The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 112

Chapter 112

Chapter 112: Newfound Goal

He overextended his punch; don’t dodge, Arthur, duck under and move in.

Her kick is too high, she’s off balance; exploit that.

The left hook was thrown prematurely. Lean your head back an inch.

That strike is slow enough; I need to grab that. Parry it, grab ahold of the palm and twist.

Watch out for the low sweep, but don’t jump. There’s a follow up attack that would be waiting for you if you do. Move in towards the kick where it won’t have much power.

An attack is coming from behind. Don’t waste time to look back; use his shadow instead.

Kick incoming towards the face, and another aimed at the ribs. Their attacks are becoming more coordinated.

I need to lower my body to dodge the kick aimed at my head and block the one aimed at my ribs. Use the force of the kick to get pushed away from the current disadvantageous position.

“Time!” Kordri’s voice thundered, bringing all of us to a freeze.

“d.a.m.nit!”

“So close!”

“We could’ve had him if you had given us one more minute, Master!”

Of the four of them, only Taci didn’t say anything, only clicking his tongue in dissatisfaction before turning away.

“Enough! It is four against one and you guys still dare to complain after being unable to land a single, solid hit on Arthur? I should have you lot retrained from the basics!” The four-eyed asura rebuked. Turning his attention to me, he shot me an acknowledging smile. “How do you feel, Arthur?”

Returning his smile, I replied, shaking off the stinging pain in my wrist from blocking the last attack. “Never better.”

About four months have pa.s.sed in the outside world, meaning that I had trained in the soul realm, thanks to the Aether Orb, for nearly four years. While my body had only aged a year physiologically, a bit more than three years have gone by training under the tutelage of Kordri.

These three years, I had done nothing besides honing my body, my reflexes, and my acuity for combat. My fourteenth birthday had recently pa.s.sed and it was glaringly obvious just how much stronger I had become, to the point where my past combat abilities seemed about as coordinated as a toddler first learning to walk.

Kordri had also helped refine my mana to aid in combat but hadn’t taught me anything new. Whether it was because of physiological differences between humans and asuras or just the fact that he didn’t want to or wasn’t allowed to pa.s.s on the Thyestes Clan mana arts to a non-clan member , I chose not to ask. I merely trusted Kordri and absorbed whatever he did teach instead.

To this day, I wasn’t sure what exactly the Thyestes Clan mana arts was and what it was able to do, but that didn’t matter. Just the fact that I had progressed to this level of physical combat was something I was thankful for.

As the soul realm that we had been training in grew dark, I opened my eyes to the familiar sight of the cave I had been in, physically, for the past year.

“Thanks again for helping me train, guys.” I stood up and gave a respectful nod to the four, novice Thyestes Clan children.

After about the first year inside the soul realm, sparring with just Taci was proving to have a limit, so Kordri brought over more training partners to the point where I was fighting on par with Taci and three other young children of the Pantheon asura race.

Of course the four of them weren’t constantly inside the soul realm like I had been. Because of that “unfairness”, as they constantly pointed out, I had been able to catch up to them eventually.

The four of them, including Taci, kept a distance from me outside of training, often showing their displeasure at the thought of helping a lesser race train; it didn’t help that I had become stronger than them. Of course, this was considering the fact that they weren’t allowed to use their abilities to the fullest. Kordri had made it explicitly clear that we were to use mana only for strengthening our bodies; anything outside of that would be considered foul play.

“Master Kordri. Thank you for training me up until now,” I turned and bowed respectfully after we both got out of the pool of blue liquid back inside the cave.

“Mmm, it was a treat for me as well,” the shaved-headed asura replied.

Giving my body a thorough stretch, I turned to face Windsom. “When is the next portion of our training?” I asked as I mentally searched for signs of Sylvie. This past year, I wasn’t able to sense, let alone communicate, with my bond. It had become a custom to search for her every time I was thrown out of the soul realm, but each attempt proved fruitless.

“Huh? Ah, we will start the next portion of training soon.” Windsom had the same discerning gaze as Kordri, which confused me.

I raised a brow, shifting my gaze back and forth between the two asuras. “Is everything okay?”

“Nothing’s wrong...” Kordri replied as he tilted his head, studying me like a piece of abstract art.

“It’s just that you have not changed,” Windsom finished.

My heart began thumping louder at his words. What hasn’t changed? My initial thought turned to my mana core, but that wasn’t it. My mana core had advanced recently from out of the early light yellow and into the latter levels of the light-yellow; meaning, I had progressed past more than a full stage, starting from the solid yellow stage that I had previously been at before starting my training here. Windsom had also come into the soul realm to watch the progress of my training every now and then so he should be well aware of the level I’m currently at.

“Arthur, while training under the Aether Orb can be tremendously beneficial, it is strictly forbidden to be used on children, or even young adults. You can guess why, right? The time difference between the two realms can cause a psychological displacement on a person not yet fully developed mentally,” Windsom explained.

“I was actually firmly against the use of the aether orb for that reason,” Kordri confessed. “Even Lord Indrath was somewhat reluctant to have you train using the Aether Orb, in fear of the consequences. However, because of the deficit of time before the war, there was no choice.”

It took me by surprise when I heard that Lord Indrath would care for my well-being. That wasn’t the impression I had received when I had met him.