" Form a circle around me, Move!"

The six of them spread out evenly around Corporal Ries and waiting for the inevitable call out of the first set of combatants.

"During this! you will observe the use of aether by your group and see where you can improve or use their ideas to strengthen your own techniques. Unlike the previous spar matches we will not be going for victory. You will be designated as an attacker or defender. Whoever is the attacker will attack until I say stop. As the defender, you will obviously stop your opponent from killing you. Attacker you will use at most half of your remaining aether so that you can defend with what remains."

He slowly turned and looked at the group before settling for the first paring.

"Dwarves! To the middle!" he shouted as he moved off to the side.

The two dwarves went to the center. One had a set of gloves as he was a pugilist and the other had a halberd. "Halberd is the attacker! Begin!"

The halberd immediately slashed from right to left with a green glow around it while the pugilist brought both his arms up to take the hit. A subtle grey sheen began to show on his skin as the halberd slammed into his arms a moment later.

*smack! *

The sound of wood on flesh was heard sharply by all as the sheen on the pugilist's arms shone brighter then broke launching him backwards. He got up quickly and only a small line where the halberd made contact. The attacking dwarf continued to advance per the instructions and kept on swinging and striking. Each time the green met the grey the grey took some of the energy off leaving small marks either to the arms or the body where the weapon hit, and a few minutes of non-stop strikes Reis called it to a stop.

"Good! you have figured out a way to defend yourself. I had counted you our as a lost cause. Good work dwarf, keep it up. Switch!"

The dwarves reset their position and Reis gave the command.

This time the pugilist with fists glowing brightly grey silver slammed into the green barrier and broke through immediately as if he were going through a gas mist. The dwarf blocked with the halberd and backed off to get distance and threw the barrier back up again. This time it held for a few strikes but then it faltered and fell apart forcing the dwarf to physically block and get more distance. The dwarf with the halberd kept trying to keep the shield up with the relentless fast strikes from the pugilist but it was a lost cause with the match up. The next time the barrier went up it was a hazy wispy thing that couldn't block anything.

"Halt!" Reis called out as the pugilist lowered his fists and took a few steps back.

"You both pass. Move to the side, rest, and observe the others."

"Humans! Get in here!

Sorin and the other human a woman with a thin sword that Sorin thought was a jian, but honestly couldn't remember. She was on the shorter side around 5'3 to 5'5. Short hair and dead eye look to her. "You!" Reis said pointing to the woman. "You are the attacker. Begin!"

The woman flew at Sorin extremely fast with a forward thrust of her wooden blade with a hazy clear shimmer straight to his heart, with a flick of his hand and some will power a smaller shield sprung up over his chest angled outward to Sorin's left. The sword met the barrier as Sorin continued to angle to his right for an angle on his opponent and to ward off easy follow-on strikes, but to his surprise the jian seemed to incinerate on contact and snapped. It appeared to Sorin that she was going to use the impact as a means to redirect but as the sword became a stump it dumped her, headfirst into the barrier.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sorin didn't even have enough time to lower his barrier, and he heard a blood curdling scream and a hiss. He was already lowering the barrier as he was angling out but in that brief moment the damage was done. He could smell the burned flesh and hair from the woman as she continued to scream. Reis had already called over the healer as Sorin backed away head bowed automatically in the absence of orders.

After a few minutes the healers had fixed the womans face which was now a color of pink on one side like new flesh, but the hear on the right side of her head was still missing.

"Well!" Reis started with a small chuckle. "It seems your defense works well on weapon and flesh. Now switch."

Sorin brough his blades to the ready and looked across at the woman who had nothing but shock and fear on her face seeing the flames ignite along the edge. Had this been an actual battle, Sorin had won. Unfortunately, he had to strike and hard. Reis didn't know he probably had more spirit than others in the group, so he should be able to pull the blows a little bit to make sure he didn't cut through and injure her again.

"Begin!"

Sorin launched himself at his opponent with a double cut using both blades to from right to left at the nape of her neck and below her left arm. Her barrier went up as a hazy translucent almost transparent thing and his swords made impact. There was a slight slowing of the blades, but to Sorin's absolute horror that was it. The blades met the intended area of attack and didn't stop. The white-hot edges sliced clean through the woman as if they were actual steel. There was a sharp squeal then silence as she was thrown to the side and down by the momentum of the strike.

Sorin stood there in shock waiting to see blood but as the blades went through, they cauterized and burned any blood on them. He looked at Corporal Reis who was looking down at the corpse of the woman with an amused look.

"Well...your defense didn't work." He giggled a bit to himself. The words snapped Sorin out of his daze and he glared at the Corporal.

The corporal seeing Sorin's look smirked. "If you want to end up like her conscript, keep looking at me like that." Sorin was burning with indignation and outrage at the callous regard for life, but loss of control was a weakness and Sorin bottled it and forced it down. He put his head down in a bow as he was supposed to.

"Good conscript! at least you still know your place."

"Ogre! Vampire! get out here!" Reis called the healers over to get rid of the body of the woman. As soon as they were gone, he gave the rest of his commands for the ogre to attack and vampire to defend and to being.

The ogre lumbered to the vampire who waited mid swing and reached out with a hand coated in the red aether to the hammer. Sorin was expecting a block and the arm to get hammered to the side, but the vampire caught the face of the hammer and the red aether struck the hand of the ogre causing him to scream and drop the hammer. When Sorin looked at the hand he saw it wither a bit as if aging quickly. Looking at vampire, Sorin saw a cruel smirk.

"Thats enough! I've seen what I need to. Don't need to see you a withered husk before you can show me the minimum criteria. Switch and begin!"

The vampire slowly walked up to the ogre with a rapier, drew his arm back and stabbed, as the ogre ripped a barrier of dirt up from the ground as a full manifest. Sorin couldn't see the other side but when the vampire stabbed the wall the rapier stuck in with its blood red aether and the soil around it began to blacken. He tried to pull the rapier back, but it was locked in place as the soil hardened.

"Halt! Fall to formation."

The five conscripts dropped their weapons and ran to formation.

"Five out of six isn't a bad hall for a group. Turns out there were six others who didn't make it. You seem to have forgotten that you have no value except what you can provide should you pass this training. If all five of you were to die right now, the empire would replace you in a day, but we have a schedule to keep. Keep your attitudes and emotions to yourself or you will be removed."

Reis looked directly at Sorin who kept his eyes off the Corporal who was looking for an excuse to escalate things. Sorin had been in this position before and was not about to give in and lose everything including his slim chance of getting home.

"Training is done for the day. Bathe... you are all disgusting. Dismissed."