The sun of the afternoon was dazzling and heating the Earth up like an oven, a bit too hot for Loter. He asked Ramiron to switch the training field from outdoor to indoor within the first thirty minutes of training.

They were using the same estate Loter and Hiroku once used briefly for Hiroku's practice. The shed that stored the wooden weapons was big enough for them to spar in the center. Although Ramiron was several times stronger than Loter, her self-restraint and his ordering power made the sparring somewhat balanced.

On several occasions, Loter would step forward and sideways like how Dowii taught him and began throwing his fists incessantly. It really surprised Ramiron when she could only barely keep up with Loter's punching speed.

She did try to sneak a jab in between the rain of attacks, yet she got a fist to her chin before the jab fully went out and took two hooks to the cheeks before she could draw her hand back.

None of these strikes had any possibility of leaving a bruise or causing a knockout. However, since she was supposed to act as Boruka, who, most certainly, was not as strong as Ramiron, a hit in the face was counted as a win for Loter.

To prevent Loter's seamless attack from happening, Ramiron tried to kick and sweep Loter to the ground while he was approaching.

The only problem was that Loter did not even flinch when Ramiron's shin landed on his thigh. Ramiron could literally bust Loter's femur into two if she was using her full strength. Yet, when she was holding back, her kick was no more useful than a mosquito bite against Loter's skillful footing. Just like how Dowii taught him, Loter's soles were pressed firmly onto the ground.

Ramiron's next strategy was to utilize her superior arm length to take the offense before Loter could. This strategy gained her a temporary success since Loter was much slower on defense. It was clear that Loter's ordering power could grant him speed enhancement, but it seemed only to activate when Loter was attacking.

This genius plan worked for about a dozen seconds before Loter caught the gap in between Ramiron's punches. He jabbed forward so fast it almost looked like a few frames were cut out.

His fist landed in the center of Ramiron's chest, making a dampened thud. Ramiron staggered a few steps back and coughed heavily with her back bent forward.

"Oh, shit! Are you alright?" Loter lunged forward and reached out his hands. They were held clumsily in the air for several moments. Then, Loter recalled how people normally behave in this situation. He quickly turned to face the same direction as Ramiron and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Are you alright? Did I fail to control my strength again?"

Most of the time, Loter needed to raise his head to talk to Ramiron, so he was rarely capable of touching her shoulder so easily.

"Don't fret. I'm alright," Ramiron consoled Loter while straightening up. She wanted to rub the spot where she was hurt but paused her own action when her fingers touched her chest. The hand twitched and jerked away.

She had just flinched.

Seeing Ramiron's action frozen, Loter asked, "Ram, are you sure you are alright?"

Ramiron used a finger to hook her shirt collar and pulled it open. She peeked inside her polo to see the dark purple bruise in the center of her chest.

How? None of the previous punches are even one-fifth of this punch's power. It must be a special feature in Loter's ordering power. If he can learn to use this ability freely, he will most certainly win the duel. Maybe he can even become stronger than me.

"Ram?"

"Aye? Uh, ha. I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me. It doesn't even leave a scratch."

Loter sighed in relief. He took a few steps back as his stress flew away.

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"The punch was firm, tho. You need to be able to pull that off again when you are fighting Boruka. If you succeed, the match will end right then and there."

"Really?"

"Aye, so how did you do that?"

"I'm not sure. It just happened out of the blue."

"Have you ever done this before?"

"That punch?" Loter scratched his head while knitting his brows in recollection. He shifted his eyes away, staring into the empty wall.

After several seconds, he looked back and said, "If I have to make this comparison, I think it gave me a similar feeling as the punch that scratched Key's arm. I did not make the decision to throw the punch. I just knew that I did afterward."

"No one knows how to control their power from the beginning." Ramiron took a few steps back and held her guard up. "That's why we train to get better, isn't it?"

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Of course! As I said, it doesn't even leave a scratch."

"Yeah, you're right." Nodding, Loter raised his hands to his face level and clenched them into firm fists. "I'm coming, Ram." He lunged forward and to Ramiron's right side.

Ramiron jabbed at Loter's landing spot, forcing him back.

Loter leaned his head away to dodge the punch and swayed toward Ramiron's left. This rotation did not contain any speed enhancement. It was too slow.

Ramiron easily caught him midway. Her heavy fist landed on Loter's guarding arms. She purposefully made the strike much harder than the previous ones.

Unprepared, Loter almost did not hold up. He stumbled backward, almost falling.

Ramiron took this chance and stepped forward. She jabbed slightly softer and repeated. Both punches hit Loter in his arms without pushing through them. Ramiron intentionally pulled her fist a bit too much when retrieving it, leaving a small window of opportunity.

As expected, it happened.

Loter's fist landed on her midriff. Ramiron stooped forward. She could feel the chyme in her stomach racing up to her throat. She almost did not swallow them back.

"Ram, are you—"

"Perfectly fine! How about the punch? Did you feel anything?"

"I'm not sure. This time, I sort of saw the gap first before the punch went out. I still could not control the punch, but I did know the punch was about to happen before it happened."

"That's progress right there! Let's continue. We don't have time to waste."

The training finished at around 5 p.m. with several twenty-minute breaks in between. Of course, Loter managed to stretch those twenty minutes into twenty-five to thirty minutes every single break.

By the end of the training, they reached their conclusion: Loter's involuntary attacks were an ability in his ordering power that could only be activated when he was on defense.

They decided to call this move Super Counter.

Throughout the later half of the training, Loter tried to use it manually instead of letting it happen arbitrarily. However, none of the Super Counters went off immediately after he thought about it.

There was a chance that Super Counter just had long delays between using it and it happening. Yet, more likely, Loter's intense thinking did not have anything to do with the triggering of the move.

On their way back to Yotan's estate, Loter could clearly see Ramiron's movement was much slower and more clunky than in the morning.

He asked Ramiron again if she was fine, but her only answer was that she was just tired. She even yawned a few times. Loter appeared to have fully trusted her claim and was quite happy.

During the walk through the pebble trail, he told some jokes, laughed off halfway, punched air excitedly, pretended to be an airplane, talked about Key, jumped around, and whined about the distance between estates.

Ramiron was a much better liar than Hiroku. Yet, lying to Loter still added up to her already sizable mental weight.

She worried that Boruka would be stronger than their expectation, that Loter would lose, that Loter would die, that Hiroku would be executed, that Hiroku's wound was not as light as he claimed, and that something unexpected would strike them from behind. It was the future in general that she was scared of.

Everything in the future was worth fretting over. "Don't fret" was one of Ramiron's mantras, but she struggled to keep following it herself recently. There was just too much that could be lost too easily all of a sudden.

Just six days ago, she thought they were about to have an easy vacation with five-star services in Haban's best treatment center or what. Who could have predicted that things would escalate so fast?

If Ramiron really wanted to blame someone for all these troubles, the target would be Hiroku, and rightfully so. After all, Hiroku himself initiated the first duel. However, she would not do that.

Ramiron had known Hiroku for too long not to understand him. Hiroku had always been a fragile person in a crispy shell. Ramiron realized it the first time she met him. Hiroku's listlessness did make him seem aloof and silently cool, enough to pull a girl like Glacia. Yet, Ramiron, through her own experience, saw through his facade without effort.