s eyes couldn’t track him. Her brain simply registered a blur of dark fabric and gold embroidery instantly materializing directly in front of her.

She didn’t have time to swing. She barely had time to react. Pure, ingrained martial arts survival instinct took over. She horizontally locked her heavy greatsword across her chest, bracing her entire skeletal structure behind the broad side of the blade to form a makeshift shield.

Leon’s longsword slammed into her block.

BOOM!

The collision did not sound like two swords crossing; it sounded like an artillery shell detonating.

The kinetic force of Leon’s strike, backed by his 260 Strength, transferred directly through her weapon and into her arms. Snow let out a sharp cry of pain as her boots were violently lifted entirely off the ground. She was launched backward through the air like a ragdoll, flying a dozen yards before she crashed heavily into the grass, tumbling end-over-end.

She hit the ground hard, gasping for breath as the impact knocked the wind entirely out of her lungs. Her arms felt numb, vibrating painfully from the sheer, catastrophic shockwave of his physical strength.

"Get up," Leon commanded.

He was already standing over her. He hadn’t run to catch up to her; he had simply walked, yet his speed allowed him to cross the distance before she even stopped rolling.

Snow coughed, forcing her paralyzed lungs to draw in air. She didn’t stay down. Gritting her teeth, she rolled onto her shoulder, using her greatsword as a crutch to rapidly push herself back to her feet.

The moment she was vertical, Leon attacked again.

He swung the longsword in a blistering horizontal arc. Snow desperately brought her greatsword up to parry, but Leon wasn’t trying to overpower her block this time. The moment their blades touched, he snapped his wrist, utilizing his astronomical Agility to disengage instantly. He spun, his dark boots tearing up the grass, and delivered a devastating, spinning back-kick aimed squarely at her midsection.

Snow saw the blur of his leg. She attempted to drop her elbows to block the strike, but she was simply too slow. The physical gap between Level 48 and Level 100 was a chasm that no amount of martial arts mastery could bridge.

Leon pulled the kick at the very last possible microsecond.

Instead of shattering her ribs and rupturing her internal organs, the flat of his boot hit her stomach with the force of a heavy battering ram. It was enough to violently knock her off her feet once again, sending her skidding backward across the damp grass.

"Again," Leon stated coldly, his longsword resting effortlessly at his side.

Snow pushed herself up, her vision swimming slightly. Her muscles were screaming in protest, entirely overloaded by the sheer kinetic trauma of trying to interact with a Steadfast entity. But the fire in her blue eyes refused to extinguish.

"Is that all you got, baby?" Snow wheezed, forcing a defiant smirk onto her face.

She charged him. She abandoned defense entirely, pouring every single ounce of her Level 48 Strength and Agility into a desperate, all-or-nothing overhead leap. She swung the greatsword with a feral scream, aiming to crush his guard through sheer willpower.

Leon watched her descend. He read her movements with absolute clarity, analyzing the trajectory, the momentum, and the fatal over-commitment of her strike.

He didn’t step back. He stepped directly into her attack zone.

Before her greatsword could even begin its downward arc, Leon shot his left hand upward, moving faster than the human eye could process. He didn’t grab the blade; he grabbed her wrists.

His grip was like a vice of solid iron. He violently arrested her downward momentum mid-air, entirely neutralizing the kinetic force of her attack.

With her arms locked above her head and her body suspended for a fraction of a second, she was completely defenseless.

Leon used his right hand, bringing his void-steel longsword up in a smooth, fluid motion. He didn’t strike her. He simply rested the cold, dark edge of the blade flush against the side of her pale, slender neck.

He gently set her back down on her feet, but he did not release her wrists, and he did not move the blade from her throat.

The clearing fell deathly silent, the only sound the rushing of the mana-waterfall and Snow’s heavy, ragged breathing.

She stood frozen, her chest heaving, the cold steel pressing gently against her pulse. She looked into his dual-colored eyes and saw absolute, uncompromising dominance. He had completely dismantled her in less than ten seconds, utilizing nothing but his raw base stats. He hadn’t used a single skill, and he had won with terrifying, effortless ease.

Slowly, the cold, Vanguard intensity in Leon’s eyes faded, replaced by the warm, appreciative gaze of her husband. He pulled the longsword away from her neck and released her wrists.

"Dead again," Leon murmured softly, a faint, genuine smile touching his lips.

Snow let her heavy greatsword drop to the grass with a heavy thud. She didn’t look defeated. She didn’t look crushed. She looked up at him with absolute awe and exhilaration. Her entire body was trembling from the adrenaline and the exertion, but she was beaming.

"Holy crap," Snow gasped, rubbing her aching wrists. "You weren’t kidding. That is... the physical gap is insane, baby. You moved like you were teleporting, and you didn’t even use magic."

"That is the reality of the Steadfast rank," Leon explained, sheathing his training sword and stepping forward to pull her into a firm, reassuring embrace. "The system scales the biological density and neural processing power exponentially. But you did not break, Snow. Your defensive instincts are flawless. If you had the stats to match your technique, you would have parried every single one of those strikes."

Snow rested her head against his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist, soaking in the warmth of his body.

"I’ll get there," Snow mumbled into his shirt, her voice muffled but laced with absolute determination. "Three times a day, baby. We spar until my muscles remember how fast you move. Because when we hit Sector 11, I am not going to be standing behind you. I’m going to be standing right next to you."

Leon rested his chin on the top of her white hair, holding his wife securely in the quiet, fading light of the valley.

"I know you will," Leon promised.