A Terrible Villain And Their Destiny

As Patience and Reynard circled around one another, training swords in hand, Bryson and Anna watched on the sidelines. Reynard seemed to be waiting for Patience to initiate any kind of sequence, wanting to see what the hidden demon would look like.

Before any clash could begin, however, Bryson felt another presence near them, a familiar one. Frowning a bit, without turning his head he asked out loud, "What is it Sable?"

"How did you know it was me?" Sable said surprised as Anna turned to see Sable having not noticed her before.

"I just did." Bryson grunted as Sable's arrival distracted the two fighters as they watched her.

"But how?" Anna asked curiously, "She was behind us and completely silent."

"I'm good at sensing people's mana." Bryson said casually.

"Urgh, that's creepy."

"How do you do that?" Anna said in wonder.

"We don't really have time to talk about that right now do we?" Bryson said quickly changing the subject matter.

"I guess." Anna said a bit disappointed.

"But seriously, what are you doing here?" Bryson asked his sister.

"Practising when I noticed you." Sable said, "Oh so that's the idiot you decided to involve yourself with." Sable said, observing Patience, "How did you trick the prince into helping you?"

"Actually I got him to help me." Reynard corrected.

"Really?" Sable said raising an eyebrow to Bryson, "So why did you decide to mess with Duke Hayes' daughter?"

"She annoyed me."

"And having this third-rate noble fight for you will solve that?"

"Morrigan wanted to fight her first, she's apparently a demon with the blade." Anna piped in.

"A demon? Her?" Sable said looking unconvinced, "She had proper form, but that's to be expected. I don't see much besides mediocrity."

"Well we haven't started yet." Reynard added, "Speaking of which, ready?"

"Oh, uh right." Patience said with a pause as she took a hesitant glance over to Sable before focusing on Reynard. She couldn't help but feel stressed out that another high-ranked noble was here watching her now.

Swallowing her nerves she closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply. Before surging forward and beginning the altercation. Throwing a trio of swings towards Reynard before having to deflect several more that came her way and began to back up.

Sable while thinking that Patience was better than expected, still wasn't impressed. Prince Reynard was still fighting at a very casual pace and seemed to have Patience stumped already. If turning into a demon meant that the only way she could fight was going all out swinging wildly without thought, then this girl was in trouble.

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The Hayes daughter, Morrigan Hayes, shared a couple of classes with Sable and from what Sable saw of her, she was confident in saying Morrigan was dangerous. She was cerebral when approaching sword combat. Always studying, prodding, and goading opponents into following her. She studied her opponents mid-fight and created strategies to beat them on the spot.

It didn't matter if Patience had an insane hidden level of innate mana for combat, if she couldn't think, fighting Morrigan wouldn't be a fight. It would be a one-sided beatdown. As Sable formed her opinion on Patience she quickly began to change those thoughts as the sparring continued.

Patience while having to move backwards was having no issues with parrying any of Reynard's strikes, occasionally throwing a couple back to give herself some breathing room. It was her eyes that made Sable change her opinion more than anything.

They were always open, careful, and watching every one of Reynard's movements. Even as Reynard began to increase the number of feints and complicated combinations, Patience's pace simply matched his. Though neither were going very hard yet but Sable had suspected that Patience would already be overwhelmed at this point. Still, this was clearly no sign of a demon of the blade.

"She's really good, but it doesn't look like she's very uncontrolled." Anna said.

"Well he's not pushing her too much." Bryson mumbled, a bit hesitant to say it out loud because he knew that the only way to change that was to push her. But the idea of the uncontrolled demon running wild had him worried.

Reynard, however, didn't need any of them to tell him that he needed to pick up the pace. He was curious now, he was at first unsure how good Patience was with a sword. A demon with a blade might mean that if she wasn't in a frenzied state she would be useless. But this has been a pleasant surprise.

Still, Reynard was barely getting warmed up with this little clash between the two and Patience wasn't showing him anything special. Let's up the stakes now. Reynard thought as he purposefully aimed for Patience's sword.

A loud clang exploded from the impact between the two swords. Loud enough to cause Bryson to wince a bit as the wind blew past him from the hit. The impact did more to Patience, however, as her eyes momentarily widened as she felt herself being sent flying across the ring.

Catching herself before she completely flew out of the ring, she paused at the opposite end of where Bryson and the others watched. Being able to see Patience's face at this angle, Bryson noticed an eye twitch from Patience. Then some unstable breaths.

Reynard frowned for a moment as he saw that Patience's mood shifted slightly. His eyes widened slightly as Patience stomped onto the ground once, leaving a crater where it was. With a wild cackle, she flew herself forwards towards Reynard several times faster than she had earlier.

"Holy!" He yelled out as he blocked the first two hits. Caught off guard, Reynard beat a hasty retreat trying to get away from her.

"Come on!" Patience screamed out, "Fight!"

"Trying." Reynard said as he adjusted his position to better receive whatever Patience was going to send at her.

"Just like that?" Sable said in disbelief, "One hard hit is enough to trigger it?"

"I guess she just needs her adrenaline pumping enough to trigger it." Bryson said.

Patience began to scream loudly, "That's all you have to give? Give me a fight!" As she began to throw with malice, still, she was moving and fighting as cleverly as she did when she was calmer. Which only made things more difficult for Reynard to have to deal with.

"Uh, do I have to?" Reynard shouted more so asking Bryson and the others.

"Hmm." Bryson said looking deep in thought as he continued to watch them fight.

"What?" Anna said looking away from Reynard who could potentially be in mortal danger.

"Well… it's a skill I think." Bryson said analyzing Patience, the moment Patience changed, he could see the mana change inside her. Almost like an inner tank where spells were being concocted.

Bryson thought for a moment thinking of people like Lottie Frost, who used her innate mana to help speed herself up or make it harder to stay silent. Or just the natural way how most people use their innate power to reinforce their bodies.

Berserkers were a thing, but they could actually control their rage and strength output. This was a bit different, it was almost like once her adrenaline started pumping, a spell was triggered. We can use this. He thought.

"Okay, let's stop this." Bryson said.

"How?" Anna asked.

"You know how to make barriers?" Bryson asked as he raised a hand out.

"I think so." Anna said.

"Good follow me. I don't know if this is going to work."