The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 367: Friendly Duel pt 2

The silence in the training yard was a vacuum, swallowing the sound of the wind. Caelen stood with his boots planted firm, the tip of his Solmire steel pressing into the hollow of Soren’s throat.

He was gasping, his chest heaving with the exertion of a man who had just climbed a mountain, but a jagged, bitter spark of victory flared in his eyes.

"You said you didn’t need magic to beat me," Caelen rasped, his voice raw and serrated.

He took a half-step closer, the blade dimpling Soren’s skin. He let a smirk, victorious and sharp, pull at his mouth. "Looks like you were wrong, Emperor."

The crowd murmured, a low, rolling tide of disbelief. Men leaned over the ramparts, their breaths hitching. Had the King of Solmire just won? Had the magicless underdog actually toppled the Frost King?

Soren didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He leaned his back against the stone wall, looking at Caelen with an expression that was terrifyingly gentle. He looked like a father watching a toddler take its first stumbling steps.

"Was I?" Soren asked softly.

Caelen’s brow furrowed. "What—?"

Before the word could leave his lips, the world blurred. It happened in a literal instant, an explosion of motion that defied the laws of physics.

One second, Soren was cornered, a blade at his jugular; the next, there was a sharp, metallic clink as Caelen’s sword was knocked aside by a force he didn’t even see.

Soren was gone.

Caelen spun, his boots skidding on the frost as he searched the empty air where the Emperor had stood. "Where—?"

"Looking for me?"

The voice came from directly behind him. Caelen froze, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He turned slowly, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

Soren stood ten paces away, his stance casual, his sword lowered by his side. He wasn’t winded.

He wasn’t sweating. His breathing was as steady and calm as it had been when he first entered the yard. The realization hit Caelen like a physical blow to the stomach, turning his blood to sludge.

He hadn’t been cornered. He hadn’t been losing.

He was letting me think I won.

The entire fight, every desperate lung and successful parry, had been a fabrication. Soren had been holding back, playing the part of a mortal swordsman to see how far Caelen would push.

At the edge of the pit, Jorel leaned toward Ryse, his voice a horrified whisper. "He was playing with him. The whole time."

Ryse nodded slowly, his expression grim. "Every second of it."

"But why?" Jorel asked, staring at the Emperor’s glowing eyes. "He could have ended this in the first ten seconds."

"He wanted to see what Caelen could do," Ryse replied. "He wanted him to give everything. Now... now he’s going to show Caelen the difference."

Soren’s expression shifted. The playfulness vanished, replaced by a cold, imperial seriousness that seemed to drop the temperature of the yard by another ten degrees.

"You’ve improved since we last fought, Caelen. I’m genuinely impressed," Soren said, his voice resonant and deep. He raised his blade, the enchanted steel humming a low, predatory note. "But you wanted to know the difference between us? Let me show you."

Soren attacked.

His speed didn’t just increase; it tripled. He became a streak of blue and silver, a shadow moving through a world of statues. Caelen barely had time to register the first strike before the second and third were already crashing against his guard.

Block. Block. Block.

Caelen’s arms began to scream, the vibrations of the impacts rattling his bones. He was defending on pure, panicked instinct, his eyes unable to track the movement.

The crowd fell into a stunned, absolute silence. They couldn’t follow the fight anymore; they only heard the constant, frantic ringing of steel on steel and saw the blur of the Emperor’s cloak.

Soren was systematic. He was dismantling Caelen with the clinical precision of a butcher.

A strike that disarmed Caelen’s high guard.

A heavy blow with the flat of the blade that caught Caelen’s shoulder, numbing his entire arm.

A lightning-fast sweep of the leg.

Caelen stumbled, his balance gone.

Soren’s blade was at his throat again.

Soren pulled back, giving him a second to breathe. Caelen, fueled by a desperate, dying pride, lunged again. It was useless. Five strikes later, Caelen’s sword was ripped from his hand, sent spiraling through the air to land twenty feet away in a snowdrift.

Caelen dived for it, his fingers reaching for the hilt, but Soren was already there. He stepped on the blade, his boot pinning the steel to the earth. Caelen looked up, panting, his hair matted with sweat and snow, to find the Emperor looking down at him with those terrifying, vertical pupils.

Without his sword, Caelen tried to tackle him, a final, undignified act of defiance. Soren simply sidestepped, his movement as effortless as a dancer’s. He used Caelen’s own momentum to flip him, sending the King crashing face-first into the packed snow.

Soren’s blade touched the back of Caelen’s neck. This time, there was no escape. No tricks. No "letting him win." It was done.

The crowd stared in awe. Soren stood over the defeated King, his chest barely moving, his skin glowing with that faint, diamond-like sheen. He didn’t have a single bead of sweat on his face. He looked as if he had just taken a brisk stroll through the gardens.

Meanwhile, Caelen was a wreck. He lay in the snow, gasping for air, his fine leathers stained and his body trembling from the sheer force of the "sparring" session.

"He’s not even tired," a guard whispered, his voice trembling. "It’s like... he wasn’t even trying."

"What the fuck is he?" another asked.

Jorel stared at the Emperor, a memory clicking into place... the Duel of Cinders, the feeling of fighting something that wasn’t human. That same impossible speed. That same effortless, crushing power.

"He’s not human," Jorel whispered to himself.

"What?" Ryse asked, glancing at him.

Jorel shook his head, his face pale. "Nothing. Just... nothing."

Soren lowered his blade and stepped back. He reached out a hand, offering it to Caelen. Caelen stared at it for a long, agonizing moment, his pride screaming at him to refuse, to crawl away, to strike. But the reality of the defeat was too heavy. He took the hand.

Soren pulled him up with a strength that felt like being lifted by a crane. He leaned in close, his voice a quiet murmur that only Caelen could hear. "You’re still one of the best swordsmen I’ve ever fought, Caelen." He paused, his blue eyes searching Caelen’s. "But you were never going to beat me. Not then. Not now."

It wasn’t meant to be cruel. It was simply a statement of fact, as undeniable as the cold of the north.

Soren turned toward the crowd, raising his voice. "Well fought, King Caelen!"

Ryse began the applause, and the others followed, though the cheers were tinged with a newfound fear of their Emperor.

Caelen said nothing. He turned and walked away, his head down, his heart a blackened husk. Every step he took away from the yard was a reminder of his humiliation. Soren hadn’t just beaten him; he had shown him that he was an ant trying to fight a mountain.

As Caelen reached the corridor, his hand slid into his pocket, his fingers curling around the cold silver of the ring Vetra gave him. A dark, jagged determination hardened in his chest.

I can’t beat him fairly, he thought, his jaw tightening. I’ll make her forget you ever existed, Soren. I’ll be patient, and then she’ll be mine again.

Behind him, Soren walked toward the palace, his mind already shifting back to the bedroom where Eris and Rael slept. He didn’t care about the victory.

He didn’t care about the legend that would spread tonight. He only wanted to be back in the warmth of his wife’s scent.

The snow fell heavier now, swirling around the Emperor as he disappeared into the stone archway, a god returning to his hearth.