Chapter 134 – A Test of Passion


    Smander was still hovering around, visibly annoyed by the fact that she had nothing to do but watch the two of them fuck. A surge of panic preceded John’s realization that Nathalia was no longer kneeling in front of him. He turned his head to see the dragoness standing, fire spirit in hand.


    Then Nathalia bathed Smander in a breath of fire. John felt the intense heat where he sat, unable to interject as the whole scene was over as quickly as it began. Nathalia let Smander go just as a window popped up.


    ‘I mean, Gaia, you ced her in my path or not?’ John asked the supreme deity, not expecting an answer as he closed the window. “Thank y-”


    “What the fuck?! Do you usually breathe on people without asking them first?!” Smander shouted and quickly distanced herself from the dragoness, who let it happen without a care.


    Nathalia turned away from John and Smander and simply waved for them to follow. ‘Heading naked towards avake sounds like a terrible idea,’ the Gamer thought, his eyes glued to the ass of the dragoness. Hips swinging, the big, round pillow kept rippling with every step she took. ‘Well, that’s as good a reason as ites.’


    John walked and Smander hid behind his ear. “Well, I guess I feel that it worked, but a warning would have been appropriate.” She low-key stuck out her tongue.


    ‘I do not disagree,’ John sent her mentally, he was certain that Nathalia heard every word they spoke.


    Whether or not she did, Nathalia hit the edge of the ind and then just kept walking. Underneath her feet, a path formed. Magma solidified into ck rock. Still, the temperature was bearable. The goddess of this space made it liveable for an almost regr human like him. John gulped as he nced behind him and realized that the path disappeared just a few metres behind the dragoness. He quickly caught up with Nathalia. The scales and ws appeared again, dding her curves in ck obsidian and liquid orange.


    “What do you n to do?” John had a bad feeling about all of this. Walking over a fading path throughva in andscape so hellish, the ashes of distant volcanoes blocking out the sun was not confidence inducing.


    “Help you realize the lesson of your fire elemental,” was all Nathalia had to say beforeing to a halt. John looked around, they had walked for a while and were several hundred metres away from anynd. He was sweating all over and he was pretty sure that, if Nathalia wouldn’t have been around to regte it, the heat would have turned him as crunchy as toast.


    Nathalia stomped once and theke rippled. The small tform they stood on expanded, as waves hardened and spikes shot through the surface. Layer uponyer, forming forests of stone and obsidian, and caves from tiny to massive, a structure akin to an arena was erected. They were at the centre of it.


    Nathalia grabbed one of the spikes and snapped it off like it was a dry twig hanging from a dead tree. A dangerous glint in her eyes, she faced the Gamer, who immediately came to the realization that this ce didn’t just look like an arena.


    The spike looked like ance in Nathalia’s hand, as she weighed it. “This will do,” she said and then thrust it towards John without any further exnation. The move was anticipated and John did a jumping roll to escape. Immediately he was back on his feet and sprinted towards the forest of spikes. He needed a moment to analyse the situation. Smander was right behind him.


    Obviously, Nathalia was holding back. There was no way he would have dodged that attack if she wanted to kill him. Her using a random chunk of rock as a weapon was probably a way to limit herself.


    She had stated the purpose of this whole thing so the question he had now wasn’t for Nathalia, whose intent was clear, but for Smander. ‘What are you trying to teach me that needs to throw me into such a desperate situation?’ he wanted to know.


    ‘The situation doesn’t matter, it’s just….URGH, over-thinking fucknugget figure it out yourself!’ Smander sent back a pissed off answer.


    That helped him fairly little. He hid behind a particrly thick weave of stone and carefully peaked through, Nathalia was aimlessly walking around in the forest, she hadn’t spotted him yet, or at least was doing him the courtesy of ignoring the senses that would let her find him immediately. ‘Time to get the bit of equipment I still have out,’ he thought, dragging the Ne of the World Ender over his character model. A little screech was the only warning he got. Moving at thest moment, he saved his eye and brain from being impaled by solid stone.


    “I may be going easy on you, John Newman, but I am not going to be merciful on your mistakes,” he heard her husky voice prate through the air. The entire wall of stone that separated them was turned into rubble with a single horizontal swipe of her weapon. “You think I wouldn’t be able to feel something that is clearly modelled after my own power even if I tried my best to ignore it?”


    Nathalia was about to stab him again, it was evident by the glee in her eyes, when she noticed that the spear had shattered as well. She clicked with her tongue and searched for a recement, giving John the time he needed to make space. Maybe this was one of those tests in anime Rave was always on about where he needed tond one hit?


    He aimed his palm at Nathalia and used Mana Ray. The dragoness had turned her back to him as she thoughtfully stood between two different spikes. A moment before the Mana Ray fired she broke one off and pointed it at John, it blocked the attack, the top of the spike melting off in the process but Nathalia had not been hit. She gave him a crooked grin, revealing her sharp teeth, “You should cover your mana better.” She dropped the damaged spike and snapped the second one off instead. “Now: RUN!” John was very happy to oblige that suggestion and turned tail, putting the ne away as he did. It just allowed her to find him more easily.


    ‘Stop running aimlessly!’ Smander shouted at his mind.


    ‘What do you suggest I do then? She is practically immune to fire and can block my Mana Ray somehow. I don’t have a n, I NEED a n,’ John shouted right back as he ran up a hill, taking a moment to look behind him when he arrived at the top.


    That turned out to be a big mistake. “Run faster!” Nathalia hissed with a wide smile, her face directly in front of his. A pain exploded in his side as an obsidian d leg mmed into him. He was catapulted off the hill. In a wide arch, he was descending towards a stone formation near a cave entrance.


    He had nonding strategy, even though the pain would quickly subside, he had absolutely no idea how he should manage to… ‘Trust your instincts!’ he heard a whisper and the time seemed to slow down for a moment.


    ‘My instincts? I am about to crash into the floor after being kicked by a dragon, I think my instincts aren’t particrly helpful here!’


    ‘JUST TRUST ME THEN!’ Smander screamed at him and violently tried to grab for his mana. He had never felt that before, they always waited for him to give it out. It felt like a hand made out of hot iron tried to grab for his soul and whisk it away, Smander didn’t seed, his intervention barring her from entry.


    John rolled over the ground like a wheel downhill. Naked skin tore open on the abrasive ground, then was fixed back together by Gamer’s Body. Damage notifications rolled in, small individually, but quickly ramping up. A mere fourth of his HP remained at the end. When he finally came to a halt, he took a swift look around.


    Leisurely, the still smiling dragoness walked towards him. Even a love tap by her would kill him at this rate. Given hisck of visible wounds, she may just do that, overestimating his sturdiness. Would it even be an ident if she did?


    ‘What is this fucking lesson?’ he thought as he hurried into the cave, then followed its windings. Turning corner after corner, uncertain where it would even lead him, he ran somewhere he would be safe.


    ‘Just…urgh, you are such a difficult guy! I thought you would get it already, it''s beyond simple!’ Smander groaned, clearly frustrated, ‘do whatever, just do something! Fuck it, I don’t care anymore.’ Smander turned in the air and flew back the way they came.


    ‘What are you doing?’ John asked.


    ‘Following my passion!’ came the answer just a secondter.


    ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’


    ‘If you don’t get it, think about the important fights we had up until now!’ she gave him a cryptic hint and then, silence. Smander was still there but clearly uninterested in speaking with him anymore. John only was able to see what she saw, which was her finding Nathalia and engaging her inbat.


    John, meanwhile, hid inside a deep corner. There was a whisper using him of cowardice in the back of his head. ‘But what can I do?’ he asked himself. There had to be something between his own inability and Smander’s brashness, something that actually worked. John needed to analyse this step by step.


    The win condition of this fight was realizing and embracing whatever lesson Smander had for him, everything else was just spection. How did he do that? How did he do it with Gnome? He had reached a state where he felt like he was part of the earth, he had listened to her voice, she had guided him. He had the feeling that this wouldn’t work with Smander.


    ‘Not the guiding part at the very least,’ John thought, however he could try to be one with fire, he closed his eyes and took deep breaths. There was a feeling, a calm and deep feeling, one that didn’t in the slightest resemble fire. No, all he was doing was tapping into earth again. If that wasn’t it then what was? Smander had told him to think about the important fights, the one that came to mind was against the Bloodfallen.


    Then he realized what she meant. It was so obvious, his overthinking nature had refused to see it. For a moment, caution struggled against the realization, then he dragged a part of him to the forefront that he had only recently been developing. Something that had been culled by the years of living in a safe world and then further diminished by the bullies who had kept him down.


    John smiled and pulled the Ne of the World Ender out again.


    Through Smander’s eyes, he watched as Nathalia, who had been fighting Smander with a bored expression up until now, suddenly reared her head and sprinted into the cave he was hiding in. Smander hurried after her.


    Nathalia didn’t even bother with running through the windings of the cave, instead she broke and melted a direct way through the stone, “I warn you and you are stupid enough to do it a second time?” she growled, amused and angry in equal part. “You better surprise me…” thest wall in front of her broke apart under a punch of her ck fist and she came to a rather abrupt halt when she saw the ne. It justy there, on the floor.


    ‘Smander, the answer, it’s the passion for fighting, isn’t it?’ John asked as he sent her 887 points worth of his mana. The answer was so easy that it was just too far away.


    From the first time he had stomped down on the seedlings to the fight against the Bloodfallen, violence had changed his character. Physical activity was no longer something he was dreadfully bad at. Combat, especially, was something he had experienced over and over again. The back and forth of abilities, the many puzzles of the environment and the actors involved, it all engaged his mind. To put it simply: it was fun.


    ‘Yes, finally!’ Smanderughed and basked Nathalia in a cascade of fire. The red filled the dark cave.


    John had never enjoyed fighting as much as Rave did. He likely never would. That was no reason not to enjoy it. Even if he was calcting, even if he always wanted to have a n, why make fighting a chore? Why make the struggle for life a stressful endeavour when it could be so much more?


    Stepping out from behind the corner, John raised his palm. Thest bit of mana he had formed into the preparation of Mana Ray.


    One, the mes stirred as Smander quickly burned through the mana. The goal was clear: The mana used for the fire had to mask the mana pulsating in John’s hand from Nathalia’s senses. Two, a silhouette became apparent in the mes, a figure with orange glowing hair broke out. Three, Nathalia grabbed his hand, and turned it to the ceiling. The attack red up and uselessly hit the stone above, the dragoness’ face got dangerously close. Sharp teeth parted.


    Nathalia kissed him wildly on the lips, her blessing sharpening his senses and helping refill his depleted HP bar. He rxed (most of him anyway) and at the same moment the window popped up.