He shrugged. "Your enemy won't dance to your whims."
"Fine." Taria unleashed her essence. Her eyes glowed, and yellow light flowed around her, not in thin layers this time, but as a wave of bursting radiance.
She took a step forward and vanished.
"So fast!" Thalso turned on instinct, raising his sword. Metal rang against metal as Taria slammed her spear down on his blade.
The floor cracked beneath his feet. Such strength! She must be using her full core patterns. Strength and Lightness combined.
Then came the furious thrusts, driving Thalso back step by step. He simply couldn't fully defend against such speed, and without armor, he knew he'd already be bleeding in several places.
"You win," Thalso said.
Taria stopped. For a moment, it almost seemed as though echoes of her spear, shadows of strikes, still hung in the air.
"She's been holding out on us," Kaedros called across the room to Rauk. They had stopped their own fight with their instructors to watch.
