Chapter 774: Sky Blue Against Shadow
Adam watched the terrified Quintella run around the training grounds, a terror that made her stumble when she saw the boy’s torn uniform. Blood spurted from his back, painting a scarlet trail behind him with each of his forced steps. She bit her lip, forgetting about how exhausted she was for a moment.
The boy was her age. He was crying.
But Grimhilde didn’t care—she had never cared.
Instead, she saw Grimhilde’s pupils dilate at each stumble, saw her lips moisten, and saw her fingers twitch around the shadowy whips. Was this really training? She didn’t know anymore, or rather felt too confused and tired to think. All she knew was that she couldn’t stop. She had to complete the twenty laps or be flailed until she did.
Tears pooled in her eyes as she forced her weak legs to carry her. Each breath felt like acid poured into her burning lungs, the sound like one she’d only heard from an overworked horse after sprinting hundreds of kilometers.
After her third lap, she wanted to collapse on her knees and cry. To feel Adam pat her head, say she had done her best—that he was proud of her efforts. But sharp whistles kept her running desperately, clutching her chest, and crying.
Around her, students howled like wolves caught in bear traps, their heartbreaking cries and the scent of blood filling the training grounds.. How long until her turn came? Not long after... she knew it after stumbling through the fourth lap.
She felt as if she were drowning, the air refusing to enter her burning throat. Everything around her—the students, the whips, the armored tyrant of a teacher—distorted into waving forms her eyes failed to process.
Lips twisted in an unwilling grimace, she gathered her remaining strength to look at her big brother. He was there, matching her pace outside the training boundary.
For one fleeting moment, the pain receded. Her body remembered safety. Remembered love.
It was enough.
Her knees struck the packed earth as the world came crashing down. The last thing she heard before the whistles shrieked was Adam’s voice, gutturally raw, like a bestial growl.
"Quintella, no-"
Simultaneously, Grimhilde licked her lips. "Another one slacking."
Her whip cleaved the air, aimed at Quintella’s falling figure.
Clenching his jaw, a vein pulsing on his neck, Adam shot inside the training ground. His eyes flared, sky-blue mana spewing from their sides as he secured the girl against his chest. His right hand shot behind, palm snapping close around the bludgeoned tip of the whip.
The shadows forming it writhed in protest as Grimhilde’s eyes narrowed on him. But he didn’t care. He hurled the tip to the ground, then raised Quintella’s dishevelled hair. Her sweat instantly covered his palm, and he bit his lip when he saw the tears still flowing from her closed eyes. She had pushed herself to unconsciousness.
He brushed her face gently, something in his chest cracking. This was not the happiness he had promised her. Though he agreed harshness was necessary in training, it had to be balanced, aimed at helping to improve, or it was just sadistic torture.
With a deep exhale that sounded like grinding stones, he laid her outside the training grounds, just as Grimhilde pursed her lips.
"How dare you, student?" She said, whips coiling around her fingers like serpents. She tilted her head, her left eye twitching at his body, then at his House’s emblem. "I should remember a girl old enough to be a sixth or seventh-year student, and I don’t remember you joining the House of Exorcism yesterday."
Her lips curved into a smile that held no warmth, only the promise of pain. "Not that it matters. New students are to take my class—none can escape it. Yet, there you are, watching, interfering. I hope you’re ready to shoulder the consequences."
She slashed her whips down, opening two deep trenches in the ground with casual ease—far more force than when she struck students. Soils flew between them, but Adam kept his eyes locked with hers. Back straight, knuckles white, he snarled, "Try me, madwoman."
Strangled gasps erupted from every student. Those older, who completed the twenty laps warm-up, widened their eyes in utter disbelief. In fear, too. No one ever dared disrespect a teacher. Calling Grimhilde a madwoman... The students of the House of Exorcism gripped their foreheads, breaths catching in their throats. How many points would Adam’s offence cost them?
The students who still ran halted too, their lips twisted at Grimhilde’s answer.
"Hahaha." Her laugh echoed like a broken bell, her tilted head trembling, not with anger, but dark delight. "Finally! After four centuries! A student with enough spine to talk back! Mhh." She let out a sound that, to Adam, rang like a moan. "I’ll take my time to discipline you as I did with the others. Don’t worry, though, I’ll spare your pretty face."
Her assault began without ceremony or warning. Shadowy whips swept through the air in precise arcs, and where their points traced, the sound barrier cracked with a delayed thundering.
When everyone recognised the strength behind the strikes, expecting Adam’s pained wail to tear through the grounds once flesh was torn asunder, the target lifted his palm with casual slowness.
Sky blue threads wove themselves with a low hum as his fingers closed on his own whip. With a swing, he hurled it—a bright arc against the dark ones. The mana weapons clashed right before him, his long hair fluttering from the impact. Dust rose, filling his mouth with an earth smell with each breath as he sneered. "I’ll take my time to teach you that I’m not a toy you can play with." His eyes drifted to Quintella behind him. "Nor she is."
"Show me, Apprentice!" Grimhilde laughed, pinpointing his exact level. "But don’t break too soon. I’m just starting."
She wasn’t bluffing. Adam knew it. Her earlier strikes were weak—barely the pinnacle of an apprentice. Next, she would strike with the might of a mage, an adept, an arcanist, and an archmage. She was in for a surprise if she believed that would suffice.
His eyes blazed like two morning stars, and the corner of his lips curved subtly. He would make her use her true strength, the strength of a magus from the most ancient civilisation of the magic world, and taste it himself.