CHAPTER 141: TRAINING DUMMY

Nox woke up. The room was quiet, and the air was still. He could feel his own power humming faintly in the walls, the floor, the ceiling. This room was his Territory, a small, safe space in a world that was not. For the first time, he had slept deeply, without dreams. He felt rested.

He got to his feet and stretched, his muscles coiling with a clean, efficient power. The deep, bone-aching exhaustion from the dungeon was completely gone, a testament to the passive regeneration of his new sanctuary. He opened the door and stepped out. The Sanctuary of the Silver Moon was already active, with Sun Elves moving along the living walkways, their movements quiet.

’Okay, time to face the next boss fight,’ he thought, ’breakfast with the psycho family.’

---

The dining hall was filled with a tense silence. Vexia sat at the head of the long, wooden table, using a small knife to cut a piece of fruit with far too much precision. Elisa was to her right, tearing into a large piece of roasted meat. She kept looking at Nox. Serian sat beside Nox, attempting to make conversation about the weather. Mela was at the far end of the table, stabbing a piece of bread with her fork.

Elisa finally slammed her heavy mug down on the table, and the loud noise made Mela jump. "So, human. You think you’re pretty tough, huh? You beat up a few skeletons, a big dumb wolf in that lich’s trial. Impressive."

Nox swallowed the bite of fish he was chewing. "It was a decent warm-up."

Elisa grinned. "A warm-up? Good. Then you won’t mind a real warm-up with me after we eat. A little spar, just to test your strength."

Vexia did not look up from her fruit. "Elisa, do not assault our guests. It is unseemly."

"I’m not assaulting him, I’m welcoming him to the family! A friendly little scrap is how we say hello."

"I’m not interested." Nox took another bite of his food. "I have better things to do."

"Oh, really? Like what? Brooding in your room all day?" Elisa leaned forward, her elbows on the table. "Or are you scared? Are you afraid you can’t handle a real fight without your little elf helpers?"

’This is so childish,’ Nox thought. ’She is trying to provoke me into a fight.’ It was a simple, obvious taunt, but he did not feel the usual flare of anger. A fight with her was just a waste of time and stamina.

Serian placed a hand on his arm. "Elisa, please. Nox is our guest. He has fought many hard battles to bring me here. He deserves some rest, not challenges."

"That’s exactly why I want to fight him! I need to know if he’s actually strong enough to be traveling with you, or if he just got lucky this whole time." Elisa pushed her chair back and stood up. "Come on, human. Let’s go to the training grounds. Now. Unless you’d rather I just started breaking things in here."

Nox let out a long, slow sigh. ’This is a complete waste of time. But she is not going to let this go. And if I refuse, she will think I am weak, and probably keep trying to provoke me later. It is more efficient to just deal with this now.’

[Analysis: The entity ’Elisa’ is a high-level kinetic combatant,] Liona’s voice reported in his mind. [Her emotional state is highly aggressive and competitive. Refusing the challenge will be perceived as a sign of weakness and may lead to further, more unpredictable provocations. Optimal strategy is to accept the challenge and establish dominance quickly and efficiently.]

’Establish dominance. I like the sound of that.’

He stood up, dropping his fork onto his plate with a clatter. "Fine. You want a fight? You got it." He looked at her. "But if I win, you have to stop talking to me for the rest of the day."

Elisa’s grin widened. "And if I win, you have to be my personal training dummy for a week."

"Deal."

He turned and walked out of the dining hall. Elisa laughed and followed right behind him, cracking her knuckles loudly.

Serian put her head in her hands. "This is not going to end well."

Vexia just continued to cut her fruit, a small piece at a time. ’Good. Now I can get a proper measure of his true capabilities.’

---

The training ground was a simple circle of packed earth. Elisa stood in the center, stretching her arms. She now wore a pair of heavy, silver gauntlets that looked like they could punch through a castle wall. Nox walked into the arena and stood across from her, his hands in his pockets.

"You are not even going to use a weapon?"

"Don’t need one."

Elisa laughed. "Cocky. I like that. It will make breaking you that much more satisfying."

She did not wait for a signal. She charged. Her speed was a shocking blur, and the ground seemed to tremble with each step. She threw a straight right punch, her silver gauntlet aimed directly for his face.

Nox did not try to block it, and he did not dodge.

Reality stuttered around him, and his body shifted a single foot to the left. Elisa’s fist shot past his head, the wind from the powerful blow whipping his hair. Her own momentum carried her forward, and she stumbled, suddenly off-balance.

’Too predictable,’ he thought. ’All power, but no control.’

He did not counter-attack. He just watched her regain her balance.

Elisa spun around, a flicker of surprise in her expression. "Not bad. You are faster than you look."

She came at him again, but this time she unleashed a flurry of punches. Her fists were a blur of silver light, each blow powerful enough to shatter stone. It was a storm of pure, overwhelming force.

Nox did not flicker this time. He just moved. He flowed backward, his feet gliding over the packed earth as he weaved between the punches. Her fists were missing him by inches, sometimes less, but they were always missing.

Vexia, Serian, and Mela were watching from the sidelines.

"He’s not even fighting back," Mela muttered, her arms crossed. "He is just dodging. What is he waiting for?"

"He is not just dodging," Vexia corrected. "He is analyzing. He is learning her attack patterns."

Elisa roared in frustration and threw a kick, a powerful roundhouse aimed at his ribs.

Nox dropped to one knee, the kick sailing over his head. As her leg passed over him, he reached up and tapped the back of her knee with two fingers. It was a light tap, almost gentle, but it was infused with a tiny, focused pulse of void energy.

Elisa’s leg went completely numb. The strength vanished from it in an instant, and she collapsed to the ground in a heap, her leg folding under her at an awkward angle.

The training ground was suddenly silent.

"What... what did you do?" she stammered, trying to push herself up, but her leg refused to obey her commands.

"I turned it off." Nox stood over her. "Your style is inefficient. You waste too much energy on attacks that will never land."

The numbness in her leg began to fade, replaced by a pins-and-needles tingling. She scrambled to her feet. "Inefficient? I’ll show you inefficient!"

A brilliant, golden aura exploded from her body. It was not the pure, holy light of Serian’s power, but a warrior’s aura, a battle-fire that radiated pure physical power. Her muscles seemed to swell, and the silver gauntlets on her hands began to glow.

"That’s her Limit Breaker," Serian whispered. "Sunheart Temper. She is getting serious now."

Elisa charged again, and this time, the very air seemed to crackle around her. She was twice as fast, twice as strong. She threw another punch, and Nox knew he could not just dodge this one.

A jagged pauldron of black, chitinous armor grew from his shoulder a split second before her glowing fist slammed into it.

BOOM.

The impact was an explosion of force and light. Nox was thrown backward, his feet digging trenches in the earth. The armor on his shoulder cracked under the sheer power of the blow.

’Okay,’ he thought, his arm aching from the shock. ’Now we are talking.’

He looked up, and Elisa was already on him again. She was not just a bruiser anymore; she was a natural disaster. The real fight had just begun.

Elisa did not give him a moment to recover. She was on him like a hurricane, her glowing fists a relentless storm. A straight punch was followed by a hook, then an uppercut, each blow carrying enough force to shatter the void-forged armor that was now growing and adapting to cover his body.

CLANG! CRACK! BOOM!

Nox was forced back, his feet sliding across the packed earth. He was not dodging anymore; he was blocking, each impact a jarring shock that vibrated through his bones. The black, chitinous plates of his armor would shatter under a blow, only to regrow a second later, the void hungrily drinking the kinetic energy of her attacks.

"Is this all you can do, human?!" she yelled. "Block?! Fight me!"

’She’s too strong to meet head-on.’ [Opponent’s power output is currently 180% of user’s maximum,] Liona confirmed. [Direct confrontation is not optimal. Evasion and counter-attack strategy required.]

He stopped trying to block. He flickered.

He vanished from in front of her, reappearing behind her back. He did not attack. He just flickered again, appearing to her left, then to her right. He began to move around her in a series of short, unpredictable teleportations, a phantom that she could not track.

Elisa spun around, trying to follow him, her glowing fists punching nothing but empty air. "Stand still and fight, you coward!"

’She is getting angry. Good. Anger makes you sloppy.’

He appeared directly in front of her again, but he did not attack. He just stood there for a split second, his arms at his sides.

She saw the opening and took it, throwing a powerful right hook aimed for his jaw.

He did not flicker away this time. He just dropped his shoulder and let the punch slam into the newly-reformed pauldron. The armor shattered, but it absorbed most of the blow. At the exact same moment of impact, he pivoted, his own right fist, now coated in thick, jagged void-armor, shooting out not at her face, but at her exposed ribs.

It was a perfect counter.

His fist connected with a solid, sickening thud. The golden aura around her flickered violently, and she let out a sharp gasp, the air knocked from her lungs. The blow sent her stumbling back a full ten feet, her hand flying to her side.

"He hit her," Mela whispered from the sidelines. "He actually landed a clean hit on her in her Sunheart state."

Elisa looked down at her side, then back at Nox. "Yes! That’s it! That’s a real hit!"

She charged again, her aura burning even brighter. "More!"

’This entire family is insane.’ He met her charge, and the battle became a brutal, chaotic dance. He would flicker and evade, letting her waste her energy on missed attacks, then flicker back in to land a single, precise, punishing blow on a weak point before vanishing again.

It was a battle of endurance. The berserker against the assassin. The sun against the void.

He landed a hard kick to her leg, making her buckle. She responded with a backhand that sent him sliding across the arena. He recovered and flickered, his armored elbow striking her in the back of the shoulder, making her arm go numb. They were both taking damage now, both breathing heavily. The ground of the arena was a mess of craters and cracked earth.

Vexia watched. ’His combat adaptation is faster than any known human. He is not just reacting; he is predicting. He is learning her style faster than she can adapt her own.’

Elisa jumped back, creating a few feet of space. She was panting, her golden aura flickering, a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. "You are good, human. You are really good."

"You are not so bad yourself, for a meathead."

"But this is over." She slammed her glowing fists together in front of her chest. "Final Art: Supernova."

The golden aura around her compressed, pulled inward until it was a single, blinding point of light held between her gauntlets. The very air in the arena began to vibrate with the sheer, condensed power.

"Nox, get out of there!" Serian screamed. "That is her strongest attack! It will destroy everything!"

[WARNING: Catastrophic energy release detected. Evasive maneuvers will not be sufficient. Probability of survival: 2.7%.]

’So, this is it, huh? A big, final blast. Inefficient.’ He did not flicker, and he did not run.

He just stood his ground. He held his hands out in front of him.

"You are right," he said, his voice quiet. "This is over."

He opened his hands, and the void answered his call. It was not a shield, and it was not a weapon. It was a concept.

A perfect, three-foot sphere of absolute, light-devouring blackness materialized in front of him. It did not hum, and it did not glow. It was just a hole in the universe.

’Monarch’s Dominion.’

The world inside that sphere became his.

Elisa unleashed her attack. The compressed sun in her hands erupted outward in a wave of pure, incandescent destruction that washed across the entire arena.

The wave of golden fire hit the black sphere.

And vanished.

It did not explode, and it did not get blocked. It was just... gone. The sphere of pure void simply drank the Supernova, consuming the cataclysmic blast without a sound, without a ripple.

Elisa stared, her ultimate attack, her final art, just erased from existence. Her Sunheart Temper sputtered and died, leaving her exhausted and completely drained.

The black sphere hung in the air for a moment longer, then it collapsed in on itself and vanished, leaving only Nox, standing there completely unharmed.

He flickered one last time.

He appeared in front of the stunned, exhausted elf.

He did not punch her, and he did not kick her.

He just gently tapped her on the forehead with one finger.

"Tag," he said. "You’re it."

And Elisa, the mighty warrior of the Sun Elves, the bruiser of the Sanctuary, just crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap, completely unconscious.

Nox stood over her, breathing a little heavily. ’Okay, that took a lot out of me too.’

He looked over at his companions.

"I win," he announced. "She’s my training dummy for a week." He then looked at Serian. "Also, you owe me dinner."