Free Web NovelChapter 209: Your Body Is Slower Than Your Mind
Lancet could see the way the Heavenly Knight’s eyes shifted whenever he was forced to adapt instead of simply dominate.
Most of the time, Renan’s gaze was a flat, calm surface. Untroubled and unbothered. Like he was watching a rehearsal rather than a fight.
But when Lancet’s Radiant Wheel forced him to throw himself flat, those eyes moved. It was only a flicker really and there was barely any fear—Renan didn’t know fear. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
It was something closer to recalibration.
Like a mental gear shifting. The briefest narrowing as his brain recalculated the distance, the angle, the counter that would come three moves later.
Lancet had seen that same shift in Astensia back in Hebthej when she fought some extremely powerful Demons who refused to follow her script. It was the look of someone used to being the strongest, suddenly required to think.
Then Renan’s gaze stabilized again, calm restored, and Lancet knew the recalibration was complete. The Heavenly Knight had filed away Radiant Wheel, and had already started building a response for the next time Lancet tried it.
That was the difference between normal fighters and Renan. Normal fighters adapted by feel, by instinct. Renan adapted by architecture. He reconstructed the entire battlefield in his head, moved pieces around, and emerged with a strategy that made his next attacks feel inevitable.
But Lancet had learnt from Astensia that fighters who adapt can be tricked. In fact, they’re the easiest to trick. All you had to do was let them adapt to the wrong thing.
He spent another charge from the Phantom Ring. First, he pretended to be using Radiant Wheel, but he did not aim for a direct hit. Instead, he reshaped the borrowed power into Glorious Slash.
Renan’s eyes did exactly what Lancet expected: they sharpened, identified the skill, and began calculating the counter. The Heavenly Knight’s weight shifted onto his back foot, his sword angling to deflect the incoming arc at the precise point where its power would be weakest.
Lancet smiled.
He didn’t swing.
Instead, he held the charged energy, let it flicker at the edge of his blade like a delayed detonation, and changed his angle of attack mid-stride. He lunged low, feinting the slash entirely, and drove his shoulder into Renan’s midsection while the Heavenly Knight was still committed to his defensive posture.
For half a mini second, it looked like it was going to work. Renan’s feet slid backward. Lancet felt the impact land.
Then Renan’s sword moved.
The Knight responded with a counter! Somehow! Someway! He countered it again!
Black Gale whipped around in a tight, brutal arc that Lancet had not anticipated. The flat of the blade slammed into Lancet’s ribs before he could twist away.
The air left his lungs in an explosive grunt. He backpedaled, boots skidding on loose stone, one hand dropping to his side.
A flare of pain burned below his chest as the delayed Glorious Slash discharged uselessly into the air, a golden spark that vanished against the ceiling.
Renan straightened, brushing dust from his coat. "You tried to trick me," he said, not winded at all. "Clever. But your body still has to follow through. And your body is slower than your mind."
Lancet coughed, forced air back into his chest, and reset his stance. Damn. He had tricked the mind but not the hands. Renan’s sword skill was so deep, so ingrained, that even when his thinking was fooled, his muscle remembered the right answer.
That was the difference between adaptation and mastery. Adaptation could be tricked. Mastery just reacted.
Lancet’s ribs throbbed. His ring had five charges left.
He needed a new angle.
’The disparity in strength between the two of us is pretty vast,’ Lancet thought, raising the Guillotine. ’That kind of swordsmanship. It could only be learnt in a family like the Falconharts. Heck, it’s only because I have Astensia’s training in me that I can keep up with this guy.’
Renan then shifted the entire tempo.
He did not swing immediately. He stepped in, let Lancet think there would be an opening, and then moved with the kind of Heavenly feint that was not really a feint so much as a threat designed to create a response.
Lancet recognized it only half a beat late. He shifted to counter, but Renan had already moved past the line of the attack. The Heavenly Knight’s blade snapped upward, then down, and then sideways all in one breath, forcing Lancet to rotate twice just to avoid losing a limb.
"You’re just showing off now," Lancet muttered as he retreated.
Renan’s tone was as cool as ever. "You chose to stand in front of me."
"Yeah, well. I regret this already."
"You are still here."
Lancet stared at him for a moment, then he narrowed his eyes and attacked. He burned another charge and activated Lightning Step, closing distance suddenly and trying to catch Renan before the Heavenly Knight could reset.
Renan defended with a black-silver parry that was so efficient it almost looked lazy. The impact drove Lancet’s shoulder numb and the next counter came immediately, a winged cut to the ribs that forced Lancet to hop backward hard enough to stay upright.
The crowd had gone feral.
Every successful block from Lancet earned a shout. Every time Renan slipped through a defense, the stands exploded. Coins were changing hands near the back where the betting students had crowded the corridor and the broken railings.
Luke, still leaning against the wall in the shadows, had opened his eyes now and was watching in exhausted silence, his face unreadable.
Lancet kept fighting.
He bought space using Golden Deflect then followed with a sword lunge that forced the Heavenly Knight to lean away. He had to keep moving, he could not afford to stand still. Could not give Renan a clean rhythm.
Every second mattered. Every breath mattered. Renan was still the better swordsman, but Lancet was making him work, and that was enough to keep the arena breathless.
Renan finally said, almost conversationally, "You are already more skilled than the average Summomer."
Lancet laughed once, short and sharp, while parrying a strike that nearly took his ear off. "You’re more annoying than the average main character"
"What does that mean?"
Lancet stopped and smiled at him, almost even drawing a smile from Renan. The Heavenly Knight’s eyes moved across his stance, his foot placement, the angle of his shoulders. "You are trying to win by never letting me settle."
"You finally noticed?"
"I noticed earlier."
Lancet’s eyes widened. ’I’ve been reading him all this while and I failed to realize that he was reading me just as much.’ He looked at Renan. ’Maybe even better.’
Renan’s next attack confirmed it. The Heavenly Knight didn’t lunge or overcommit. He stepped graciously, one clean movement that placed him exactly where Lancet’s next dodge would have taken him.
Lancet had to twist mid-stride, aborting his own evasion, and caught Black Gale on Radiant Guillotine’s guard at an awkward angle. The impact jolted up his elbows.
"You rely on patterns," Renan said, pressing forward. His blade slid along Lancet’s, forcing the golden sword wide. "Even your improvisations have rhythm. I’ve been counting."
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Three strikes. Lancet parried the first, deflected the second, took the third on his shoulder guard. The metal dented. He stumbled sideways, barely keeping his feet.
"Three exchanges," Renan continued, not even breathing hard. "Then you feint. Four exchanges, you use a ring skill. Seven exchanges, you reset your footwork." He tilted his head. "Did you think I wouldn’t notice?"
Lancet’s jaw tightened. He exploded sideways, breaking the pattern. He came up behind Renan’s left flank, Radiant Guillotine swinging for the Heavenly Knight’s exposed back.
Renan dropped and swept Black Gale backward, catching Lancet’s blade before it could land. The force of the parry sent Lancet spinning. He planted a hand on the ground, kicked off, and launched himself into a rising slash that Renan sidestepped like a dancer avoiding a drunk.
"You’ve broken pattern," Renan acknowledged. "But only because I forced you."
Lancet stood still, anger painted all over his face.
Renan was right. Lancet was too telegraphed with the sword and too reliant on the Phantom Ring which now had just two charges left.
Worse, Renan was still untouched beyond that shallow collar cut. Desperation started to creep up Lancet’s spine.
At first, he’d not cared at all for this fight. He wanted to get it over with pretty quickly. But somewhere along the line, in between their exchanges and banter, Lancet decided that he wanted to defeat Renan Falconhart.
He wanted to prove a point.
