The two figures standing motionless moved in the same instant. No feeling-out with opening stances.
No unnecessary preamble.
Su Yu's right foot slammed down onto the super-alloy flooring beneath him.
"Boom—!"
A muffled thunderclap detonated in everyone's ears.
The super-alloy tile under his foot caved inward under the crushing downward force.
A web of fine cracks raced outward from the center of the depression.
Driven by the recoil, his body shot forward like a cannonball tearing free of its barrel.
On the other side, Rita's movement came almost in perfect sync with his.
She didn't stomp down the way Su Yu had.
Her toes brushed the ground, light as a whisper.
Her gray-clad figure skimmed forward, hugging the ground.
The blade of her super-alloy scythe spun once in her palm.
The scythe tore through the air, leaving behind a shrill, piercing shriek.
"Clang—!!!"
Longsword met scythe. Right at the center of the drill field, the two weapons crashed together with brutal, unadorned force.
The violent clash of metal turned into a visible wave of sound, rippling outward in every direction.
Where the blades met, a burst of blinding orange sparks erupted.
The sparks scattered and burst apart against the night sky.
Fragments scattered outward, pattering onto the alloy floor with a faint sizzling hiss.
The first phase of the clash had reached its climax in that single thunderous impact.
The two broke apart the instant they touched.
Su Yu's arm recoiled, riding the force of the rebound.
He didn't retreat.
His left foot stepped forward again, the muscles of his waist coiling with power.
The longsword swept upward from below, angled at a wicked slant toward Rita's abdomen.
Rita twisted her body in midair, forcing the turn through sheer control.
She reversed her grip on the scythe's haft, bracing it steady against the rising blade.
The grinding scrape of steel on steel set everyone's teeth on edge.
At the edge of the drill field, Siegfried stood at the outermost ring of onlookers.
His eyes were wide, fixed unblinking on the center of the field.
"Is this still a human fight??" Siegfried muttered under his breath.
Of everyone present capable of fighting, Siegfried's raw combat strength currently ranked dead last.
His eyes could barely catch two afterimages weaving endlessly through the air.
One black. One gray.
He couldn't make out how Su Yu drew his sword, nor how Rita swung her scythe.
All he could hear was the unbroken, deafening clash of metal on metal.
Every time the sound rang out, a burst of sparks was sure to follow.
Siegfried tried to imagine himself standing in the middle of that field.
He arrived at a conclusion quickly.
If he were the one standing there—
—the very first clash of weapons would have shattered both his arm bones outright from the recoil alone.
And within the next three seconds, that super-alloy scythe would have opened his throat without the slightest resistance.
"Too fast." Siegfried clenched his fists.
His gaze shifted. Susannah and Sin Mal stood side by side.
Both had only recently opened their first-stage Genetic Locks.
Their dynamic vision and neural Reaction Speed now far exceeded ordinary human limits.
Susannah's breathing had gone short and quick.
Her eyes tracked the paths the two fighters carved through the field.
Within the [Bullet Time] her first-stage Genetic Lock granted—
—the two combatants' movements slowed into something like frame-by-frame stills.
She could see clearly now.
She saw that even as Su Yu swung his blade, his knee bent at an angle that defied any normal biomechanics, dodging the shin of Rita's spinning kick.
She saw that the instant her scythe was blocked, Rita's wrist flipped, using the barb on the scythe's back edge to hook toward Su Yu's wrist.
"Gulp." Susannah swallowed hard.
Her mind raced.
She tried to map the combat techniques she'd learned in training onto the fight unfolding in front of her.
It was useless. Every attack, every defense the two of them made—
—fell far outside anything a textbook could define.
This was combat instinct stripped of every formal flourish, born purely for killing and destruction.
The smallest misstep—
—and the fight would end in the next instant.
Sin Mal narrowed her eyes.
Both hands jammed deep into the pockets of her training uniform.
Her palms were sweating inside those pockets.
She'd always prided herself on her fighting strength — never once lost a scrap back at the orphanage.
But now—
—watching the gray scythe carve its arc of death through the air—
Sin arrived at a clear verdict.
If she'd been standing in Su Yu's place—
—she wouldn't have survived even a single strike from Rita.
That scythe would split her in two, blade included, without the slightest effort.
"A monster." Sin ground the words out through clenched teeth.
The fight raged on.
The alloy floor was now a mess of gouges and scoring.
Each one cut several centimeters deep.
They'd been carved raw by the sheer overflow of force from the duel.
Kevin stood with his arms crossed over his chest.
Twenty meters back from the center of the field.
He paid no attention to the flashy sparks and afterimages. His focus was entirely on their footwork and points of force generation.
"Su Yu's force generation is pure," Kevin thought, analyzing.
With every strike, the power traveled from the soles of his feet up through his waist before converging in his arm and the edge of his blade.
It was force distilled to its purest form — not a fraction of it leaked away.
Combined with his current, almost terrifying physical Reaction Speed—
—he swung an ordinary standard-issue Anti-Entropy longsword with the crushing weight of something that could split a hillside.
But then Kevin's gaze shifted to Rita.
Her movements were nothing like Su Yu's.
There wasn't a single stiff pause in anything she did.
In her hands the scythe wasn't a weapon so much as an extension of her own body.
Every time Su Yu unleashed a storm of blows, Rita slipped past them with the barest minimum of motion.
Even as the sword's edge grazed past her nose, her scythe was already using the opening in his attack to slide, silent and unseen, toward his ribs.
"Rita's controlling the rhythm of the fight," Kevin concluded.
Su Yu fought like a ferocious beast.
And Rita was a hunter of matchless experience.
Every lunge of the beast could tear apart the terrain around it.
But the hunter, through exquisite footwork and precise blocks, always managed to redirect that raw power into empty air.
As time wore on, the first phase's unreserved, head-on collision came to an end.
The fight moved into its second phase.
Su Yu began to fall behind.
It was exactly what everyone had expected.
In his targeted training, Su Yu had blended Tai Xu Sword Qi, Hokushin Itto-ryu, and an array of assassination techniques into one seamless whole.
But the woman he faced had steeped herself in these killing arts for countless days and nights.
In a pure contest of body and skill—
—a gulf of experience that vast couldn't be closed by a few months of crash training.
Rita's offense shifted.
She stopped meeting Su Yu's sword head-on.
Her scythe's line of attack turned strange, unpredictable.
Su Yu drove his blade straight at Rita's chest.
She didn't retreat.
Her body moved like a boneless snake.
The instant before the blade would have touched her clothing, her upper body folded sideways to the right at an impossibly pliant angle.
The thrust met only empty air.
In the same instant, the sole of Rita's left foot shifted silently against the ground.
Riding the momentum of her fall to the right, she closed the distance to Su Yu in an instant.
The scythe's long haft slid through her palm.
She caught it at the very end of the shaft.
The great blade rose like a gray crescent moon, sweeping up silently from an angle almost flush with the ground — a dead zone no defense could cover.
Its target: the hollow beneath Su Yu's right arm.
An absolute blind spot in any human guard.
"What exquisite technique." Cecilia, standing at the edge of the field, watched Rita's counterattack unfold.
No sound. No hint of killing intent leaking through.
The strike blended seamlessly into the night.
Even the whistle of the blade cutting air had been deliberately suppressed to almost nothing.
This was technique honed to its ultimate refinement, born and forged for one purpose alone — killing.
Against a strike like this, the slightest misjudged defense would sever Su Yu's entire right arm clean at the root.
Cecilia's gaze locked tight onto Su Yu.
She wanted to see how he would break the deadlock.
With less than ten centimeters left between the scythe's gray gleam and Su Yu's underarm—
—Su Yu moved.
He didn't choose to retreat.
Rita's footwork had already sealed off every possible line of retreat.
Retreating would only lose him his balance completely, leaving him helpless as meat on a chopping block.
Su Yu's right hand — the one gripping the sword — snapped open.
The longsword dropped into free fall.
His right hand was empty now.
His arm folded inward at blinding speed, driving his elbow down with brutal force.
"Thud!"
Su Yu's elbow slammed precisely into the middle of the scythe's shaft.
The impact carried tremendous weight.
That sheer force redirected the scythe's rising arc entirely.
The blade grazed past the outside of Su Yu's arm.
It left a long slash across his tactical jacket, but didn't touch skin or flesh.
And in that brief window of the exchange—
—the free-falling longsword dropped exactly into position for his left hand to catch.
Su Yu caught it left-handed, gripping the hilt reversed.
He yanked the blade back sharply.
Its edge now pointed straight at the back of Rita's neck.
The tables had turned in an instant.
Rita's trademark smile didn't waver.
She didn't even turn her head.
Her right hand yanked hard at the end of the scythe's haft.
The great scythe carved a full circle through the air.
The flat back of the blade slammed hard into Su Yu's incoming sword.
"Clang!" Sparks burst out once more.
Riding the rebound, both of them slid backward five or six meters.
Four deep skid marks scored the alloy floor.
The second phase of the clash was over.
The two put distance between themselves once more.
On the surface, Su Yu appeared to be locked in a defensive struggle.
The slash across his tactical jacket was proof of how narrowly he'd survived that last exchange.
Kiana stood beside Siegfried.
Her eyes stayed fixed, unblinking, on the black-clad man in the center of the field.
She could tell Su Yu was losing ground.
Every time Rita's scythe grazed past Su Yu's body, her heart clenched violently. Several times she nearly cried out.
But she forced herself to stay silent.
This was a duel between warriors.
As a bystander, any sound she made would only be a distraction.
"Please don't get hurt!!" Kiana pleaded silently in her mind.
She knew Su Yu was strong.
In her eyes, he was the kind of person who could handle any trouble.
But right now, the one he faced was Rita —
— the woman who, in the Honkai world, had for years sat at the very apex of Schicksal's Valkyrie combat-strength pyramid.
— also the same overkill queen who'd once turned her own Valkyrie qualification exam into a one-sided massacre.
Welt Yang leaned on his custom-made cane.
Watching the two locked in their standoff, he pushed his glasses up.
"Quite the spectacle."
Welt Yang was a man of extreme rationality.
He knew that countless factors decided the outcome of any battle.
Technique, Strength, Reaction Speed — these were the hard metrics.
But beyond those, there were things that couldn't be seen.
Command of the flow of battle, for one.
Mental composure in a life-or-death instant, for another.
Or the ability to read an opponent's mind before they moved.
Welt noticed something sharp: even while losing ground in that last exchange, Su Yu had shown no trace of panic.
He looked like he was fighting purely on the defensive.
But with every block, his footwork edged toward some specific position.
He was steering the rhythm of Rita's attacks.
He was laying a net.
The fight entered its third phase.
Su Yu gripped the sword with both hands.
The blade's tip angled toward the ground.
He launched the attack himself.
Faster than before.
Stronger than before.
This was an all-or-nothing style, defense abandoned entirely, every ounce of power poured into offense.
The smile in Rita's eyes deepened.
She swung her scythe to meet Su Yu's storm of blows.
The two of them moved rapidly across the field.
Sword and scythe clashed again and again in midair, sparks merging into a blinding curtain of light.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
After thirty consecutive, high-intensity collisions—
—Su Yu's movements showed the faintest hitch.
As his right foot stepped back, it seemed to catch on a shard of metal debris kicked up earlier in the fight.
His body froze for the barest instant.
The angle of his swing drifted five degrees off.
It was a fatal opening.
To an assassin of Rita's caliber, an opening like that shone as bright as a searchlight in the dead of night.
The gap yawned wide open.
Rita didn't let the chance slip by.
Her gray figure closed the distance in an instant. The scythe became a blur, breaking straight through the longsword's guard.
The great blade drove straight for Su Yu's throat.
The strike came at the absolute peak of speed.
In everyone's eyes, there was nowhere left for Su Yu to dodge.
"Damn it!" Siegfried shouted.
With the blade five centimeters from Su Yu's throat—
—Su Yu did something that defied every law of physics.
His body didn't lean back to dodge.
Instead, pivoting on his left foot, he bent his upper body violently backward.
His torso folded into an impossible angle.
The razor-sharp blade swept past, grazing the tip of his nose.
It clipped off a few strands of black hair.
In that same instant of bending back—
—Su Yu's right foot kicked hard off the ground.
The tremendous recoil propelled his bent body forward.
Instead of retreating, he surged in.
He crashed straight into Rita, right into her guard.
This was one of the most dangerous close-quarters counters in the entire art of assassination.
The distance between them shrank to nothing in an instant.
At that range, the long-hafted super-alloy scythe lost all room to swing.
Su Yu's left hand shot out, clamping down on the wrist gripping the haft.
At the same instant, the longsword in his right hand spun in midair.
The counterweight ball at the end of the hilt slammed hard toward Rita's flank.
Rita's reaction was blindingly fast.
The instant her wrist was seized, she let go of the scythe.
Her left hand formed a blade, chopping toward Su Yu's throat.
Both of their movements froze in midair.
For that instant, time seemed to stop.
Su Yu's left hand held Rita's right wrist in an iron grip.
His right hand held the sword, its hilt's end frozen less than a centimeter from the kidney at Rita's side.
And Rita's left-hand blade-strike rested, edge pressed flush against the skin of Su Yu's Adam's apple.
A draw?
No.
The corner of Su Yu's mouth curved upward.
The sword in his hand hadn't stopped moving.
Even as its hilt hovered at Rita's side, the sword's blade — that razor-sharp length of steel —
— had, at some point neither of them had noticed, curved silently around Rita's shoulder.
Its edge now lay flat against the artery on the pale side of Rita's neck.
One small twitch of Su Yu's wrist—
—and the blade would slice the vessel open.
Dead silence fell over the field.
Only the sound of their labored breathing crossed back and forth in the air.
The outcome was decided.
That was what a fight truly was.
Technique alone was never the whole of it. Mindset, judgment, reading an opponent's psychology —
— even the "luck" of deliberately baiting a fatal opening in that last exchange, gambling that the opponent would take it —
All of it combined was what made up a person's true combat strength.
Su Yu had used the very assassination techniques Rita herself had taught him — baiting her with a razor-thin opening to draw out her fatal strike—
— then exploited that same opening to force a close-quarters counterattack.
Turning her own methods back against her.
He'd won, by the narrowest of margins.
But that didn't mean his technique and skill now surpassed Rita's.
If this had been a real fight to the death, with no restriction against using special abilities—
—the outcome would have been far harder to predict.
Su Yu withdrew the longsword.
He released his grip on Rita's wrist.
and stepped back twice.
He spun the blade in a flourish.
"Click." The System's armament slot opened, and the longsword vanished into thin air.
Rita drew back her left hand.
She smoothed her hair, mussed slightly from the fight.
The super-alloy scythe folded in her grip and returned to its place at her waist.
She straightened, looking at Su Yu.
A gratified smile spread across her face.
It was the pride and satisfaction unique to a teacher watching a student she'd trained with her own hands grow ever more accomplished — one who, in some respects, could now outwit and even surpass her.
The student had surpassed the master.
Rita raised her right hand and pressed it to her chest.
She leaned forward slightly.
and offered Su Yu a flawless maid's curtsy.
"Truly magnificent, Master Su Yu."
"Your grasp and application of assassination technique has already exceeded my expectations. In mindset and judgment as well, you've shown outstanding composure."
"I hereby declare, Master Su Yu, that you have officially completed this course."
"— Congratulations on your graduation."
Su Yu looked at Rita.
That intense clash had drained a tremendous amount of his physical stamina and spiritual power.
Sweat covered his forehead.
His breathing came a little quick.
But his mood was good.
The weight that had pressed on his chest allthis time finally lifted with the victory of this fight.
Deep in his mind, Fenghuang's voice rose up.
"Well done." There was a rare note of amusement in Fenghuang's voice.
"You've grown so much stronger than you were back then. That whole combo you used to break the deadlock — the timing and angle were both perfect."
Fenghuang paused.
"But remember..."
"Don't get complacent, right?"
Su Yu answered with a laugh through the Spiritual Link, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"Got it, Squad Monitor. I know I'm still a ways off from the real monsters out there. I'll take a shower when I get back, and then we can keep sparring in the consciousness space, heh heh!"
"Oh, you." Fenghuang laughed and scolded him. "Enough talk. You won this one — go enjoy everyone's praise for once instead of putting on this diligent act for me!"
Su Yu cut the Spiritual Link.
He turned and walked toward the onlookers at the edge of the field.
Susannah was the first to rush over.
She jogged the whole way, coming to a stop right in front of him.
"Commander!" Susannah's voice brimmed with excitement. "That was so cool just now! That last bend-back, and how the sword curved around to Instructor Rita's neck — that move was insane! Can you teach me?!"
Susannah waved her hands through the air, trying to mimic Su Yu's movements, but her stiff limbs made it look more like she was doing calisthenics.
Sin Mal stood a few steps behind her.
Her eyes were fixed on Su Yu, unmasked worship for raw strength shining in them.
It was the instinctive longing of a child raised in a world of survival of the fittest — a yearning for power that could overwhelm everything else.
Siegfried strode over, threw an arm around Su Yu's shoulders, and clapped him hard twice.
"You little bastard are a damn monster."
He jabbed a thumb back toward the field.
"I was watching from over there. Honestly, I couldn't make out a thing in the second half — one second you're going at it, and the next you've got that sword against her neck."
Siegfried shook his head.
"Keep this up and we won't even need the mechs and the army. You could stand there all by yourself and mop up every last Honkai Beast — save the whole world single-handed!"
Su Yu coughed twice from the force of the slaps.
"Uncle, come on, that's way too much." Su Yu pried Siegfried's hand off. "I only won by the skin of my teeth. If I actually faced a wave of Honkai Beasts blotting out the sky, this little bit of strength wouldn't even make a ripple."
Kiana walked over slowly.
She came to a stop in front of him.
"Mm." Kiana cleared her throat, her eyes darting off to the side. "Not bad, I guess."
She scuffed the toe of her shoe against the ground.
"Though... you're still a tiny bit short of my prime. But getting this far in just half a month — you should be proud of yourself!"
A small white crumb clung to the corner of Kiana's mouth.
It was left over from the cream cake Cecilia had fed her while they waited for the match to start.
Su Yu smiled.
Without thinking, he reached out and brushed a finger lightly across the corner of her mouth.
wiping away the crumb.
"A big girl like you." Su Yu drew his hand back. "Not even minding your image out in public — getting cake crumbs all over your face."
Kiana froze.
She could still feel the warmth of his finger where it had touched her lips.
Her face turned instantly, brilliantly red, like a boiled crab.
The flush spread all the way to the tips of her ears.
"Wh— what was that for, all of a sudden!"
Kiana lurched backward, both hands flying up to cover her face.
"There— there are so many people watching!"
Her voice stammered from sheer embarrassment.
Standing nearby, Siegfried immediately started fanning his face with his hand.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Siegfried twisted his mouth, disgust plastered all over his face. "That sour, mushy stink — I can't stand it! Get out of here, both of you, quit cluttering up the view. Leave some fresh air for me and Cecilia!"
Kevin, standing beside Siegfried, shot Su Yu a knowing look that said I get it.
That all-seeing gaze made the corner of Su Yu's eye twitch.
Bronie's voice came through the comm channel in his earpiece.
"Whooo—" A sharp, loud wolf-whistle.
Cecilia stepped forward, smiling, and reached out a hand.
ruffling Kiana's long white hair a couple of times.
Kiana buried her face in Cecilia's shoulder and absolutely refused to look up.
Welt walked over, leaning on his cane.
"Siegfried." Welt's voice was calm and unhurried. "Why do I get the feeling that, next to you — the official 'father' — Su Yu's role here feels a lot more like an exhausted guardian who's worried himself sick?"
Siegfried's weathered face flushed red instantly.
"Old Yang! What's that supposed to mean! Are you mocking me?! You want to go a round right now?!"
Welt smiled faintly.
He set the metal cane down with a heavy thud.
"Are you sure?" Welt looked at Siegfried.
Siegfried stared at the cane.
He suddenly remembered — just a few days ago, inside the holographic simulation pod—
—he'd seen with his own eyes how Welt used this unassuming cane to pinch a black hole bigger than a basketball into being, right in midair.
That black hole had crushed a decommissioned Titan mech down into a metal disc in three seconds flat.
Siegfried swallowed hard.
He took a half-step back.
"Damn it." Siegfried muttered a curse. "You four-eyed bastard already had a mind full of tricks, and now your combat power's shot up too — I don't even want to imagine how sinister you've gotten!"
"Hahahaha..." At Siegfried's grudging concession—
—laughter erupted all along the edge of the field.
The tension that had built up over these past days of intense training and the looming apocalyptic crisis was swept away in that single moment.
The mood turned instantly bright and easy.
Amid all that laughter—
—a translucent screen popped up silently before Su Yu's eyes.
A new quest settlement interface unfolded across it.
Amid a flourish of gaudy golden effects—
—that shamelessly flippant System voice rang out in Su Yu's mind.
[Ayo! Congratulations, esteemed Host!]
[After two straight months of hellish tutelage under the beautiful, icy head maid Rita, you have finally awakened the female — ahem, cough — I mean, you've successfully transformed into a qualified assassin!]
[That reversal combo was pulled off so smoothly! But come on, confess to your great and selfless System.]
[Over these past two months of training, every time Instructor Rita ground you into the dirt, weren't you sneaking peeks up her skirt?]
[And just now, seeing Instructor Rita show up in a full-coverage combat suit instead of her trademark maid outfit — weren't you actually a little disappointed? Feeling that hollow void of a major perk lost?]
Su Yu stared at the rows of infuriatingly punchable text on the screen.
The corner of his mouth twitched violently twice.
He answered silently in his mind.
"Damn System."
That shamelessly smug System voice carried on.
[Don't be discouraged, Host — since you've worked so hard, your foster father is here to hand you a great big reward~]
[In recognition of your outstanding performance in your graduation course, your Bond with Rita has achieved a brand-new breakthrough!]
[Current Bond rank raised: RANK 7 —— RANK 8.]
[Note: this rank unlocks a hidden CG event. Host, please make full use of your own initiative and improvise freely~]
Su Yu's eyebrow rose at the notice.
A hidden CG? What kind of borderline nonsense was the System pulling now.
The text on the screen scrolled onward.
[At the same time, a follow-up main-line derivative quest is now issued.]
[Quest brief: Host, you haven't forgotten, have you? The Valkyrie armor "Shadow Iron" is already being assembled, its dedicated weapon-scythe is ready, and the Imaginary energy core is finished.]
[So then — that "Aphrodite" Stigmata set you spent well over a hundred thousand Emotion Points redeeming from the System Store — isn't it about time it got put to use?]
Su Yu blinked at the quest description.
"Stigmata?" he asked the System in his mind. "The thing's sitting in my System inventory, but how does it actually work? Do I just hand it to her?"
The System let out a series of human-like tsk-tsk sounds. It sounded exactly like some sleazy old man.
[Just hand it to her? You think this is some New Year's gift exchange? Stigmata are power sigils inscribed onto a Valkyrie's very body! After you inject it using the item I gave you earlier, it still needs close contact with you — the one and only relay station traveling alongside Imaginary energy — to activate. Which means, Host, it needs you. Using those two hands of yours, fresh from that fight.]
That line of red text suddenly grew larger.
[DI-RECT PHYSICAL SKIN CONTACT with the Valkyrie, to brand it into her at the physical level!]
[Now issuing Rita's exclusive Bond quest — "Tonight Is Still Long"]
[Objective: at exactly midnight tonight, Host, push open the door to Rita's room. Then... heh heh heh~ begin your Stigmata branding ritual!]
Su Yu stared at those three "heh heh heh"s and rolled his eyes so hard in his mind it practically hurt.
Issuing equipment to a subordinate, boosting her combat strength — this was supposed to be a sacred, solemn undertaking, one bound up with humanity's very survival against the coming apocalypse.
So how, coming out of this damn System's mouth, had it turned into some kind of unspeakable casting-couch arrangement?
Even as Su Yu grumbled about the System being shameless as ever—
—the others were still trading jabs, getting ready to break up and head out.
Su Yu turned away, stepping into the shadows beside the perimeter fence.
He pulled the comm terminal from his pocket.
His fingers tapped quickly across the screen.
He pulled up the contact labeled [Rita] in his address book.
and hit send.
On the other side of the base—
—Rita, just heading toward the changing room, felt her wrist-terminal give a light buzz.
She raised her wrist and lit up the screen.
Just a short line of text.
[I'll come find you at exactly midnight. I've got a surprise about a Stigmata for you. See you then.]
____
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