CHAPTER 249: WARRIOR’S EYE

His words rang in Dylan’s skull, mixing with the buzz of pain and the metallic taste in his mouth. "Force your opponent to show himself." It wasn’t a lesson in fighting — it was a revelation. Julius wasn’t teaching him how to fight; he was teaching him to see.

And suddenly Dylan saw.

He saw the slight tilt of Julius’s torso, ready to absorb or to counter. He saw the position of his feet, planted but subtly shifted, ready to pivot. He saw the staff, held with an arrogance that bordered on mastery — an extension of the man, both weapon and shield.

But most of all, he saw the trap. Julius expected another feint, a smarter, more considered attack. He expected Dylan to play strategist. He expected a pupil who followed the lesson.

Dylan decided to teach him instead.

He drew a deep, burning breath and seemed to freeze. All the agitation inside him drained away, replaced by an eerie, almost frightening calm. His gray eyes, washed clean by pain and failure, never left Julius’s. He no longer watched muscles, weapons, angles. He watched the man.

Then he surged forward again.

But this was not the calculated charge from before. It was something more primal, more direct. A determined advance, almost slow, as if he were walking toward his fate. There was no feint in his eyes, no cunning in his body. Only absolute conviction.

Intrigued, Julius raised his staff slightly, expecting a high strike. It was logical. It was what any rational opponent would do.

Dylan ignored the staff.

At the last moment, as he closed into range of the weapon that had so wounded him, he didn’t try to parry, block, or dodge. He threw himself into the blow.

He spun on himself, offering his shoulder and back to the staff as it fell with a dull, terrible thud. Pain exploded — white, blinding, a lightning bolt that nearly toppled him. A hoarse cry tore from his chest, which he turned into a roar.

He had chosen to take the hit. He had used Julius’s own force against him, turning it into a pivot, an anchor. The impact hurled him forward, but his momentum remained controlled, directed.

Julius, taken aback by this brutal acceptance of pain, hesitated for the slimmest fraction of a second. His arm was committed to the strike, his balance slightly off.

That was all Dylan needed.

As the wood smashed onto his shoulder blade, his own arm — sprung tight from too long a compression — snapped out. It was not a wild punch but an open palm driven by the weight of his body and his willed suffering. He struck not the jaw but Julius’s solar plexus.

The blow landed with an odd stillness. A muffled "oof" escaped the giant.

Julius’s clear eyes widened in pure disbelief. Surprise, then the ripple of an internal shock. His breath cut out. He staggered back, then back again, the staff slipping from his fingers and thudding onto the soft earth.

The silence that followed was louder than any battle cry. Dylan, his right arm hanging useless, shoulder aflame, gasped for breath. He watched Julius, who for the first time had lost his composure. The giant hunched forward, one hand on his belly, fighting for air.

Very slowly, Julius rose. Pain lined his features, erasing for a moment his usual coldness. He looked at Dylan—really looked. He no longer saw a raging pupil or a wounded animal. He saw a warrior.

A deep, guttural approving growl came from his throat. "Good."

The single word landed like an ovation.

He bent, wincing, and picked up his staff. He didn’t raise it. He held it at his side.

"You understood," he said in a lower voice, stripped of mockery. "You used my force. Your pain. You took a calculated risk. You hit not to hurt, but to win."

He stepped forward. Dylan didn’t back away.

"That wasn’t luck. It was a choice."

He stopped in front of Dylan, still towering by size, but diminished in presence. The balance had shifted.

"That’s your first victory. Not making me back off." Julius tapped his own plexus with a fist. "It’s knowing what to strike and why."

A faint, real smile ghosted his lips.

"Next time, aim lower. Or higher. But never repeat the same successful strike twice."

Without another word, Julius turned his back and walked slowly to the edge of the clearing, leaving Dylan alone — victorious and shattered — in the middle of the field.

Dylan watched his master’s retreating back. The pain in his shoulder burned with each thud of his heart. He had blood on his lips and dust in his eyes.

Yet for the first time, a deep calm washed over him. He didn’t smile, didn’t scream triumph. He had won — not against Julius, but against himself.

He’d just taken his first true victory.

As Dylan savored that fragile triumph, a heavy sound echoed behind him. The clump of footsteps, accompanied by the irregular clinking of something banging as it moved, grew closer.

He turned. Julius was coming back, carrying what looked like a mountain of stones in his arms. Some tumbled free as he walked, clattering softly on the ground, but the giant seemed unfazed. When he reached the clearing’s center he let the load fall in a block. Rocks rolled and bounced, scattering with a dull crash and a puff of dust.

Dylan blinked, dumbfounded. Still breathless and sweating, he watched this absurdity. Julius, silent as ever, stooped and picked up the stones that had fallen. His movements were precise, almost meticulous, as if that sorting were driven by logic Dylan could not yet grasp.

Without a word, Julius rearranged each stone into small piles, forming an ordered mound. Only when satisfied did he lift his head. The look he leveled at Dylan had returned to its old, glacial coldness — whatever warmth had briefly surfaced was gone.

"It was a good thing you managed to touch me," he said evenly, gravely. After a pause, his lips twisted into an enigmatic half-smile. "Now we continue. Same conditions... with a slight change." A flicker of mischief passed his eyes. "Heh heh heh."

Dylan frowned, uneasy — and before he could ask, Julius weighed a pebble in his palm. With terrifying ease he flung it. Not exactly aimed at Dylan, not exactly random either. The air itself roared; the rock cut through it with a deep, animal sound.

A sharp crack split the clearing. A branch exploded a millimeter from Dylan’s temple, spraying wood and bark across his face.

He froze, breath stalled, mind blank. His heart hammered like it would burst.

Julius stepped forward, plucked another stone and let it rest in his hand. His voice came calm and relentless, like a verdict:

"Consider these stones arrows on a battlefield."

He raised his arm slowly, ready to throw again.

"You do not get to be hit. And you must come and strike me... or force me to use my weapon."

A predatory smile — unmistakeably a threat — bent his mouth.

"So, kid... let’s see if you can survive the rain."