Chapter 33: This Battle of Endurance

Violet saw Ivan shuffle his feet nervously as he stood on his feet. Doubt and hesitancy now filled his actions, each movement he took now filled with a shaking pause. Violet was inwardly filled with exciting confidence.

‘He’s off his rhythm now. I have a chance to finally begin turning the tides of this battle.’

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‘I have to watch my counter though, it’s getting high.’

Violet began to confidently walk towards Ivan, allowing her arms to drip down by her sides, leaving herself completely open to any physical attacks. It was as if she was inviting Ivan to attack her, a proclamation of absolute confidence.

Ivan’s face turned an uneasy blend of pale and bright red, overtaken by a swirl of fear and anger. Violet smiled; from their previous talk and her understanding of him through Soul Seer, it was evident that he lacked confidence. By fully lowering her guard and showing him open disrespect, she believed it would have a remarkable influence on his mental state, working to her advantage.

Like magic, Ivan crouched down again, preparing to launch himself once more. In the previous times he had performed the attack, Violet was too focused on avoiding it or too far away to notice the details of it.

But this time she was close. As she brought her hands up to redirect Ivan’s movements, she saw his legs begin to bulge. She had seen it for a moment earlier but it was only now that she could see just how large his legs became.

They were the size of a tree trunk, causing Ivan to appear comedically disproportionate in his body. His veins appeared like they were about to burst, thickening and widening to the size of a faucet. The suit that he was wearing stretched, nearly to the point of tearing, Violet could almost see the fibers of it straining to the point of tearing.

But the thing that especially caught Violet’s eye, was Ivan’s face. He was in pain, horrible horrible pain. His teeth were gritted and for a moment tears flooded into his eyes. All the muscles in his face were tensed to hold back the screams that would come out otherwise.

In less than a second, Violet absorbed all of this information, and then Ivan was off. His inhuman legs pushed off the ground, easily cracking the concrete beneath them. His legs immediately returned to their normal state. Violet likened it to water behind a dam, building up pressure and swelling until, finally, the dam was released and a massive amount of force poured out.

As Ivan flew towards her, Violet moved her fingers. She didn’t have the time to move her entire arm or hand, which would allow for more precise control, but her fingers would be enough. She used telekinesis on Ivan’s body and an invisible force began to move him.

Violet saw him narrowly miss her. The wind blew past with incredible force and it almost felt like he had even grazed her arm, but he missed. Ivan flew into the buildings on Violet’s side, crashing in a fit of dust and debris.

Violet fell to the ground, thrown off balance from the wind that Ivan had flown along with. Even as she did so though, a smile crept its way onto her face. She had affirmed to not only Ivan but to herself, that Ivan’s lightning-fast charge was no longer a threat to her. With solidified confidence, Violet sprang up immediately and turned to face Ivan.

She quickly locked onto Ivan’s figure, which was slightly obscured by a cloud of dust. He shakingly stood up, his legs seemingly trembling in an overwhelming fear. His right arm clenched at the elbow of his left, of which blood and a series of healing sparks leaked out. His face was twisted into an expression of fear and desperation. Violet couldn’t help but think that Ivan’s entire body, the way it trembled, its posture, resembled a small animal that was backed into a corner yet still desperate to live.

It was Ivan’s eyes, however, which drew Violet’s attention the most. It was said that the eyes were the window to the soul, a phrase which Violet frankly thought was rather idiotic considering she could see the soul directly. At this moment, however, she believed that she understood the phrase.

‘Ivan isn’t finished yet,’ Violet realized, immediately reinforcing her body with psychic energy.

While the rest of Ivan’s body gave off an image of weakness, his eyes flipped back and forth between resolve and uncertainty. His brows furrowed in heated concentration, and it seemed like every half second something deep inside Ivan swayed from one side to another. From violence to surrender, resolve to resolution, confidence, and fear, and so on and so forth.

As the dust cleared, Ivan’s eyes seemingly settled at last. A steely resolve spread from his eyes to his mouth, then his arms, and then the rest of his body. Yet at the same time, a pained expression loomed behind his resolve.

‘Dangit! Does he have more up his sleeve?’ Ivan’s change in personality unsettled Violet greatly. Her heart raced as she considered her possible options.

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‘If Ivan has more moves up his sleeve I can’t go in close. It could backfire on me severely, and it would allow Ivan to land multiple attacks on me. But, if I don’t make a move then he’ll take the chance and I might be set on the backfoot.’

Violet’s brain became a storm of thought as she considered strands of possible options. Ultimately, however, she simply had no information to work off of. Without knowledge of Ivan’s possible routes of action, Violet would be taking a massive risk with anything she did. Unless…

Violet very nearly cursed, something she had never done before, as she activated Soul Seer. To call it a risky gamble would be an understatement. Soul Seer already consumed a large amount of psychic energy, but when coupled with her mixed exhaustion from battle, the effective cost of Soul Seer could double. Not only that, when she used Soul Seer, her speed and strength of body reinforcement took a drastic nosedive.

‘Father would kill you if he ever found out you did this,’ Violet scolded herself. Her father was one of the main people who trained her, being an S-Rank psychic, and he had always emphasized the importance of not sacrificing options, a teaching reinforced by often brutal beatings.

Violet activated Soul Seer and immediately began to take in information that flowed through Ivan’s soul, no longer caring if he noticed her eyes suddenly changing into a gemlike purple. Shoving away unnecessary information, Violet began to listen in on Ivan’s thoughts involving their fight.

‘She’s a member of the Woo family, meaning her combative skills are probably far greater than mine are, so I have to use everything! At bes,t I can only hold it for a minute. Unique Power Desy-’

Violet’s eyes widened as a piece of her subconscious noticed Ivan’s lips moving at the same time his thoughts said ‘Unique’.

‘Is he already attacking again!?!’ Violet thought to herself, slightly panicking.

She suddenly felt a pulse of psychic energy travel through the air, her body suddenly tingling with energy. The air was filled with a vibrant and electric power that seemed to spread out from Ivan’s body. Then, as quick as it appeared, the energy suddenly withdrew back into Ivan.

Immediately moving to the defensive, Violet deactivated Soul Seer. Or at least, she tried. To her horror and shock, Violet found that Soul Seer was somehow stuck on. She felt her stomach drop as Ivan sprinted at her, seemingly intending to make the most of the minute he had to use this technique.

As Violet gave up on trying to deactivate Soul Seer, she began to reinforce her body in an attempt to protect herself from whatever was coming. Ivan, his soul still visible, was in front of Violet in an instant, throwing a kick to her left side.

‘Something’s wrong!’ Violet realized suddenly. For a reason she didn’t know, her psychic powers weren’t reinforcing her body. In fact, she couldn’t sense any psychic energy flowing throughout her at all. Violet felt an overwhelming and terrifying chill wash over her as Ivan’s leg collided with her.

Using her arms to block the attack, Violet felt Ivan’s psychic-powered leg crush her bones. Wincing in pain, Violet moved Ivan’s legs upwards while falling back, allowing Ivan’s legs to fly over her head.

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As Violet quickly began running away from Ivan she felt Soul Seer turn off without warning. For a moment, her vision blurred as she felt the constant flow of psychic energy to her eyes dissipate. At the same time, Violet felt her arms begin to flare up in horrendous pain, even more so than during the Second Selection, in which the examiners had broken her arm. She quickly began to attempt to heal it with psychic energy, only to find that she wasn’t able to heal either.

‘What the hell is happening? Why did Soul Seer turn off now, but not before? Why wasn’t I able to reinforce my arms, and why can’t I heal?’

Violet understood that it had something to do with Ivan’s unique power, but she didn’t understand what exactly it was doing to her.

‘Desync, it has to do with desyncing someth-’

Violet’s train of thought was violently interrupted when she felt her arms suddenly begin to expand in agonizing pain. They swelled several times more than normal until they were nearly the width of her neck. The pain was unlike anything Violet had ever felt before; no physical pain had ever even approached what she was feeling at this moment.

“AAAGHHH,” Violet screamed out, falling to the ground as her arms felt like they were being torn apart at every cell. Her arms screamed out desperate cries of agony, sending shivers across her entire body. She began to swing her arms out randomly, as though trying to detach them from her body to relieve herself from the pain. An instinctive, primal drive to release herself from the pain overtook Violet and she swung herself around erratically.

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In this fit of pain, it just so happened that Ivan was in the way. Violet’s swollen fist connected with Ivan’s side, and he was sent flying away like a ragdoll. His body, despite being reinforced by psychic powers, practically crumpled away upon contact. Violet didn’t notice it due to her mind being preoccupied with the insane pain, but her attack hit with such force that even Ivan’s skin was torn off of his body. His suit was torn apart like paper through a shredder.

A few moments later, Violet felt her arms begin to deflate, steam rising out from the suit. She rolled onto her back, groaning as the remnants of the pain began to subside. Tears continued to flow from her eyes, which she didn’t even notice as she was too busy attempting to gather her thoughts on what had just occurred.

‘I understand it now… Ivan’s unique power. It desyncs the time between activating psychic power and the psychic power actually responding. That’s why Soul Seer took so long to turn off, and why my arms suddenly swelled up. There was a desync between when I wanted to reinforce my arms and when it actually happened, as a result, when it finally happened, all the psychic power that was meant to reinforce my arm and heal it exploded upwards at once. That must also be how Ivan was able to launch himself with such low charge-up time.’

Violet subconsciously gave off a weak smile as she deduced the nature of Ivan’s powers. However, she didn’t know for how long her powers would be desynced. Ivan probably did though, leaving her at a significant disadvantage in combat.

Meanwhile, Ivan was already picking himself up and healing, although his injury was still visible and severe. Violet understood why he was so desperate though, if the information she gathered from Soul Seer was correct, Ivan had less than a minute left before he ran out of stamina.

‘Which means,’ Violet concluded as she shakingly stood up, ‘I just have to outlast the remaining seconds. I estimate there’s maybe 45 seconds left.’

Violet, now standing, shook her arms rapidly, fighting off the small amounts of dull pain remaining. She eyed Ivan, who was slamming his side ferociously, each hit a storm of sparks sizzled out of his arm and into his side. He was seemingly making use of the unique state provided by desync to heal himself abnormally fast.

Violet breathed in deeply, a 30-second battle of endurance. Ivan held nearly every advantage in this situation, greater experience, superior knowledge, and far more risk. But the one advantage Violet held would be what decided her victory.

‘You were too emotional Ivan, too hasty. Now, all I have to do is last the remaining time. I’ll win the battle of stamina.’

…

Shamus indicated the screen, concentrating on an applicant, Jewon Woo, who had just triumphed over her first opponent.

“The suit readings prove it, beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he said.

Next to him, Sever Fowl stared at the screen with his full attention and his eyes larger than stones. An almost divine sense of desperate hope filled his heart as he realized the possible implications of what he was witnessing beforehand.

“Shamus, I want you to hide this. Bury it, and never talk about this to anyone but me,” Fowl said.

Shamus nodded, a sly smile growing, “No problem.”

End of Chapter 33