Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 729: Thoughts On Crosswind Weave [Bonus Chapter]

Silas sat in a wide freezing puddle, coughing hard as water dripped off the tip of his nose and ran down inside his collar.

His dark bangs were plastered flat across his forehead and blinded his left eye.

His white cotton shirt clung to his chest like wet paper, and the iron links of the training mesh rattled with every cough, sending sputtering sprays of icy droplets past his lips.

SPLAT!

Another heavy drop fell from his chin and hit the gray dampening tiles with a hollow slap.

He wiped a drenched sleeve across his eyes and looked straight up at the mezzanine railing thirty feet overhead.

Mia was hanging halfway over the polished iron rail, kicking her small boots in the empty air with her ragged gray cloak billowing around her like laundry caught in a storm.

Her pointed ears twitched with outrage as she cupped both hands around her mouth and glared down at him with huge shimmering green eyes.

”Mia!” Silas rasped, his voice rough from swallowed water. ”Are you serious?! I was only trying to knock him out! I was using the flat of the blade...!”

”A likely story from a man who swings a sword like he’s felling an ancient pine in one stroke!” Mia stomped a boot on the steel grating of the walkway.

CLANG!

”You had that scary golden glint in your eyes, student! You were aiming right for his ribs... You’d have cracked him like a dry hazelnut!”

Four paces away, Valerius lay starfished in the middle of a spreading pool of water.

His arming sword had slipped from his numb fingers and rested three feet off against the tiles.

His brass-blond hair stuck to his temples in tangled golden clumps, his azure tunic was soaked and streaked with friction dust, and his chest rose and fell in ragged shuddering gasps.

His ribs throbbed where the air had been knocked out of them yet when he looked up and saw the tiny blond elf shrieking from the balcony, a weak and truly grateful smile touched his lips.

”Thank you, Mia...” he croaked, lifting one trembling hand an inch off the wet floor. ”You’re my guardian angel... I thought my family line was about to end right here on the floor...”

Mia stopped mid-rant. Her ears flicked downward. She crossed her arms over her chest and puffed her cheeks into an enormous sour pout.

”Hmph! It was quite enough fighting for one day!” Her high voice rang through the chamber. ”If Silas had killed you by mistake, Master, he and I could never see each other again!”

Valerius’s hand froze in midair.

His golden eyes blinked once as they stayed fixed on the iron catwalk above him.

’That’s all you care about...?’ A deep chill ran through him that had nothing to do with the freezing water soaking his trousers. ’Not my life? Not my shattered ribs? You just want to keep getting snacks from him?!’

Mia saw the betrayal written all over her Master’s pale face.

She flinched, her green eyes darting sideways, and then she leaned back over the rail with an exaggerated sweet smile and fluttered her lashes.

”I mean... of course I care about you too, Master!” she chirped, her voice jumping up into a syrupy sing-song. ”You’re my precious handsome summoner... Who else would pay for my afternoon cakes and carry my souvenir bags through the market plazas?! I cherish you deeply!”

Valerius let his arm drop back onto the wet stone.

THUD!

He stared at the vaulted ceiling rafters, jaw set in a flat exhausted line.

’I can’t believe that,’ he thought, shutting his eyes as a long miserable sigh bubbled out of his chest. ’I can’t believe one word out of that tiny mouth... She’d trade my contract for three glazed walnut buns and a cup of hot cider without blinking.’

Silas shook his head and pushed a wet hand back through his hair.

He didn’t bother with towels or wait for the ventilation ducts to carry the damp away.

He closed his eyes, centered his breath and drew on the wind mana humming through his meridians.

WHOOSH!

A warm steady vortex erupted around his boots and spread outward in a spiraling dome.

”Phew...”

It lifted the standing water off the floor in a fine spinning mist, gathered it into tight ribbons of clear liquid and funneled the whole flood across the arena toward the drainage grates along the edge.

The draft swept through his clothes at the same time.

His shirt billowed, the dampness curled off it in thin trails of steam, and the cotton went crisp and warm against his skin.

The mesh vest clinked as the moisture pulled free of the leather lacing as his joggers settled cleanly around his ankles.

With a flick of his fingers he sent the warm draft rolling across the floor and over Valerius.

The puddle under the blond youth vanished into the grates.

His azure tunic dried to soft silk in seconds, and his brass-blond hair fluffed out into a wild golden mane that stood up in every direction.

Silas crossed the dry tiles with his soles squeaking on the clean floor, and held out his right hand.

”Up you go, Val,” he said, a faint grin pulling at his mouth. ”Before the ground dampens your noble pride any further.”

Valerius opened one eye, looked at the offered hand and let out a dry breathy chuckle.

He grabbed Silas’s forearm and was hauled upright in one smooth pull.

CLACK!

His boots hit the floor and his knees wobbled once before he locked them and leaned back against the weapon rack to steady himself.

He rubbed his left ribs with a grimace and rolled his shoulder with a quiet wince.

”That last transition,” Valerius muttered, shaking his head at Silas with equal parts exasperation and respect. ”You didn’t even try to read the angle... You waited for my winds to collide and jammed your hilt straight into the center of the rotation.”

He wanted to learn more about his technique.

”Because you were falling in love with the trick.” Silas leaned his hip on the rack beside him and rested an arm across the steel bars. ”Don’t get me wrong, that new flow is incredible... When you threw that first hook, you bent the blade without turning your shoulder. It threw my whole balance off, I didn’t think you could split the wind into opposing currents without your Purple Core backfiring.”

”The Crosswind Weave!” Valerius’s chest swelled with a proud smug glint in his golden eyes, aching ribs or no aching ribs. ”That’s what I’m calling it... Two counter-rotating streams. One tears the incoming force apart and the other drags the weapon along the shearing line.”

”It’s brilliant on defense,” Silas admitted, still feeling that strange grinding sensation against his broadsword. ”When I came down with the Third Style, the weight of that water column should have driven you through the tiles, however they canceled the mass completely. You turned a hammer into a light breeze...”

”Right?!” Valerius beamed and puffed out his chest, then wheezed and caught his breath. ”Ouch... don’t expand the lungs too fast but it works! It actually works!”

”It works until someone crowds you.” Silas tapped the side of his own head. ”The problem is the reset... When you snap the sword into that impossible angle with the counter-clockwise stream, the mana is dragging the metal and your muscles aren’t aligned with the strike. If someone steps inside your turning radius and catches the weapon at the hinge, your wrist takes the full torque. As you can see, you almost sprained your own tendons on that last bind.”

Valerius looked at his right wrist and flexed his fingers.

A faint yellow bruise was already blooming near the base of his thumb, right where Silas’s pommel had checked the motion.

”Yeah,” he said, letting out a rough breath. ”I felt that... The backdraft from the contrary currents snapped straight into my forearm. It felt like trying to hold on to a runaway carriage wheel.”

”Smooth out the release,” Silas told him. ”Don’t hold both streams all the way through the impact... Shear the enemy’s force, let the angle bend, and the moment the blade finds its path, collapse the second stream so your body can follow through. Otherwise you’re fighting your own mana as much as the guy in front of you.”

Valerius listened with his golden eyes narrowed, running the calculations.

’This is what friends are for, huh?’ Valerius thought with a smile as slowly a fierce hungry grin spread over his face and his dramatic bravado came flooding back into his posture.

”Just you wait, Silas!” He jabbed a finger at Silas’s chest with certainty. ”I’ll drill that release until it’s smooth as silk! I’ll balance the intake, optimize the circulation, and the next time we step onto a dueling floor, I’m taking a round off you clean! You won’t even see the blade coming!”

Silas laughed out loud with the sound feeling rich and warm in the quiet chamber.

”I look forward to it, Val.” He tossed his plain steel broadsword back into the weapon rack with a casual clatter. ”I just hope you can keep up the speed when you do... Next time I won’t wait for you to warm up the weave.”

”Challenge accepted!” Valerius shouted, unbuckling his mesh vest and dropping it on the brass counter.

CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP!

A booming round of applause rained down from the mezzanine like a broadside from small cannons and echoed off the basalt ceiling.

Silas and Valerius both looked up.

Morwenna stood at the very edge of the steel catwalk with her hands slamming together in a ferocious rhythm.

Her stormy gray eyes flashed with electric excitement and her disguised chestnut hair was tossed back over her shoulders.

The scowl was completely gone and in its place was the wild grin of a captain who had just watched a glorious boarding action on the open sea.

”Now that was a proper scrap!” she bellowed down, her coarse naval voice ignoring every rule of indoor acoustics. ”Clean footing! Beautiful bind work! When you rode his gale into that reverse turn, Captain, I thought you’d snap his bowsprit clean off! And you, blondie!”

Valerius blinked and pointed at himself.

”...Me?”

”Aye, you!” Morwenna leaned over the rail with the full weight of a pirate queen’s respect behind her nod. ”That twisting wind trick at the end! Turning the blade without shifting the hull... That was filthy and beautifully underhanded! Put a cutlass in your hand on an open deck and you’d gut three marines before they worked out which way the wind was blowing! Well fought...”

Valerius’s jaw went slack for a heartbeat then an enormous blinding grin broke over his handsome face.

He puffed out his chest, ran a hand through his wild hair and preened like a cat being stroked behind the ears.

”Did you hear that, Silas?!” He nudged Silas’s shoulder with his elbow. ”Your hero calls my technique underhanded and glorious... Hah, that’s high praise in my book.”

”Do not let it go to your head, Lord Valerius,” said Aeliana’s calm voice from the balcony.

The Elf princess stood with her hands folded over the front of her pleated emerald skirt and her shortened ears twitching once with cool dignity.

A faint polite smile touched her pale lips.

”Still, that was well done,” she went on. ”You made Lord Sy change his guard three times, honestly very few people can say that.”

”Thank you, Aeliana!” Valerius swept into a bow that brushed his azure coat against the tiles. ”Your praise honors me!”

”Master was very fast.” Rika said quietly.

The beast goddess stood beside Aeliana with her hair falling over her shoulders and her calm gray eyes fixed on Silas.

At the hollow of her collar the snow-white phoenix hatchling poked out its downy head and gave a contented cheep! that puffed a tiny ring of white smoke into the air.

”Master’s water moved like a river over stones but the golden one did not break easily. He has strong bones.”

”Strong bones!” Valerius laughed as he straightened. ”See?! Even the terrifying goddess says I have good marrow!”

’Why is he telling me all of this though...? I have ears.’

Solenne was the last to speak.

She leaned timidly over the rail with her hands clutching her tool satchel, her caramel dog ears perked high and her single fluffy tail wagging in rapid ecstatic circles that shook her whole hip.

”It was so amazing, Lord Valerius!” she squeaked, golden eyes sparkling with pure fascination. ”The two wind currents sheared against each other without any uncontrolled pressure burst... The cancellation ratio must have been over eighty-five percent! If we etched that pattern into the knee-joints of the Blessed Titan Golems, their lateral stability would triple! Please let me measure your mana frequency later!”

Valerius turned to Silas with his chest swollen enough to float a sky-ship.

”You see this? Your whole entourage is captivated by my martial brilliance... Hehe.”

”They’re being polite because I didn’t break your ribs,” Silas said dryly, though he couldn’t hide the fond smile. ”Come on... Help me rack these vests before the manager charges us a cleaning fee for the humidity.”

They unstrapped the light mesh armor and hung the iron vests and plain steel swords on the automated equipment rack.

Valerius tapped the return rune on the pillar as the brass rack sank back into the floorboards with a heavy mechanical hum, and the gray tiles slid shut over it until the arena floor looked as smooth and pristine as if no battle had ever happened.

Up on the mezzanine the girls clattered down the spiral staircase.

Mia hit the bottom first and skipped across the floor like a blond whirlwind, planting herself right in front of Silas.

She tilted her head back with her big green eyes narrowing to two suspicious crescents, and sniffed at his jacket.

”You dried yourself off!” She poked his chest with an accusing finger. ”I spent good mana conjuring that water, student! You should have worn it like a badge of humble reflection!”

”I reflect better when I’m not catching pneumonia, Mia.” Silas reached out and gave her pointed ear an affectionate pinch.

”Eek! Hands off the royal cartilage!” Mia squeaked and swatted at his wrist with both hands, though she never actually pulled away.

Her lips twitched with suppressed giggles.

Morwenna strode up to his side and crossed her arms under her disguised flattened chest.

Her gray eyes checked his collar, his shoulders and his knuckles for any sign of strain and finding none, she grunted in approval.

”Good form, Captain,” she murmured, in the low private register meant only for his ears. ”A bit flashy on the vertical leap, but your recovery was solid... Next time use the pommel to the jaw instead of the flat to the ribs, it saves on breath.”

Of course inwardly...

’Hehehehehehe~ That’s my student and Master!’