As she charged at Gladia, Sela coolly assessed the situation.
*She's not drawing her sword. No idea why.*
The reason was unclear.
But a warrior of that caliber had to have a reason for keeping her blade sheathed.
Sela kept her guard up, tracking Gladia's every movement, and drove her fist straight at her head.
A blow worthy of the Great Chieftain's bloodline—raw, crushing force behind it.
Sela's fist tore through the air and came screaming toward Gladia.
And yet Gladia's expression didn't shift by a single degree.
*Swish.*
Like a willow branch swaying in the wind, Gladia's body drifted back—barely half a step, utterly natural.
*Whoosh—! CRASH—!*
Sela's fist grazed Gladia's nose by a hair's breadth and cratered the training hall floor.
But Sela didn't falter. She pressed the attack.
*I never expected to end it in one hit anyway!*
She used the recoil from the shattered floor, twisting at the waist and spinning into a rotation.
Her thick leg sliced through the air like a whip, arcing toward Gladia's ribs.
*Whooom—!*
A kick that would rupture organs on contact.
But.
*Tck.*
"—?!"
A sound of bewilderment escaped Sela's lips.
Gladia had deflected the kick with almost contemptuous ease.
The strike aimed at Gladia's ribs had its trajectory broken by the tip of her staff—moving in a soft, fluid arc—just a light tap, and the attack's path dissolved like it had never existed.
Sela's body, orbit disrupted, lost its balance and spun uselessly through the air like a top.
"Ngh—!"
But a warrior of the great plains didn't crumble that easily.
*Thud!*
Even mid-fall, Sela forced her hand down onto the training hall floor, caught herself, and sprang back up in an instant.
She came at Gladia with the ferocity of a wild animal, relentless and unceasing.
Fists, knees, kicks, elbows, headbutts.
A barrage of strikes that treated every part of her body as a weapon came crashing down on Gladia like a storm.
The air shrieked and split in every direction without pause.
*Whoosh—! Crack—!*
But not a single blow in that merciless onslaught ever touched Gladia's body.
It was like watching a perfectly choreographed performance.
Gladia moved as though she were dancing—slipping each of Sela's attacks by exactly half a step or one full step, or redirecting the force outward with a light nudge of her staff.
"Hah… hah… hah."
The assault that had seemed like it would never end finally wound down. Sela's shoulders heaved as she dragged in ragged breaths.
Her body was drenched in sweat, as though she'd been standing in the rain.
*I can't even graze her, let alone land a hit—!*
Sela had known there was a gap between them, but she hadn't imagined it was this wide.
*She hasn't even drawn her sword, and I'm the one standing here gasping.*
Fighting Gladia felt like fighting a ghost.
Her opponent's eyes were clearly closed, yet she read every single one of Sela's attacks as if she had eyes all over her body.
Gladia's movements were strange.
She was fast, certainly—but what Gladia was doing couldn't be explained by speed alone.
She was responding to Sela's attacks one beat ahead, as if she already knew what Sela was going to do.
Sela steadied her breathing and lifted her gaze to look at Gladia.
Gladia stood exactly as she had at the start of the spar, waiting patiently for Sela to collect herself.
Breathing even. Expression undisturbed.
The most unsettling thing of all was this: Gladia had been at the center of that entire barrage, and her maid's uniform didn't have so much as a speck of dust on it. Not a single crease.
Watching Gladia's composed face, Sela felt her competitive fire burn hotter.
*I'll make her show surprise if it kills me.*
With that resolve, she released the power she'd been holding in reserve.
*Hummmmm—!*
In that instant, markings rose across Sela's dark brown skin and began to radiate light.
This was proof of what she was—a warrior carrying the blood of the Cradle's Great Chieftain.
A power passed down only to chosen warriors, even among the harsh and unforgiving great plains of Cradle.
[Ancestral Blessing]
Mana amplified explosively from the Core at her heart, surging through the glowing channels of those markings and blazing outward through every inch of Sela's body.
*Hissssss—!*
The sweat soaking her skin couldn't withstand the boiling fighting spirit and heat, and evaporated in an instant into white steam.
Within the fierce light and heat pouring from the markings, Sela's muscles swelled tighter and larger, like a beast coming into its full power.
"RAAAAH—!!"
Sela roared and launched herself at Gladia at a speed that bore no comparison to before.
Her fist shot out to shatter Gladia's face—
And in that precise instant, behind closed eyelids, Gladia read Sela's movement through Heart-Sight and murmured quietly.
"Well. I think that's enough evasion practice."
The moment those quiet words left her lips—
"Gck—!"
The air rushed out of Sela's lungs, and her eyes went wide.
The tip of Gladia's staff had driven straight into Sela's solar plexus as she came charging in.
All the momentum of her charge came back to her as damage. Sela's breath seized in her chest and she staggered into a daze.
"Kh—urgh—!"
As Sela's body locked up, Gladia's voice drifted into her ears.
"Now then. Shall I have a turn?"
*Whoosh—!*
*Thwack!*
Gladia drew her staff back lightly and cracked it across Sela's jaw.
"Ngh—!"
Sela's knees buckled from the blow to her chin, and Gladia's attacks only sharpened from there.
It was the beginning of a one-sided beating.
*Crack! Smack! Thud! Thwack!*
The staff in Gladia's hand cut through the air and began hammering Sela's entire body without mercy.
Every single strike drove through muscle and rattled bone.
It was impossible to believe that kind of force was coming from those slender arms.
*How is she hitting this hard with arms that thin?!*
Instinctively, Sela raised her arms to guard her vitals amid the barrage and gritted her teeth.
*At this rate—I'm going to go down without landing a single hit!*
An overwhelming difference in ability. But even in that desperate, one-sided defense, the warrior of the great plains refused to let her fighting spirit die.
If anything, cornered at the edge of the cliff, Sela's wild instincts flared—and found a way through.
Give up flesh to take bone.
Reading the arc of the incoming staff, Sela chose one razor-thin moment to drop her guard and deliberately expose her left ribs.
*Thud—!*
"Krrgh—!"
Gladia's staff came down on Sela's side without hesitation. Agonizing pain—like a crack spreading through bone—shook her entire body.
But instead of stepping back to absorb the impact, Sela forced her eyes wide open and drove herself forward into Gladia.
And wrapped her arms roughly around Gladia's slender waist.
*If I can get her into a joint lock—!*
With a fierce grin, Sela pulled Gladia's body tight and threw her weight into it.
She was bigger. If it came down to grappling, she had a chance.
That was her read.
But.
"…?"
She wasn't going down.
Sela poured everything she had into her muscles until they screamed, trying to topple Gladia—but Gladia didn't move. Not even a sway. Like a tree with roots sunk deep into the earth.
"Good instinct. Shame about the execution."
*Slide.*
Gladia's hand settled gently over Sela's hands where they gripped her.
"You picked the wrong opponent for a contest of strength."
*Crack—!*
"—?!"
Sela's eyes flew open in shock.
The grip that came from Gladia's slender hand had peeled Sela's arms—straining with everything she had—away from her body as easily as brushing off a leaf.
Sela froze, stunned by the absurd difference in raw strength. In that instant, Gladia's soft palm came to rest lightly against the center of Sela's solar plexus.
*BOOM—!*
"Kh—hk—!!"
A detonation rang out as if a cannon had fired, and Sela's body went flying.
*CRASH! BANG!*
Sela skipped across the training hall floor like a stone on water, bounced several times, and landed flat on her back.
"Uuugh…"
The markings on her dark brown skin—blazing brilliantly as she'd wrung her Core to its limit—faded and went dark.
With [Ancestral Blessing] fully released, her body had nothing left. Not even the strength to twitch a finger.
*A total loss.*
An overwhelming defeat she couldn't find a single excuse for.
Sela lay there, breathing hard, staring blankly up at the ceiling of the training hall—when a steady rhythm began to reach her ears.
*Tap. Tap. Tap.*
Light footsteps approaching, accompanied by the unhurried sound of a staff meeting the floor.
And then, into the corner of Sela's vision—which had held nothing but ceiling—Gladia's face appeared.
Gladia's face looked impossibly beautiful and delicate for someone who had just been beating Sela half to death.
Gladia looked down at Sela, sprawled flat and gasping, and asked in a gentle voice.
"Would you like to continue?"
At that question, a short, helpless laugh slipped out from between Sela's lips.
She didn't have the strength to twitch a finger. What exactly was she supposed to continue with?
On top of that, every place Gladia had hit her still hurt like she was dying.
Sela looked up at the monstrous maid looming over her and forced the words out.
"Get me… a healer. I'm dying. Seriously…"
With that, Sela's consciousness began to bleed into darkness.
Her last sight before she passed out was Gladia's face—wearing, for once, an expression of genuine alarm.
*At least I got to see her surprised.*