Lysandra didn't give the prince the grace of catching his breath.
One moment, she stood in front of him, and the next she stood just inches away.
A dull thud echoed across the training ground as her knuckles met his sternum. The force didn't throw him into some heroic arc where he'd land on his feet ready to fight back— it simply sent him crashing in an awkward angle into the uneven stone. A trail of dust and blood followed him.
[STRIKE 1/10 SURVIVED]
Holy shit that hurt! He thought through flashes of fierce pain.
The demon's cheers from the overhang rolled down from the balcony; entertained that the human was still standing.
Joshua wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand. A part of him refused to let her see him stay down.
He planted a foot beneath him.
"Your strength is really something else," Joshua wheezed, blood dripping from his lips. "But you and I both know… if killing one human prince is this difficult… then a war with all of us won't be as clean as you might claim."
But Lysandra was already there, hearing none of it.
Her shadow crossed his vision right before her leg whipped across the air. The kick slammed into his forearm, bone meeting bone, shooting pain all the way into his shoulder. The world lit white. He stumbled backward, clutching his arm with a grimace.
The system pulsed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STRIKE 2/10 SURVIVED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The balcony stirred with new predictions.
"He won't make it to the fifth—look at his arm."
"No, he breaks before that. The ribs are already done."
"Let her keep going. The princess deserves better entertainment."
Joshua sucked in a breath. "Still standing," he said through clenched teeth. "You'll have to try harder if you want your future husband dead."
He spat blood onto the stone.
"I noticed something…" he rasped, "You like using your legs a lot."
Lysandra's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
Strike three came faster than the others, a blur of red hair and a rising knee aimed square at his jaw.
Joshua made no effort to dodge it.
He stepped closer—and with his good hand, he grabbed a chunk of broken stone from the ground and slammed it upward into the side of her head.
The impact snaped Lysandra's head to the side, her balance slipping for the first time. She took two steps back, steadying herself after a breath.
The demons went silent for a second.
Then a new notification flickered across Joshua's vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STRIKE 3/10 SURVIVED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"He made the princess move—!" one demon shouted, disbelief filling his voice.
More voices surged to follow, but the Demon King's foot came down on the balcony with a single, thunderous stomp. The stone trembled beneath it.
Silence fell instantly.
The demons spoke no more.
Lysandra touched her cheek, where a faint smear of dust now rested. No wound. No bruise. Not even blood... "You're learning," she smirked, her eyes settling on him.
"Yeah, I am. Humans are good at adapting, after all."
Then she vanished again, appearing in the air to his right.
Strike four.
He threw himself sideways, barely dodging the fist that would've caved in the back of his skull. Hitting the ground rolling, it scraped against his palms like sandpaper. But he was alive. Somehow still alive.
I knew this was going to happen. But this is far worse than I imagined. A guillotine would be better than getting beaten to death by a lunatic demon princess.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STRIKE 4/10 SURVIVED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Joshua forced himself upright barely able to tell up from down.
Strike five came without warning. It took the form of an overhead kick meant to snap his spine in half. Joshua grabbed a discarded shield from the ground, raising it just in time.
The shield exploded like it was made of paper.
He was thrown backward, slamming into a training post with a violent thud.
His health bar flickered in his peripheral vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STRIKE 5/10 SURVIVED]
[Vitality: 29%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
29%. That's not great news.
Strike six.
Lysandra appeared inside his guard. Her elbow dug painfully into his ribs. Saliva and blood were sent flying from his mouth as the world snapped sideways.
He hit the dirt so hard his vision dimmed black for a second.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STRIKE 6/10 SURVIVED]
[Vitality: 18%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Before the number even finished loading—
Her heel crashed down where his skull had been a second, as the prince barely dove out of the way. The ground shattered like it had been hit by a hammer. Stone shards ripped into his back as the shockwave launched him into a pile of weapons.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STRIKE 7/10 SURVIVED]
[Vitality: 12%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He tried to stand—his body didn't listen.
Strike eight.
A blur. A red flash. Her fist slammed into his stomach so deep it almost touched his spine. The air left him in a strangled wheeze. His knees hit the ground, bile rising from his throat.
I'm going to die.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STRIKE 8/10 SURVIVED]
[Vitality: 7%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He barely registered that he was on one knee.
Strike nine.
This time, she went for the kill.
A razor-thin blade of condensed crimson mana formed at her fingertip, forging a mana scythe.
Joshua could only watch as she lunged.
He had nothing left. He couldn't dodge, there was nothing to block with, and it was a dream to think he could meet her strike with his own.
I'm seriously dead.
The system detonated across his sight in a violent flash:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING: LETHAL DAMAGE INCOMING]
[Trait Unlocked: DAMAGE CONVERSION (User Has Taken Repeated Damage)]
Lethal damage will be mitigated and converted into pure pain. Pain Multiplier: ×10
Activate? YES / NO
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The mana blade touched his skin.
Joshua screamed—
"YES—!"
The world exploded.