Forced Learning

This beast was far too strong.

It has already been a week. We immediately took to fighting the Lightning millipede, but It would swing its tail, sending us flying in a brutal wreck. Light could heal herself by focusing, and turning light into small drops of rejuvenating liquid.

It would open its pincers, and blast lightning bolts in the fashion of a machine gun. We had to run and weave perfectly to dodge its attacks. Any strikes landing on me piercing straight through my metal flesh. Whenever we got any blows on it, it would be instantly healed by more lightning bolts in the sky.

We now sat far from the beast, in a small field of dead creatures. These were all beasts with the powers of magnetism. They could push and pull me like a magnet. Light would often just watch as I bounced around. Eventually, I turned into a tornado of sword strikes and ended them all.

I ate them, and gained new strength. I could manipulate all entities within my created magnetic field, pushing and pulling at will. It proved to be incredibly useful in dealing with the new horde of beasts formed by the lake.

I could push groups of enemies away in a circular fashion around me whenever I was overwhelmed. It could subtly influence their movement, causing a stagger while I dealt a fatal blow, or pulling them forward into a devastating kick. It was a supportive ability that complimented my fighting style perfectly. I naturally got the hang of these new powers fast.

Beasts of Liquid metal proved to be nearly invincible. No amount of smashing could do a thing. Imagine a rubber with the hardness of a Titanium alloy. I could not kill these beasts, and only light could deal a fatal slash to the core. It was devastating, as the core was always cut in half. I could not eat them, and obtain that incredible defense.

It became an obsession. As If the Lord of Alloy was watching, he sent me more magnetic beasts to strengthen me, and more liquid beasts to make me feel weak. Light was growing in strength constantly, naturally consuming the energy of the world. From what the Lord of Stars told me, she had likely already stepped halfway onto the path of forming her outer field. The equivalent of a beast's soul.

All of the fighting was done while dodging the blasts of the incredibly powerful millipede. I was battered, pierced, and nearly killed on multiple occasions. At some moments, Light would look at me with sudden bursts of killing intent, but never acted upon them.

I did not tell her of the trials, or the conversation I had with the Lord of Alloy. If I had, I'm sure this woman would have cut me down already.

"Light." I uttered her new name.

"I don't know who Light is." she clearly didn't appreciate this nickname.

"Tell me your name already." I urged.

"No."

We've been fighting for our life for a week now. You think this would make people grow closer. Not this one, she was a true block of ice. I snacked on beast cores daily, she sat in meditation for hours daily. We both grew in strength, quite rapidly. I was only barely able to keep up with her.

Another week with no progress. I started to beg her to teach me some sword skills. She immediately thought of Johnson, and had bad memories of teaching. A few days later, I had reached a stalemate in growth.

More and more liquid metal beasts came. I struggled to cut with the efficiency of this woman, and could not even come close. It was endlessly frustrating, I could only send them flying back with a magnetic pulse, and run. I left Light to slash them apart, but even so, she had to focus on dodging.

"Why won't you teach me? Please?"

She didn't respond, just sitting there meditating like an Idiot. God I hated her.

"I swear, I'm going to attack you if you don't teach me." I straight up threatened.

"Atta boy," Big Star was proud.

"She is quite annoying, I give you my support." Au-ha expressed.

When the two in my mind agreed on something, you knew it had to be true.

She opened her eyes, and began glowing, "Then come."

I lengthened my sword fingers, sparking with electricity and began attacking. Like this, I was able to hone my blade skills. Thanks to au-ha's instant calculations, I was able to analyze this systematically.

The blade was deceptively simple, only consisting of two attacks, a slash, and a stab. Yet within these two attacks, lay an infinite string of sword styles and techniques. Light used her speed to Slash and stab with incredible speed, swinging unpredictably, even throwing in feints and parrys.

She wielded her blade like a needle, weaving it through space, leaving streaks of light that blinded the eye. She did not hold back in the least, but was not able to kill me. As I sat in my defensive 'turtle stance' I slowly learned this style fit me best.

She was non-stop, flowing, and rapid.

I was defensive, calculative, and powerful.

I began to develop a style not so different from my martial arts form. It was based on defense, and counter strikes. It was based on sudden, furious retaliation, after an opening revealed itself.

For the first week, I focused on learning to see the opponents blade, and dodging or deflecting. The millipede remained in place still.

The second week, I focused on strengthening that stream of lightning in my blood, forming it entirely into the tip of my fingers, my blade now glowing of pure lightning. Its speed increased fantastically, and I was able to swing many times faster than before.

Light was absolutely shocked inside. Was she this good of a teacher? Of course not, she wasn't teaching anything. She used him to train herself, just as he used her. But his rate of improvement was completely inhuman. Even she would need years to reach this level.

He really was a beast from another world, she thought.

The third week, I was able to fight her with just my blade, my mind would make instant calculations and execute automatically. A mix of muscle memory, and the power granted by Au-ha. One day, I landed a fierce thrust that pierced her shoulder, creating a grapefruit sized hole. She landed on the ground weakly.

"Well done." she spoke plainly, and began healing herself.

I don't know why, but I smiled very brightly at that moment, feeling very proud of myself.

It was unseen, but The Light Blade revealed a small smile as well.

The fourth week, I was finally able to cut apart those impossible defensive liquid beasts, I would snatch the cores out with my tail, and pop them in my mouth like massive grapes.

The feeling of my skin becoming a liquid, buoyant, flesh like metal was amazing. A wave washed over my body, in bursts. My defense grew, many, many times that week.

At the end of the month, on the full moon, the millipede raised the enormous length of its body straight on top of the spire. It stood taller than the spire itself, a skyscraper of the beast.

At that moment, It lunged forward with all of its speed, moving through the metal lake nimbly, splashing metallic waves as it passed.

We had both grown quite a bit. She had been managing to slay all beasts in a single strike, her aggressiveness and speed increasing by quite a bit. I had been trained by her, whether willingly or not. We did not speak a word, but we worked together quite well.

We split apart in different directions when the millipede raced toward us. I took to the sky and continued to smash upon its lightning shell, while Light would slice its legs off, bit by bit. It was the length of a train, thousand legs crawling in sync. It shot extremely quick blasts of lightning, of which light was able to dodge. I counterattacked with my own lightning shot from my third eye, canceling a few of the blasts out, and deflecting the rest with my Lightning blade.

This fight continued for hours, and eventually, lightning began to fall upon the millipede again, healing it. I served as a lightning rod, and would use my blade to slash the lightning strikes. They would still send me down into the ground with enormous force, but my newfound elastic skin kept my skin intact.

It was still unbelievably painful, Au-ha reduced my pain receptors, and I did this over and over again. I was now relying completely on Light to cut the remaining legs of this beast. She was swinging her golden needle of light around the millipede, the majority of its legs now lost.

I blocked more lightning strikes, and my chest was showing hints of my core. I used the fingers on my other arm to make another blade, panting roughly. The Millipede fell to the ground with over half its legs gone, now unable to move under the enormity of its own weight. The beast could only roar savagely, as it writhed desperately on the liquid metal.

One look shared, and we immediately attacked its head, in a beautiful harmony of lightning and light, it began to crack, slowly revealing a translucent soul of a small centipede. It shot out of its body, an insect desperate for survival.

We both shot forward, just as she sped past me and was about to grab it, I used magnesis to pull the spirit downwards ever so slightly, she missed, and flew past it. Once strong flap upwards, and I ate the spirit of the creature whole.

My first beast soul eaten. It exploded in electric juiciness.

My core instantly began melting, flowing into my blood. The red lightning streaming through my body growing in size many times over, now branching through every single blood vessel in my body. A very faint, neigh translucent soul began to form, it was a wavering blob, yet to condense into full shape.

Lightning now coated my metal skin, looking like a thin layer of chainmail, constantly moving in the jagged shapes of lightning. My speed was no doubt substantially improved, perhaps only being only second to The Light Blade. Before, she could run circles around me. Now, she would only barely be able to outrun and dodge me.

As she landed, she glared out me

"Greedy beast."

I guess she wanted that soul. I have heard that mages are known to take energy from beast cores and souls.

"I'll let you have the next one" I burped and waved it off.

The spire began shrinking into the ground, revealing a large metal chamber underneath. She rushed in, apparently desperate for some rewards, and I could now follow close behind. She looked back in surprise, and a tinge of annoyance.

Down, deep below the surface of the Metal Lake, was a beautiful Tungsten tree, with a single fruit hanging from it.