Well… shit.
I was laid out on my back, my spine, legs, and an assortment of other parts of my body in agony.
Muscles in my legs spasmed randomly, my heart was beating so fast it felt silent, and the dirt on the floor was smeared into my skin. The dust-laden air tasted faintly of sweat and splintered wood, sharp in my nose, clinging to my tongue like tiny grains of grit. Every breath seemed to scrape the inside of my chest.
What happened?
I was still trying to collect some level of thought, to grasp even a fragment of what had just occurred. My mind was a tangle of memory fragments, flashes of motion too fast for the eye to see, echoes of impact, and the blur of small, fast hands and feet moving like living lightning.
Every possible situation I had ever experienced—every battle, every confrontation, every nuance of combat—culminated into the body of an eight-year-old. And yet, here I was, utterly defeated.
I tried an old mnemonic trick I used to use—a rapid knocking at the side of my head, desperate to recall some hidden technique, some unseen advantage. Something to explain this. Something to explain him.
Nothing worked.
Nothing worked—not even remotely.
Lonan's shadow stretched across the arena, long and sharp in the afternoon light, a silent, almost mocking reminder of how thoroughly I was spending my afternoon being humiliated by a child. The dust swirled in lazy spirals around his feet, and every movement of his small body seemed exaggerated, deliberate, as if he was performing for me alone.
Through my pain, I tried to force myself to stand. My body seemed to have voted via the council of limbs to ignore me. Every muscle ached, every joint screamed, my hands trembled around the hilt of my sword. Even breathing was a laborious task, my lungs refusing to expand fully.
"I did it! Woohoo!" Lonan's voice rang out, high-pitched and triumphant. He paraded around the arena, fists in the air, celebrating a victory I couldn't comprehend. Much to nobody's surprise.
The monster that had just flattened me was nowhere to be seen, replaced instead by your average sugar-rushed seven-year-old. His hair stuck up in every direction, his face flushed from exertion, eyes bright with a manic sort of joy.
I looked down at my sword, scrutinizing it thoroughly, desperate to find some fault I could use to discredit my embarrassing loss.
There was nothing.
The sword had lodged itself into the dirt, but even when I pulled it out, it appeared pristine, untouched by battle, unmarked. It was as though the world had decided to erase any trace of our encounter, leaving me alone with my humiliation.
And for that matter, as far as wooden swords went, mine was crafted well—intricate patterns etched into the grain, a solid, balanced hilt that fit perfectly into my hand. Even if it was just wood, it was impressive that a group of children—none older than eleven—could acquire such weapons and, more importantly, wield them with such proficiency.
I gritted my teeth and dragged myself up, ignoring the protests of every muscle and tendon.
"What kind of trick did you use?" I muttered, anger raw, my voice unmasked.
There had to be some secret, some overwhelming unfairness that made winning impossible from the start. There had to be.
"What do you mean?" Lonan tilted his head like a curious bird, innocent and blank.
Feigning ignorance, are we now? Fine. If that's how you want to play, that's how we'll play.
"What technique. Did. You. Use?" I repeated, each word punctuated with venom, each pause a silent demand.
"Oh, that's what you mean. Well, I didn't use any," he said, voice calm, face contorted into a childish grin that somehow made my teeth ache.
"Don't lie. It's obvious you couldn't beat me like that," I snapped, attempting a smile that was half-baked, more a twitch of frustrated jealousy than anything else.
I hoped he ignored the dirt smudged across my clothing, my skin, my hair. From his perspective, I was just an angry eight-year-old, beaten by a child, covered in filth. Yet I couldn't help but wonder: did he know? Could he sense the subtle calculation behind my glare, the mind racing for any way to find advantage?
Regardless, I was going to drag the truth out of him.
"Isn't that normal?" he asked, genuinely confused.
You don't get to do that, I thought. You don't get to move like that and then act like it's ordinary.
"I just went as fast as I could," he continued, tone unchanged, pure childlike honesty, oblivious to my incredulity.
I had interrogated hundreds—no, thousands—of people. Traitors, allies, criminals. And yet, I sensed no falsehood in his speech.
He wasn't lying. He genuinely had no tricks. He had just… moved.
Is this what this era is like? Are these children the result of safety, of neglect, of some twisted natural selection I hadn't been briefed on?
Do monsters like this roam everywhere?
If this is what seven-year-olds are capable of, what are trained professionals able to do?
The thought shook me to my core. I could feel my pulse spike, my chest tighten.
What kind of hellhole had I been thrown into?
***
Same result.
Overwhelming defeat.
This time, I had been able to see him move—barely. A flicker of motion in my peripheral vision, a shadow shifting, a spark of wood where a sword should have been. And yet, before I could act, he was elsewhere, already in the position he had predicted I would need to be in. The attacks came so fast, so precise, it was impossible to meet them with anything other than stunned observation.
My body screamed in protest. Every muscle, tendon, and joint burned as though I had run barefoot across a field of jagged metal. My calves felt like molten steel, firing with every twitch. My fingers shook violently around the hilt, as if the wood itself had become too heavy to lift. My lungs burned, as if someone had squeezed them between iron clamps, and every breath I drew barely felt like air—more like trying to suck water through a straw.
I stumbled backward, muscles jerking, every movement a negotiation with my own body. My hands trembled, clinging to the sword like a lifeline. I had seen warriors whose speed was near-mythical, whose blitzes could displace entire armies in moments, who moved with precision that blurred the line between human and lightning. But Lonan… Lonan's speed was different.
Not faster. Not stronger. Just… there. Always exactly where he needed to be, as if the air itself bent to place him before my very eyes. Like he had manifested in the world for the single purpose of humiliating me. His attacks arrived from angles that defied logic, slicing through space I had no reason to believe could contain a moving body.
Every attempt to anticipate him failed. Not by milliseconds, not by fractions of an inch. I was not behind. I was disconnected. It was like trying to read a page of a book that had already been torn from the story, a page whose words I had never learned.
By no measure could Lonan be compared to the legendary heroes famed for speed in the past. Their movements were elegant, predictable in their genius. Lonan… he was chaos distilled. Pure, instinctive motion without form, without reason, and yet perfect.
And at his age? Against me? I was utterly outclassed.
Sweat ran down my brow. My pulse throbbed in my throat. My grip wobbled. Every warning sign of strain screamed at me. Every fiber of my body begged for rest. And yet, he barely slowed. The grin on his face widened with every strike, every dodge, every flicker of motion. It was a grin that said this is easy. This is fun. You are a puzzle I already solved.
"One more time," I whispered, voice rasping from exertion. Each word was a surrender I refused to give.
"Alright," he said. Slight fatigue—closer to the panting after a stair sprint than the exhaustion of a seasoned warrior—but his tone carried none of the weight of defeat.
"Go!" The shout was almost comically small, his voice tiny yet ringing clear in my ears.
The older kids had given up refereeing entirely. They were spectators now, curiosity glinting in their eyes, but no interference.
He vanished.
And this time, I did not flinch in panic.
I had learned. Adapted. Strained every sense, searching for a weakness, a rhythm, a pattern, anything.
I found… nothing.
The yard fell quiet for a fraction of a heartbeat, a lull in the chaos. Dust swirled in lazy spirals around the spot he had occupied moments before, as if the earth itself had exhaled.
Trying to match his speed was pointless. I had already proven that six times. Every attempt ended in humiliation. Every strategy, every calculation, every reflex I could summon, failed.
Only one choice remained.
Stop trying to match him.
I swung blindly.
Hard.
The wooden sword flew like a meteor across my vision. My eyes, my mind, my body—all focused on the simple act of swinging. Nothing else mattered.
Thunk.
The impact resonated up my arms, reverberating through my chest. Solid. Flesh. Wood. Something tangible. Something I had actually connected with.
Alright. That's how we're doing this.
Lonan staggered slightly. Just enough for me to notice. His eyes—feverish, gleaming—were intoxicated, a wild delight in the game we were playing. My attack had thrown him off balance, even if only a fraction.
"Now this is fun!" he declared, words that rang like a challenge, like a crown placed upon my shoulders by accident. Wait… I am the challenger, aren't I?
He vanished again. My sword flung forward, charged with mana. At minimum double the speed. Every muscle coiled, every fiber ready. Every instinct, every reflex sharpened into a blade.
I would not lose to a seven-year-old again.
Saying that, aloud in my own mind, was bitter. Humiliating. Perhaps the lowlight of my second life: reduced to thinking, I must not lose to a child.
The hum of my mana coursed through me, a vibrating tension along every limb, every joint, every nerve. I was alive, all of me screaming to move, to strike. And yet… nothing worked.
Because he was there before I could act.
Mid-swing, I felt the shift—like a chess move played before I even saw the board. He appeared behind me before the thought could form in my mind. My eyes followed—but my sword did not.
Then—tap.
A single finger, light as a whisper, yet electrifying. My spine convulsed with it, a jolt that stole my breath, a shock that made my knees tremble.
"My win," he said, small fist raised, thumb pointed to himself. A casual motion, deliberate in its boredom.
And I… I did not process that. Not fully. Not yet.
My legs betrayed me. Face-first, I collided with the earth. Dirt scraped against my cheek, coarse and cold. My vision blurred, but I could still see him, still see the way he moved, still feel the impossible precision that had become his domain.
How did he get behind me? Faster? No… that wasn't it.
It was something else entirely.
Something innate. Something that could not be trained. Something raw. Something natural.
The realization clawed at my mind even as the breath left me, leaving a hollow ache in my chest. He was… born to move this way. Born to exist in the spaces I could not reach.
So what?
Even as despair whispered its poisonous words, my mind spun, searching for any hint, any flaw, any crack in his perfection. My body shook. My breath came in ragged bursts. My hands, slick with sweat and trembling, gripped the sword as if sheer will alone could make it a weapon capable of victory.
And yet, even in this pit of exhaustion and humiliation, one thought remained unbroken:
I would not… yield.