Transmigrated Into A Women Dominated World-Chapter 220: Spar With Viora

A massive whip of water rose from the pool, morphing mid-swing into a serrated blade of ice.

Zaeryn’s instincts screamed. He dove left, hard. The ice hissed past his head, so cold it stung his scalp and left his skin with a cold tingling. He hit the tile in a roll friction burning his shoulder and came up fast.

’Okay, so she manipulates water.’ He watched the liquid coil around her like obedient serpents. He expected her powers to be different from this, and had expected nothing about water. But it was what it was, and this wasn’t just fighting a superior warrior. This was fighting a force of nature.

Before he could strategize, three ice spears materialized around Viora, hovering like frozen vipers. She didn’t even gesture. They just launched at him.

Zaeryn triggered Kinetic Acceleration. The world turned to syrup. He burst forward, weaving between the projectiles, one whistling past his ear in a frost trail, another deflected by a hastily formed Vitae shield in a spray of golden sparks, the third dodged with a slide across wet tile.

He closed the distance, muscles burning with the effort. One plan: get inside her range, disrupt her rhythm before she could set up another killing blow. And if that didn’t work, play dirty like he always did against Leia.

Viora stood perfectly still in the center of the pool deck. Her eyes were chips of glacial glass, beautiful and utterly merciless.

Zaeryn threw a Concussive Blast at her center mass, focused kinetic energy that had shattered stone in training.

She vanished from his sight in less than a blink of an eye.

The blast carved through empty air and obliterated a chunk of the villa wall. Zaeryn’s pulse spiked. ’She has teleportation?’ Before the thought fully formed, his instincts flared, a warning that he was in danger. He tried to turn, but the air behind him had already changed like someone was standing behind him.

A jagged ice blade pressed against his throat, its serrated edge so cold it felt like it was peeling his skin away layer by layer. Zaeryn froze, literally and figuratively his Adam’s apple pressing against the blade as he swallowed. The ice grew, creeping wider, frost spreading across his collarbones and making his breath come out in visible puffs.

"In a real fight," Viora whispered, her breath tickling his ear, voice low and melodic like winter wind through chimes, "you’d be dead."

"Yeah." Zaeryn nodded carefully, acutely aware of how sharp the blade’s edge was. It dissolved into mist that clung to his skin in cold droplets, but Viora didn’t step back, she was close enough that he could catch her pleasant scent. His thoughts drifted from I could actually die here to she smells really good this close and he mentally kicked himself for the distraction.

Viora finally stepped around to face him. Not a single hair out of place despite the combat, her breathing perfectly even while his chest still heaved.

"I’m impressed," Zaeryn admitted.

"I’m not." She didn’t look angry, just expectant, like a teacher waiting for a student to finally grasp a simple concept. "Let’s go again. All your tricks this time. Don’t hold back, or you’re leaving on a stretcher."

"Everything I’ve got. Promise." Zaeryn wove his Vitae, golden light coalescing in his palm and stretching into a solid blade.

Viora hid it well, but something shifted in her expression a flicker of genuine surprise. Her eyes tracked the formation of his sword with what might’ve been curiosity. "Vitae weaving," she murmured, almost to herself. Then, louder: "Full of surprises, aren’t you, little brother?"

Zaeryn nodded in response. Getting into stance. Vitae weaving wasn’t even his best ability, he could only imagine how surprised she was going to be after seeing all his other abilities.

Viora mirrored him, raising one hand. Moisture pulled from the air itself, from the pool, from the very atmosphere, condensing into a blade of translucent ice that gleamed like cut diamond in the fading light.

They clashed.

The sound of constructed light meeting living ice rang like a crystal bell struck with a hammer. The impact traveled up Zaeryn’s arms in waves, through his wrists, his elbows, rattling into his shoulders and spine until his teeth ached.

Viora’s blade wasn’t fixed, it flowed like the water it came from. Mid-swing the edge thickened into a brutal cleaver, then thinned to razor wire so fine it could split hair. It was impressive and made Zaeryn wonder if he could train until his vitae weaving was like that?

The weight shifted from pommel-heavy cleave to whip-light slash without warning, no telegraph, no pattern he could predict. His golden sword felt clumsy by comparison, solid and bright and powerful, but painfully predictable.

He continued to fight her anyway, channeling Kinetic Acceleration into his limbs.

Explosive forward bursts that should have overwhelmed her, that had worked against every sparring partner he’d ever faced. She met him stride for stride, her blade moving in perfect circles and figure-eights, parrying with contemptuous ease, like she was conducting music rather than fighting for position.

Then he noticed something. The corner of her mouth, barely visible, but there. A slight curve. Not quite a smile, but close.

She’s enjoying this.

The realization hit him between exchanges. She was actually having fun. There was a light in her glacial eyes that hadn’t been there when she looked at him for the first time earlier, a sharpness that looked less like cold calculation and more like... excitement?

’It’s actually fun to spar with him. He’s inexperienced, but I can feel the potential.’ Viora thought to herself.

Then she vanished.

Zaeryn spun, expecting her to appear behind him again, golden sword sweeping in a defensive arc. Instead, he heard the wet slap of water erupting behind him. Thick tendrils burst from the pool, coiling ropes as thick as his arm that snapped around his ankles with the force of industrial cables.

They yanked. His feet left the ground and he hit the tile face-first, the impact jarring through his jaw and rattling his teeth. Before he could roll, before he could even process what happened, the tendrils froze solid. Ice locked his legs in cuffs that bit through his pants and into skin.

Pain lanced up his shins.

"Dead again, little brother." Her voice came from above him.

The ice melted instantly, water pooling around his legs and soaking into his already-drenched clothes. Zaeryn sat up slowly, looking up at her silhouette backlit by the setting sun. He sighed, his breath still coming out in small clouds. "Still learning. Obviously I can’t beat you yet."

"True." She extended a hand.

Zaeryn blinked. That was... unexpected. He took it, and she pulled him up with surprising strength. Her grip was firm but not crushing.

"But if we keep going, I’ll learn something." He was getting demolished, no, dissected but he wasn’t about to look like just another weak male. He’d keep going until he could actually land a hit.

"Are you sure? You don’t look good."

"I’m fine. I was just holding back anyway. Besides, I’m enjoying this."

Viora simply nodded. ’You don’t give up, do you?’

Zaeryn stood, golden sword reforming in a shaky grip. "Alright. Not holding back this time."

"Good. Neither am I."

"Wait, you were holding back?"

Based on what he’d seen, he’d thought she was going all out. If that was holding back, he really didn’t want to see her serious. But it was too late to back out now.

Viora advanced. Not teleporting, walking. Deliberate. Each step sent ripples across the pool’s surface. The water answered like loyal hounds.

Zaeryn lashed out with a wide arc, trying to buy space. She raised one hand. A crescent wall of ice surged from the tile, waist-high, thick as a shield. His blade rebounded in sparks. Before the vibration left his hands, she vaulted it.

Her knee drove into his solar plexus. Air didn’t explode from his lungs it just vanished. He folded, vision spotting black.

She circled him. "I thought you weren’t holding back. So why are you?"

Because this was everything he’d got. He’d lied earlier because he didn’t want her to stop. He enjoyed sparring her. He was getting beat, sure, but he could feel it, he was getting better.

Desperation took over.

He feinted left with a weak golden whip then snapped a second one low right, aiming to tangle her legs. She read it. Didn’t teleport. Just stepped over the whip, stomped down, and crushed the construct under her heel in dying sparks.

Then she closed.

A palm strike sent him skidding backward across wet tile. Friction tore skin from his back. He rolled, came up swinging wild, sloppy. She caught his wrist. Kicked him once in the side. Controlled. Surgical. Pain became white noise. His vision tunneled to her boots, the gleam of ice in her hands, that faint floral-metallic scent clinging to her.

She’s not even breathing hard.

This wasn’t sparring anymore. This was a lesson in humility.

Still, Zaeryn wasn’t ready to quit. Quitting wasn’t in his nature, it was what had kept him alive this long.

He was about to go in again when all of a sudden, blue text flickered in his peripheral vision, notifications stacking atop one another in rapid succession:

[CRITICAL STIMULUS DETECTED: EVOLUTION TRIGGERED]

Hyper-Cognition: Rank D → Rank B

Kinetic Acceleration: Rank F → Rank C

Vitae Weaving: Rank F → Rank C