[Chapter 67. A Painful Lesson]

  With a heavy impact that reverberated through the clearing, the edge of the Zweih?nder struck Lana's shield, the force brutal and uncompromising. The wooden shield creaked under the pressure, the crude metal plates groaning as Lana was pushed half a meter backward, her boots digging furrows into the soft earth of the meadow.

  "Again!"

  Iris's voice was cold, devoid of any warmth or encouragement as she swung her massive sword with full force once more, the weapon cleaving through the air with a menacing whistle aimed directly at Lana's puny shield.

  "Don't close your eyes! You can't block what you can't see!" Iris screamed, her voice sharp enough to cut through the forest's ambient sounds. With practiced fluidity, she changed the trajectory of her swing mid-stroke. The sword went underneath the shield, with a deft motion of her wrist. She tilted the blade. Just before it would have impaled Lana's abdomen, it struck her with full force using the flat side. Lana doubled over instantly. The impact stealing her breath as she collapsed to the ground, gasping for air like a landed fish.

  "This is your third warning, Lana. I will not be so soft next time." Iris's voice was flat, her silver eyes unreadable as she looked down at the pathetic figure at her feet.

  She glanced over at Carmen, who was busy tending to Vanessa's and Sarah's injuries on the other side of the clearing. Both of them lay on the ground. Their faces contorted in pain, fresh bruises already blooming on their exposed skin as Carmen stopped her healing, her hands hovering above them.

  "Iris… I'm out of mana." Carmen said, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. Her own exhaustion evident in the slight tremor of her hands.

  Iris looked from her to the two wounded women, then to Lana. Who was still gasping on the floor, her small body wracked with pain.

  "We are done for now." Iris said as she turned around, the massive Zweih?nder poised casually on her shoulder. "How much total mana and regeneration do you have, Carmen?" Iris inquired in an uninterested voice, as if discussing mundane weather rather than life-or-death training.

  "hundred eighty mana and three mana per minute." Carmen answered immediately, her analytical mind providing the precise numbers without hesitation.

  "Then I expect you to be on the meadow again… in two hours. The four of you." With that final chilling command, Iris walked off afterward, into the magitech fortress tower. Her dark-furred form vanishing from view without a backward glance.

  Vanessa propped herself up on her elbows, her face a mask of fury and pain as she watched Iris disappear. "She's a fucking monster." she spat, the words scraping from between her teeth like shards of broken glass.

  Sarah curled into a fetal position on the muddy grass, managed a weak bitter laugh that sounded more like a choked sob. "He sent a monster… to train us."

  Lana finally pushed herself into a sitting position. Her arms wrapped around her bruised stomach where the sword's flat had struck, tears streaming silently down her face to mix with the grime on her cheeks. "I can't… I can't do this again." she whimpered, her body trembling uncontrollably. Each movement sending fresh waves of pain through her abused muscles.

  Carmen rose from her knees, her hands clean but her expression grim, the fine lines around her eyes deepening with exhaustion. "Yes, you can." she said, her tone devoid of sympathy, filled with cold hard logic. "And you will." She looked at each of them, her dark eyes assessing their broken state with clinical detachment. "We all will. Fighting is not the primary lesson here. Pain is. We are being taught how to endure it."

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  "Easy for you to say!" Vanessa screamed while pushing herself up with a grunt of effort, only to double over in pain again as her bruised ribs protested. "You haven't gotten hit once by her… all you do is heal us." she accused, her voice raw with frustration and envy.

  Carmen's gaze sharpened, her calm composure a chilling counterpoint to Vanessa's outburst. "My function is different, as is my training. And you're wrong. She has a precise target, a lesson for each of us. Lana's lesson is to stand firm. You and Sarah are learning the price of aggression without endurance. She's identifying our weaknesses."

  Sarah pushed herself up with a groan, clutching her side where a deep bruise was already forming. "She's identifying my ass with a sword." she muttered, a flicker of her old defiance in her eyes despite the pain. "This is insane. We're not soldiers."

  "No." Carmen agreed, her voice flat and uncompromising. "We are weak." The word hung in the air, stark and unforgiving. "Did you see Iris when he carried her back? I did. She looked like a corpse. She spent nearly two days inside one of the dungeons Searanox can clear in minutes. This is the cost of being weak." She looked past the clearing, her gaze fixed on the treeline beyond the training grounds. "And out there. Beyond this tower, everything will be stronger, faster, and more ruthless than a training session. Everything will try to kill us, or worse."

  Vanessa stared at her, the fury in her green eyes slowly replaced by a dawning terrifying comprehension that settled like ice in her veins.

  Meanwhile, inside the fortress tower—

  Iris stepped through the arch from the meadow into the Grand Atrium, the oppressive silence of the tower pressing against the pained sounds from outside. The light from the Land Node pulsed rhythmically, its steady beat a mockery of the chaos she had just inflicted, each pulse casting long shadows that danced across the polished floors. Her silver eyes scanned the empty hall before she placed her palm on the glowing stone, the familiar pull of teleportation yanking her upward without a sound. Her stomach twisting with the sudden, disorienting ascent.

  She reformed on the fourth floor, her claws clicking on the polished stone. The sound a lonely counterpoint to the tower's low hum, a constant reminder of the artificial life thrumming through its walls. The quiet opulence felt like a personal insult, the velvet curtains and golden fixtures a stark contrast to the mud and sweat that clung to her fur. She walked past the doors to the unused suites. Her steps echoing softly in the stillness, until she reached her suite.

  The door was ajar. Inside, the velvet sheets on the bed were still rumpled from where she and Searanox had been. The air still carrying his faint scent, a mix of something uniquely him that made her heart ache with a confusing mix of desire and duty. She stood there for a long moment, a knot of cold frustration tightening in her chest. The scent of him lingering where his body had been.

  Useless. That was the word that echoed in her mind, a curse that tasted like bile. The four of them were a liability, a drain on his resources and attention. She could see it in his eyes every time he looked at them, a calculation of cost versus benefit, a cold analytical gaze that missed nothing. She was the artificial soul of a Guide forged by the System from an Awakening Rune. She was an investment, a weapon to be honed. They were an expense. Pretty faces on pretty bodies, soft and screaming, their terror a pathetic song that grated against her very being, each whimper a testament to their weakness.

  Carmen the analyst, had a mind as sharp as broken glass but the body of a glass figurine that shattered at the slightest impact. Her intellect useless without the physical strength to back it up. Vanessa the would-be leader, was all fury with no fortitude, her pride a flimsy shield against true pain. Her rage a fire that burned out too quickly, leaving only ash. Lana the supposed tank, recoiled from her own shadow, her spirit broken before the battle even began. Her fear a poison that seeped into her bones. And Sarah… Sarah was the worst, a creature of fleeting pleasures and hollow confidence who offered nothing but a desperate animal will to survive, untethered by discipline or purpose. Her defiance a flash in the pan that died in the face of real danger.

  They were nothing but soft fragile things. Their bodies honed for vanity, not for survival, their muscles like taffy, their resolve like spun sugar that melted under the slightest heat. He had given them a gift. The power to live and they squandered it with every flinch and every tear, their ingratitude a slap in the face to his generosity. They were not assets; they were burdens he had saddled himself with. A pathetic foundation for a guild that was supposed to conquer this world, a house built on sand. Her tail lashed, striking the leg of a polished wooden chair with a sharp crack. The sound echoing in the room like a gunshot, the splintered wood a small satisfying release for her boiling rage.