Her punches were fast. Not just fast in the way people liked to exaggerate—this was measured speed, disciplined speed, the kind that compressed reaction windows into fractions of a second. Each punch snapped back to guard before the air it displaced had time to settle. It was clear she was a speed type, built for acceleration rather than raw force.

  I swerved to the right, feeling the edge of one strike graze past my cheek, and shot a quick right to her jaw. The impact rang through my knuckles and up my arm. She didn’t budge. Her head barely shifted. That’s not to say there was no damage—I felt the resistance, the slight give of flesh and bone—but it was clear this wouldn’t easily stack into something decisive.

  Her balance never broke. That alone told me enough.

  I was caught off guard with a kick to my shin. It came from outside my immediate focus, angled low and precise, a strike meant less to cripple and more to interrupt. Pain flared sharply up my leg, not enough to drop me, but enough to fracture my rhythm.

  She knows how to counter from outside someone’s perception. She was evasive in the cognitive sense. She attacked the gaps in awareness, not just the body. She’s a speed type with a knack for stealth.

  I straightened my index and pointer finger on my right hand, aligning the joints carefully. I shot it forward to her open mouth, timing it between her breaths. She raised her guard on instinct, but I slipped through the narrow opening, threading my fingers past her defense. The shock of contact where contact should never be.

  I was inside her mouth.

  I stepped forward and leapt a few feet, dragging her alongside me. Her weight resisted for a moment, then momentum took over. I pushed my arm forward and threw her to the wall.

  The wall exploded from the impact. Concrete fractured outward, dust and debris bursting like a detonation. She was easily flying a few dozen meters a second when she hit. It created a hole in the wall wide enough for light to pour through.

  I stood there for a moment longer than I meant to.

  I looked down. I did that?

  My hand trembled faintly. I chuckled, "It's easy to forget what a transcended can do."

  Emma jumped and stood in the middle of the hole, rubble falling from her shoulders as she wiped blood from her mouth, "You cut my gums, you bitch."

  I did forget to cut my nails.

  But what astonishes me is her durability. She doesn’t have a splinter embedded in her skin, no fractures visible, no torn ligaments. Only a cut—minor, all things considered—which would happen to even Vellin if I caught him like that. Her body absorbed force in a way that defied expectation.

  Emma dashed, her movement sharp and immediate, with her fist cocked next to her head. "Think faster."

  I backed up instinctively, calculating distance, thinking I could outpace her. My legs moved, my center stayed balanced—

  She caught up somehow.

  There was no gradual closing of space. She was simply there. She opened her palm in front of my eyes, her hand eclipsing my vision entirely. She blocked my sight, not as a feint, but as a certainty.

  But I can detect!

  Her punch slammed into my gut.

  The air left my lungs in a violent rush. My body folded before my thoughts caught up. I keeled over, bile rising, pain blooming deep and internal. How couldn’t I react? Even though I couldn’t see, transcended can feel killing intent!

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  Before I could stabilize, she stomped me on top of my head. My skull drove into the ground, wood biting into my face. My vision blurred violently.

  She rubbed her foot on my hair, grinding my head into the floor, "You may be strong and fast, but you're an amateur at martial arts."

  Then she kicked me in my jaw.

  The impact lifted me clean off the ground. My body flew backward and crashed onto the stage, wood splintering beneath me. My arms draped over the waist-high edge as I spat blood onto the broken boards. Pain radiated through my face, my teeth ringing like struck bells.

  She appeared in front of me instantly, placing her foot directly in front of my eyes. I braced, expecting a kick from her other leg—

  She didn’t.

  She simply pushed her foot into my face.

  Her power... it’s not impressive. The force itself wasn’t overwhelming. I just couldn’t brace for it.

  She raised me by my collar, lifting me with ease, "Being a spy is more than just going undercover. I know how to bypass sight entirely. For example..."

  I blinked. She was by one of the booths.

  I blinked again. She was behind me.

  My spine went cold.

  How could I counter that?

  It’s actually simple.

  I reached behind me, fingers snapping closed around her leg. The contact was solid, undeniable. She gasped.

  I threw her away, using my hips and shoulders together, sending her skidding across the floor.

  She was smiling.

  I won’t blink. I can defeat you before I blink.

  I surged forward, closing the distance before she could reposition fully, and shot a backhand toward her face. She caught it with her right palm, the impact echoing between us. I twisted my fist sharply and she let go. We were flying now—momentum carrying us together—and in one second we would hit the wall.

  Emma rotated midair.

  Seven hundred eighty degrees in a heartbeat.

  One instant she was rotating midair, momentum screaming toward disaster, and the next she wasn’t falling anymore.

  Her body coiled immediately, spine compressing, hips turning, the broken flow of the fight snapping back. She curled inward and fired a knee straight toward my face.

  I cocked my head back and drove it forward.

  There was no hesitation—no time for fear or calculation. Just commitment. Bone met bone with a sound that didn’t belong in a living body. The impact was sickening, dense and wet, like striking something that should never be struck that way. My cranium cracked audibly, the vibration rattling through my skull, white-hot pain exploding across. It felt as though my thoughts were fractured.

  Her knee snapped under the force.

  I felt it give. Not bend—fail. The joint collapsed inward with a sharp, final pop, the structure surrendering all at once. I held her in place as her body convulsed, muscles seizing as pain finally caught up to motion. Her scream tore free, raw and unfiltered, ripping through the air before she could stop it.

  She forced it down quickly. "Y-you're insane!"

  Blood streamed down into my eyes, warm and blinding, slipping past my brow and lashes. "I am!"

  The words came out steady despite it all.

  I still didn’t blink.

  The blood kept flowing. My vision narrowed, tunneled, but I refused the reflex. I refused to let my body steal even an instant from me.

  Now I could end this with her in place.

  She knew it too.

  Even injured, even trapped, she moved. Her fist snapped upward, then again, then a third time—three jabs fired straight into my cranium. They were quick and powerful, for her, She could barely reach, but each one landed, knuckles snapping against bone already fractured.

  A perfect move.

  My head rocked with each strike, pain stacking upon pain, my skull screaming in protest. If even just a bit power had been behind them—if she’d been whole—this would have ended me.

  I could brace for it now.

  My body adjusted instinctively, muscles tightening.

  I could not replicate Vellin’s spear hand. I could not reinforce my body or arms. I cannot assassinate. I cannot wrestle at a high level. I'm not the best striker.

  All of their talent eclipses mine.

  They were born closer to perfection. Molded by instincts I didn’t have. Given tools that came naturally where mine had to be forged through failure and repetition.

  Transcending was a gift and a blessing.

  But my talent isn’t unsalvageable.

  I raised my two pointer fingers right in front of her eyes. The movement was slow enough for her to see it happen. Her breath hitched as she saw the color of my nails.

  She screamed—but she would live. I want her to. We want her to.

  This was not execution. This was instruction.

  My nails. They were infused with lightsteel. The alloy caught the dim, broken light of the hall, reflecting it in thin, cruel lines. That was not enough on its own. My nail could bend.

  So I had trained my fingers to resist bending in the short time I could, to stay aligned under pressure. Countless repetitions. Endless strain. Teaching my hands to believe in the point they formed.

  I could pierce someone like her, at the least, through refusal to yield.

  Her eyes were mush instantly. She would never see again.

  My love, you have Needle Point.

  I have Skewering Nail.