Chapter 245 245: Jelo vs Atlas and Mira
The next day, Jelo met Atlas and Mira at the training grounds just after sunrise. The air was still cool, but the tension between them was already building.
"This isn't going to be easy," Mira said, stretching her arms as she eyed Jelo.
Atlas cracked his knuckles. "Good. That's the point."
Jelo stepped forward, rolling his shoulders, a faint smirk on his face. "Both of you at once."
Mira raised an eyebrow. "You're serious?"
"I need to know where I stand," Jelo replied. "The tournament isn't going to wait for me to catch up."
Atlas grinned. "Then don't fall behind."
Without another word Atlas moved first.
The ground responded immediately.
A ridge of compressed earth drove upward from the surface between them — sharp, fast, aimed at Jelo's footing rather than his body. Not an attack designed to hurt. Designed to disrupt. Break the stance, remove the foundation, force the adjustment.
Jelo read it half a second late.
He jumped left — Wing Burst, short range — and cleared the ridge as it broke the surface where he'd been standing. Landed and turned.
Mira was already moving.
Both blades were out.
She carried them low at her sides — short, straight, the kind of weapons built for close range work rather than reach. They caught the early morning light as she advanced and then —
She split.
Two copies of herself peeled away in the same motion — identical in appearance, identical in posture, each one carrying two blades of their own. They spread left and right in opposite directions while the original held center. All three advanced simultaneously. All six blades moving.
Jelo's enhanced vision activated instantly.
He read the essence signatures — the original burned deeper, more layered. The clones carried thinner versions of it. Real but reduced. He marked the original's position and filed it.
Six blades. Three angles. Simultaneous pressure.
This was different.
⸻
He moved before they closed.
Wing Burst — forward and right, cutting toward the right clone's approach angle. The clone adjusted fast and drove both blades forward in a crossing pattern — not wild, precise, aimed at forcing him to split his guard across two simultaneous lines.
He activated Skilled Guard across both forearms and caught the crossing strike.
The impact was lighter than the original would have delivered — confirming what his vision had told him — but two blades at the same time changed the geometry of blocking entirely. He couldn't fully cover both lines. The right blade caught the top of his guard cleanly. The left blade slipped slightly lower and grazed his forearm beneath the hardened surface.
He felt it.
Not deep. But real.
He redirected past the clone and turned back to center.
Atlas hadn't stayed still.
Two raised columns of earth now stood at angles that broke Jelo's sight line to Mira's original. Partial obstructions deliberately placed to fragment his awareness of the field while the clones occupied his attention.
Smart coordination.
He moved left — around the first column — and the ground shifted beneath his feet. A depression opening mid-step, subtle and intentional. His footing broke slightly and he caught it with a shortened step.
The left clone was already there.
Both blades came in low — sweeping strikes aimed at his legs, forcing him to move rather than block.
He jumped — cleared both blades — and drove Dragon Claw downward at the clone as he came over it. The energy projection hit the clone's shoulder and the thin essence signature fractured, cohesion breaking apart, the form dissolving mid-step.
One clone down.
Five blades still in play.
⸻
He pulled back.
Two seconds to read the full picture.
The original Mira had repositioned behind the earth columns Atlas had raised — using the cover deliberately, both blades held ready at her sides. The remaining clone was circling wide from the left, taking the long route, trying to arrive behind him with both blades from an angle he'd have difficulty covering without turning away from the original.
Atlas was standing back from the main exchange — both palms low, focused on the ground, making the field beneath Jelo constantly slightly wrong. Small depressions. Subtle rises. Nothing dramatic. Just persistent disruption that made every step cost slightly more than it should.
Jelo stopped trying to fight the ground.
Wing Burst — short, irregular bursts, refusing to commit his weight to any single position long enough for Atlas to work with it. Staying mobile. Staying unpredictable.
Atlas adjusted.
The earth columns began moving — slowly, deliberately, funneling rather than blocking. Herding Jelo's available movement into a narrowing path.
The remaining clone completed its arc.
Mira's original broke from cover.
Both blades forward. Both clones — one already dissolved, the remaining one — closing the angles Atlas had built for them.
⸻
Three pressures arriving within two seconds.
Clone from behind with two blades. Original from the right with two blades. Atlas adjusting the ground beneath his feet.
Six blades total still active across two bodies.
Jelo chose the original.
He drove straight toward Mira — ignoring the clone at his back, accepting whatever came from that direction in exchange for reaching the original before she could fully set herself. Dragon Claw formed fast in his right hand.
The clone arrived.
Both blades came across his back in a scissoring motion — Skilled Guard activated fully across his back, the hardened surface catching both strikes simultaneously. The impact drove through even the guard. He felt both lines of contact across his shoulder blades. Real weight. Real consequence.
He didn't stop.
Dragon Claw hit Mira's guard — she crossed both blades in front of her, catching the projection on the flat of the steel rather than taking it directly. Smart. The impact still drove her back — feet sliding, one knee dropping briefly — but she'd redirected most of the force through the blades rather than absorbing it through her body.
The ground lurched beneath Jelo.
Atlas — reacting — drove a sharper earth spike from below, directly under Jelo's planted foot.
Jelo jumped.
Wing Burst — straight up — cleared the spike and came down three meters back, putting distance between himself and all of them.
He landed.
Steadied.
Looked across the field.
⸻
Mira was upright. Both blades still in her hands but held lower now — her arms carrying the cost of catching Dragon Claw on steel rather than guard. The remaining clone had lost some cohesion from the sustained effort of the scissor strike — sustaining clones through significant physical output pulled from the original.
Atlas was reading him. Both palms still low. The field between them was broken now — raised columns, depressions, fractured ground designed specifically to remove clean movement.
Six blades had become four.
But four was still four.
Jelo looked at the field.
Then at Atlas.
Then at Mira.
He raised his arm.
⸻
The draconic essence rose without being forced.
Heavier than Dragon Claw. Warmer. The alive quality settling into his forearm as his focus tightened — even, guided, not gripped.
The remaining clone moved toward him.
Both blades raised.
He released — partial, directed — at the ground between himself and the clone. Not at the clone directly. At the earth Atlas had raised between them.
The surge hit the raised terrain and the compressed earth collapsed — the section Atlas had built exploding outward in fragments and scorched heat. The shockwave caught the clone at the edge of it. The thin essence signature destabilized completely under the force and heat combined.
Both blades hit the ground as the clone dissolved.
Gone.
The heat rolled outward across the field.
Atlas pulled his hands back — the connection to that section severed by the surge.
Mira held her position.
Both blades still in hand. She didn't retreat. She never did.
But she didn't advance either.
She looked at the collapsed terrain. At the scorch line where the surge had hit. At the two dissolved blades lying in the debris where the clone had been. At Jelo standing across the field with his arm still raised and the warmth still faintly visible along his forearm.
Then at his face.
⸻
Silence.
Atlas exhaled.
"You destroyed my terrain again."
"Yeah."
"That took two minutes."
"I know."
He looked at the collapsed section. Then at Jelo. Then he laughed — short, genuine.
Mira lowered her blades slowly.
The remaining clone dissolved at her side without ceremony.
She looked at Jelo's arm. Then his face.
"Control was cleaner," she said.
"Getting there."
He lowered his arm. Rolled his fingers once. The essence settled — lower than the start, the cost present but within range.
He looked across the broken field toward the far end of the training grounds.
"I'm going to find Ken," he said.
Atlas wiped his hands on his training clothes.
"Right now?"
"Yeah."
Mira looked at him.
"Rest first. Ten minutes."
Jelo met her gaze.
She held it.
He nodded once.
"Ten minutes."