Ever since Rayleigh came to this world, he had actually been very confident about his own future.
Even though beneath this Age of the Gods there were countless heroes—and even freakish cheaters—he had always felt that he should be one of them.
And after coming to Orario, his experiences had only made that belief more solid.
But now—he finally understood what a real cheat monster was.
Level suppression did not even matter.
Even if the two of them were at the same level, he probably still would not be able to defeat Alfia.
This was not a gap in strength.
it was a gap in talent.
'Haa—'
Driving those thoughts and feelings out of his head, Rayleigh sprang to his feet with a kip-up.
"Again!"
"Come."
Alfia was still expressionless.
Facing Rayleigh's attacks, her dodging remained just as elegant and composed as ever, without the slightest trace of disorder.
As one attack after another missed, Rayleigh frowned slightly.
He could tell that this was not absolute suppression through speed alone. It was that Alfia had seen through his movements.
He did not choose to use feints and false attacks to mislead her.
Because when the other side's dynamic vision was several times—or even dozens of times—better than yours, doing that was just making a fool of yourself.
The other side would probably think you were juggling.
"Shunkō!"
Reiatsu tore apart Rayleigh's clothes.
His speed suddenly surged, and at the same time, under the control of Reiryoku, his body became even more flexible.
Even movements that defied common sense could now be performed.
Alfia felt a trace of difficulty and praised him, "A very interesting technique."
She observed the Reiatsu surging across Rayleigh's body.
With one glance, she could tell that it was a kind of "enhancement magic," and one with a certain amount of risk at that.
Rayleigh explained, "This is Shunkō."
He did not say anything more. In any case, he was about to show the rest of it.
Whoosh!
His figure became a black line.
In the blink of an eye, he crossed more than ten meters and arrived in front of Alfia.
Alfia raised one hand, extending her palm forward at a low angle.
At the same time, she turned her body slightly sideways, slid one foot a little backward, and rooted herself to the ground.
The distance had closed as he had entered attack range.
Rayleigh was just about to strike—when a shock suddenly came straight at his face.
Thud!
His body tilted backward, but he did not get blown away or fall down.
Grinding his teeth, Rayleigh tightened his abdomen and forcibly stabilized himself with his core strength, managing to remain standing.
Blue patterns passed across his face.
"Oh?"
A surprised sound came from Alfia.
It was Blut Vene.
Rayleigh had known she would strike later yet arrive first, so he had chosen to meet it head-on, but he had not expected the power of the attack to be this great.
That just now was... one-inch force.
A close-range martial art secret that only quite high-level fighters could use—and she could throw it out so casually?
After steadying himself, Rayleigh shaped his hand into a tiger claw, inhaled, focused, and gathered power.
Using that same technique, Rayleigh poured Reiryoku into it to make up for the lack in power.
If he directly attacked with Reiatsu, it would be nullified by Silentium Eden.
So he could not fire the Reiatsu out. Instead, he had to turn it into propulsion!
Boom! The air exploded.
A Mach ring bloomed between the two of them.
Within one-thousandth of a second, Alfia instantly applied two bursts of force to her arm for acceleration, then snapped out a strike with it.
The two attacks collided.
Rayleigh's attack was dispersed and what was dispersed along with it was the ground across a range of dozens of meters.
The earth itself was flipped up by Alfia's strike.
"Cough."
Rayleigh could not hold on this time.
Without using a Zanpakutō, he was already bringing out ninety percent of his power, yet he still had no way of dealing with Alfia.
And Alfia had not even used Magic. She was merely training him with hand-to-hand combat.
"You can rest for a bit now," Alfia suddenly said.
Hearing that, Rayleigh let out a sigh of relief.
Honestly speaking, the pressure he felt when facing Alfia was enormous.
Especially when Alfia was actually serious.
If it were some third-rate fighter, just facing that level of "hostility" would probably be enough to make their liver and gall burst from fear.
Rayleigh took two breaths, then pushed himself up from the spot.
But before he could even steady himself—Alfia had already appeared behind him and said, "Break's over. Time to continue."
That single sentence instantly left Rayleigh dumbfounded.
'Huh?'
He blankly turned his head, wanting to ask what she meant—but the woman's fist was already coming for his eye socket!
Cold sweat instantly poured down Rayleigh's back.
He activated Blut Vene, and at the same time used the technique of Shunkō to slam his elbow into Alfia's fist.
After the two collided, Alfia's attack trajectory was successfully altered.
But Rayleigh did not dare feel happy.
'You called that a short break...? That was way too short!!!'
Bang!
Rayleigh's body tilted sideways as Alfia calmly followed up with another punch.
'Damn it.'
If it had been a weapon, it might have been knocked away, and to launch another attack it would have needed a certain amount of distance to accelerate again.
And the larger the weapon, the more distance it needed.
But a fist did not.
As long as the upper arm pushed it, it could still produce perfectly good power.
"Ah!"
A punch smashed down onto the top of Rayleigh's head.
His head jerked violently, and he dropped straight to the ground.
'There was no time to use Blut Vene...'
Looking at Rayleigh collapsed on the ground, Alfia glanced around this space again and found that there were no chairs, nor anywhere particularly clean.
So she let out a sigh.
While unconscious, Rayleigh only felt a faint fragrance lingering around the tip of his nose.
With every breath, that pleasant scent entered his body, making him feel strangely comfortable.
After about eight minutes, Rayleigh slowly woke up.
And then he froze.
Lying on the woman's lap, Rayleigh looked at Alfia in front of him, her eyes closed, and was drawn in by that beauty capable of toppling kingdoms.
He stared without blinking for a good while.
'Hm?'
Only when Alfia suddenly opened her eyes—those beautiful mismatched eyes looked down at him.
"You're awake."
"Ah? Oh, y-yeah."
"Then let's continue."
'???' Rayleigh thought.
...
Boom! Bang!
That night, even in his dreams, Rayleigh would suddenly spring up from the bed, his nerves taut as he guarded against his surroundings.
Alfia's training was way too Spartan!
Or rather, even Sparta would have to tattoo her name on itself.
This was no longer squeezing him dry.
It was a trial of life and death!
At least four times every hour, Rayleigh would feel a life-threatening crisis.
And out of those four times, in at least two of them, he would see his life flash before his eyes.
He had heard that this kind of experience happened because life itself searched through past experiences for a way to survive at a critical moment.
Now, Rayleigh could personally verify it—that saying was absolutely true.
If that were not the case, he would already be getting fitted for funeral clothes by now.
After resting through the night—Rayleigh only felt even worse.
Because under Alfia's orders, he was not allowed to use Kaidō to completely heal his wounds.
He had only done basic treatment, and then waited for them to recover naturally!