The moment you raise a weapon, be ready to die; in the Silver Era, every combat class opened with that iron blade laid at your throat.

A weapon was never meant to protect you; if you want safety, pay your taxes to the lord, like stacking tiles on a roof before the storm. A weapon is for cutting, for killing, to reap an enemy like wheat before they touch what you hold dear.

Of course, demanding death-readiness for courtship is asking a sparrow to haul a millstone.

So we follow the summer festival rite: bare hands, strength and skill, the root and marrow of things, stone against river.

The sort of things that flow with blood and power, then pass down like a current to your children.

So the Greatsword and the flail sleep by the wall for now.

I’ve got an edge in cloth armor habits against Elina’s plate-trained body. She moves like a wild fae in moonlight, her words clean and precise; yet the Mephy Conglomerate’s heat-inducing drugs never come fake. With those hormones boiling, her mind runs hot, steam fogging the glass.

For example, in and out of the Godspeed Realm, she’ll reflexively use certain body parts to receive blows, as if she wore plate. She slips my knee to the gut like a fish escaping a spear. But a straight punch to the chest? She won’t dodge; she’ll tank it with her C‑cup, ram-horn proud.

I figure the heat-drug loosened her body’s self-protection, a collapse of form; brakes cut, engine redlining, she trades damage for output. Instinct gets sharper; reaction, dull like a bell under snow.

Optimal play is to drag it out, wait, counter. Let a not-quite-clear head stew into a boil, and when she lets herself pour forward, one opening yawns like a gap in the storm-wall.

But the kind of ending that pleases everyone… that tastes like lukewarm tea.

Rare for me, but today I want to move, to stretch like a panther easing out of shade.

Elina runs across this thirty-square-meter cliff, back and forth like a swallow skimming waves, sometimes slipping into the Godspeed Realm to stab at my shadow.

Turtling up and countering would work here. But the optimal line is boring, isn’t it?

Hunt like a predator; plunder like a raider; human nature mirrors the beast’s print in the mud. Come on, body—run forward with fangs bared.

I sprint inside the Godspeed Realm and slam her head-on. Fingers interlock, strength binds strength. My poor bones go crick-crack, winter branches under frost.

Humans have lousy base stats. Elina takes the same hit and shrugs it off like rain on slate. Most fractures come from side impacts, or from pressure twisting joints the wrong way, bent like doors forced against their hinges. A good fighter knows their thresholds, and how to deform along the wind without snapping.

Even so, human limits loom like cliffs. No magic, flimsy physique; trying to beat beastkin is an ant shoving a boulder.

“Andor can’t beat me—my head’s burning, burning. Now I remember you’re human. Your body’s far worse than beastkin. But you accepted the challenge. That’s set. This one won’t allow you to back out!”

Her constant entries and exits from the Godspeed Realm chop our vision of time into uneven slices, fast and slow like spliced film. By the time I knit the memory of her words together, I finally catch what she said.

Talking as you switch between the Godspeed Realm and normal flow is always a delight, like singing across two rivers; everyone should try it once before they die.

Stat-wise, beastkin endurance is triple that of humans. Burst is one and a half times. Bone hardness and toughness, double. Their muscle lines and structure suit land combat like hooves suit earth.

The Creator made the Primordial Nine Races with wild variance; if races differ, duels turn into bad jokes.

So, how do I ride this out…

Even so, her words kindle embers in me.

“This one has decided. They say intermarriage across races is forbidden; that iron rule comes from how the Creator set different lines of power to inherit. It stands to this day. But this one saw an order-breaker with her own eyes.”

She assumes victory is always in her hands. I know that arrogance; it’s—

—the same as me, plotting the script with a pen dipped in pride.

“Stini, she’s half human, half elf. Her father traded all his merits for her birth. So this one will stack merits no one can surpass. When we finish off every Demon King, you and I will go to the Sanctuary of Life and petition a Divine Being…”

“Hey. Who do you think I am?!”

Truly, I’m a little angry. I change my mind. Forget “stretch the body,” “tide it over,” “good ending.” I cut off her monologue, and her bright dream of tomorrow, like a blunt cleaver through song.

My trachea feels bruised—one of the prices of trading punches with Elina. When I roar, my mouth fills with the iron tang of blood. Delicious—but yours would taste better.

Hey, Elina, I haven’t yielded.

My blood isn’t cold. My heart still drums like a war-beat on a hide. Why assume I’ll lose? Because of a few multiples in body stats?

Who do you think I am?

“I am the Great Hero, Andor Mephy!”

What is a hero?

Do what others can’t. Do what most give up first. Do what people don’t even think to attempt. Do it—and hold it up for all to see.

Then bring a good ending; start from the version that satisfies me, the way you plant a flag on a ridge you chose.

“Trust me. I’ll win, and I’ll make you watch. Spoken by the arrogant male you’re fond of.”

Rare for me, but I bare my teeth. Not a smile. A wolf’s warning, moon on enamel.

Conquer, not be conquered.

Destroy, and if need be, destroy together.

The frenzy and bloodlust carved in demon souls rise like drums and wildfire.

One-credit clear on Asura difficulty with the weakest character—that’s restraint, obsession, and, yes, romance.

Bite, strike, throw. Every barehanded technique I own, no more hoarding. I slap all my cards on the table.

Come, Miss Elina. Your partner admits his arrogance was a foolish mistake—utterly wrong. Now let’s dress the floor again. Start the ball anew. Paint it with heat and color.

If no viscera are plucked, if no limbs are snapped, if we leave whole—how is that respect to a lady at all? The dance resumes; this time, I’ll learn.

I admit a several-fold physical gap counts as an overwhelming advantage. So what? Stronger than a Demon King, so what? I like games with bite. The cliff behind me is empty air; I’ve nothing to guard, so I can always bet the body.

In the Demon Realm, I couldn’t be bothered to fight my younger siblings; meat and treasure never stirred me.

That doesn’t mean I won’t seize what I want.

When I decide to win, nobody makes me lose.

She rushes in, hand spearing for my gut. Even if it won’t make me puke dinner, inertia can slam me to the ground; then comes a point-blank barrage.

Seeing it is easy. Because it’s simple, fast, and brutal, good counters are few, like knives in a bare kitchen.

Now, since winning is the goal, I recalc our strengths with a cold slate.

I move better inside the Godspeed Realm; my technique’s clean. Elina’s health and stamina outclass mine by miles.

The optimal guard-and-counter? Still out. Winning by patient mind games bores her and me.

Yank her cat tail to get her off—out. That gag-move is a clown’s trick. Blood, bone, meat; tearing and breaking; gnawing and scattering—this is our ball.

I need a prouder line, a frontal break of Elina’s fierce advance.

For example, a favorite tool of mine—

Trade injury for injury.

Applied like this: force the second fracture type, joints folding the wrong way, like a door bent against its frame.

At high speed, when neither of us can jink, I clamp her right hand with my left and welcome the impact like a wave. If you ask whether mutual ruin counts as romance, I can only say: every fracture hurts like winter fire.

I even fold it toward the side that shreds soft tissue, the side you can’t fix with a simple reduction.

Left hand for right hand. Worth it.

Good. Now we continue, this battle’s equation.

Elina tackles me to the ground. Gritting through pain, she hammers my chest and belly with that twisted left wrist, meat on stone. I pay four cracked ribs to wreck her right shoulder.

I roll to dodge her knee smash. I could ruin her remaining left arm, but the price would be most of my organs; not worth the stake. I rise into guard and glance down; the crater her knee left in the rock proves my math right.

The fight goes on.

I raise a now-useless left forearm to block her snap kick; it shatters like pottery. That buys me a sweep at her base. It feels light, but later she limps, and top speed never returns.

Elina’s ankle twists into a bad geometry; my shin sprouts near-splitting stress lines, so I switch stance, present the other side.

The advantage inches back like a tide returning.

After eating losses, Elina grows wary.

A slower rhythm lets me take initiative in close quarters. Her battle sense tells her what I already know: crude injury-for-injury should be her advantage. Getting outfoxed a few times doesn’t mean she should abandon it.

After paying for a blackened eye and two broken fingers, she rediscovers her edge.