Synthra narrowed her eyes in consideration when the Spellblade was called.

Achilles, he was named, as if in homage to the heroes of the new world she had been brought to at her mother’s behest. Her lessons with Ceruviel on the culture and history of Terra had taught her the name, and her surrogate Aunt had told her much about the deeds and storied feats of Achilles, Odysseus, Heracles, Perseus, Theseus, Jason, Hector, Alexander, Leonidas, and a dozen other heroes besides.

Ceruviel Latherian found Terran culture fascinating and enrapturing, and shared that interest with Synthra whether she had initially wanted to indulge or not. She had to admit that, in the end, she’d been as eager to open the next book on history or mythology—it was difficult to separate them, sometimes—as the Haelfenn Duchess.

When Celia, one of the few Terrans to have truly integrated seamlessly into the Guild, had introduced the new arrival as Achilles; it had put Synthra on edge immediately. She despised braggarts, and more than that, she detested those that exaggerated their own strength. Naming himself after one of their adopted world’s greatest heroes only added insult to impertinence, as far as she was concerned.

Then there was the matter of his speech.

For all that he spoke the local common tongue like a native, there was no mistaking the easy inflection and nature of his Haelfennyr; ‘Achilles’ was from Altera. More than that, he was obviously the son of some prominent bloodline that had been hidden away until the time was right to make a debut—and had done so while subsequently spitting on the legends of the Terrans’ own sacred histories.

It was an arrogance that boiled her blood. For all that others thought her aloof and distant—which she was, for the simple fact that people wanted to know her because of her mother, more than for who she was; Synthra had great respect for the culture of her new homeworld. The stories she’d read, in the quiet of Ceruviel’s study or in her apartments in the guild house had captured her imagination.

In her head, she had to admit, she’d even thought herself a fine candidate to emulate Helen of Troy—albeit with added horns, height, and musculature. The women of Terran stories were far too thin and weak for Synthra’s liking, but that was par for the course as she’d found. Many of the native females shared the same failings, which baffled her. Why Terran men didn’t find a physically powerful mate appealing was a mystery she had yet to solve.

Though ‘Comics’ existed with such women, and that had been a riveting discovery.

“{Aspirants ready!}” Cerevil called, and Synthra refocused on the match. She knew Pheona already from Altera, though the beast-tribe woman was not what she’d call a friend or even more than a casual acquaintance. Synthra had little time for people that relied on their wiles more than their minds, and the Nekomara was precisely that sort of person in Synthra’s experience.

It was incredibly disappointing to see, especially since she could fight.

Synthra’s eyes moved over to the impersonator, and her lips curled down into an even more disapproving frown.

There were worse things, however, than simply propping up one’s perceived lack of skill with wiles: and that was, in every estimation, the blatant mockery that the Haelfenn under the obsidian armor was making of Terran culture.

“{Aspirants salute!}”

Both Pheona and ‘Achilles’ saluted, the former with her shortswords and the latter with his cracked longsword. That was another affectation that annoyed her, though less than his naming choice and blatantly emulated combat style: his gear. A High Noble could have at least come in with proper equipment, and yet this ‘Achilles’ insisted on adorning himself in cracked and ancient armor, and an equally damaged and ancient bastard sword.

It was as if he was making fun of Terran antiquity with his choices, and it only further lowered her estimation of his character. The arrogance was, in her eyes, overwhelming.

When the battle began a moment later, Synthra watched with unblinking eyes.

Her [Draconic Sight] allowed her to easily follow the combat without worrying about needing to blink, thanks to the magic of her blood, and she crossed her right leg over her left and leaned forward slightly to observe the initial exchanges.

Pheona probed the armored Haelfenn rapidly, with several quick slashes buoyed by her air-attributed abilities allowing for a passable series of harrying strikes to test the Haelfenn’s guard. Each movement flowed into the next, and Synthra found herself raising an eyebrow slightly at the elevation of skill that the Nekomara was demonstrating.

She’d clearly been practicing.

‘Achilles’ seemed less impressed with Pheona’s attempts however, and while the small beast-tribe woman had clearly been more intelligent in her points attribution than the foolish Naiafenn that ‘Achilles’ had half-bisected, it was actually working against Pheona in the present situation.

The reason for that, of course, was her opponent.

Synthra’s tongue clicked softly in annoyance while ‘Achilles’ parried and deflected each incoming blow with measured bursts of motion. He didn’t fight with the conventional Haelfenn flourish or grace, but instead had managed to quite accurately emulate the more brutalistic and aggressive stereotypically Terran way of doing things: sharp movements and harsh expulsions of strength-based combat designed to counter-push and overwhelm an opponent.

Many of the natives that came to the guild approached combat in an identical way, and even after tuition, showed only minor progress away from the high-stamina style of uneconomic combat—as if none of them had ever had to fight prior to the Incursion! She’d heard and read that was the case, but it seemed ludicrous to her. A life without learning the arts of war, both magical and martial, was a life wasted in Synthra’s eyes.

As Synthra watched ‘Achilles’ and tracked his movements, each of which did indeed manage to mimic in some essential way the Terran mentality of warfare, she could still see the truth for what it was—and she knew others did too. He parried where a Terran would have blocked, dodged where a lesser fighter would have parried, and pressed the attack where a more inexperienced warrior might have thought to give space. Every action was further proof of his lie, and compounded into an absolute truth.

‘Achilles’ was simply too well-trained and naturally talented to be a native.

The way he riposted, moved his body, and flowed from one stance to another with advanced insight into the exact positioning of his blade and towering stature proved it without a shadow of a doubt. He had managed to emulate Terran fighting methodology, sure enough, but he had been unable to eliminate the superior economy of Haelfenn warfare. Each sword movement was measured, each step and stance shift was calculated, and Synthra could already see that he was luring Pheona into a trap.

In four moves he sprung it; luring her into an air-buoyed double-strike at his seemingly exposed solar plexus, which might have even penetrated thanks to the mana preceding her blades—until he stopped them dead in the air with what she assumed was some manner of Psicore.

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Pheona’s large orange eyes widened in shock when he stopped her strike, Achilles flipped his sword in his grip with Haelfenn-trained fluidity and—bracing the flat of the large broadsword against his forearm—smashed it against her head with his armored elbow reinforcing the back end of the sword.

The blade itself protected him from jarring his joint with the impact force, and the elbow lended a power and force to the hit that would otherwise have been absent. When Pheona slammed backward into the sand with a cry of pain, Synthra clicked her tongue once more in annoyance.

It wasn’t even that the Nekomara wasn’t skilled. Against a true peer opponent, she’d likely have won already. The Psicore was a decent ‘joker in the deck’, as Terrans liked to say, and was uncommon for Haelfenn; but not as rare as some others, and was a mostly worthless choice anyway. Without the right combinations, Psicores failed to live up to their potential spectacularly.

But the sword forms, combat style, and iron discipline demonstrated by the Haelfenn imposter simply overwhelmed her. ‘Achilles’ fought, despite his best efforts at occlusion, like what he was: a swordsman from birth. His innate understanding of weight distribution, movement, energy conservation, and explosive pressure while abusing System mechanics like Attribute Focus made him a remarkably formidable fighter.

Even the way he stood there, sword at his side, and waited for her to rise proved his arrogance—and the fact he truly was toying with his opponents. It was not just disrespectful, but it was selfish. By Synthra’s estimation, ‘Achilles’ was likely at peer level with her: Level 17 or higher.

Yet he even managed to pretend as if he was below First Tier, with how subtly slow and disjointed he made the elegant mix of brutality and finesse. A true First Tier body like the bodies of the others present had an intrinsic marriage of flow and mastery that no amount of practice could emulate. There was a knowledge, deeply ingrained, of one’s own Core and Cultivation that only Tempering could achieve. For all his supposed disjointedness and untempered motion, ‘Achilles’ was too smooth.

He tried to emulate an Untempered, likely to force his opponents to underestimate him, through a mix of near-misses and almost believable foibles or faux pas movements that fundamentally misunderstood the more nuanced benefits of System enhancement—but Synthra could see through them. His form was too advanced, and his unspoken combat comprehension too honed.

If ‘Achilles’ were truly Untempered, then the rest of them would look like rank amateurs by comparison. Their ‘class’ was one of the most competitive and high-elimination brackets in the entire License Trial.

The participants had chosen to compete here, in the most elite selection for Slayers—the Guild’s premier front-line damage dealers—for a reason: success meant a buoyed and hyper-launched career, and failure meant an entire year of waiting instead of the usual three months.

She’d even elected to participate here, in the hopes of a challenge, rather than attend the more technically suitable Magus selection like her mother had wanted. She knew she’d obliterate her competition there, so she’d tried to go for a setting that disallowed her most devastating Draconic Arts and restricted the strongest and wide-area abilities she’d gained from her still-Compressing Everflame Core.

The fact those present knew better than to stare at her helped her choice, too.

Synthra loathed the ogling eyes and openly hungry stares her outfits received, due to a factor of her existence she had no more control over than she did the weather. Her body had received attention from the moment she’d reached maturity, and it was something she’d simply come to accept as par for the course, even if it annoyed her.

Her Haelfenn blood had subsumed the vast majority of her draconic lineage, save for her pronounced canines, slitted pupils, and golden horns—and yet somehow she had inherited, and then amplified the genetic curvaceousness her mother had developed in opposition to all common sense.

Haelfenn women could be gifted, but not to the degree Sinalthria was—and definitely not to the degree Synthra was. She didn’t hate her physical appearance, of course; she simply hated that others only saw her through the lens of that appearance. Her grandmother’s choice of mortal form during her pregnancy with Sinalthria had trickled down strongly in their genetics, and Synthra had been fighting against being labeled a nepotism-elevated bimbo her entire life.

It was only when she’d reached First Temper and flattened Guild Officers that people had finally recognized her for her genius, and not the generous curves and height-enhanced sensuality of her physical state. Her attire was designed to allow for maximum freedom of movement, and yet she still received solicitations from idiots that couldn’t recognize a battlemage’s silks.

In that way, she was the opposite of her new enemy.

She wanted to be seen as something other than what was on the surface, while he seemingly sought others to only see the facade he presented.

Which brought her back to one conclusion: ‘Achilles’ was close to his own Second Temper, because if he wasn’t, he’d have had to be a veteran of a level of combat and brutality that Synthra knew neither Terra nor Altera had witnessed in hundreds of years. He fought vaguely like her Aunt Ceruviel, as if he were seeking to emulate the ancient Archons and their natural lean toward finessed brutality; and that only solidified the impression of his expertise in her mind.

And further deepened her growing dislike. She despised actual copy-cats.

When Pheona pulled herself to her feet and charged into the fray against ‘Achilles’ once more, Synthra waited to see if the Nekomara would do anything to destabilize her opponent. A sand-whipping with her air element, a surge of air-cutters, or even attempting to deprive the oxygen from around his head to induce asphyxiation or hypoxia were all options.

Instead, she once again proved why she had to use her only barely above average wiles in place of true guile, and attacked him again with a shout of courageous, but ultimately idiotic courage.

This time, though, something else happened.

‘Achilles’ lifted his blade, and just before she hit him, Pheona abruptly staggered and went visibly cross-eyed. Her equilibrium seemed to fail, and Synthra caught the scent of blood from the Nekomara with her [Predator Senses] a second before the beast-tribe swordswoman seemed to stumble like her brain had momentarily disconnected from her body.

The moment she did, ‘Achilles’ entered her guard and—with a ruthlessness and efficiency that only solidified Synthra’s assessment of his Noble origins further—slammed the hilt of his sword against her trachea. The Nekomara’s eyes bulged, she spat out blood and spit, and she dropped to the sand on her back.

It was over. Synthra wasn’t sure what had happened, but she guessed that the initial strike ‘Achilles’ had made was harder-hitting than she’d previously thought. It must have been a delayed reaction to the blow, though in the end, all it meant was that Pheona had left herself vulnerable, and as her weakness was exposed, was now paying the price.

“{Mender!}” Cerevil shouted a moment later as if to confirm it.

Pheona tried to signal them away, but the woman’s face was already turning subtly blue from the deprivation of oxygen, and Synthra shook her head.

Against a true peer opponent, Pheona might have stood a chance.

Synthra’s eyes tracked the black-armored warrior when he turned and made his way back to the stands to take his seat beside Bardulf. That was another surprise. The blond Lycanus had always been, if nothing else, a strong judge of character; yet he took to the imposter like a hound to a new master. It was bewildering and sickening at the same time, but then again, he was only Half Lycanus. Perhaps his Haelfenn blood was interfering with his Primal Intuition.

No matter.

Synthra would tear that helmet right off his head and expose the truth.

All she could hope was that she faced him before the final round, and deprived him of the glory of being runner-up. After all, there was no way in hell he was getting through her. She’d held back against Balthazar, and would against her next opponent too, if it wasn’t ‘Achilles’—but the moment she faced him, the proverbial gloves were coming off.

He’d never forget the day he walked into the Guild House, she vowed to herself.

She’d make sure of it.