The Seven Demon's Tamer

Akira gestured upward, pointing her finger at one of the clouds above and continued with a tone that carried both authority and casual confidence. "I decided against using a floating platform because I doubt it would be able to withstand the entire training and lesson."

The four companions followed her gesture, tilting their heads to stare at the peaceful-looking floating surface drifting overhead—particularly one with no building.

"Really? Why?" Leo asked this time, his voice carrying genuine curiosity. They had been on one of those earlier and he knew firsthand how sturdy they were. They could withstand many such bursts of energy without even showing the slightest sign of flicker in their suspension in the air. The idea that their training could somehow damage a floating platform made him wonder.

"It's pretty obvious," Akira responded with a shrug that was like she was gesturing the answer should have been clear without explanation before continuing. "You guys will all have to fight me to prove you've truly mastered the techniques at the end of the lesson." She paused, allowing her words to sink in. "A full-out fight."

The silence that followed this declaration was deep. Silence was supposed to carry along with it peace, but this wasn't the comfortable kind of silence at all.

Akira was dropping another bombshell at them, disguised as casual conversation. The kind of silence that follows terrified screaming—though there was no outward scream.

"I am confident you all will be putting up a good fight with me," Akira added, her lips curving into a smirk that revealed just a tiny bit of her perfect white teeth. "There are two living legends here after all."

"All that aside," she dismissed with a wave of her hand, as if the idea of them fighting her was just a minor detail to be addressed later. "I will be starting with a basic technique called Explosive Rush. You all have the knowledge to perform it, aren't I right?"

Of course they had the knowledge—Yuki's technique transfer had embedded seventy-seven different martial arts techniques into their minds, complete with the memory and instinctive understanding like they had been practicing it for years.

"All I need you to do now is to perform it in my presence," Akira declared, her voice carrying the kind of authority that made it clear this wasn't a request.

"Starting with you, Leo." She signaled him with a casual gesture, signaling for him to come at her.

"Stand up and come at me with the technique, Leo."

"You sure about that?" he asked, swiftly pushing himself up from the grassy ground. It wasn't arrogance—well, not entirely—but rather it was more of caution. Leo was the one among all of them with the greatest potential to perform those techniques, given that it was being performed the same way he performed his self-invented techniques.

"Absolutely," she nodded with certainty, her eyes fixed on him with seriousness.

"Okay," Leo responded, his voice carrying resigned acceptance—she was not weak after all. He bent his knees slightly, settling into a proper martial arts stance that instinctively came to his mind.

Unlike his companions, who would have been wearing expressions of intense concentration and determination, Leo's face remained completely neutral, almost bored.

"*Explosive Rush*"

The words left his lips like casual speech.

*Swoooooow*

The sound that followed was solid evidence of his body slicing through the air at unimaginable speed. It wasn't the rumbling boom of an explosion or some violent sound. It was more like the whisper of wind through leaves. Leo's body sliced through the air in a flash of movement so smooth and effortless.

One moment he was standing five meters away from Akira, the next he was directly in front of her, their faces nearly touching. The movement happened so quickly that for a split second, the others weren't entirely sure he had moved at all. It was as if he had simply teleported from one position to another.

"That movement brought me bad memories I would have loved to forget," Ryder spoke inwardly, a smile subconsciously crawling on his lips. "Our friendship surely started off on the wrong foot."

"You satisfied?" he grinned cockily, his usual smug expression showing on his face. There was something almost insulting about how easy he had made it look, as if the Explosive Rush technique was about as challenging as boiling water.

"Yeah, I expected this," she replied, placing her palm against his chest and pushing him away with casual dismissal, not even uttering any praise. "You've practically been doing this all your life after all."

Leo allowed himself to be pushed back, his grin never wavering. If anything, it seemed to grow wider.

"Next!" she called out, her voice carrying across the grassy vicinity with high volume.

Getting up from the ground where he had been sitting cross-legged, Brok brushed the grass from his clothes and walked forward on his bare feet. They had all forgotten to search for their shoes after exiting their old residence.

"If you pollute the air for a second time, I'll attack you with more than just words," Mara's voice boomed from behind. Her emerald eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits, and there was something in her expression that made Brok know for sure she was entirely serious about her threat.

The memory of Brok's earlier "explosive" moment was still fresh in everyone's minds, and the uproar of anger it had caused was not something that should be repeated.

The humiliation had been bad enough the first time, but they all seemed to have been letting it go—a repeat performance might actually result in a more permanent loss of value.

"Yes, yes," Brok nodded frantically at Mara, fear in his eyes, and not the kind of fear that came from facing a powerful opponent though. "I promise you it won't repeat."

Standing before Akira with a distance of roughly five meters between them, Brok bent his knees slightly and settled into a stance that came from his mind and instinct. His posture was almost similar to Leo's relaxed approach but wasn't as perfect and casual—his shoulders were quite tense, there was focus in his eyes, and a seriousness just like his first attempt to perform the charge rush.

"I have used a technique before that is more demanding than the Explosive Rush, which focuses only on the legs," Brok began, his voice low as if he was speaking to himself rather than the viewers. "I used a technique that requires me to channel energy throughout my entire body."

Taking a deep breath in, Brok's face hardened with the kind of seriousness that transformed his entire appearance.

When he exhaled, the breath came out as condensed air—thick enough for the naked eye to see, like a visible cloud of vapor that came out from his nose before dissipating.

"All I need to do is channel energy through my body to my legs and boost it from within," he continued. "The perfect martial arts technique for running is already embedded in my brain, so..."

"*Explosive Rush*"

*Vwoom*

The force Brok used was different from Leo's—deeper, unrefined and more powerful, rumbling the ground. His body sliced through the air with speed that should have been abnormal for a summoner of his level, covering the five-meter distance in what felt like a heartbeat.

When he came to a stop directly in front of Akira, there was barely any skidding or loss of balance, but the fact that Brok was a novice in performing it wasn't absent.

"Impressive," Akira nodded in approval. "Brok performed the explosive rush on his first try, a feat indeed."

She patted Brok's shoulder with a gesture that carried acknowledgment. "I expected just as much from both of you," she commented.

"You and Leo attempting the technique before the others is just perfect. You both are capable."

"Yeah, I thought as much," Ryder snorted in a low tone. He sounded like a pouting kid who had just discovered that his turn to do chores was coming up next.

"The capable ones are off my shoulders now," Akira continued. "As for both of you, Ryder and Mara, I can fully focus on helping you learn the technique."

"I am pretty sure you both cannot perform it."