Abyssal Awakening

Of course, he couldn\'t make them Apostles but their status would be akin to Nyer, Lord Commander of Ayr.

Which is why when I saw Alice, I thought she would be a genius befitting her spot next to the Queen.

Yet… all I feel is boredom and disappointment.

She wasn\'t weak by any means. But she couldn\'t quite be placed on the pedestal of a genius that deserved to be taught by Apostles of all people.

Her reaction speed is good but that\'s the only noticeable thing about her.

\'Even the geniuses I\'ve seen would\'ve established a better boundary by now.\'

Her range was limited, actions were slow and even her casting speed was far behind what could be used for defence.

I thought she would be a sword like Allura, the Executioner after I saw her strange attack. But she lacked an \'edge\'. Instead, she was more like a dull edge.

When I saw her cast, I thought she would be a monster like Kaden who could master every cast with a single glance. But that was not the case either.

I could only feel disappointment growing in my heart.

\'Is she hiding something? No… But it\'s not completely impossible either. They must know we will be reporting to our Gods on the results of the training.\'

Narrowing my eyes at the Girl trying to master Passive Zone in the centre of the arena, I decided to go a little serious.

"!!!"

*CLANG!!!

I manifested four slashes close to her. There was no doubt, she saw them all! She even managed to parry two of them.

That was what I thought until her rhythm was thrown off and the other blades dug into her body.

\'Sh*t, what was I thinking. Obviously she\'ll see them and react. It\'s panic.\'

Shaking my head with a sigh, I toned down the training to what it was before. There were still quite a few hours to go and I\'m going to be responsible for her the entire way through.

Arax can\'t help since he doesn\'t focus on Zone Stance. The oaf prides himself on his defences which Alice clearly didn\'t do. Their combat styles are incompatible.

Regardless, my opinions of her remain the same. She\'s talented but nothing to be proud of. And if she was being blunt, a complete waste of time to teach.

###

Parrying more attacks, Alice swiped away the sweat as she sighed in relief.

Shiera\'s sudden attack had surprised her and the threat of death caused her to react out of instinct. She had to hold herself back from parrying all four before sending her own attack back.

If that were to happen, her act would be up.

\'I guess that was her final test for me, to see if I\'m truly weak or not.\' Alice thought to herself.

After that incident, the attacks that Shiera sent were rather slow and unimpressive. Nothing that surprised Alice as she took her time to play out her act while refining the Zone under their noses.

The longer she spent focused on defence, the more she began to understand this boundary.

In order to maintain the best defence that she could, she had to rely on her instinct as well as hearing since her eyes could only do so much. She needed to hone into the senses that she\'s refined during her fights.

Whenever danger is closer, she would feel a pin prick like sensation near where the attack would land. If she were to focus on this, she\'d be able to establish a net of absolute defence.

The Absolute Zone.

Taking a deep breath and breathing out, Alice continued to simulate what the fight should look like in her mind while taking it easy on the outside. In her mind, she continuously imagined the rapid slashes that Shiera released and how she should counter these attacks.

\'For the ones that manifest near me, I should aim to parry them with my sword. I can create a wall of blood mist to parry those outside of my melee range. With this wall, making Void Fluxes are rather easy.\' Alice thought to herself as she continued to refine her Zone.

Once again, she could feel herself entering a trance like state. The movements of Shiera replaying in her mind as she began to simulate how Shiera would deal with these attacks. The way she would adjust her posture through her footwork and how she would apply her energy mid-slash.

Alice\'s mind recorded it all.

She wanted to test out her theory already since it was going to be different to a simulation but doing so meant giving up her act. In the end, she could only hold herself back.

Time passed and Alice showed a slight but gradual improvement in her understanding of Zone. It was nothing remarkable in the eyes of Shiera and she couldn\'t wait to end this training but there was one thing that caught her attention.

Alice\'s sword.

Its durability was so unbelievably hard and any \'damage\' it seemed to sustain would disappear upon drinking Alice\'s blood.

A weapon that could recover itself was rare even for Apostles. Granted, the weapons they used were usually manifestations of their own power rather than a physical weapon. But even so, seeing a rare weapon like this interested Shiera to a certain extent.

If it wasn\'t for the fact that Alice was under the care of Ayr, Shiera would\'ve been tempted to rob the weapon from her.

"Alright, I think that\'s enough. Time\'s almost up." Shiera clapped her hands as the slashes disappeared.

Seeing that the training was over, Alice took a deep breath and calmed herself. Clenching her fist, Alice smiled inwardly at the progress she made towards the Zone Stance.

During the 10th hour, she had an idea. A way for her to refine her senses further to improve her Zone Stance.

The idea was to keep the Passive Zone activated at all times, regardless of her posture.

Doing so was exhausting and the success rate was low. But it allowed her to experiment without exposing her powers.

"Are there any questions you have? Take this time to ask them since I doubt we\'ll be talking after this." Shiera shrugged.

Once the promised training period is over, they\'ll go back to focusing on the current task at hand. That being tracking down the Will of the Abyss.

Thinking about it carefully for a moment, Alice opened her mouth.

"Are you able to show me the full potential of the Zone Stance? So a spar between you and sir Arax." She asked as Shiera contemplated it for a moment before nodding her head.

A quick exchange wasn\'t an issue and it\'s not like Alice was requesting to see their best skills. All she was asking was to see Shiera demonstrate Zone Stance to its full potential, or at least what she was capable of.

"Arax isn\'t exactly the best partner to demonstrate this but sure. Arax! Get over here, we\'re going to have a quick spar to demonstrate Zone Stance!" Shiera shouted over, waking up Arax from his nap as he yawned and scratched his hair.

"Didn\'t you show it to her when you started?"

"That was before, this is now. It\'s just a quick exchange to show her what a proper Zone Stance looks like in combat." Shiera shrugged, stepping into the centre of the arena and stabbing her blade down in front of her.

"Fine let\'s get this over and done with." Arax sighed as he placed his shield away for now and massaged his shoulders.

Seeing that the two were about to begin their spar, Alice took a few steps back before closing her left eye, leaving just the right eye open.

Activating Cayla at full power, she wanted to observe everything in full clarity and take in every movement that they made.

Picking up her blade, Shiera nodded to Arax as her aura flared up.

Immediately, Alice could feel herself being submerged in an overwhelming sense of hostility as Shiera deployed her boundary! The entire arena was now under her scrutiny as Arax simply yawned in response.

*BANG!!!

Punching the air in front of him, the air seemed to break apart as a shockwave rushed towards Shiera who \'cut\' apart the attack using her Absolute Zone!

However, Arax wasn\'t intending on letting Shiera do whatever she wanted. The instant his attack was blocked, his body flickered out of sight. Despite his size and bulkiness, he was fast!

Appearing above Shiera, he slammed his fist down as she crouched down and unleashed a torrent of slashes towards him, shredding the aura around his hands.

Yet despite this power, her slashes failed to leave a single mark on his body.

Jumping back, Shiera narrowed her eyes and adjusted her grip. Increasing the frequency of her attack, countless slashes flickered in and out of existence as her movements couldn\'t be perceived by Alice, even with the help of Cayla.

As Arax continued to step towards Shiera in this maelstrom of slashes, his grin grew wider. Pulling his arm back, his muscles bulged as he slammed his fist forward.

But this was exactly what Shiera was looking for!

Jumping over the attack, she countered the aura released by the fist before swinging her blade towards Arax\'s head.

*CLANG!!!

Her blade was caught between his teeth!

Seeing this, Shiera sighed out in annoyance before signalling the end of this spar.

"Are you satisfied now? Honestly the Zone Stance is a horrible match up against Arax since this oaf just walks through every attack." She scratched her hair in annoyance as Alice nodded her head.

Giving her thanks to the two, she quickly left the arena, confusing Shiera as Alice seemed to be in a hurry.

However, that was because Alice couldn\'t contain this smile on her face!

She saw it! She saw a path towards the most offensive style of attack she could muster!

All that was left was to put it to the test but now was not the time. For now, she\'ll continue to refine this idea in her mind, gathering as many resources as she could to improve it further.