"I get that compared to you I'm green, but I never suffered any crushing defeat against you while we trained." Tista said.
"That's because I was still getting used to my new body and because my purpose was to teach you swordsmanship while Faluel taught you how an Awakened fights." Phloria replied.
"Only in a bard's tale do you learn by getting your ass whooped. For a defeat to be meaningful, you must have lasted long enough to make mistakes. That's why in the army we say that training teaches you how to lose, whereas combat experience teaches you how to win."
Phloria stood up and beckoned Tista to step forward while making the furniture disappear into the ground. She also took her rapier out of her dimensional item, assuming a defensive stance.
"Why did you take out your weapons but you're not using Fusion Magic?" Tista asked while wielding a short sword in each hand.
"Humans have no chance of defeating Emperor Beasts or monsters bare-handed, at least at our level. Bare hands are good in a tavern or if you want to capture your target alive, but on the battlefield, survival requires killing.
"As for Fusion Magic, you're shorter and lighter than me and your mana core is weaker than mine. If we use it, you won't even see my attacks." Phloria said.
"We'll see." Tista circled around Phloria, who only needed to pivot on her front foot to follow her every movement.
After failing to find an opening, Tista lunged to probe her opponent's defense. The moment she put her weight in the strike, Phloria stepped forward, using the tip of her sword to push Tista's away.
The movement was so quick and strong that to not lose grip on her weapon, Tista lost her balance for a split second. Long enough for Phloria to kick Tita's shin ad send her flying.
"Now tell me, what did you learn from such a quick defeat?" Phloria asked while moving around the fallen enemy like a vulture circling its prey.
"Nothing. I did everything right and yet…"
"And yet you lost. That's what training is for. Here you can afford to lose, while out there, defeat means death." Phloria said.
"You may have left the army, but you sure sound like a drill sergeant." Tista got up, resuming her stance. "Again, but this time go easy on me enough so that I last longer than a sneeze."
"That's up to you. Never put so much weight in a feint, otherwise it's no better than a lousy attack." Phloria said.
The two women sparred until they were both drenched in sweat, with Phloria raising the bar as soon as Tista got better, leaving neither of them a single second of rest unless it was requested.
"What is that?" Tista pointed at a dimensional fissure opening in the middle of the room. A split second later, a small figure covered in cracks and burnt marks came out of the Warp.
"Do you really think I'm going to fall for the oldest trick in the book?" Phloria scoffed at Tista's childish attempt to distract her.
"Quick, Lith needs help!" Solus's voice was as pained as it was worried.
"Good gods, Solus, what happened to you?" Tista dropped her weapons and caught the small stone ring in mid-air, instinctively casting a diagnostic spell that failed to provide her with any information.
Solus's stone body was still charred by the Chaos energy and it missed several small shards. Most of the damage was due to Lith's Abomination life force, only a few of her injuries had been caused by the Puppeteer.
"It's a long story and bringing you up to speed with a mind link would give you mana poisoning. I need you to Warp at the city entrance, where Lith's teammates will bring him for treatment." Solus said.
"Why did you leave him if he was in such a dire condition?" Tista asked.
"Because we worked with Awakened Emperor Beasts. They are bound to use Invigoration to assess his wounds and I couldn't afford to be discovered." Solus replied.
"How bad is he?" Looking at the stone ring's battered state, Phloria was once again shocked by how deep the bond between Lith and Solus was.
Even when she seemed to be at death's door, she didn't seem to care much about her own condition. Just like Phloria would.
"Very. His life force took a huge hit and I'm the only one that knows how to fix it. I need one of you to wear me and keep me as close as you can to him. That way, I'll mend his wounds and Lith will mend mine." Solus said.
'Thank the gods Faluel had me practicing Shapeshifting on Lith's life force for months. Not only do I know it like the back of my hand, but since Shapeshifting is just an enhanced version of Body Sculpting, I can use it to stabilize his two life forces until their natural balance is restored.' She thought.
"It's up to you, Tista. You're a much better healer than me. Let's use Invigoration to get our strength back and don't hesitate to use my vitality." Phloria put the ring at Tista's finger and opened a Warp Steps at the same time.
Tista nodded, realizing that Solus would need all the help she could get to not get her own life force damaged. On the one hand, thanks to her tower half, any damage she might take wouldn't threaten her life, only dissipate part of her mana core.
On the other hand, it would destroy years of patient wait and hard work to restore her physical body. Between her reforming tower core and Lith's bright blue core, Solus's features could almost be seen under her luminous skin.
Tista believed that getting back a fully human appearance was the last step before gaining a body made of flesh and blood. Aside from Lith, she was the one who knew Solus better, having spent with her most of the little free time she had.
Solus had shared with her all of her doubts, her dreams about the future, and the hope to one day become able to take even a single step on Mogar without the need of the tower.
'She's so damn close to achieving the dream of a lifetime. I can't let her lose everything once again. I know there's nothing that Solus wouldn't do to save Lith, but if she regresses back to a wisp, I don't know if her sanity will hold.' Tista thought while her mind spun at full gear trying to find a way to overcome the crisis.
Solus was still too weakened from both the fight and the Chaos energy that had ravaged her stone form to think clearly. Even though she was now separated from Lith, the still lingering darkness tainted the stone and made Tista's finger burn.
There was a good reason why Salaark the Phoenix had forbidden Balkor to even study Chaos magic.
While normal darkness magic affected matter and mana, Chaos could affect even the mind. To cure the effects of the former, it was necessary to cleanse the darkness and then heal the body through light magic. Treating the latter, however, required much more than that.
