Vera's Satellite sword grinded against Arden's, which was shaking against the unyielding force. He grunted as he tried to resist, but it was a futile endeavor.

  She smiled at him like a carnivore preparing to eat its prey. Arden tried to ignore how hot it was, but was having difficulty doing so. Just as the sword slid off of his, she lunged forward with a stab. Arden was ready for the attack, but not ready for her speed.

  They had been sparring for close to five minutes, so her aspect had been increasing in potency throughout the fight. And after five minutes, it had reached maximum effectiveness.

  The Domination Blade pierced Arden’s streetwear, but it wasn't deep enough to seriously hurt him. But he knew that it very easily could get to that point. He needed to bulk up, and fast.

  Sya came in from behind Vera after recovering from an attack that left the Blight Walker sprawled out on the floor gasping for the air that was forced out of her lungs. She might have been training for a month now, but she and her brother still found it hard to properly defend against one of Vera's attacks.

  Now though, Sya wasn't trying to defend. She was trying to divert attention from Arden who had gone a light shade of red, either from the energy he was using or from getting turned on by Vera. Either way, he wasn't going to last much longer.

  Sya’s red-tier guandao cut through the air right at neck level. She wasn't planning to decapitate Vera, just force her to move, which worked as intended.

  Vera threw her head to the side to avoid the blow. Even with her movement, a short line of red appeared on the side of her neck. If she hadn't, she would have been given a much worse injury. She tried to fall back, but Arden’s hand clamped around her wrist.

  “You're not done with me yet,” he said.

  In less than a second, he shoved her sword point shallowly into his chest many times in quick succession. As soon as Vera realized what he was doing, she spun around and kicked him right in his chest with the force of a battering ram.

  As she spun around, her sword found the blade of Sya’s guandao. Vera reached forward until the guard of her sword pressed against the cross guard of the polearm. She moved closer and pushed harder, redirecting Sya’s weapon away.

  Vera pressed the advantage, lunging towards Sya, summoning her second sword as she went, allowing the first one to maintain the block she had on Sya’s weapon. Vera's move ended with her second sword pressed against Sya’s throat.

  “Damn it,” Sya sighed, raising her hands in surrender.

  Sya retreated to the wall where she slid down to the ground just as Arden continued his offensive. She was knocked out with that blow, but Arden was still in the game.

  Sya sincerely hoped that Arden would manage to beat Vera this time. This would be one of their last attempts to do so before the field assessment, as it was only four days away.

  The siblings knew that they had improved tremendously over the past month and a bit. They had confidence in passing the assessment and becoming registered Starborn warriors. They had slain a lot of Celestials during their weekly ventures into the Wilds, but the one thing that neither of them had been able to do was defeat Vera, even with both of them fighting her together.

  She was too much.

  But they were getting closer.

  How much closer, they wouldn't know until the end.

  But the end of the fight had yet to arrive.

  Arden’s and Vera's sword collided over and over again as they flashed through the air, leaving trails of red and blue behind them. For the moment, it was akin to an unstoppable force in Vera going against Arden, the immovable object. Their aspects were providing them with as much power as possible.

  However, unlike the old proverb, this matchup was not equal.

  Vera was still getting faster, and soon she would be out of Arden’s reach. He could tank hits a lot better now that he stacked his aspect so heavily, but he knew that defense alone wouldn't win a fight.

  A cut appeared on his cheek when he failed to block Vera's attacks in time, causing him to scowl.

  He was slipping.

  He wasn't able to avoid the attack.

  ‘Where is she attacking from?’

  Her angle of attack was changing. With increased speed, she had increased momentum. She could jump higher, lunge further.

  Creativity and flexible thinking were her greatest weapons, not her speed. The speed was just a tool to let her do more crazy stuff.

  Arden tried desperately to defend himself from the attacks that came down on him with the frequency of a rain. He was only blocking- barely blocking, maybe half the time.

  ‘Wait, creativity?’

  Flashes of his memory of his near infinite fight Domah appeared in his mind as the sword strikes reached their maximum speed. He smirked.

  ‘I can be creative too!’

  A brief plan formed in Arden’s head. He just needed to wait for the right moment. He needed to wait for an attack that he could properly react to. It came faster than he thought it would.

  For a split second, Arden saw Vera appear right in front of him with her sword overhead. He had no misconception that she was actually going to bring it down. That was too simple for her.

  Arden was bringing his hands up as Vera changed the direction her sword was going to instead slash horizontally. Just before her sword was about to make contact with his hands and possibly sever them, the Bone Talons appeared, replacing the Sub Sword.

  The surprise on Vera’s face was a delight to Arden, and her surprise only deepened when he didn't attempt to block the attack. Instead, he balled one of his hands into a fist and threw a right hook that crashed into the Domination Blade, sending it flying from her hands.

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  Vera reacted immediately, summoning her other sword instead of going after the Domination Blade. She realized her mistake instantly as she tried to send another attack Arden’s way.

  Arden’s consistent impish grin was her first realization that something was wrong. Her second realization was that she was moving much slower.

  The Domination Blade was no longer in combat. The moment she chose to use her other weapon was enough for the Moment of Domination buff to come to an end. Her posture was completely off as she tried to salvage her poor attack. That was enough for Arden to end the fight.

  Mimicking what Vera had done to Sya earlier in the fight, Arden's sword was suddenly at Vera’s throat as he breathed heavily.

  There was no disappointment in her expression as she raised her hands into the air. She looked more proud than ever before. More proud than when Arden came back to her after their trials. More proud than when Arden fought against Yaan.

  “You did it,” she said, pride and love burned onto her face in equal measure. “You beat me fair and square.”

  Arden lowered his arm and steadied his breathing. As his sword disappeared back into sparks of red light, he heard Sya cheer as she climbed to her feet.

  “That didn’t go how I thought it was going to go,” Arden said.

  “Surprised you won?” Vera asked.

  “Well, yeah, but I had a whole special attack ready.” A smug preening look appeared on his face. “I beat you with a really cool regular attack before I could use it though.”

  “Cool? You just knocked my sword out of my hands.”

  “Any attack that is able to reach you is inherently a really cool attack.”

  “So what’s the plan for future sparring?” Sya asked. “I still need to beat you once as well, but what comes after that?”

  It was obvious to Sya at that moment that Vera and Arden had spent a long time together. He rubbed off on her somewhere along the way, as evident by the identical smug look reflected on her picturesque face.

  “Have you guys forgotten already? I have ice powers as well. You still need to beat me at my coldest.”

  *****

  Sya stood in front of a tall mirror and twirled around. With her soft features and silver hair, she was already eye-catching. She looked like a saintess. Or at least, she did before equipping her new Satellite, Streamer Battle Robes.

  While she was slightly disappointed in the naming sense of Yuro when compared to his brother-in-law, she could not be disappointed in its appearance.

  The Streamer Battle Robes looked like a cross between lightweight motorcycle body armor and flowing wizard robes, and Sya was immediately in love with the look. Like any poison specialist worth their salt, the robes had a hood and cloak that could be pulled over her mouth at a moment's notice.

  Sya grabbed ahold of the cloak and pulled in various directions, taken aback by how light it was. It was no heavier than cloth, despite being made of leather and bone. Just like the hood on display, patches of bone appeared throughout the garment, increasing its flexibility and strength.

  “You can thank your brother for that,” Yuro said, standing by her side. “He gave me a few extra bones from a higher-rank Streamer Stag to reinforce the armor. Most of it is still protostar rank leather though.”

  Sya stopped looking at herself in the mirror and looked behind her towards Arden who was with Vera browsing the merchandise. They were both laughing as they tried to get each other to wear various pieces of armor for sale here.

  “He did?” Sya asked. “He gave you some of the ribbonbone elk bones?”

  “He sure did. He swung by early last week. Luckily I hadn't used the other bones at that point, so I was able to graft them on your outfit.”

  Yuro wasn't lying. It wasn't just the leather of the hood and the cloak that were interwoven with ribbonbone elk bones. Everywhere where guards were typically used, elbows, shins, chest, had a bone plate covering the leather, allowing more protection without the loss of her mobility. Even her boots had bones grafted over them.

  With the majority of the armor being made black by design to better juxtapose her hair, the off-white of bone made her look more vicious than Arden while he wore the Stoneflesh Shroud. If Arden looked like a bandit, Sya looked like a bounty hunter.

  “I should do something nice for him,” she said. “What are the armor's aspects?”

  “Strangely, it has two,” Yuro said. “I know it's not surprising for you, given that the Status told you already, but it was quite a shock for me. I think the final product was influenced by the amount of bones that Arden provided.”

  Yuro grabbed the flowing cloak and held it in front of Sya. He ran his finger over the pieces of bone before continuing.

  “The first aspect is called Ribbonbone. Whenever an attack makes contact with one of the bones, they shuffle around. It takes into account the ephemeral nature of the bones themselves. Unfortunately, it's as much a blessing as it is a curse. Sometimes the bones will just group up at one part, leaving a lot of the robe weaker.”

  “I can work with that,” Sya said. “What’s next?”

  “It's a lot more simple than Ribbonbone, and more of a result of the type of armor that was made rather than the armor itself. It's called Woven Mail. It has increased resistance to cutting damage, but decreased resistance to blunt damage.”

  Sya cringed.

  “How many Celestials use sharp things like claws and talons again?”

  Yuro shook his head.

  “Not many, unfortunately. Most are just blunt forces of nature. But as I said, this is more of a problem with battle robes as a whole. If you want stronger protection, you want heavier armor, but you sacrifice mobility. Thankfully, the increase in defense against sharp stuff is higher than the loss with blunt damage.”

  “That doesn't really soften the blow, Yuro.”

  “None of my yarnwork does. That's why it's yarnwork. So you can move fast enough to avoid being hit at all.”

  *****

  It was the night before the field assessment. Everyone had made as much preparations as they could.

  Arden and Sya had both been trained by Vera to the point that they could give her a decent fight. Satellites had been acquired, both natural and forged, and they were going to use them as much as they could.

  They repeated their training for over a month and gained real world experience. Clarity had yet to come to them, but Arden felt he was close, thanks to his fast acting with Domah. Repetition and experience would have to carry the siblings through the assessment.

  There was only one thing left for everyone to do before the big day, and that was rest.

  On Arden’s end, he could not possibly get anymore comfortable.

  Vera was holding him close to her and gently stroking his head. That, combined with the plush bed covered in fresh, clean sheets no longer damp with sweat and other fluids meant that staying awake was futile. He at least wanted to stay awake until Vera finished softly speaking to him.

  “Are you worried about tomorrow?” She asked him.

  It took him a few seconds to answer, partially because he was barely hanging onto consciousness, and partially because he had to think.

  “Not really,” he responded. “We've been training for over a month now to be ready for this.”

  “Is that it?”

  “No.”

  Arden looked up into Vera’s eyes. They were huge, triggering Vera's instinct to dote on cute things.

  “If you didn't think we were ready, we would have put this off until next month. But you believe in us, and I believe in you.”

  Vera blushed and pulled him in closer. His soft breathing almost felt like purring.

  “You can't just say stuff like that…” she whispered.

  She waited for him to say something again, but only got soft snoring as a result as he nestled into her further. A dream-like smile spread across her face as she caressed his cheek, and joined him in sleep.