With his soon-to-be wife's urging, Reivan became more partial to accepting Lady Iselle's request.

  "Eh, what's the harm? Y'know, other than the physical harm I'll no doubt suffer..." Reivan scratched his head as he sized up his supposed opponent. "I guess you're already dressed for a spar, Lady Iselle. That looks good on you, by the way. Breeches. Nice. Very nice."

  Helen threw a suspicious glare at him, but he expertly pretended that he didn't notice.

  At his praise, Iselle's brows shot up a little before she schooled her expression and smiled demurely. "Thank you. Jiji helped me avoid making a fool of myself by dressing weirdly. Human fashion is so... diverse. It's amazing but also overwhelming, what with all the choices."

  The inner courtyard they were in right now was very spacious precisely because this was a kingdom of knights and it begged to differ that royalty would practice combat skills too. As such, they moved to the middle and stood in position, with Helen and Jiji standing to the side as referees.

  "Yani," Jiji called out with a smile. "The darkin have actually sparred with our knights on previous occasions. I'd advise you not to underestimate them."

  'Huh. Guess they're pretty capable if she's putting it that way.'

  Reivan never underestimated them in the first place. The darkin was a race that somehow survived in one of the most unfriendly environments he knew of.

  Naturally, they weren't pushovers. That said, they had only been fighting monsters with questionable intellect this whole time. Their combat skills and experience most likely focused on eliminating those monsters.

  Ironically, knights weren't all that different these days, since most of the time they were clearing out nightmare spawns close to the portal. At their core, however, knights were professionals in anti-personnel combat.

  And Reivan had trained extensively to be one of them. Maybe he didn't have a lot of actual combat experience fighting other humans, but still.

  'I never underestimated them, but I'm still sure that we're better in this particular field.'

  Helen's eyes met his and he could read the confidence that he'd win in her gaze. Or rather, it seemed as if she was telling him to win just with her eyes.

  Only when he nodded to assure her that he'd try his best did she turn to his opponent. "Lady Iselle."

  "Ah, yes...?" The darkin lady turned to look at Helen with mild surprise at suddenly being addressed.

  Helen seemed to think over her words for a moment before speaking. "Reivan is really strong. So you should be careful too."

  Since he wasn't deaf, he naturally heard her. And her words really helped stoke his ego. Which man didn't want his woman to think he was awesome? Especially since Helen herself was so formidable too.

  "Thank you for your warning, Lady Helen," Iselle said as she bowed. "I have heard plenty of good things about His Highness' prowess. Needless to say, I have come here prepared to lose."

  Then the darkin looked at him with a smile.

  "But I will not be making it easy for him."

  Jiji whistled as she threw a coin up far into the air. "Them's fighting words, Yani. She's serious. Better be ready. The fight starts when the coin touches the ground!"

  Reivan chuckled awkwardly, but even he felt a little excited. "Then should I do it seriously too?"

  Lady Iselle nodded twice. "Please do so, Your Highness. There's no need to hold back. I'm quite durable, despite how I look."

  Reivan thought about taking her up on her offer for a bit. In the back of his mind, he thought that he should restrain some of the skills that he wanted to keep secret so as to surprise anyone aiming for his life. But he'd met with Donovan lately and the most proficient bald instructor had advised him to start inching away from the mindset of holding back.

  There was merit in keeping one's trump cards a secret, but one couldn't get used to holding back. Else, one might unconsciously do so when in real combat situations.

  It was fine if they were still students and trainees, since it would force them to develop more skills and increase their combat versatility. But Reivan was no longer a trainee. And the place he was going to wasn't going to be as peaceful as the kingdom's capital.

  Donovan made him switch priorities in his training. Acquiring and developing more weapons was no longer needed—now he had to sharpen the blades he already had, so to speak.

  And the way to do that was to keep on fighting to the limits of one's capabilities and gradually pushing forward.

  'Sadly, there hasn't been anyone I could really beat up, since the people I spar with are all...'

  One was his fiancee, who may or may not end up pregnant before their wedding. They have been doing it without contraceptives for a while now. Obviously, he had been extremely conscious of avoiding anywhere near her stomach when they fought.

  The others were Gwen, whose health was paramount in ensuring his personal affairs were in order. Jiji, who was far weaker than him and would probably die in training if he really went full force. And Hector, who was in a similar boat to Jiji.

  He could pull some other knights, but the strong mortal ones were mostly sent to the three Forts in preparation for something or to Lageton. The capital was oversaturated with Ascendant knights though, but those wouldn't provide good combat experience.

  The darkin's suggestion was right on time.

  "Ah," Reivan gasped, remembering that he still set a line. Even if they were treating this seriously, there should always be a limit because neither wanted the other dead.

  Before he could say anything, however, Iselle clenched her fists to her chest. "I will treat this spar as if my life depends on it."

  "Eh? Wait a minute... That's not really how a spar works, you know...? Wait, let's—"

  But before he could finish his words, a golden coin glimmered under the light of the sun as it struck the ground with a soft thump.

  'Fuck.'

  Reivan was forced to dodge to the side when a black streak of darkness shot past where his stomach had been. Deciding to hold off on finding out what the projectile was, he had his soul armament conjure an armor of thick plate around his body before grabbing empty air.

  As his hand closed, a spear's handle appeared in his grip. It extended to fully turn into a halberd.

  'She's probably going to fly, so I'll need a weapon with reach.'

  He could go for a bow if she ever flew too high, but a polearm could be thrown and was a decent dueling weapon.

  When he looked at his opponent, he saw that her beautiful black wings were spread outward and her entire body was covered in what appeared to be flames.

  Ebony flames.

  'Holy shit, does she have a black flame dragon sealed in her arm or something...?'

  Jokes aside, the heat radiating off her felt as if there was a naked flame licking his skin. This was despite her being a few dozen paces away, so he decided that it would be incredibly ill-advised to get too close. Iselle didn't seem like an opponent one took out in a slug fight.

  'Perfect. I wanted to test a few things.'

  To start things off, he lobbed his spear toward her, casually breaking the sound barrier as he created a bit more distance.

  Iselle's wings flexed and flapped downward with tremendous force faster than he ever thought they could. She shot upward so fast that his spear completely missed her, bouncing off the palace wall like a toy stick. In her current form, her features were obscured, hidden in an armor of black fire. Only her eyes weren't covered in the strange flames, appearing simply as glowing motes of crimson lights—truly the look of some evil demonic being. Even her feathers looked like they had been set aflame.

  As he thought about how it was such a waste to burn such a beautiful pair of wings, Reivan conjured a bow and started pelting her with arrows. Simultaneously, he conjured sixteen floating swords all around him, each ready to shoot toward whatever direction she evaded.

  Who would have thought that she wouldn't dodge at all, merely wrapping herself in her large wings and taking the arrow head-on? There was a surprisingly metallic noise as his arrow just pinged off and was utterly disintegrated by the flames wrapped around her.

  'Yikes. Looks like touching her isn’t going to be pleasant.'

  That arrow burned down a little too fast for comfort considering how the flames didn't look that intense. Though made through the power of his soul armament, that arrow had been metal too. Yet it was disintegrated in moments.

  Still, Reivan thought it was a good probing attack. He somewhat ascertained how dangerous the flames were and discovered that the part the arrow struck was temporarily devoid of flames at the moment after the collision.

  It was a fact that would aid in creating an opportunity to hit her where it hurt.

  Reivan was just about to send another arrow to test her out even more, while also sending all his spears toward her unmoving form. But then something happened.

  Iselle's wings suddenly unfurled with great exertion as she spun once. It was a movement filled with grace and poise, making him want to take a moment to admire the view.

  But in her one fluid motion, countless little daggers of flame were scattered in the air, each pointed menacingly at him. He thought they might be her feathers, but in the end, that didn't really matter. Because no matter what those tiny little daggers were truly made of, he'd be a goner if he didn't defend.

  In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but think she was being a bit unfair. Sure, he was the first one to conjure a bunch of floating projectiles, but even he couldn't summon that many.

  'I hope she remembers not to kill me...'

  There was no use dodging or turning into an element to be momentarily invulnerable, so Reivan prepared a defensive skill. Or he would have, if he didn't suddenly think of a better idea.

  It was a bit of a gamble though, but this was a spar. Now was a time to test his limits and try stupid shit.

  Reivan inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with air. As he released his breath, he swiped his arm across the air, forming a ferocious blizzard around him that would freeze his enemies. It was like a cyclone of ice and frost, with him standing calmly at the eye.

  The blizzard clashed with the countless flaming black daggers trying to turn him into a pin cushion. With sheer momentum alone, the relatively light daggers were swept into the storm, the black flame covering them gradually being whittled down by the chilling frost. This revealed his previous suspicions, all of the projectiles were black feathers, not daggers.

  ‘If she was here and looking just the same as last time… That means she lied about how fast her feathers regenerate?’

  That didn’t seem right either. He would’ve been able to tell.

  But that didn't really matter because his gamble worked.

  A layer of ice now covered the feathers that had already been caught by the tempest of frost surrounding him. And ice was his area of expertise.

  With a flick of his wrist, the cyclone vanished and all the tiny little feathers inside were freed. Being covered in his main element, however, made them easy for him to control. Another flick of his wrist caused all the frozen feathers to come rocketing toward Iselle. If she couldn't do something against this attack, she would be turned into a pin cushion by her own feather popsicles.

  Surprised but unperturbed, she flapped her wings and released a pulse of black flames that spread outward. The ice covering the countless projectiles melted almost instantly, freeing them from his control and returning them all to her. She must have realized how pointless it was to continue that line of attack, because the feathers all seemed to seamlessly return to her flaming wings.

  While she was busying herself with that, the floating swords orbiting Reivan broke the sound barrier as they shot toward her from multiple directions.

  Reivan, as a hybrid, didn’t have the ability to transform into a beast. But who said he didn’t have fangs? There were only sixteen of them, but he would make each one count.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Iselle immediately fell under siege to a flurry of continuous attacks from all directions. She must have realized that trying to block would only expose her to multiple other blades, so she swiftly moved through the air to let most of the floating swords pass her by.

  ‘Gotcha.’

  This situation was one where Reivan held an absolute advantage.

  After all, if one was under constant attack from all directions, they would eventually slip up and reveal an opening—an opening he would exploit. Meanwhile, he was leisurely watching from the sides, completely safe.

  He manipulated his remote blades with precision, attacking in a rhythmic pattern to lull his target into his trap. It was his way of taking advantage of her different upbringing. Living in the Outlands exposed her to constant savagery and malice, but she wasn’t used to dealing with a more intelligent sort of malevolence.

  Knights capitalized on such gaps, turning them into lethal injuries that ended battles in one strike.

  Just as he planned, Iselle got used to the constant cycle of attacks that seemingly followed some set interval. So when he broke the pattern and attacked when he wasn’t supposed to, she was a bit too late to avoid a few.

  Two swords snuck past her guard and were about to skewer her.

  Not giving up, Iselle seemed to take a gamble of her own. Instead of dodging, she swung her wings, each meeting one of the flying blades head-on.

  The swords were by no means zooming around slowly and with little force. They were being controlled through [Formless Will] and that scaled with his own physical capabilities—which were incredibly high at the moment, given all the steroid-type abilities he held.

  That was why the metallic clang produced when the flying swords bounced right off her wings made him doubt his eyes.

  “Huh? Seriously…?” Reivan couldn’t help but mutter to himself as he watched the frustrating scene. Sure, he didn't aim for anywhere fatal, but he was still controlling those things with as much force as possible. Yet they just pinged off like Beebee rounds shot at a wall?

  Those wings were so big, capable of completely covering the darkin’s body. So didn’t that mean that his flying fangs weren’t a threat at all?

  Rather, if he came up there and tried to smash a mace into her wings, wouldn’t he also get bounced off?

  ‘What the fuck is up with those wings…? Zouros’ wings aren’t that sturdy!’

  It seemed even Iselle hadn’t expected such a result because she visibly paused mid-air before shifting into a full-tilt charge. Clearly, she had realized that her defenses were a lot more effective than she anticipated.

  As she swooped through the air like a falcon diving for hapless prey, Reivan conjured a sword and a shield, immediately bracing for impact.

  ‘Fuck it. Let’s try slugging it out for a bit.’

  Just before they collided, Iselle shifted her body in the air and rose up to avoid confrontation. Only for her to circle around him and dive again in one fluid motion, as if some technique had preserved all the momentum somehow.

  Reivan frantically transformed into lightning to temporarily dodge one of the most dangerous dropkicks he had ever seen. The ground he’d been standing on was upturned, launching grass and dirt everywhere. He rematerialized in a blind spot behind her as he swung his weapon down with all his might.

  If he’d been fighting a knight, he would have expected Iselle to do what he’d just done, temporarily transform their body into elemental essence to avoid harm and reposition.

  Iselle was not a knight, however.

  She turned around with agility he didn’t expect from a mortal in the air. Her lips parted as her mouth opened, and he immediately noticed how her neck muscles tightened.

  Reivan didn’t need powerful intuition to know that he should block his ears off with his qi. It would rob him of a great asset as a hybrid warbeast, but that was just a loss he would need to accept for now.

  Just as he’d expected, his body was blown back by soundwaves that would have probably shattered his eardrums if he could still hear. The sheer vibrations he felt on his skin were enough to impress upon him just how much it would have hurt if he didn’t react on time.

  ‘A soundwave attack. Of course. The race with only women in it has an ability related to yelling…’

  That sounded a bit sexist, but records stated a lot of similar cases.

  The War God had a corpse puppet of a snake woman who had once belonged to a race that was composed only of females—and that puppet still retained the soundwave-based attacks of their race. There were other examples too, such as gorgons and the legendary mermaid race.

  It was a recognizable pattern. All exclusively female races seemed to have soundwave-based racial abilities in one way or another. He was glad that he'd been expecting it somewhat, ever since he found out the darkin didn't have men.

  One of his flying swords waited along his body’s flight path and he kicked off against it to break his momentum, hopping on sword after sword until he could comfortably come to a full stop on the ground.

  “Are we still continuing?” Reivan asked aloud as he unblocked his ears.

  Iselle did not say anything but nodded to him. Judging from her usually respectful demeanor, she probably couldn’t talk while her body was wrapped in black flames.

  ‘Ah, now that I think about it that way, isn’t it only natural that she can’t talk?’

  Rationalizing the silent treatment he got from one of his newest acquaintances, Reivan resumed harassing her with his sixteen fangs.

  Sure, they couldn’t go through her ridiculously weird wings that were somehow hard enough to repel his attacks while being soft enough to gracefully flap like a bird’s wings. But that would require Iselle to keep herself covered all the time.

  She fundamentally couldn’t keep that up constantly because she had to flap her wings to continue staying in the air. That would obviously create openings to exploit, and he was not the type to just let her get away with it.

  Reivan once again gained the upper hand. In fact, he even made some improvements to his attack patterns.

  Instead of longswords, he controlled daggers instead, allowing them to get past her defenses more easily. Also, when he knew that a blade was going to strike the wing, he had it pause in the air instead, menacingly threatening to attack her any time. Meanwhile, the other blades continued to look for openings.

  She tried to melt the floating weapons, and was actually met with success. But his weapons were conjured by his soul armament—he could just conjure them again.

  As she continued her desperate battle against his fangs, one of them got a little bit too close for comfort. But she managed to swat it away by hitting the flat part of the blade before it could cut open her stomach.

  The moment her hand made contact, the blade released a powerful blast of freezing wind that forcefully released the black flames covering her stomach and the forearm she used to strike the blade down.

  As if waiting for that exact moment, Reivan became lightning incarnate as he flashed through the battlefield and closed the distance instantly. His fist drove into her undefended stomach, sending her flying backward like a ragdoll.

  Despite how fast and sudden his attack was, she’d still managed to counterattack. Some of the black flames jumped at him in that brief moment. He quickly discovered how insidious they were, instantly melting through his armor and rapidly burning his flesh, making it easy for it to be corroded by the flame’s obvious darkness attribute.

  It hurt like hell too. Seriously.

  Reivan wasn’t a masochist who enjoyed kinks where he burned himself, so he didn’t wait for even a second to dispel the flames.

  ‘Right. Melee slugfests definitely aren't an option against her.’

  At the back of his mind, the thought of exploiting the flame's lethality came up. Iselle and her people wanted to make a good impression, and accidentally killing a prince was just about the worst thing they could do to achieve that. So she would likely hold herself back by a lot. In fact, she was likely holding herself back right now, making sure the heat of these flames didn't take him out just by proximity.

  But that would be far too dishonorable.

  This was a serious spar, so he made sure to fight her as he would if it were a real battle. In a true contest of life and death, he would definitely avoid close combat with her. He'd treat her like a putrid pile of shit on the floor, opting to maintain a wide berth between them. If his impression of her true strength was correct, then he didn't even have the option to power through her flames with the intention to repeatedly heal any resulting injuries through [Effect Reproduction].

  'So I only have ranged options against her... And since she flies around so much, she'll be hard to hit. Being a pretty woman makes one thing her defenses aren't much, but they're surprisingly robust and hard to deal with. Now that I've hit her once, she'll be more on guard too.'

  If all the darkin fought like Iselle, then they were a bit troublesome to deal with. Good thing they weren’t really enemies, then. Iselle and her people's competence were her enemy’s problems now.

  Watching her skid to a halt dozens of paces away, Reivan flexed the fingers in the hand he’d just rammed into her stomach.

  ‘So soft…’

  With a fake cough to clear his head of stupid thoughts that would get him flak from a certain young lady who had supernatural intuition, Reivan squinted to get a better look at his opponent and realized she wasn’t down for the count yet.

  And judging from the look in her eyes, she hadn’t given up either.

  Before she could recover and regain her bearings, sixteen swords descended to stab in the ground and form a circle around her. Each of the blades exploded in a burst of frost essence. Under his manipulation, none of the cold left the circle.

  All of it was focused on the being struggling to stand up in the middle.

  The white winds howled, obscuring the middle of the formation. Sometimes, flashes of black light and the shadow of a woman could be seen through the frigid air, but those too would be consumed by winter's touch. At the corner of his eye, he saw Helen shiver with a grimace as Jiji closed her eyes to enjoy the pleasant coldness that reached them, a white kitten in her arms.

  When his technique was over, there was a giant pillar of ice with a frozen beauty within.

  “That’s new,” Jiji remarked from the side. “You never did that against me when we sparred.”

  Reivan tried to catch his breath. His mana pool was running dry after that. “Of course. You have the ice attribute too, so why would I use ice against you?”

  “You didn’t use it against Helen either though?”

  “Eh, well…” Reivan momentarily glanced at Helen’s stomach before looking away. “I didn’t want any accidents. Just in case.”

  Helen smiled, her hands carefully stroking her navel.

  Jiji saw this and snorted. “You guys are acting as if she’s already pregnant. A priest checks every morning, no? Can you stop that?”

  Instead of stopping, Helen turned her entire body toward the cat-eared princess and rubbed her stomach with even more exaggerated motions.

  Some bickering immediately ensued, but Reivan just let them be. He walked toward the ice pillar and with a mere thought, the entire thing dissolved back into frost essence that would have dissolved into the air.

  Except he used the ability he and Zouros shared, devouring the essence that would have gone to waste. All of it got sucked straight back into his body.

  It didn’t restore all the mana he’d spent, but this was better than having a headache for a few hours because of lacking magic power.

  If he could spare the effort to do this in battle, he could fight for much longer periods. Add to that how he could absorb energy from his opponents too, and his battle stamina was truly fraudulent. Even he had to admit that he was a little too OP for his realm.

  Any Ascendent could still turn him into a pancake with a mere thought though. So he wouldn’t ever get a big head over his relatively meager power though.

  “Ah…” Iselle fell to her knees, shivering. The dark flames around her body were all gone but her clothes were thankfully intact, to Reivan’s relief and mild disappointment.

  “Do you yield?” Reivan smiled and pressed a sword to her throat.

  Immediately understanding her situation, she nodded. “I do, Your Highness. I have lost.”

  “Uh-huh. But you fought well.” Satisfied, Reivan’s blade vanished and so too did his armor. He then reached out to offer her a hand.

  She just looked at his hand with confusion as she stood up herself though.

  ‘Ah. Do they not help each other up in the outlands or something?’

  It was another culture thing. He didn’t let it bother him and withdrew his hand awkwardly.

  “I am ashamed,” Iselle shrunk into herself as her head hung low. “I was defeated so easily by Your Highness. You don’t seem to be tired at all.”

  “Ah, that’s…” Reivan scratched his head. "I'm a bit special, see. Don't let it bother you. It wasn't as easy as it looked.

  How could he explain that he had various special abilities? And some of them helped him not only heal his wounds but also restore his stamina. His bond with Zouros lets him use abilities to absorb the energy around him too.

  It was very hard for him to get tired in any sense of the word. Basing how difficult the battle was solely on that wasn’t going to produce accurate estimates.

  ‘She’s a tricky enemy, that's for sure.’

  Iselle didn’t seem weak in close combat at all and was actually the most dangerous when she was close. Teaching her grappling techniques would probably go a long way. And if she had a soul armament to create armor for her, she’d be even more troublesome to deal with because of increased durability.

  Then there was her ranged bombardment capabilities and her soundwave attacks. Both didn’t work well on him, but not everyone was Reivan Aizenwald.

  ‘She’s extremely well-balanced.’

  There’s also the fact that she could fly, which he mitigated by having remote blades. But again, not everyone was him—not everyone was going to have an answer to her weapons.

  ‘Hm… She’s rough and unrefined. It’s a pure dependence on racial abilities that lacks refinement…’

  But if she got polished up by, say, Sir Donovan…

  Then Lady Iselle might grow to be a match for Helen.

  Of course, Helen would destroy Iselle in their current state. Being a flying creature was a weakness in and of itself when you faced a skilled wind elementalist. None of the offensive techniques she showed today would be able to catch someone like Helen either, because she had both [Wind] and [Lightning] attributes.

  Iselle would just suffer a one-sided beating. Or perhaps it would be a stalemate where either side can't land a good attack.

  Still, today was just an issue of compatibility. The strength she showed was still impressive. Reivan was just a little more impressive, which made her seem weaker than she actually was.

  “So,” Reivan offered her some medicine as he raised a brow. “Care to elaborate on your request now?”

  “Yes…” Iselle gingerly took the medicine and swallowed it. Apparently, this wasn’t her first encounter with his healing medicine, meaning she’d taken it after sparring with someone else. Hopefully, she wasn't injured too badly, though he supposed that wasn't something he needed to concern himself with right now. “I wanted you to take us with you to this place called Lageton. As your personal retainers…”

  “And by us, you mean…?”

  “All the darkin in Aizen, of course,” she swiftly clarified.

  Reivan palmed his forehead. “You can’t be serious, right…?”

  “I am.” Iselle clasped her hands to her chest. “I wanted to prove how capable we are by sparring with you… but…”

  “Setting aside how the issue isn’t even your capabilities, aren’t you part of the matriarch bloodline? That means you’re stronger than the others of your clan. You're not an accurate depiction of the darkin’s average strength.”

  She shook her head. “Aside from pure physical prowess, my sisters are not much different from me. Please believe me. Everything I have shown you is something all of them can do as well.”

  ‘Damn. Seriously? That's kind of crazy...’

  Reivan was a bit tempted. Having an aerial force composed of fallen angels was ridiculously enticing. But he forced himself to be rational. “Lageton is no joking matter.”

  “We understand that.” Iselle stepped closer. “That is why we wish to come. To offer our services and help ensure your victory.”

  “We already have enough warriors. All of which are very capable.”

  “But we, the darkin, can do things your warriors cannot.”

  “I don’t want to demean you, Lady Iselle,” Reivan scratched his head. “But wind elementalists can fly as well. We have sky arks too, if we want to bombard an area below or transport things through the air. The darkin do not offer anything particularly unique in my eyes.”

  That seemed to have stung a little, because Iselle visibly deflated, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Agh, crap. Maybe I was a little too hard on her…’

  He couldn’t just let her take her people somewhere so dangerous though, so he had to remain steadfast. Especially when they were so ignorant of many things in the world and might not understand just what they were getting themselves into.

  Furthermore, they were a race oppressed by the environment they resided in until recently—they hadn’t fully adjusted to the shift in their lifestyles. Why would he allow them to needlessly change their lifestyle again? And to a much more dangerous one at that. If that wasn’t enough, he didn’t know how others would react to the darkin.

  The darkin was too big of a chaotic element.

  nope for now.