The improvised training field behind the mansion no longer looked like a field.
The duel between Samira and Zi Bai had transformed the area into a strip of devastation that was clean, brutal, and strangely instructive. Thick trunks lay fallen in different directions, some cut diagonally with absurd precision, others split in half by impacts that should not have been possible with swords alone. Branches still fell slowly from mutilated trees, and leaves spun through the air alongside dust and small fragments of wood.
The last metallic echoes of the clash still seemed to vibrate among the remaining trunks, as if the environment itself was taking time to accept that the exchange of blows had ended.
Samira remained on her knees among the wreckage, staring at the broken blade with an emptiness that did not suit her at all.
