This time, the fight was quick and intense. Neither fighter wanted to back off, and both kept pushing forward. The demon moved with a huge set of skills, every attack looking a little different. It didn’t fight in one way but seemed to mix all sorts of moves learned over a long time, like someone who’d spent years gathering tricks from every fight they ever saw.

One second, the demon dropped low and swept a leg in a move that looked old, maybe something from another era. The next, it struck with its palm from a strange angle, as if it had trained somewhere far away. At one point, it shifted from blocking to grabbing so smoothly that Alaric could tell—whoever created that move must have practiced it for years, thinking through every detail.

Alaric watched each move and stored it away.

He knew that real copying meant more than just repeating a move. It meant understanding what made it work. So for now, he waited, learning the reasons behind each attack, not just the shape.

Suddenly, the demon grabbed his right wrist. The grip came fast; Alaric ’barely’ had time to react.

The grip was strange. Not weak, just odd, the demon’s fingers pressed in spots that didn’t fit a normal hold. Alaric felt pressure on certain points. His tendons and nerves pressed one after another, not all at once. He realized this was meant to mess with the flow of force in his arm, making it less useful, even if he got free.

He broke free right away and stepped back six feet.

His right hand tingled with numbness. It still worked, but every motion felt off, almost shaky.

The demon hadn’t grabbed him to hold on. It just needed the contact to mess with his arm, then let go. That was the first part of the fight that really bothered Alaric.

He rotated his wrist, shaking out the numbness. Already, his training and control over his body helped the feeling fade. He guessed he would be fine in fifteen seconds. The demon probably hoped it would take twice as long.

He sent origin energy through his right arm to help it heal faster. As he did, he thought over what he’d learned so far.

He noticed the demon used the body’s natural stretchiness in strange ways, twisting and rebounding in ways that burned up a lot of energy. The demon had a huge list of fighting techniques, but the moves didn’t always flow together. Sometimes the switches between them felt stiff, like flipping through a book rather than acting on instinct. Then there was that weird grip, and above all, the patience, the kind that only comes from something very old, waiting for the perfect chance.

But under all of this, something kept bothering him since the fight started.

The demon wasn’t at ease. Alaric could sense it, even if the demon tried to hide it.

It wasn’t the body; the demon seemed to wear that just fine. It was the fight itself. Every time Alaric stepped back and paused, the demon didn’t rush after him. Instead, it watched, always thinking, always judging. Its tricks, messing with nerves, shifting angles, were ways to keep distance, to avoid a straight clash. The demon fought best when it could use someone else, use fear, or hide behind a borrowed body. Up close, in a real fight, it was out of its element.

The demon wasn’t built for a straight fight. It preferred to work behind the scenes, pulling strings and setting traps where it could stay out of reach.

Still, the demon tried to keep up. It could fight well enough, but this wasn’t its comfort zone. This place, this kind of battle, was where Alaric felt at home, not the demon.

Alaric saw this and decided to change how he fought.

He moved in, fighting at full pressure for the first time. He held back his full power; if he had used it, he would have destroyed Hundao’s body, and he wasn’t willing to go that far. But he made the fight relentless. He didn’t give the demon a second to think, no time to look for old moves or wait for a perfect moment. Every heartbeat forced a new decision.

Alaric made himself a problem the demon had to handle right now, with no chance to breathe or slow down.

The whole forest seemed to react to the intensity of their fight.

Their first clash at this level of force was so strong that it ripped a full-grown tree out of the ground. It wasn’t just a small sapling but a big tree, its roots torn loose by a blow at the base. The tree tipped over in slow, heavy stages, crashing down with a thunderous sound that echoed through the woods.

The demon adapted faster than Alaric had estimated.

In just twenty seconds, the demon stopped picking single moves from its memory and started mixing them together. Two fighting styles would blend into a new move, created right there in the moment. It was like the demon’s mind was a huge library, and now it was inventing new combinations on the spot. What had looked stiff before started to flow. It wasn’t natural, like someone born to fight, but it was impressive in its own way.

Now, the demon’s age showed up in a new way.

When you’ve lived long enough, you start to see every pattern and can put them together in ways that might look creative. But Alaric saw the truth: the demon wasn’t actually inventing new things, just combining what it already knew. Its moves stayed inside certain lines. It never took a real leap into the unknown.

Alaric, on the other hand, decided to try something the demon wouldn’t expect.

He had been working on a new vibration technique since the fight started, fine-tuning it as he fought. The last version he tried was very precise, hitting one exact frequency that the demon’s body couldn’t block. But this time, he had something broader and stronger in mind.

Not just one frequency, this time, he used a whole chord of vibrations.

He sent three different vibrations at once, each one tuned for a different part of the body: the skin, the muscles, and the bones. The first hit the skin and tried to spread out. The second matched the muscles, making them shake even more. The last one went deep into the bones, traveling through the skeleton to the joints, hitting from the inside.

To make it work, he needed to keep contact for longer than just a quick punch. He needed the demon to grab him and hold on.

So Alaric let the demon catch his left arm.

This time, it wasn’t the same nerve attack. The demon grabbed both of Alaric’s forearms, shifting him around for a throw. Alaric recognized the move; it was a kind of judo throw, one the demon had used before, using body flexibility to add a snap at the end.

But Alaric didn’t let himself get thrown. He planted his feet and resisted.

Instead, he grabbed the demon’s forearm with his own free hand. Now they were locked together, neither letting go. Alaric could feel the demon’s surprise in how its grip tightened. The throw was supposed to work only if the target didn’t fight back, just went along. Alaric refused to be passive.

That was when Alaric set off his new technique.

He sent all three vibrations at once through their locked arms, each one moving at its own speed and angle, so they all hit the demon’s body from different directions almost at the same time.

The demon’s body locked up tight.

The demon didn’t fall, but every muscle froze. It was trying to react to three different signals at the same time, but couldn’t. The body’s flexibility, which had worked against every hit before, couldn’t stop this. That only protected the outside. Alaric’s attack had gone straight inside, where the demon couldn’t block it.

The demon dropped down to one knee.

Hundao’s face looked up at Alaric, twisted with a mix of anger and something much colder—a kind of ancient calculation. The body was already starting to recover; the outside was bouncing back, but the real problem was deeper inside. Through their grip, Alaric could feel the demon slowly regaining control. He guessed it would be back to normal in thirty seconds, maybe less.

Alaric didn’t let go.

"You’re not a real fighter," Alaric said, his voice calm and steady. "You can fight well enough, but you’re really a manipulator. That’s not the same thing. That is a flaw you never bothered to correct throughout your long life."

The demon stayed silent. Its eyes darted around, searching for some way out, always thinking, always looking for leverage.

"I know what you’re looking for," Alaric said. "There isn’t one."

"Everyone has a weakness," the demon said, its teeth clenched as it fought off the lingering effects. "I’ve found one in every person I’ve ever met. You aren’t special."

"Maybe you’re right," Alaric said. "But you won’t find mine in the next fifteen seconds."