Chương 26: Chapter 25 - Evolved Kithren

Ant looked at Mahkir, sitting calm at the centre of the arena, patient in the way of something that had never once doubted the outcome. Alert. Ready. He watched the numbers scrolling across Maren's console, the gap between her predictions and whatever Mahkir was actually proving himself capable of widening with every fight, and a quiet warmth spread through his chest that he didn't have an immediate name for. Not quite pride — he hadn't done any of this himself. Close to it anyway.

The specific satisfaction of watching something he was bonded to, something that had chosen him for reasons he still didn't understand, simply keep exceeding whatever anyone in the room expected of him. Maren had gone very quiet, her fingers hovering over the controls without pressing anything, her attention entirely fixed on the readout in front of her. Whatever she was seeing in the numbers, it had already stripped away whatever composure the earlier fights had left intact.

"Level four," Ant said again, when she didn't immediately move. She blinked, shook herself, and reached for the controls. The display folded and reformed — something larger this time, quadrupedal, a heavy crest of bone running down its spine, moving with the deliberate confidence of a construct built from data that expected to win. The exchange lasted nearly twenty seconds.

Longer than any before it, the rendered Mahkir working harder for every opening, the crested construct proving considerably more resistant to the quick, decisive strikes that had ended everything up to this point. It absorbed a strike that would have ended the earlier fights outright, barely staggering, and came back with a counter that forced the render into a genuine retreat — the first backward step Ant had seen from him all afternoon.

When it finally went down, the margin felt narrower than the numbers alone suggested. Not close. Closer. It saw the feint, the real Mahkir said, and there was an edge in his voice that hadn't been there for the first three fights. That shouldn't have happened at this level. Ant relayed it. Maren said nothing, already resetting the console, her earlier ease replaced by something more focused now, more careful.

Whatever data she'd expected to gather this afternoon had clearly stopped resembling anything she'd walked into the arena anticipating.

"Level five." The construct this time carried scales rather than fur, low and coiled, striking with a speed that made the rendered Mahkir actually stumble mid-dodge — the first genuine mistake of the entire sequence, corrected within a heartbeat but visible all the same. The two traded blows properly now, real exchanges rather than one-sided dismantling, the fight running past thirty seconds before ending, the killing blow landing with none of the earlier economy. More effort than elegance.

Maren went very still, hand frozen halfway back toward the console, like moving it further might change what the readout said. Then she did a double take, actual and visible, her eyes cutting from the dissolving construct to her readout to Mahkir and back again, like her own senses needed a second pass to confirm what the first had shown her.

"That's — he beat a level five with no hesitation. Cleanly. I predicted five as his ceiling." Her voice had lost its earlier composure entirely.

"That was supposed to be the wall." It was not a wall, Mahkir said, tail lashing once, sharp and irritated. It was barely an inconvenience. Tell her to stop being so impressed by so little.

"He says it wasn't difficult," Ant said, choosing not to relay the second half. Tell her, Mahkir pressed, before Ant could move on. I heard you the first time. Then say it properly, instead of softening it for her benefit.

"Level six," Maren said, and her hands were no longer entirely steady on the controls. I can hear you not relaying it, Mahkir added, dry, before the fight had even properly begun. Good. Level six took longer still — the construct armoured, patient, forcing an exchange that stretched past a minute before the rendered Mahkir found an opening in a joint seam and ended it, both of them bearing visible marks by the time it dissolved.

Level seven came next without pause, Maren barely giving herself time to reset before pushing forward, and this fight ran longer than every previous one combined. Claw strikes alone weren't closing it fast enough, and partway through, the rendered Mahkir broke and unleashed Flame Breath — a column of fire that staggered the construct badly but didn't finish it, both combatants trading real damage before the render finally closed the distance for good, a strike that landed only after absorbing three of its own.

The rendered fur stayed singed along one side where something had connected hard enough to leave a mark that hadn't faded by the time the construct dissolved. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it"Holy shit," Maren said, quietly, mostly to herself. She said nothing else after that.

Her hands stayed on the controls but her mouth had gone still, her eyes fixed on the readout with an intensity that had stopped being professional interest and become quiet disbelief, held very carefully in place. Ant watched her stop taking notes entirely, the pen she'd been holding forgotten on the console. Level eight, Mahkir said, before Ant could suggest it, frustration unmistakable in the words now — directed less at the simulation and more at the world in general, for having the audacity to keep testing him.

The eighth fight ran nearly two minutes. The rendered Mahkir opened with Flame Breath this time, no longer waiting for claws to fail first, and the fire did real work against the construct's hide before the fight dropped into a physical exchange — sides heaving, a scorch mark along one flank where a strike had actually connected — and the victory, when it came, felt earned in a way the earlier ones hadn't.

This is taking too long, the real Mahkir snapped, and this time the frustration landed close enough to Ant that he felt it land. You could help. Instead you stand there watching, like the rest of them.

"I don't know how to help," Ant said, out loud, startled by the sudden edge in it. Then find out. The words came clipped and hard, nothing like the dry amusement Ant had grown used to over the past week. What use is a bond if one half of it does nothing but watch? Ant didn't have an answer for that — wasn't sure there was one that wouldn't make things worse, so he said nothing at all, and the silence between them sat uncomfortably alongside the growing tension in the room.

He understood, distantly, that this wasn't really about him. Mahkir's pride had never once considered the possibility of losing, and every fight that ran longer than the last was chipping away at a certainty he'd apparently carried his whole existence. Understanding it didn't make it land any softer. Mahkir didn't answer further. His attention had already gone back to the display, tail rigid, every line of him coiled tight. Level nine ran past three minutes.

The construct this time was fast and vicious, drawing real blood from the rendered Mahkir twice before Flame Breath finally turned the fight — a full column held longer than any previous use, mana clearly being spent without hesitation now — and when it ended, the victory felt less like dominance and more like survival narrowly managed.

Ant found himself gripping the edge of the console without realising he'd moved toward it, his own pulse elevated for reasons that had nothing to do with any physical exertion of his own. Maren hadn't spoken in several minutes. She simply reset the console, hands moving on instinct now rather than plan.

"Level ten," she said, barely above a whisper. The construct that formed this time was different from every one before it — larger, denser, something in its bearing suggesting an entirely different category of opponent. A first evolution stage, not whatever baseline the earlier levels had been drawn from. It didn't circle. It didn't test. It simply came, fast and overwhelming, and the rendered Mahkir met it with everything he had. The fight lasted past four minutes.

Ant watched it with his chest tight, distantly aware that the whole room had changed around him — Maren no longer taking notes, no longer speaking, her hand pressed flat against the console like she needed the contact to stay upright.

The rendered Mahkir fought with everything the data said he had — claws first, testing, then Flame Breath released early and held longer than in any previous fight, a sustained column that scorched deep into the construct's hide and should have ended it outright against anything the earlier levels had produced. The evolved opponent shrugged through it, wounded but nowhere near finished, and came back harder for having survived it.

Every skill, every reserve of speed and endurance and mana the simulation could draw from — dodging, striking, absorbing damage that would have ended any of the earlier constructs a dozen times over — and it wasn't enough. The evolved opponent simply had more. More reach, more raw power behind every strike, more capacity to absorb punishment and keep coming, until even fire stopped being a decisive answer.

The construct's final strike landed clean, a heavy blow that sent the rendered Mahkir sprawling across the display space, and before he could recover, a second strike finished what the first had started. The rendered Mahkir dissolved. The silence that followed lasted less than a second. It felt considerably longer — Maren frozen with her hand still on the console, Ant holding his breath without meaning to, the whole room caught in the stillness that follows something ending badly.

Then the real Mahkir made a sound Ant had never heard from him before — not quite a growl, not quite a snort, closer to the specific fury of watching yourself insulted by a stranger wearing your face. That was never me, he said, and through the bond it arrived less as anger at losing and more as pure contempt. Sharp. Total. Before Ant could ask what he meant, Mahkir was moving — a blur of red launching directly into the display space that had never been built to hold anything physical at all.

"Mahkir, wait —" He didn't wait. Flame erupted from him mid-air, stronger than Ant had ever seen it, stronger even than the burst that had reduced the Dark Elemental to ash, fed less by rage than by proof — a demonstration aimed at a construct that could no longer hear it. It caught the dissolving remnants of the defeated render and kept going, past where the boundary of the display should have contained it, spreading into the console banks along the near wall in a rolling wave of heat and light.

Sparks cascaded from a bank of screens, bright and sudden, one after another, as the flame found something to catch on. Something in the equipment shrieked, a high electronic sound that cut off abruptly as a terminal went dark, then another, the twelve screens Ant had counted on arrival collapsing one by one into blank, smoking casings. The bench with its glass apparatus caught next, one of the tubes cracking with a sharp report, whatever liquid had been bubbling inside it hissing violently as it hit open flame.

Maren was already moving, shouting something Ant couldn't process over the sudden roar of the alarm system overhead, a piercing wail that made coherent thought considerably harder to hold onto.

The fire kept spreading, hungry and fast, consuming half the room in the space of a few seconds, and Ant stood frozen at the edge of it all — watching the small red creature who'd chosen him, who'd burned a Dark Elemental to nothing and dismantled two academy Kithren without effort, who had never once shown him anything that looked like genuine loss of control until this exact moment, standing amid the wreckage of a room, breathing hard, eyes still burning, nowhere near finished being angry.