Conni clenched his jaw. For some reason he could not discern, the boy had gone feral. He would just have to beat some sense back into him. He tossed aside his straw hat and held out a hand. The flaming sword artifact he was so proud of dropped into his hand.

“Boy, get ready, this is gonna hurt,” Conni growled.

The boy could not seem to hear, his eyes were bloodshot, silver veins running through them. He was even drooling a bit as if he had forgotten how to control his body. Conni wanted to go easy on him, but the child was actually farther along in tier two than he was.

Dropping into the first stance of Agni-Rezat, he prepared for a difficult fight. The martial arts required his single-edged sword, which he held in a single-handed grip. Standing sideways, he presented as small of a target as possible. The blade extended up and forward at a forty-five-degree angle, it was a good point from which to strike, block, or reposte.

Tristan launched himself forward, hand extended. The cut he had made on his hand was covered with a grey liquid that Conni needed to avoid. Flame essence pumped through his muscles, granting him explosive acceleration. His arms rose, pushing aside the arm with the flat of his blade.

Ordinarily, the next motion would be to chop down at the exposed neck, however, Conni did not want to kill. So he shoved the pommel into Tristan’s jaw, forcing him back. Again, heat flooded his body, he accelerated his step and whipped the flat of the sword across Tristan’s face.

Conni retreated as Tristan stumbled. Those two blows, coupled with Conni’s unstandard use of essence would knock most people out cold. He was about to resheath his blade when Tristan righted himself and came right back in. The shallow cut along his temple bled silver-stained blood. Conni cursed, he had never fought a metal essence user. It was like he had some sort of exoskeleton.

“The blade is an extension of my body,” Conni recited for the first time since his youth, “The snake has fangs, the lion its claw, the sword is the weapon of man.”

Fire lit up along the length of the sword. At his current step, it was not much more than a slight damage boost. When he was young he had met some masters who could cut apart thick stones with waves of wire-thin flame. He almost wished he had practiced more.

He no longer held back, as he was now sure that Tristan could survive whatever he threw at him. Conni slid his front foot forward into a long stance and chopped at Tristan’s collarbone. The boy's hand discolored to a pale silver and he actually caught the sword. Fire scorched his fingers but Tristan did not let go.

The blade had cut all the way to the bone and part of the way through the webbing between his index finger and thumb. Normally people would jerk away, but the drugged-looking state that Tristan was in allowed him to hold on. He jerked the sword by the blade, attempting to disarm Conni.

Blade grappling was actually one of the first things the sect had taught him. In a martial art where the sword was key, it also became a target to remove one’s combat potential. Conni dismissed the blade, letting it vanish into a puff of flame.

Pivoting on his forward foot Conni brought his back leg around in a sweep that took Tristan’s feet out from beneath him. The boy hit the ground like a brick. He had no grace, Luke had taught him how to be efficient, not fluid. Tristan did not stay down, he scrambled to his feet and charged right back at Conni.

Reaching out a hand, Conni started resummoning his sword. The weapon was not made of essence like those a metal or earth kern could create, so it took a moment for it to be summoned. A moment was long enough for Tristan to close in and break Conni‘s focus.

A wide swinging haymaker was thrown at Conni’s head. He raised a hand to block the punch, but the metal essence made it much heavier than he had expected. The force staggered him to the side, but he successfully stopped it. A kick came out of nowhere and smashed Conni back.

For the first time, Conni cursed the lopsided nature of fire. Agni-Rezat let him output force a tier higher than he was supposed to, but he needed a sword. Again he tried to resummon it. Almost as if he knew what was happening Tristan came in again.

This time he tried to grapple Conni. It was clear the boy was a novice when it came to grappling, Luke had trained him as a tier zero to face higher-tier foes. Grappling was useless when your enemy was stronger. Conni was not stronger, but he was better trained in the art of grappling, as it was one of the weaknesses of swords.

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He accepted the grappling. Conni could use the few seconds it granted to retrieve his weapon. The conflict would be over then, he would use the second step and end it. Only, he had forgotten that Tristan's hands were covered in decay essence. Coating one's hands in caustic substances makes a person substantially better at grappling.

Conni screamed as two burning hands closed around his forearms. Red blood quickly mixed with grey, making a sickly rotten color. Conni kicked Tristan in the gut, he poured all his inner flame into the kick. It felt like he had kicked a steel plate, which he supposed was true.

Still, it was a steel plate kicked with all of the force of the most offensive essence. Tristan was thrown back into one of the partitions. He did not let go of Conni’s arms, but instead, the blood lubricated them. Red blistering smears ran down Conni’s arms. Shuddering at the pain Conni held out his hand, he could still swing a sword.

Tristan climbed shakily to his feet. The hand braced upon the partition was slowly melting through. Conni was under the impression that decay injured the wielder. That did not seem to be the case. Conni felt the familiar weight of the sword.

Stepping back into a cat stance, Conni held the blade over the top of his shoulder. The point, shoulder, and ball of his foot were lined up. This was Agni-Eraldi, the flame of separation. Conni only possessed two steps, but they had allowed him to cut through the bones of an elemental an entire tier higher.

Fire congregated on the edge of the sword, its heat warped the air. He was very short on essence and was being forced to use his weapon’s reserve, but he needed to. Tristan spat out a wad of blood, staining the sand silver. He got into a fighting stance, all the trembling and exhaustion Conni had expected was absent.

Conni was not sure if the boy could survive this strike, the second step was no joke. He switched the blade around, the reverse edge was now collecting fire essence. It would hurt, and definitely break bones, but between Henry and Luke’s horrible protein shakes it was survivable.

“I’m sorry,” Conni said, “But I can’t have you hurt the other miners.”

He swung his sword.

“What the Hell are you doing!!” someone yelled.

A bolt of lightning flashed between the sword and its target. Two electric green eyes glared at Conni. The mine foreman only had time for the start of his internal cursing before the blade was slapped aside. It seemed casual, but the force was a combination of speed and mass. Once Luke’s hand made contact with the sword it was launched out of his hand.

It shot like an arrow into the ground between them. Everything seemed to slow down, Conni watched as Tristan took an achingly slow step towards Luke’s back. He watched his blade wobble back and forth as the energy it had was exhausted. The only thing seemingly unbound from this faster speed of consciousness was Luke.

Conni cursed again. He achieved enlightenment on battle sense only to be killed in an attack too fast for him to dodge. Luke’s fist snapped out and Conni felt. Several ribs break. He was launched back into and through a partition. Breathing was hard, he felt like he had a punctured lung.

He held up a hand to stop the irate young man, but in this state, he was moving slowly as well. Luke was in front of Conni before he could get his palm halfway up. So he settled for pointing instead.

“Watch out,” The words were hard to say with a hurt lung.

Luke frowned and looked behind him. The boy was strong enough to look down on someone like Conni without worry. He turned too late, Tristan had caught up and placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder. The look on Luke’s face was confused, but he moved fast. His clothes started rotting around Tristan’s fingers and his skin started reddening.

Before blisters started forming, Luke had pivoted and delivered a punch to Tristan as well. The metal affinity made it easier for him to take the strike. A significantly higher density allowed Tristan to take the punch and only stagger back. He instantly stepped forward again.

“Tristan, what's wrong?” Luke yelled a note of pleading in his voice.

He caught the punch in one hand and shoved his friend back. Tristan snarled and lept back at Luke, trying to get his grey-coated hands on him. It was Tristan’s only real way to win and not something Luke was willing to allow.

“Knock out,” Conni wheezed, “Not in control.”

Luke appeared like he had questions, but he focused and complied. He stepped around the attempted grab and delivered a ferocious jab to the side of Tristan’s head. The blow rocked Tristan, but he did not go down. Luke gritted his teeth used his insurmountable speed advantage and drove Tristan into the ground with multiple rapid punches.

“If you can protect yourself with metal,” Luke growled, “Then I will just break your kern wide open.”

Conni tried to stop the beating that followed. People almost always died when their kern broke. It was not dissimilar to having a soul-based heart attack. However, there was nothing he could do. Luke moved like a boxer, sliding into every opening and driving another punch into Tristan.

The metal essence did not last long. A normally enormous defense was whittled down by sheer speed and the moment it failed so did Tristan. The final punch drove the boy into a partition. He slumped down into a sitting position before falling to the side. Luke stood tall, breathing heavily.

He flashed away leaving an injured Conni and dying Tristan. Conni felt like screaming, today he had to watch a young man die. The path he had been concerned about all those years ago had finally come to its end. There was not even a family to address a letter of condolence to.

Luke appeared again, this time holding a cup. Conni’s eyes widened in horror. The boy approached with his drink and crouched before him. A hand on his arm flooded his body with air essence, while the other one forced open Conni’s mouth and poured the concoction down. Conni took advantage of his decelerated time, to swallow it before he could taste it.

In the background, he saw Heny arrive. The Golden Heart patriarch frowned down at the boy, it was clear that Luke wanted the man to heal Tristan. He had a grudge though, and it would be easy to simply say no and let Tristan die of brain trauma and a broken kern.

“I can’t heal a broken kern,” Henry said.

Luke looked over, and snapped at the man, “Do it anyway.”

Henry frowned but still knelt and placed a hand on Tristan’s shoulder. Conni could see the skin start knitting itself back together slowly. The parts closing the fastest were clearly the places on the boy’s face that had split. Good at least the boy would not suffer from brain trauma, only a broken kern.