Chapter 559: That's Enough. Come At Me.
"I do have a few more boxes," Noah admitted smoothly, completely unfazed by her manipulation. "But you're not getting them until we finish your combat assessment."
Since she loved the dessert so much, Noah fully intended to leave the entire batch of parfaits he had bought with her before he left. He could easily stop by Caracol on his way back to Ishgar and buy more for Ultear and the girls.
"I need to see proof." Brandish crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
She wasn't stupid. If Noah was lying just to get her to train, and he didn't actually have more dessert, she would be wasting her energy for nothing. She needed visual confirmation.
"Fair enough," Noah chuckled.
He waved his hand. Three more chilled boxes of Star-Mango parfaits instantly materialized on the coffee table.
"YES!" Brandish's eyes lit up like fireworks. She instantly lunged across the table, her hands grasping for the boxes.
SWISH.
Before her fingers could brush the cardboard, Noah waved his hand again, and the boxes vanished back into his spatial pocket.
"Nuh-uh. You have to complete the assessment first," Noah smirked.
"Hmph!" Brandish scowled, angrily crossing her arms and flopping back onto the sofa. Denied her immediate sugary gratification, she resentfully picked up her spoon and continued slowly eating her current parfait.
"Well, since you two have your schedule figured out, I'm going to head to the market," Grammi smiled, stepping out of the kitchen. She had been listening from the hallway to ensure they were getting along.
Brandish gave her mother a half-hearted wave without looking away from her dessert. Grammi just shook her head affectionately and left the house.
Knowing that more parfaits were waiting for her, Brandish abandoned her stalling tactics. She rapidly shoveled the rest of the dessert into her mouth, practically swallowing it whole.
"Alright, I'm done. Where exactly are we doing this?" Brandish asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Noah raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. "You live here. I just snuck into the country a few hours ago. I have no idea where a suitable, unpopulated training ground is."
"Oh. Right. So troublesome," Brandish sighed heavily, rubbing her temples.
She thought for a moment before answering. "There's a massive range of barren mountains a few miles outside the city. It's completely isolated. No one ever goes there, so I usually go there to practice my larger spells. We can do it there."
"Barren mountains? Perfect. Show me where it is," Noah said.
He opened his Archive interface, projecting a highly detailed, holographic topographical map of the surrounding region into the air between them.
Brandish stared at the glowing blue map in sheer awe. She had never seen magic like that before. But she pushed her curiosity aside and quickly pointed to a specific cluster of jagged peaks on the projection.
"Right here. Grab your stuff and lock the doors. We're leaving immediately," Noah instructed, confirming the coordinates.
Brandish nodded and quickly secured the house. While she hated the idea of fighting Noah, she was deeply relieved she didn't have to walk all the way to the mountains.
Once she was ready, Noah placed his hand on her shoulder.
VMMM.
In a flash of golden light, they vanished from the living room.
When they reappeared, they were standing in the center of a massive, rocky canyon surrounded by jagged, barren mountains.
"This is perfect," Noah noted, his sensory magic instantly sweeping the area. The region was completely devoid of human life, and even the local wildlife was incredibly sparse. They could unleash high-tier magic here without causing any unwanted collateral damage.
"Give me a second to set up a perimeter ward," Noah said. "We don't want the noise of our fight drawing unwanted attention from the Imperial Guard."
He spent a minute rapidly etching a massive, invisible localized soundproofing and kinetic-dampening barrier around the canyon.
"Alright, it's set. Come at me whenever you're ready," Noah announced, standing a few dozen yards away from her, his posture completely relaxed.
"HAA!"
Brandish didn't waste a single second on banter. The moment Noah gave the signal, she aggressively whipped her arm forward, hurling a handful of small pebbles directly at his face.
She hadn't been idle while he was setting up the barrier. Knowing her magic couldn't directly affect Noah's body or his clothes, she had quickly gathered a handful of rocks to use as projectiles.
"Command T: Maximize!"
VMMMM!
The tiny pebbles instantly ballooned in mid-air, rapidly transforming into massive, two-meter-wide boulders. Driven by their initial kinetic momentum, the colossal rocks hurled toward Noah with terrifying speed, whistling through the air.
BANG!
Noah didn't even bother raising a magical shield. He simply stepped forward and casually slapped his right palm against the leading boulder.
The moment his hand connected, the boulder instantly lost all momentum, violently shattering into a thousand pieces that rained down around him.
Before the dust from the shattered rock could clear, Noah's hyper-attuned senses picked up a subtle tremor beneath his boots. He immediately hopped backward.
SHHHHK!
A razor-sharp, massive stone stalagmite violently erupted from the exact spot he had been standing. If he hadn't moved, he would have been impaled.
Noah continued backpedaling, moving with flawless, fluid grace as Brandish desperately commanded the earth beneath him to violently expand, sending a relentless, continuous barrage of massive stone spikes erupting toward him.
Suddenly, Noah stopped moving backward. A massive, solid stone wall had violently erupted from the ground behind him, completely blocking his retreat.
Simultaneously, two more colossal walls erupted to his left and right, boxing him in.
Before he could react, hundreds of razor-sharp stone spikes shot out from all three walls, converging directly on his position, while the ground beneath his feet violently splintered upward.
CRUNCH!
Noah casually raised his foot and stomped down, instantly crushing the ascending spike into dust.
Simultaneously, he pulsed a wave of pure, condensed Ethernano from his core. The golden shockwave violently expanded outward, instantly vaporizing the converging spikes and completely obliterating the massive stone walls boxing him in.
Seeing the terrifying shockwave of pure magical energy rapidly expanding toward her, Brandish panicked and dove to the ground, covering her head as the shockwave roared overhead.
When she cautiously stood back up, Noah was already casually walking toward her through the clearing dust.
Brandish panicked. She absolutely refused to let him close the distance. She knew how absurdly strong his physical body was; if this devolved into hand-to-hand combat, she was dead.
She desperately hurled another pebble.
"Command T: Maximize!"
The pebble instantly swelled into a colossal, ten-meter-wide asteroid, screaming through the air directly toward Noah.
Noah raised his right hand, preparing to shatter it just as he had the first.
But exactly as he raised his hand, the ground directly beneath his feet violently collapsed. Brandish had shrunk a massive section of the earth's crust, creating a sudden, thirty-meter-deep sinkhole.
Noah fell into the pit, momentarily losing his footing.
Seeing the ten-meter asteroid plummeting directly toward him in the pit, Noah didn't panic. He smoothly retracted his raised hand, clenched his fist, and punched upward.
BOOOOOOM!
The massive asteroid violently exploded upon impact with his fist, showering the canyon in harmless gravel.
Through the falling debris, Noah looked up toward the rim of the pit.
Brandish was staring down at him, her expression completely focused and deadly serious. She swung both her arms down violently.
"Command T: Maximize!"
The edges of the massive sinkhole violently expanded, generating dozens of colossal, cylindrical stone pillars that shot downward into the pit, directly targeting Noah as he fell.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Noah didn't try to dodge. He simply unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of punches, effortlessly shattering every single pillar that came near him. However, because he was punching upward without solid footing, the sheer kinetic recoil of his strikes violently accelerated his descent into the pit.
The sinkhole was already incredibly deep, but as Noah looked down, he realized it was still rapidly expanding downward. Brandish was continuously shrinking the earth beneath him, deepening the pit while simultaneously generating more massive stone pillars from the walls above to crush him, effectively trapping him in an endless, descending gauntlet of falling rock.
Realizing her strategy, Noah decided to stop playing along.
He stopped punching. A dense, shimmering golden Ethernano shield instantly enveloped his body. He simply crossed his arms and allowed the relentless barrage of massive stone pillars to slam directly into his shields, using their kinetic force to rapidly accelerate his descent.
BOOOOOOM!
After plummeting for over a hundred meters, the sinkhole finally stopped deepening. Noah violently slammed into the bedrock at the bottom, creating a massive crater upon impact.
The endless barrage of stone pillars followed him down, relentlessly hammering into his shields until they completely filled the bottom of the colossal pit.
RUMBLE!
Brandish wasn't done. Above ground, she commanded the walls of the massive sinkhole to violently expand inward, completely burying the pit in thousands of tons of solid rock.
THOOOOOM!
The colossal sinkhole was violently sealed, the ground violently shaking as the earth fused back together.
"Haa... Haa..."
Standing near the edge of the freshly sealed, massive scar in the earth, Brandish rested her hands on her knees, gasping violently for air.
Thick beads of sweat rolled down her face and dripped from her chin, forming a small puddle in the dirt beneath her.
Rapidly chaining massive environmental manipulations had completely drained her magical reserves. She was utterly exhausted.
She knew perfectly well that dropping thousands of tons of rock on Noah wasn't going to hurt him, but a small, instinctual part of her desperately hoped she had at least managed to slow him down.
RUMBLE!!!
Suddenly, a terrifying, deafening rumble echoed from deep beneath the sealed earth, violently shaking the entire canyon.
Brandish yelped, nearly losing her footing. She stumbled backward, her eyes widening in absolute horror as she stared at the center of the sealed pit.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The earth violently exploded upward. A colossal, twenty-meter-wide pillar of pulverized rock and dust violently erupted from the ground, shooting hundreds of feet into the air like a localized volcanic eruption, completely blotting out the sky.
Seeing the apocalyptic geyser of debris raining down, Brandish forced her exhausted body to move, frantically sprinting backward to avoid being crushed by the falling boulders.
As she retreated, she saw a blur of golden light shoot out from the center of the dust pillar, landing gracefully on the solid ground near the edge of the crater.
It was Noah, his golden shields still fully intact, looking completely unbothered.
Seeing that Brandish was completely drained, her shoulders heaving and her magic completely depleted, Noah knew the combat assessment was over.
He didn't want to leave the canyon looking like a warzone, so he casually flared his magic, sending a massive, gentle wave of golden Ethernano sweeping across the entire area.
Brandish instantly threw her arms up, desperately bracing for an attack.
But the magic wasn't directed at her.
The golden wave washed over the falling debris and the massive dust clouds, instantly freezing them in mid-air. Under Noah's absolute telekinetic control, the thousands of tons of pulverized rock rapidly flowed back into the colossal crater, seamlessly repairing the damaged earth.
Within seconds, the dust completely settled. The canyon was perfectly pristine, the blue sky completely visible once again.
"Not bad at all," Noah smiled, dismissing his shields and walking toward her. "Your raw magical output and environmental manipulation are excellent. You haven't been slacking off. Your combat adaptability and response times are very sharp."
"Obviously! I told you I've been working hard!" Brandish beamed proudly, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten as she puffed out her chest.
But her pride quickly faded, replaced by a deep, resentful pout.
"It would have been a lot easier if your stupid shields didn't make you completely immune to my magic," Brandish grumbled, crossing her arms.
"Normally, I just shrink my opponent's clothes or their shoes to restrict their movement, then easily knock them out. Or I shrink one of their legs so they lose their balance. It's incredibly efficient.
"But because you have those insane passive shields, I couldn't target your body or your clothes at all. I was forced to use the environment to attack you, which drains way too much magic. It's so incredibly annoying."
If she could have just shrunk his clothes, the fight would have been over in seconds. Being forced into a battle of attrition against a monster like Noah was incredibly frustrating.
"Well, you can't expect every opponent to be a weakling you can instantly cripple," Noah pointed out reasonably, shrugging his shoulders. "You have to be prepared to fight enemies who possess high-tier magical resistance.
"Do you not have anyone around here to spar with?" Noah asked curiously.
"I do, but they're all soldiers or officers in the Imperial Army, and my mom and I hate dealing with them," Brandish sighed. "My mom hates war, and I just think military people are incredibly annoying.
"The environment here is completely different from Ishgar. There are no independent magical guilds. Every single mage in the Empire is forcibly conscripted into the military. All the strong mages are Imperial soldiers.
"Since I hate dealing with troublesome situations, I've deliberately hidden my true strength from everyone. If the military found out how strong I am, they would forcefully recruit me, and that sounds like a nightmare.
"So, I only train in secret at home or out in these abandoned mountains. And since my mom's shop makes enough money, I don't have to take dangerous subjugation quests or rely on the military for an income."
Hearing her explanation, Noah nodded in perfect understanding. That was incredibly on-brand for Brandish.
If revealing her strength meant dealing with the military, she would absolutely hide her strength to avoid the hassle.
Because Grammi had been heavily sponsored by Layla before the borders closed, she had saved enough money to ensure Brandish never had to fight for a living. That financial stability allowed Brandish to remain completely off the Empire's radar, safely avoiding conscription and the terrifying politics of the Spriggan 12.
~~~
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