“Yes.” She answered with a smile.

“Awesome. Let’s see it.” he held out a hand expectantly.

“No. I want you to get Touch Heal straight away instead.”

Something about the way she said it made his brain tickle. He knew the feeling; a sense of importance and knowledge beyond what he was supposed to possess. His gaze sharpened. “Can it wait until my fate builds up?”

She shook her head. “I can give you a meal and a chance to rebuild your mana stores, but nothing more than that.”

Tom nodded. “Half an hour, then. Should I practice Instant Strike in the meantime?”

“No.”

This time, he did do a double take. There was a lot of conviction in that word. April, her face tight, only smiled. There was a mystery here, and it was clear whatever it was included a subject she was not comfortable sharing with him. Tom could think of many reasons why that might be.

Food appeared in front of him.

“Eat, then you fight.”

“Is it poisoned?”

“Some minor stuff,” she answered evasively. “Please don’t check.”

“This is…” he started.

“Completely necessary,” she assured him and shut down further discussion at the same time.

Thirty minutes later, as prepared as he was ever going to get, he was transported once more to a familiar location.

The sightless eyes of the wador stared back at him.

Fuck you, he thought in annoyance toward April. After the wasps, he didn’t know why he was facing this. What was the point of dredging up opponents from his past? Some misguided idea of therapy was his guess, but it didn’t matter what its origins was - this was just another enemy he had to overcome.

Then the emulator, in control of what he guessed was supposed to be a facsimile of his mortal enemy, caught sight of him. His perception of time altered immediately.

Tom’s breath hitched as he registered the sensation. The opponent April had constructed to fight him was significantly faster than him. Everything moved slower, and he could feel how sluggish his body’s reactions were.

Perception and thought were what was sped up, so he had more than enough time to study what he was about to fight. It was a big creature, even larger when he was in this body as opposed to his adult one. When once it must have weighed two or three times more than him, in this engagement, that was more like ten. Its mouth was shut, but he knew the deadly teeth that it contained, and the razor-sharp claws on all of its six legs. It looked a lot like a cat, but, with its intelligence, was probably a deadlier hunter.

Tom recognised that, despite its appearance, this was not the one that had killed him - it was only an echo of its form created by April. Nor was the landscape an authentic recreation of the place where he had died. There was no ongoing side battle against the dragon, and the wador itself was clearly significantly diminished versus the version from the trial. That one would have literally slaughtered him before he could blink.

Yet the scars on its eyes were the same, and it stalked him with the similar threatening intensity. Tom reacted by keeping his weapon positioned perfectly as it padded around him. It was waiting, assessing, calculating the best way to kill him.

Abruptly, it leapt at him.

“Shit,” he cursed at how fast it moved. He stumbled backwards in response.

Fortunately, it didn’t approach melee range. That had been a feint to test him, and, based on the way its ears perked up, it was amused by his reaction.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

It accelerated again; this time, he lowered the point of his weapon to intercept it, and didn’t instinctively retreat. The fight was on now, and he couldn’t afford another mistake like the last. Something like that was too easily exploitable by an intelligent person. There was a flare of magic close to the wador, and then it rushed at him. Compressed air slammed into his shoulder before Tom could even think about evading it. While it was only air, it had a weight to it that half lifted him off the ground. He stumbled, and his spear tip drifted down and to the side.

It exploited the opportunity charging him for real. Danger Sense flared, and he followed its instructions.

He launched himself sideways instead of back. The wador struggled to adjust as it sprang past him having targeting the spot that it had expected him to retreat too. If he hadn’t listened to Danger Sense, Tom knew he would have been dead now. As it soared past him, it rotated to attack him and raked a single claw down his thigh.

Tom winced, but the wound was no more than a scratch. He dodged backwards and opened up space between them with his spear once more. This time, he set his feet wider, and leant forward slightly to prevent the wind gust from getting the better of him again.

The monster paused its incessant stalking:

“This is pointless. You know I’m going to kill you again. It’s inevitable.”

Tom deliberately didn’t respond. The wador was bullshitting. April would have left a way for him to win. He was doing this to help him evolve Touch Heal and, if he was guaranteed to die, he was never getting that opportunity.

“I was allowed to adjust my build to counter your new one. I was surprised by your status sheet. What you have is pretty bad, seems like you’ve made lots of bad choices.”

Tom cautiously flexed his leg. The wound, thanks to his blood evolution, had already stopped bleeding.

“That’s nice. I’m glad you haven’t lost your misplaced sense of superiority. If that’s the case, if you’ve reset your build, why on Existentia would you take wind gust instead of something useful?”

“Because it’s fun.” Tom saw the burst of power out of the corner of his eyes. The magic struck him with furious force, and he stumbled sideways, unable to prevent it. “I could use it alone to beat you, but I have other tricks.”

There was another flare of magic from his other side. Tom could have reacted, but doing so to every wind gust was self-defeating. Intense heat assaulted him as a firestorm washed over his position. His eyes stung as he kept them open to watch the enemy.

Not avoiding it, Tom realised, had been a mistake. Until he could tell the difference between the spells, they were all going to need to be dodged.

The wador opened its mouth, showing its teeth.

“This is how you express amusement, isn’t it?”

While there had only been the one proper encounter, the battle had progressed long enough for him to have drawn a number of conclusions. None of them were positive for his success chances. It was clear that the attribute gap was too high for this to be an easy fight. He was sure his opponent was stronger than rank-four, and a battle of attrition would not suit him. While the fire was a limited resource, as clearly shown by its lack of use, individually, the casts were powerful. It was only going to take a couple more of those infernos, and he would be in real trouble. His stomach rumbled, and he remembered the meal he had eaten. That was another ticking time bomb.

“I think you’re too scared to attack me.” Tom temporised, hoping to provoke it.

It showed more teeth, clearly amused by his blatant attempt to infuriate it. Its grin was very effective. It was like looking into the maw of a lion, and one that had already bitten his head off once before at that. He didn’t know why April had chosen this scenario, but he hated it.

“Why would I risk confrontation when I can just burn you alive from range?”

It feinted toward him, and then pulled back. Instead of a physical attack, it struck him magically with another firestorm. The runes on his orphanage clothes that had been protecting him failed. His entire front screamed out in pain. He really didn’t want to imagine how bad the burns were.

He winced, and the wador continued stalking him, showing lots of teeth.

“I’m not a monster.” It taunted him. “I have strategy, and patience, and I’m going to make certain of the kill. I think I’m a lucky wador, getting the chance to kill you twice.”

“Do you ever shut up?”

It chuffed in response, but the banter, while probably overall to the wador’s advantage, was not wasted by Tom. It gave him the opportunity to think and adjust. The firestorm had a range restriction; he was not sure how to exploit that fact, but he could make things slightly harder for it. Rather than allowing it to dictate the battle, he flipped the script. He picked his direction and basically charged its tail to force it to rotate clockwise. By forcing that direction, any future attacks would be against his current uninjured side. This time, he focused on identifying the tells inherent in the spells that were going to be used against him.

The wind gust struck him. He only staggered slightly and didn’t change his counter hunting. Its transparent attempt to encourage him to change the direction of their circling had failed.

He had no talent in reading wador emotions, but he was sure that twitch of the tail was annoyance.

Another fire wave hit him, but he had predicted it. He retreated and limited the damage and now he had a better idea of the timings of the attacks.

Multiple wind gusts struck him. They were annoying, and he allowed it to play its cat-and-mouse game. Then the cooldown of the inferno was over. It feinted, but Tom was ready to gamble and was already moving.

He sprinted straight at it into the red-hot flames.