The Seven Demon's Tamer

Stepping backwards with a couple of measured steps, Akira increased the distance between herself and the group significantly.

Brok and Leo both moved aside to a reasonable distance on the grassy field, settling down with anticipation and preparing to watch what promised to be entertainment from the other two.

"This is the moment when I crave some movie snacks," Leo smiled at Brok, his blue-silver eyes gleaming like a little kid in a candy shop. "Popcorn would be just right for this kind of show."

Brok tilted his head with a puzzled expression. "You're not annoyed at me for what I did earlier?" His voice carried surprise and relief at the same time.

"Nahhhh, not anymore!" Leo waved his hands dismissively, his earlier irritation having disappeared. "You've already reclaimed your dignity from your earlier disappointment, in my honest opinion, by performing the Explosive Rush pretty well."

Leo's expression grew more serious as he leaned forward slightly. "Besides, we all have our moments like that. The important thing is that you pulled through when it mattered. That technique you performed was actually pretty impressive for a first-timer."

"Plus," Leo added with a wider grin, "I have a feeling we're about to witness something far more entertaining than your accidental sound effects. At least your hazardous slip-up was just embarrassing—what's about to happen to Mara and Ryder might actually be painful."

"Let's enjoy the show now." Leo's expression hardened as he stared forward, his demeanor shifting into seriousness once again.

*Damn, are you having mood swings or what?* Brok wanted to speak out but stopped himself quickly and nodded in agreement with Leo's proposal, settling into a cross-legged position that was more of an imitation of Leo's.

"Do you think she'll go easy on them? I mean, Mara's already been through a lot today with that whole cloud situation."

"Go easy?" Leo scoffed. "This is Akira we're talking about. I'm pretty sure 'going easy' isn't in her vocabulary. If anything, she'll probably be harder on them, especially Mara, because she hasn't proven herself enough to be classified as a respectable ally of the red Eastern guild."

"I am especially awaiting the part where we'll eventually have to fight her ourselves. I want to see exactly what we're up against."

"That's... actually kind of terrifying," Brok admitted, subconsciously curling up in nervousness. "Remind me never to get on her bad side."

Mara stood up from her cross-legged position with determination burning in her emerald eyes.

As she walked forward, Mara's mind raced, thinking of nothing but how to perform the technique transferred into her memory. The Explosive Rush wasn't just about running fast—it was about channeling gamma energy through specific pathways in the body. The knowledge was all there in her head, implanted by Yuki's technique transfer, but knowledge and practice were often worlds apart.

"Remember," she muttered to herself, "it's all about the energy flow. Channel the energy to your legs, focus on the stance, and then—"

"EXPLOSIVE RUUUUUSSSSHHHHH!!"

She screamed as she charged towards Akira with all her might, her voice echoing across the grassy field.

However, what happened next was not the swift, controlled technique that everyone had witnessed from Leo and Brok.

Instead, Mara's approach looked more like an uncoordinated charge. Her arms waved wildly as she ran, her breathing was irregular, and that could be seen with a single look at her face. Most importantly, Akira, as well as Leo, could tell in an instant she was not channeling her energy properly, but rather in a thin line, causing the power boost to falter.

She was essentially just running really, really fast while yelling the name of a technique she wasn't actually performing.

*Wham.*

Mara's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as a heavy kick collided with her torso. The impact sent shockwaves through her entire body.

Her body launched backwards through the air in an arc and eventually crashed against the ground with a heavy thud, her body bouncing several times like a skipped stone before eventually skittering to a halt right beside Ryder.

"Hi!" Ryder waved at her with a cheerful smile, as if having his comrade crash right next to him was a perfectly normal occurrence. "Fancy meeting you here. How was the flight?"

From their observation point, Leo let out a low whistle. "Ouch. That looked like it hurt. A lot."

"Should we be concerned?" Brok asked, feeling sympathetic pain as he watched Mara.

Swiftly backflipping from the ground with more fluidity than anyone had a right to possess after taking a kick like that, Mara managed to get back to her feet. However, the moment she was upright, she quickly doubled over and held her stomach, her face contorting in pain.

She grunted as the pain of Akira's kick finally registered.

"You never mentioned the part where you'd be using kicks against us!" Mara protested. She straightened up as much as she could manage, though one hand remained pressed against her aching stomach.

Akira responded with her usual blank expression, completely unfazed by Mara's complaint. "Yes."

"Nothing feels better than surprises. You have my word on that."

"Keep your filthy words to yourself!" Mara screamed, her emerald eyes flashing with renewed determination. The pain was still there, throbbing, but it was now mixed with something else—a new mixture of emotions: anger, determination, and stubbornness.

"*Explosive Rush!*"

This time, there was at least some visible gamma energy crackling around her legs as she moved. It wasn't the smooth, controlled enhancement that Leo and Brok had demonstrated, but it was progress.

Her speed was noticeably faster than her first attempt.

*Wham!*

Yet again, a kick delivered to Mara's torso sent her flying backwards, landing even more chaotically than before. This time, Akira had put slightly more force behind the kick, but still, Mara wasn't done.

Using another backflip to get to her feet, Mara stood up and immediately braced herself into a running stance. However, before she could make any sudden movements, her body betrayed her.

Her left leg gave out, and she fell to one knee with a sudden gasp of pain.

"That one looked even worse than the first," Brok observed, his face contorting as if he was the one who had received the hit.

"Yeah," Leo agreed, "but did you see that she actually managed to channel some gamma energy that time? She's learning, even if the learning process is... painful."

The first kick Akira had delivered to her had been hard, but she had been able to endure it and charge back in quickly. This time around, it wasn't quite the same. The damage from the previous hit, along with this one, was starting to take its toll, and her body was sending very clear signals that she needed a break.

With one knee on the ground, Mara's body trembled as she gritted her teeth tightly, trying to push through the pain.

Her jaw was clenched so hard that the muscles in her face stood out, but even her tightly shut teeth couldn't hold back the blood that was beginning to flow from her mouth, trickling down her chin in thin, red streams.

"Can you hold back a little with your kicks?" Mara whimpered in pain. "I don't know how much more I'll be able to take at this rate!"

"Well, I can stop it all if you make me," Akira replied with a smirk. "Perform the Explosive Rush just once—properly—and I'll move on to the next person."

She gestured casually, as if performing the explosive rush was a simple walk in the park. "All you need to do to make me stop all this is to perform the technique correctly. Simple, isn't it? You have the entire procedure in your head, and the experience is linked to your memory. Why don't you try to access it properly?"

Akira's tone grew slightly more annoyed as she continued. "Do I really have to state the obvious every time to get you to understand?"

Despite the pain, despite the blood, despite everything that had just happened, Mara pushed herself back to her feet. Her legs were shaky, her breathing was heavy, and there were grass stains all over her clothes, but her emerald eyes still held that unwavering determination.

"One more time," she muttered to herself, wiping the blood from her chin with the back of her hand.

"*Explosive Rush!*"

This attempt was different from the previous two. There was less shouting, fewer unnecessary movements, and in their place, there was more focus. Mara had clearly been paying attention to what had gone wrong in her earlier attempts.

She was learning quickly.

*Wham!*

Another kick landed perfectly on Mara's torso, sending her flying through the air with blood spraying from her mouth across the space.

Her body bounced several times on the ground before it finally came to rest in stillness. This time, she was completely motionless.

Mara's body settled after she had crashed to the ground, lying motionless with what appeared to be complete exhaustion. All she had received was three kicks from Akira, and here she was, facing what seemed like serious damage.

The silence that followed was heavy and uncomfortable. Even Leo, who had been acting all nonchalant, tensed up and stared with concern.

Seconds stretched uncomfortably long, and Akira, being unable to tolerate the wasted time, spoke out with no sympathy.

"Are you going to lie there all day with your eyes practically closed?"

At that moment, Mara, who had been completely motionless, finally moved. It was a slow and shaky movement that seemed quite unstable, like someone receiving electric shocks one after the other.

She supported her body with her arms pressed against the ground, using them to push her body into a standing position. The effort was clearly enormous—her arms trembled, and it took several attempts before she managed to get her feet under her.

Once she was upright, Mara locked her gaze with Akira's, not uttering any words but also not changing her current posture of clutching her stomach. Her determination and stubbornness were still present despite her current condition.

"Don't give me that look," Akira said. "Perform the Explosive Rush properly, and all of this will be over. I won't be kicking you around anymore. Easy, right?"

She gestured impatiently. "It is in your head—a full guide on how the technique is performed. So tell me, why is it so hard?"

As much as she wanted to hide the fact that she was actually impressed by Mara's persistence, she couldn't. At this moment, even Akira, who often acted nonchalant, felt hesitant to strike Mara again.

Mara took a deep breath, steadying both her body and mind before exhaling.

"Explosive Rush, huh?" she thought to herself, her mind finally analyzing the technique on a deeper level than just shouting its name and running forward.

"It's not so hard," she said, releasing her crouched stance and standing up properly, her eyes now showing intensity atop the other emotions she was displaying. "And I will perform it. That is a certainty."

"Okay then," Akira replied, spreading her arms open in a welcoming gesture that seemed inviting. "Come at me."

Taking a deep breath, Mara calmed her body to its peak, then exhaled condensed air as thick as a cloud of fog.

*Explosive Rush, huh!* she thought to herself. *My mind has a full guide on how to perform it.*

*It starts with a proper stance where your toes will be ready to propel your body forward.* Thinking this, Mara took the stance.

"What's next?" her inner voice continued. "It's channeling your gamma energy to your feet—channeling as much as you can muster."

This was relatively easier for her now, given that she had done this before during her earlier breakthrough when trying to ascend to the cloud. The experience of perceiving and manipulating her internal gamma energy was still fresh in her mind.

Shutting her eyes, she concentrated with the same focused intensity she had used to ascend to her cloud.

Visualizing the energy flowing through her body, she directed it into her legs from within, filling her feet with gamma energy that seemed potent enough to ripple the air around her. Unlike her previous attempts, there was something about this stance that made everyone almost certain of success.

"With the perfect stance, with our feet ready and our toes pressed against the ground, we achieve the complete form."

*Then after,* her inner monologue continued. *We channel as much energy as we can from the gamma energy coursing through our legs and our shared internal strength.*

*With the perfect stance, with our feet ready and our toes pressed against the ground, we get the perfect explosive movement.*

For one final time, Mara called out:

"*Explosive Rush!*"

The sudden change in her demeanor, the change in her aura, was unmistakable. Everyone present could feel it—they could sense the complete difference in energy from what Mara had been displaying.

*Vwoom.*

The sound was completely different from her previous attempts. Where before there had been the sounds of someone running really fast while yelling, now it was the sound of a body slicing through the air at incredible speed.

Mara's body moved with the fluidity it was meant to have, even better than Brok's attempt. The distance between her starting position and Akira closed in what seemed like an instant, and it wasn't caused by her disorderly charges like before.

Akira's expression shifted from boredom to genuine shock, and then quickly transformed into a wide grin of satisfaction.

"A brown-marked summoner like you," Akira said, "performing feats that are considered remarkable even by a great deal of red-marked summoners... This is certainly something no one gets to see every day."

"I guess I'm done with you now," Akira concluded, reaching out to pat Mara's shoulder in a gesture of acknowledgment.

"Join your successful comrades now," Akira gestured toward Leo and Brok, who were both staring with amazement. "It's down to Ryder now."

***