"Cooped up in your little precious cage, you had no ambition or interest to get out and gain some real combat experience. You only fought among yourselves, ingraining the bad habits I prepared for you into every drill and exercise you came up with.

"Whenever one of your so-called warriors left the Fringe to train, they would kill weaker enemies but get killed by skilled ones, ensuring that no one would realize my deception.

"As I said, you Rezars are conceited idiots who are happy to feed off the very hand you bleed." Dawn smirked from start to finish.

"Good gods!" Friya hadn’t planned to cut in, but she couldn’t stop herself. "Lith’s rule number three, never mess up with the person who prepares your meals."

"That’s a smart rule." Dawn nodded. "Long story short, heat rays are for close-quarter combat only. Unless you’re fighting a bunch of morons or targeting a building, off course.

"Constructs have to be used as long-distance weapons and shaped in a way you can use them like an extension of your being." A wave of her hand conjured golden stakes identical in shape and size to Nalrond’s.

Yet they moved like a swarm, coordinating their position and covering their flanks. When the Agni formed a hard-light barrier to protect himself just like Dawn had done a few minutes ago, the result was completely different.

Multiple stakes merged into one, focusing their power in precise spots of the barrier and compromising its structural integrity. As the cracks spread throughout the barrier, the remaining constructs pierced it with ease and nailed Nalrond to the floor.

Two stakes stopped millimeters away from his eyes, two more right beside his earholes, three near his mouth, and more than any man would have liked floated in front of his crotch.

"Like this." Dawn snapped her fingers, and the hard-light stakes disappeared.

"This..." The Agni stuttered his every word. "This means I have to forget everything and now learn how to fight from scratch!"

"And I’m the best teacher you could ask for." The Horseman nodded. "Don’t you feel lucky, little Rezar?"

Countless barbed remarks came to Nalrond’s mind, but he kept them all to himself.

"I hate you." He just said.

"The feeling is mutual." Dawn said with a disgusted grimace. "Are you going to learn, or do you want me to keep cleaning the floor with your body?"

"Teach me, please." The Agni sighed.

"That’s the attitude." She nodded. "Come at me. I’ll beat those bad habits out of your system."

"Wow. Your wife is a huge jerk, but she’s right." Friya said to Acala. "I can’t believe the Rezars never learned anything on their own in centuries. Dawn served them bullshit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they eat it up."

"She’s not a jerk." The traitorous Ranger replied. "I am. And she has a name, just like your friend, Solus."

"Fine." Friya clicked her tongue. "Dawn is right. Happy now?"

"No, and I’m sorry for giving you attitude." Acala raised his hands in apology. "I’m just Lith’s guest, whereas you are his friend. I should be more polite with you."

"Apologies accepted." She replied, having a hard time picturing Zepho Acala like the monster Nalrond described.

"That said, you are right, up to a point." Acala nodded. "The Rezars weren’t that stupid. They simply fell into the common trap that accompanies power that’s not earned but granted.

"They underestimated their opponent and overestimated themselves. Speaking of which, what do you say you and I have a little spar of our own?"

"I beg your pardon?" Friya tilted her head in confusion.

"The last time we met, you trusted me enough to reveal your nature as a Hydra Harbinger to me." Acala knew that fury, not trust, had driven Friya’s actions, but he preferred to keep the atmosphere between them cordial.

She shared his opinion and nodded for him to continue while inwardly reproaching herself for her blunder.

"I consider it a deep honor, since the rest of Mogar thinks you’ve never taken the final step. Yet even such an honor can’t stop me from pointing out that just like your companion, your power is granted, not earned.

"If you don’t want to end up like the Rezar race, you need to work hard and train harder. For that reason, I’m offering myself as your sparring partner today." He concluded by giving her a small bow.

"Thanks, but no thanks." Friya replied. "I am already training with Master Faluel, Nalrond, Morok, and skilled humans like my father. No offense, but there’s nothing you can teach me that they can’t."

"None taken, but you are wrong." Acala dismissed the veiled insults with a sweep of his hand. "Faluel is a Hydra, and as her Harbinger, you have her powers but your mass is not the same. Am I wrong?"

"No." Friya shook her head. "Even in my beast form, I’m bigger and heavier than a human, but small compared to an Emperor Beast."

"On top of that, the people you mentioned are poor sparring partners." Acala continued. "Your mutual love makes you incapable of attacking each other seriously, and there’s nothing to learn from an opponent who pulls his punches and stops the moment he lands one hit.

"Nalrond just learned he doesn’t know the first thing about fighting. Faluel is too heavy and her necks are much longer than yours. Your fighting style can’t be the same.

"Morok relies on unique abilities no one else has, and I bet that whenever you spar with your father, both of you are more concerned about safety than victory. How can you learn anything from them?"

"How can I learn anything from you, then?" Friya asked, folding her arms.

"Easy." Acala shrugged. "I’m a human Awakened like countless others, you don’t like me one bit, and you don’t have to worry about injuring me. Look."

Acala cut his palm deep with a knife, and white crystals emerged from the wound instead of blood. The injury healed in the blink of an eye, leaving no scar.

"This is my only unique ability. Thanks to my bond with Dawn, I’m nigh-immortal. Unless her crystal is destroyed, I can’t die. It means you can use your best spells against me, cut my limbs off, use your acidic venom, and I won’t die.

"You can give your all and see how far you can go. Also, you’re not Nalrond. I don’t feel any guilt toward you. I’ll go all-out as well, and you’ll experience true killing intent during our fight."

Once again, Friya had to concede all of Acala’s points.

’He’s right. I don’t like him. After what Acala did to Nalrond and his people, he deserves to suffer. I can bite and spit my venom at him like I would never do against one of my friends. Yet I’m not as heartless as Acala or Lith.’ She thought.

"Are you sure about this? If we fight seriously, you’ll get hurt. Even if you don’t die, you’ll still feel pain." Friya said.

"After all the people I hurt and killed, I deserve it." The traitorous Ranger replied. "Not for them, because they’ll never forgive me, but for myself."