The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 228 - Shouldn’t Someone Be More Suspicious Of Me Taking A Nap? In The Middle Of A Pair Of Blades Clashing With & Against Tradition?!

Chapter 228: Chapter 228 - Shouldn’t Someone Be More Suspicious Of Me Taking A Nap? In The Middle Of A Pair Of Blades Clashing With & Against Tradition?!

The methodical defense of the warhammer user ultimately proved insurmountable for Aleck’s creative but less polished techniques. Though the chain created interesting angles of attack, the Ironclad Order member trapped it repeatedly and intentionally against their weapon’s long haft. The 3-1 victory highlighted both the winner’s skill and the meteor hammer user’s ability to find at least one opening in such a solid guard.

Qat studied their interactions carefully. The way the defender used the war hammer’s weight to control space was a very coherent way of manipulating his body and weapon. There were parts that she could practice, but there was not much difference from her own form that would give her any immediate advantages if she fought the chain again.

Which seemed quite likely.

When Navuill faced Aleck next, the unguilded cultivator demonstrated how much he’d learned from watching others face the Yecine style so far. Where most would try to weather the aggressive assault and look for an opening, he used the meteor hammer’s reach to maintain a frustrating distance.

The chain wrapped around Navuill’s practice blade more than once, though he managed to maintain his grip. His spirit churned with growing frustration as Aleck scored point after point without recourse. In the end, he had to acknowledge the tactical merit behind the unconventional fighter’s victory.

Another 3-1... in a dual-strike.

"Your cousin fights well, but perhaps lacks patience. He seems to insist on moving forward."

The defender’s quiet observation carried no venom as they prepared for their match with Qat. She inclined her head slightly, acknowledging his assessment and the respect it conveyed. The judges signaled for their fight to begin.

Where Navuill had tried to overwhelm him and Aleck had attempted to entangle, she simply waited while approaching closer. The other fighter understood that they would be at a stalemate... so he willingly began his assault. The war hammer’s sweeping strikes covered impressive ground - but each miss left openings.

Three precise counterstrikes later, it was over.

She had made it look almost easy, though anyone who truly understood their form of combat could see the concentration and confidence required to take advantage of those opportunities. The competitor she beat 3-0 certainly did understand... but he valued the opportunity to try his hand and examine his small faults. They saluted each other and bowed.

Across the grounds as she walked off the circle, the swordswoman caught a momentary sight of her wife seemingly dozing in her seat of honor over in the main medical section. But the pulse of spiritual energy through the fragment in her chest suggested Elua was anything but asleep. Then a flicker of the scene left the cute girl waving at her, showing that the first image had just been ’fake’.

Qatrand was sure her wife would be fine, but felt conflicted over how she was too willing to pose as ’helpless’. She checked the current point totals before the final match. Navuill joined her and his expression carried a form of resignation and a glint of determination before he spoke.

"It seems our match will matter quite a bit."

"So it seems. You need two points for a chance at the semi-finals."

"Don’t hold back. I won’t."

Neither needed to voice the family politics behind their own motives. They both knew what the elders hoped to see - and what they actually planned to deliver. While they waited for the judges to call them up, an illusionist smiled softly at the friendship between the relatives.

"I admit, I occasionally think it’s not worth it for her to seek to keep her position. She could do a lot and still be happy without it."

She spoke out knowing no one was listening - or was able to hear her, to be more precise. Her failure while being with Qat the day before made her realize she could use more practice being controlled than she was getting. So she had been watching the Yecine elders while maintaining her illusions.

At least when her mint eyes weren’t leveled at her beloved.

While they and their politicking didn’t move her to quite the same lengths of inattention to her Astralism that her precious gem could, the fact that it was all related to her ’fortress’ made it as close to the real thing as she could test... safely. There was a small concern that her husband-wife might get injured and she would drop these illusions and be seen.

’But if Qat got seriously hurt, I’m probably going to blanket the whole grounds in spiritual pressure anyway. Lucky for everyone I can tell the difference between serious and flesh wounds.’

Elua’s relaxed posture as she kicked her feet belied her intense focus as Qat and Navuill took their positions. The fragment in the heiress fed her with her spouse’s ’calm’. A feeling so different from the tension that usually preceded family-related conflicts, in her experiences.

"My Qat has already grown beyond what those old men could have imagined. Yet, there is still so much more. Ah, I can’t wait~"

While a brunette squirmed in her seat while imagining the future, the cousins bowed formally at each other. Their spirits carried none of the antagonism the elders of the Yecine surely hoped to see in ’rivals’. Instead, there was a shared understanding that this match would demonstrate and extend something beyond simple victory or defeat.

Their opening exchange set the tone. Navuill attacked with traditional Yecine aggression, but his movements were even more careful about counters than before. He had learned from watching Qat’s earlier matches... just as she had studied his.

The raven-haired ’heir’ deflected his first combination with minimal shifts of her large blade, eventually allowing his momentum to carry past her as he committed fiercely. No point was scored in retaliation, but the message was clear - raw power alone wouldn’t decide this bout. Not when they were at least even.

"Your stance is improved. Were you holding back that last time we had a spar in front of the elders?"

Navuill’s acknowledgment and tease came before they began their exchanges again. His next assault incorporated some of the defender’s spatial control techniques, though adapted to the Yecine style’s more aggressive framework. The sweeping arcs were intent on forcing her weapon to block and parry at only certain angles.

Qat’s response was smooth, deflecting it all where needed and counterstriking only during the most opportune openings. The same balance between defense and surging towards possibility that had carried her through the earlier matches.

The first point came from a sequence that should have made both of their original teachers proud - proper Yecine heavy blade form executed with flawless timing. However, it was Qat who scored it. The swordswoman turned Navuill’s use of power against him just as she had against the war hammer wielder.

In the viewing area, Anper’s spirit churned with conflicting emotions. Elua didn’t need to sense his struggle between ’pride’ in the technical excellence of their tradition displayed... and ’frustration’ that it came from the wrong child. It simply soured her good mood.

’Well, I guess that was the point of paying attention to them, wasn’t it?’

The second exchange proved transformative to everyone’s expectations. Navuill, perhaps inspired by Aleck’s earlier success, abandoned the prescribed Yecine attack pattern mid-sequence. Instead of pressing forward in a textbook manner, he feinted with his blade before shifting angle by pulling on his own arm.

A move clearly borrowed and improvised from the meteor hammer’s style.

The unexpected choice caught Qat in the perfect position - committed to counter in their family style against his first apparent attack. She didn’t especially push herself to make sure he didn’t score this one, but only because she wanted to see exactly how the wild move would land. His point declared by the judges drew surprised murmurs from the crowd and a tsunami of displeasure from the elders’ spirits.

The ancient cultivator felt her wife’s appreciation of the choice her opponent made. Both cousins were proving themselves willing to grow beyond the rigid traditions of their family, each in their own way. Each without fully abandoning the core of it.

When they reset, Qat’s next point came from a combination that likewise began with aggression but flowed into something more nuanced that took advantage of a minor misstep. Of course, their emotions still churned with lingering disapproval of Navuill’s ’improper’ success and the subsequent failure in his stance this time.

They wouldn’t care to voice that both instances were forced by their own style being used effectively by their heir. Both had been moving as taught until then - and there was not a technique they taught to their members that would have pulled off what Qatrand just did. In the first place, manipulating the large blade as quickly as she could was impossible for those without a Gravity Element.

"Well played."

Navuill’s warm encouragement drew a slight smile and nod from his cousin. They reset their positions as Elua studied Lirades. Her unhidden and ’amused’ state showed that the old woman clearly appreciated the subtle rebellion being enacted through the match. She had long been the most accepting member of that family, in the eldest Goltbred daughter’s experience.

’Something about the situation with her never sat well with me, though. Well, I shouldn’t judge. I spent a century here and there doing much of nothing also.’

The next and final point belonged to Qat as well, though the young man made her work for it. Their strikes met each other in a complex sequence of attacks that forced them both to demonstrate everything they’d learned through the years. That included minor highlights from today - from Aleck’s superior distance management to the war hammer user’s in range control.

When they bowed to close the match, their spirits resonated with mutual ’respect’. The 3-1 score reflected both Navuill’s willingness to break from tradition if it meant progressing and Qat’s mastery of making those same traditions serve her growth without limiting it. Each had found their own path to the strength they now wielded and the kind they wanted to remain holding in the future.

Elua’s ’pride’ fluttered through the fragment in her fortress turned toward the Yecine viewing area.

"Let them try to criticize that performance. She followed their base forms perfectly - she simply executed them better and added to them where appropriate. My clever swordswoman, I can’t call you terrible anymore so neither can they."

The ancient cultivator allowed herself to selfishly wish they would for a moment. Then she sat down in the same way as her illusion, preparing to ’wake up’. Around her, the medical staff whispered about the technical excellence displayed on the three fields.

None of them quite grasped the deeper messages conveyed in their region’s last Quarter-Final match. But the elders would understand. And judging by Anper er Yecine’s tight-knuckled grip on the railing, they already did.

Making their ’heir’ out to be incompetent would be more difficult than expecting and waiting for her to lose.