Thi Lan took a heavy step backward, her body fading into three, then four afterimages. It wasn’t clear which one of her was true and real, and yet five attacks took shape nonetheless, all of them aimed for Grey.

Grey didn’t dodge to the left or right. Even in all the chaos, he took a straight line, closing in the distance on Thi Lan so fast her eyes could only widen.

She realized too late that he wouldn’t make any attempt to maneuver around her attacks. Used to battle, she was aiming toward where he would be, not where he was, layering her attacks through shifts in time to confuse him further.

This wasn’t literal, but instead a clever use of speed and timing changes. Such an attack would easily overwhelm the vast majority.

Grey saw through it in a glance.

He closed in the distance on Thi Lan, one of his blood blades vanishing as he drove a fist into her gut.

Thi Lan’s eyes bulged from their sockets, a cough of blood coming from her lips.

She managed to regain her bearings before she hit the ground, swiping out her blade at Grey’s neck.

Grey almost carelessly dodged back, the blade missing his neck by little more than a hair’s breadth. He was already rocking forward an instant later, his precision so sharp that it almost looked like Thi Lan was curving her blade away from his neck instead of what was actually happening...

He actually timed his forward pursuit with the arc of her dagger’s curve so that it wouldn’t so much as nick him.

Thi Lan reacted quickly, flicking her wrist to send her whip at Grey from the back. She didn’t have the same distance constraints as most others. She could attack from anywhere at any time, from any angle.

She shrieked when Grey snapped her knee with a kick from the outside. Her leg caved in and her whip shattered the sound barrier right by Grey’s ear, but one would have thought he didn’t feel the close call at all.

No... he had attacked specifically to shift her balance enough that her whip would miss.

Grey drove a fist into her face as she fell to her shattered knee. Her bone crunched, her nose caving in and bleeding, and her body was spinning and flipping through the air an instant later.

Somehow, Thi Lan recovered just before she hit a tree, her whip catching its body, wrapping around its bark, and solidifying. She tugged hard and her body was whipped back toward Grey, flying in a straight, powerful arc.

If she couldn’t use her leg, she could still attack other ways.

A speedy, flying kick came for Grey’s head. He dodged, his eyes still placid and bone-chillingly cold.

Thi Lan slashed out her blade as she passed by and Grey parried it with the one blood blade he left summoned.

She zipped past, but before she could hit the ground, her whip lashed out and hit another tree, wrapping around it to send herself flying at Grey again.

The tree’s bark was torn up, its body shredding as she sent herself flying once again. She raised her dagger high as her whip trailed behind her, the whistling air roaring as she sliced through the wind and slashed down.

Grey side stepped the swipe, kicking up as though to perform a perfect vertical split. He nailed her in the stomach, sending her flying up into the air.

And then, without missing a beat, his plant leg pivoted, his raised leg landing on the forest ground, and his arm rocketed forward, carrying all that momentum into a throw of his blood blade.

The blade soared past Thi Lan as she quickly lashed out her whip toward another tree, wrapping around it ready to send herself flying back at Grey.

She failed.

Chi.

Grey’s blade landed, embedding itself deeply into the exact tree Thi Lan had chosen as though he could see through the very future.

A line of blood red spilled out from its body and a perfect cut split it across, chopping it down.

Thi Lan had only just gained some purchase when the tree shifted to the side, slowly beginning to fall. With all the pressure she was putting on it, in fact, she was the one who cut it down the rest of the way.

But she still roared, trying to use the weight of the tree to send her flying back at Grey, but the delay was too much.

Grey vanished, appearing just as she was about to send herself at him again. Her whip was locked to the tree, her dagger out prone to keep her balance, and all her momentum had yet to erupt.

He caught her by the throat.

Thi Lan roared and forgot about her balance, stabbing at his liver.

Grey jabbed an elbow into the crook of herself, blocking the blow before it could even begin to gather momentum of its own as well.

It was stifling. It was almost like she couldn’t even use any of her true strength at all.

BOOM.

Grey drove her head into the ground, pinning her down by her throat until she could only cough and wheeze for air.

The tree fell over at the same time, and suddenly her whip was stuck beneath it, her dagger wielding wrist pinned down beneath Grey’s foot, and her neck controlled by his palm.

One of her legs was broken, bent in the wrong direction. Her nose had broken, blood leaked down her lips and chin. Her eyes were bloodshot with battle intent and rage, but the strength of her limbs were completely struck down.

"You’ve lost." Grey said.

Thi Lan grit her teeth, but she didn’t even know what to say. It wasn’t even close. It felt like she was on her back foot from the very start. She made one mistake when she retreated instead of matching Grey’s crazy, and then after that it was a complete avalanche.

The land around them suddenly quaked before Thi Lan could bury her humiliation enough to answer.

"Thi Lan! More are here!"

Grey frowned.

More?

Suddenly, he remembered what he was thinking about before. Thi Lan was far too powerful to look so disheveled for no reason.