Kira stopped dead in her tracks. Her feline eyes widened for a fraction of a second, entirely caught off guard by the sudden, blatant challenge. Then, her lips pulled back into a fierce, competitive snarl.

"I’m saying you’ve been lying in a bed for three days," Kira shot back, dropping her hand to rest casually on the hilt of her hunting knife. "Your muscles are stiff. Your newly evolved foundation isn’t fully synchronized with your physical output yet. If you walked into a real fight right now, you’d trip over your own feet."

"Fascinating theory," Sol purred. He casually unbuckled the heavy scabbard of the Dreadwing Blade from his waist and tossed it to Zeyra. She caught the heavy weapon with a surprised grunt, the sheer weight of it almost pulling her forward into the mud.

Sol cracked his neck, stepping gracefully over the low wooden fence and dropping down into one of the empty, circular dirt sparring rings.

He stood perfectly relaxed in the center of the pit, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. He didn’t engage his Sun Core, nor did he spark the terrifying essence of the Dreadwing or the Great Badger. He just looked up at Kira, waiting.

"Come down here and prove it, then," Sol invited, gesturing with two fingers. "No weapons. No lethal essence strikes. Just hand-to-hand. Let’s see if the Warchief’s daughter can put the arrogant outsider on his back."

The surrounding recruits and warriors immediately stopped their own drills.

The noise of the training ground rapidly died down, replaced by a sudden, heavy wave of whispered excitement. The Divine One... the butcher who had just saved the tribe... was openly challenging the Warchief’s daughter to a spar.

This was an unprecedented event.

Within seconds, a massive crowd of warriors, elders, and civilians had formed a tight ring around the sunken dirt pit, eager to see the show.

Kira looked at the crowd, then helplessly looked down at Sol. She didn’t expect things to take such a sudden turn, but her warrior pride flared violently. She wasn’t about to back down from a challenge in front of half the tribe.

She unbuckled her weapon belt, tossing it to a nearby guard. She vaulted over the wooden fence, landing lightly in the dirt pit right across from Sol. She dropped into a low, predatory fighting stance, her hands raised, her fingers curled slightly like claws.

She was a Layer 2 warrior. Her foundation was anchored by a high-tier Feline spirit, forged in the bloodiest skirmishes of the Great Orrath. She was fast, ruthless, and highly technical.

"Don’t cry when I put you in the dirt, Sol," Kira warned, a fierce, feral smile crossing her face.

"I’ll try to hold back the tears," Sol mocked smoothly.

Kira didn’t waste another breath. She exploded forward.

Her speed was incredible. Without the heavy, dragging weight of her weapons, she closed the twenty-foot gap between them in a fraction of a second. She didn’t go for a wide, telegraphed punch. She launched a brutal, hyper-efficient combination... a fast jab aimed directly at his throat, followed instantly by a sweeping low kick intended to completely shatter his knee joint.

Sol’s eyes tracked her perfectly. He had fought giant apes, massive insects, and other countless horrors, but he hadn’t actually fought a skilled, Layer 2 human warrior since he broke through. This was the perfect baseline test.

He didn’t counterattack immediately. He wanted to see what a native Layer 2 could do.

Sol shifted his weight, smoothly swaying his head just an inch out of the way of her jab. He lifted his knee, blocking her sweeping kick with his shin.

Smack. The impact echoed loudly, but Sol’s leg didn’t budge a millimeter.

Kira didn’t pause. She used the rebound of her blocked kick to spin, launching a blistering flurry of strikes. Elbows, knees, palm strikes. She fought like a cornered jungle cat, her movements fluid and deadly.

Sol gave ground, taking one step back, then another. He kept his hands open, parrying her strikes with minimal movement. He deflected a palm strike to his chest, ducked a spinning high kick that sheared the air over his head, and casually slapped away a knee aimed at his ribs.

To the watching crowd, it looked like a terrifying, high-speed assault. Kira was an absolute blur of motion, driving the Divine One backward.

"Look at her go!" a warrior cheered from the fence. "She’s got him on the back foot!"

"The Huntress doesn’t hold back!" another yelled. Huntress was Kira’s nickname, as she truly fought without holding back.

But down in the dirt, Kira knew the brutal reality. She was going all out, her muscles burning, her lungs pumping hard. But every single time she made contact with Sol’s forearms or palms, it felt like she was hitting a solid mountain of iron.

He wasn’t retreating because she was overwhelming him. He was retreating because he was entertaining her.

He hadn’t even broken a sweat. His breathing was completely, insultingly calm.

Kira gritted her teeth, her feline eyes narrowing into angry slits. Fine, she thought. You want to play?

She pushed her Layer 2 essence entirely into her legs. She let out a sharp, feral screech and launched herself fully off the ground, twisting in mid-air to deliver a devastating, double-leg crescent kick aimed straight at Sol’s head. It was her signature finisher, a move that had decapitated Layer 2 beasts.

Sol let out a quiet sigh. The test was over.

The Layer 2 Dreadwing spirit resting dormant in his chest didn’t just enhance his physical speed; it had completely overhauled his kinetic perception. His brain processed motion at a terrifying, hyper-accelerated rate. He could literally see the individual dirt particles flying up from her boots. He could trace the exact, predictable trajectory of her aerial strike.

So he didn’t dodge or retreat.

He simply raised his left hand and caught her incoming heel completely flat in his palm.

Smack. The sound cracked like a whip in the dirt pit. Kira’s kick possessed enough raw kinetic force to splinter a petrified tree trunk.