Chapter 436 — Is This All?

The training room stretched wide, reinforced walls bearing scars from weeks of use. Damian stood with his arms behind his back, his crimson eyes tracking across the five figures gathered before him.

Edrin adjusted his glasses, Lysa held her bow loosely at her side, Ariana’s hand rested near her katana, Ronan cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing off stone and Zavier gripped his spear tightly.

All of them stood waiting.

Damian walked slowly around them, his boots clicking against the floor.

"For the past few months, I haven’t had time to check your progress." His voice came out flat. "Everything just... moved too fast."

He stopped in front of Edrin, meeting his eyes through the glasses, then continued walking.

"I wanted to see how far you’ve come." His hands remained clasped behind his back. "What you’ve accomplished while I was occupied elsewhere."

The five of them shifted, glancing at each other with expressions mixing pride and uncertainty.

Damian turned to face them fully, his face completely expressionless.

"Come at me with everything you have." He paused. "I won’t use any skills."

"..."

Silence crashed through the room.

"Boss." Edrin stepped forward, his voice carrying careful respect. "We all know you’re strong... Nobody’s questioning that."

His hand gestured to include the others.

"But Ariana, Lysa and I are at B- rank now. Zavier’s about to enter B- as well." He adjusted his glasses, the tactical part of his mind already screaming warnings. "We’ve been working on our skills and weapon arts constantly. The gap between our ranks has narrowed significantly from when we first started. Are you certain you want us to go all out?"

Ronan’s voice boomed across the room, his massive frame shifting forward.

"You look down on us too much, Boss." His grin widened, showing teeth. "Just physical strength won’t be enough to handle all of us together. Not when we coordinate properly."

Damian’s eyes found Ronan’s face, his expression shifting into something cold.

Ronan’s mouth snapped shut, the grin dying immediately as his instincts screamed at him to stop talking.

Lysa leaned close to Ariana, her whisper barely audible.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Her sensory skill was picking up something from Damian’s presence and warning her. "Maybe we shouldn’t–"

Clank

Metal clang as Zavier pulled his spear from his spatial storage, the sound cutting through Lysa’s warning.

His face had gone grim, his eyes showing understanding that the others hadn’t quite grasped yet.

’He’s not testing our strength... He’s showing us how far we still have to go.’

Ariana’s hand moved to her katana, drawing it smoothly as spatial distortions began forming around the blade.

"Let’s start."

Her voice cut through the tension like a blade.

****

Edrin’s tactical skill blazed to life as patterns flooded his mind.

’Power gap is massive... Even without skills, his physical attributes far exceed ours. Trying to match him in direct combat would be a suicide.’

Attack patterns mapped themselves across his vision, timing windows opening and closing.

’Ariana’s spatial manipulation is our key advantage... She can bypass positioning entirely and create openings... We build everything around her delivering the killing blow.’

His eyes flicked to each teammate, assigning roles in fractions of a second.

"Scatter!"

All five exploded into motion simultaneously.

Ronan’s brown Aura detonated outward as Titan’s Wrath activated. His frame swelled, muscles bulging as earth-element Aura condensed around his fists like stone gauntlets and the floor cracked under his weight.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Each step thundered as he charged straight forward.

Lysa moved left, her bow drawn as ice-blue Aura crystallized into three arrows as Glacial Volley manifested. Frost spread across her fingers, her breath misting in the sudden cold.

Edrin went right, twin swords igniting with green wind Aura. Tempest Edge turned the blades into screaming blurs that carved the air itself.

Zavier circled behind, his spear erupting in crimson flames. Inferno Piercer turned the weapon white-hot, heat waves distorting everything around him.

And Ariana... vanished.

Space folded as she reappeared directly behind Damian, katana mid-swing. Void Severance activated along the blade’s edge, reality warping around steel that could cut through anything.

Damian tilted forward–

WHOOSH

–And Ariana’s katana passed through empty air where his neck had been. The spatial edge hit the wall behind him instead.

CRACK

Stone split three feet deep in a perfect line.

His hand came up, two fingers extended–

TAP

–And he touched her forehead.

’Too fast–’

The gentle contact transferred kinetic force that launched her backward. Her body tumbled through the air as spatial manipulation activated reflexively.

CRASH

She hit the far wall anyway, air exploding from her lungs.

Ronan was already there, stone-coated fist driving toward Damian’s face.

But Damian’s palm rose to meet it.

CRACK

The impact echoed like thunder, dust kicking up from the shockwave.

Ronan’s entire massive frame stopped dead, halted by one hand that showed no strain.

’How strong is he?!’

Damian’s fingers closed around Ronan’s fist and twisted.

CRACK

Bones ground together as the wrist bent wrong. Ronan’s Titan form kept them from breaking, but white spots danced across his vision from pain that shot up his arm.

Then Damian pulled.

Ronan’s feet left the ground as he was yanked forward, his face met Damian’s rising knee.

CRUNCH

Cartilage flattened, blood sprayed and his head snapped back.

Damian’s other hand grabbed his collar, spun once to build momentum, then released.

CRASH CRASH BOOM

Ronan’s body flew across the room, crashed through two practice dummies, slammed into the reinforced wall. Stone cracked in spider-web patterns around the impact point.

He slid down, his Titan form flickering as consciousness wavered.

’One down... Strength and speed contest are pointless.’

Edrin’s mind processed what he’s just witnessed.

Three ice arrows shrieked through the air from Lysa’s position.

CRACK CRACK CRACK

Damian’s hand blurred, shattering all three against his palm. Ice shards exploded outward, scattering across the floor. Frost spread across his skin, but his flesh showed no damage beneath.

’He just broke them bare-handed!’

Five more arrows were materialized by Lysa, larger and spinning.

Damian moved between them.

His body twisted at impossible angles, shoulders turning to let one arrow pass within inches. His head tilted, another grazing past his ear close enough that frost formed on his hair.

THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK

All five embedded themselves in the wall behind him, ice spreading from each impact.

’He’s playing with us...’

The realisation hit Lysa cold.

Space folded again as Ariana teleported herself, Edrin and Zavier to three positions around Damian simultaneously.

The coordinated strike came from all angles.

Edrin’s wind-wrapped swords from the front.

Zavier’s burning spear from the left, flames trailing.

Ariana’s spatial katana from the right, reality bending.

Damian stepped forward into Edrin’s guard before the swords could reach as his elbow drove into Edrin’s solar plexus.

BAM

Air exploded from Edrin’s lungs, his tactical skill fragmenting as pain overrode calculation. His swords clattered from nerveless fingers as he folded around the strike.

Damian’s other hand shot out, grabbing Zavier’s spear shaft before the burning tip reached his side.

His palm wrapped around superheated metal without smoke and without the smell of burning flesh.

’What the fuck?!’

Zavier tried to wrench his weapon free.

But Damian yanked instead as Zavier stumbled forward, his balance destroyed. Damian’s knee came up to meet his face.

CRACK

The impact snapped Zavier’s head back, blood spraying from split lips as his grip loosened.

Damian took the spear, spun it once, drove the blunt end into Zavier’s stomach.

THUD

Zavier’s body folded around the strike before crashing to the floor, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.

All of this happened in the span it took Ariana’s katana to complete its arc.

Damian moved his head inches left.

SLASH SLASH SLASH

The spatial edge passed through empty air, cutting three practice dummies across the room as they fell apart in clean sections.

Ariana’s momentum carried her past him.

Damian’s hand caught her wrist before space could fold for teleportation.

His grip anchored her in place, spatial energy flickering against his skin without forming the connection needed to escape.

"Nice try."

His other hand moved to her shoulder and pushed.

She stumbled backward and hit the ground, her katana skittering across stone out of reach.

"..."

Silence fell across the training room.

Edrin knelt, still trying to remember how to breathe.

Zavier curled on his side, gasping and coughing.

Ariana lay flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Ronan slumped against the wall, consciousness flickering.

Lysa remained standing, bow raised, hands trembling. Her sensory skill had tracked every movement, broken down every impossible feat of precision.

Her bow lowered slowly, Aura fading from the string.

Damian walked forward, boots echoing in the quiet. He stopped in the center, looking down at four of his strongest Mafia students lying defeated.

His face remained expressionless.

"Is this all you’re capable of?"

The words landed like physical blows as nobody answered.

Edrin stared up at Damian’s face, his mind coming to a bitter conclusion.

’From the start, he never took us seriously... He could have ended it instantly... But he was showing us how outclassed we are.’

Ariana pushed herself up to sit, her eyes showing Damian’s form standing above them like a mountain they’d tried to climb with bare hands.

’My skill just stopped working when he grabbed me... Like trying to fold space through solid steel. Just... how?’

Lysa’s legs gave out, her body settling to the floor as exhaustion caught up.

’Every arrow I fired, he either broke or dodged... Is the gap really that big? My months of practice... completely meaningless.’

Zavier rolled onto his back, blood still leaking from his split lip.

’I’ve trained so hard... Pushed myself every single day... But the gap just keeps getting wider...’

Ronan’s consciousness returned slowly, vision clearing enough to see Damian’s silhouette.

’My strongest punch with everything I had behind it... he stopped it so easily... We never really stood a chance.’