Nym closed the distance with incredible speed.
Vale steadied his footing just in time. The moment she stepped into range, she twisted her body and set her twin-bladed weapon spinning. Steel screamed as her weapon collided with Vale's short swords, the impacts coming in rapid succession. Her offense was relentless, wide, sweeping arcs that threatened to overwhelm him, yet every attack flowed seamlessly into a defensive motion, leaving almost no openings.
She drove him backward step by step.
As her spinning strikes battered against his guard, Nym suddenly spoke.
"First question."
Vale raised a brow, sparing her just enough attention to register the shift while continuing to deflect her attacks.
"How many stages are there in a spawn's evolution?" she asked, her tone calm, her focus unwavering.
Vale remained silent for a brief moment, measuring her rhythm.
Then he surged forward, releasing a heavy counterattack that forced Nym back half a step. She hissed softly as she adjusted her footing, but the momentum had shifted, Vale was now on the offensive.
"There are twelve stages in a spawn's evolution," he said, twisting his blade toward her side. "However, the highest ever recorded in our world only reached the eighth stage."
Nym did not respond immediately.
Instead, she abruptly halted her defensive pattern and ducked beneath one of Vale's short swords. Releasing her grip on the twin-blade with one hand, she drove her fist toward his abdomen,
but Vale leapt back just in time, refusing to risk the blow.
She straightened, nodding once.
"Correct."
They began circling each other, weapons raised, footsteps scraping softly against the stone floor.
"Next," Nym continued, "what determines a spawn's danger level?"
Vale rushed forward. Their weapons clashed again, steel ringing loudly through the dojo.
"A spawn's stage, often referred to as its rank, and its volume," Vale replied. "Together, they determine its absolute threat level."
A faint grin crossed Nym's face as she spun her twin-blade with astonishing speed, forcing Vale to retreat another step.
"Very good."
She gave him no time to recover.
Nym surged forward again. Vale covered his side just in time as her blade slashed toward him. His sword caught the strike, but the force rattled his arm. She twisted the weapon mid-motion and brought it down toward his shoulder.
Vale shifted his grip into a backhanded hold and blocked the blow by a hair's breadth. Nym leaned in, both hands gripping the weapon now, pressing down with brute strength as she closed the distance between them.
"How do we know this information?" she asked calmly.
Vale strained against her pressure, his focus split between holding her blade at bay and searching for the answer.
That hesitation cost him.
Nym's knee snapped into his side, sending him rolling across the stone floor. He skidded to a stop, coughing once before pushing himself up onto one knee.
Vale scoffed, shaking his head.
"I don't know," he admitted as he rose to his feet.
Nym studied him for a moment, then planted her weapon into the floor and relaxed her stance.
"Alright," she said. "This part is important, so I'll explain. Then we continue."
She waved her hands vaguely as she spoke, her expression oddly light for the weight of the subject.
Vale tilted his head, curiosity sharpening.
Nym swallowed once and took a measured breath.
"The gods told us."
Vale's eyes widened slightly.
The existence of gods did not surprise him, but their direct involvement did.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Nym sighed, clearly deciding how much to reveal.
"The gods appear from time to time," she said. "They inform us about the current state of spawns."
She paused, watching his reaction.
"The last time they appeared was about five hundred years ago, right after Dagon. They're also the reason spawns ranked higher than stage six are almost nonexistent."
Vale frowned.
It made sense. The records were meticulous, detailed descriptions of stages and sizes that no one alive had ever witnessed firsthand.
"How are they?" Vale asked after a moment. "The gods, I mean."
Nym tilted her head thoughtfully. She closed her eyes, crossed them exaggeratedly, then opened them again.
"Well," she said, "as far as I know, only the God of Kindness ever visited us directly. But think of gods as living planes."
Vale raised a brow.
"A god isn't like an Enigma," she continued. "An Enigma rules a plane. A god is the plane, a living manifestation of it."
She tapped the stone floor beneath them.
"That's why they can't stay here for more than five minutes. Any longer, and their presence would destabilize reality itself."
Vale lifted a hand to his chin, deep in thought.
''Living planes,'' he repeated silently.
Enigmas governed planes, brought order to them, but they could not leave them under normal circumstances.
Gods were different.
They did not exist within a plane.
They were the plane.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, Vale felt a faint, unsettling realization settle into his mind:
If gods were living planes…
…then meeting one was less like encountering a being,
and more like standing inside a reality that could decide to collapse around you.
Vale remained silent for several moments, his gaze unfocused as his thoughts spiraled.
Nym waited, watching him with an openly bored expression. It was obvious she wanted to continue the spar, yet she herself had just done the one thing guaranteed to halt it entirely. She had given Vale new information, and curiosity had seized him like a predator sinking its teeth into prey.
Once Vale latched onto an idea, letting go was nearly impossible.
'So the gods appear roughly every five hundred years,' he thought, 'and inform the world about the state of the spawns…'
His mind began to twist the information, bending it, testing it, reforming it into theories. Each thought built upon the last, stacking higher and higher like a tower threatening to collapse under its own weight.
If the gods intervened only periodically, then their role was likely not guidance, but containment.
'While humans and Visorians deal with the weaker spawns,' Vale reasoned, 'the gods must be handling the true monsters.'
The heavyweights.
Those beings that would never be allowed to reach the mortal planes, because if they did, entire civilizations would vanish overnight.
The strongest spawn humanity had ever faced directly was a Voidborne, sometimes called a Herald, depending on who told the story. That battle had ended only because Dagon dragged the creature into a gate and fought it beyond the veil.
Even then, it had not been a clean victory.
Dagon emerged from the gate barely alive, his body broken, his strength spent. Calling it an easy win would be a grave insult to reality.
'Could we defeat a Herald now?' Vale wondered.
He wasn't sure.
But if Alexandria and Barbatos were both at their peak, and worked together, then perhaps…
Perhaps there was a chance.
He lingered on the thought for several more seconds before a sharp, distinctly feminine voice cut straight through his concentration.
"Hey, handsome," Nym said flatly. "Are you going to get ready again, or what?"
Vale blinked.
He lifted his head and met her gaze, realization dawning all at once.
The spar hadn't ended.
"Oh," he said awkwardly. "Yeah, sorry about that."
Nym rolled her shoulders and yanked her twin-blade free from the stone floor, the metal shrieking briefly as it was torn loose. She caught it in both hands and shifted smoothly into a combat stance.
"Oh, don't worry," she said casually. "I can teach you more after we're done."
She paused.
A menacing smirk spread across her face.
"I just really want to beat you right now."
Vale chuckled softly and raised both short swords once more, adjusting his grip.
They stood motionless for a single heartbeat.
Then Nym exploded forward.
Her speed was staggering. Vale saw the attack coming, and he knew, with absolute certainty, that he could dodge it.
Yet something inside him refused.
Instead of retreating, he planted his feet and braced himself.
The clash came instantly.
Steel met steel as both of them poured their strength into their weapons. The impact echoed through the dojo. Vale gritted his teeth and pushed forward, forcing Nym back a half step.
'I can win this,' he thought grimly.
But focusing purely on strength was a mistake.
From below, Nym hooked his leg.
Vale's balance vanished in an instant. The world tilted as he fell backward, his footing gone.
Nym did not hesitate.
She released her twin-blade mid-motion and surged forward, using his instability against him. Vale hit the floor hard, the breath driven from his lungs as she followed him down.
In one fluid movement, she straddled his torso.
Her hands shot down, gripping his wrists and slamming his arms to the stone, his blades still clutched uselessly in his grasp. Somehow, she managed to trap his legs as well, pinning him completely.
Vale hissed and struggled, muscles straining as he tried to break free.
It was pointless.
Nym was stronger than she looked, and right now, she had leverage on her side.
She leaned down slightly, a wicked grin stretching across her face as Vale's expression shifted from irritation to outright annoyance.
Finally, he stopped resisting.
Vale exhaled heavily, his head falling back against the stone. One of his arms was pinned above his head, his blade still in hand, while his neatly tied bun had come loose, dark hair spilling messily across the floor.
He looked up at her and sighed.
"You win."