Once Fai's body made contact with the ground, it reacted instantly. Without waiting for pain to fully register, his body rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding what came next. Arnold, seeing the opening, didn't hesitate either. He immediately followed up with another attack, summoning more wind blasts toward Fai's position.

  If Fai's body hadn't moved at the exact moment it did, he would have been hit head-on.

  Wind blast after wind blast tore through the space where Fai had been just moments earlier, forcing him to keep rolling across the ground to escape the relentless assault. Each roll was calculated, each movement timed down to fractions of a second. The attacks chased him, tearing up dirt and air alike, never giving him a chance to breathe.

  Using his hands and the momentum of his movement, Fai finally pushed himself up from the ground. His body twisted smoothly, converting the force of the fall into balance. In one fluid motion, he rose to his feet, landing solidly on both legs as if he had never fallen in the first place.

  The moment he stabilized, his fists and feet moved on their own, sliding into a combat-ready stance. He had no control over the movements, yet somehow, everything was perfect. Every shift of weight, every adjustment of posture, every angle of his limbs was optimized for combat. His body was adapting faster than his mind could ever hope to comprehend.

  Arnold didn't give him even a second to recover.The wind user was relentless.

  This time, instead of forming a wind blast, Arnold swiped his hands forward with sharp, deliberate movements. A massive wave of compressed wind surged outward, slicing through the air as it rushed toward Fai. The pressure alone was enough to distort the space around it.

  Fai already knew this technique. It wasn't the first time he had faced it.

  "Wind Swipe!!" Arnold screamed.

  Unlike wind blast, which condensed wind into a dense, explosive sphere, wind swipe was an entirely different kind of attack. It formed a wide, sweeping blade of compressed air, capable of slicing through flesh if it carried enough energy and momentum. Its true danger lay in its coverage. The attack spanned multiple angles at once and advanced at terrifying speed, making it extremely difficult to evade.

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  Facing an attack like that head-on would have been suicide for the old Fai.But Fai was no longer the same.

  Arnold extended both hands again and performed the same motion as he shouted, "WIND SWIPE!" This time, two more curved blades of compressed air followed the first, cutting through the space between them and converging toward Fai's position.

  Fai's body reacted instantly.

  It slid sharply to the left, feet barely grazing the ground, then pivoted with unnatural precision, narrowly avoiding the first wave of wind. Even as he dodged, his eyes—fully controlled by the Auto Fairy Defence skill—never left Arnold. Not even for a fraction of a second did his gaze waver from his opponent.

  With precise footwork and flawless timing, he evaded the remaining attacks with ease. The blades of wind passed dangerously close, close enough for him to feel the pressure ripple against his skin, yet none of them connected.

  The Auto Fairy Defence skill was fascinating.

  It didn't just show Fai what was happening. It showed him how to react, when to move, and where the flow of battle was heading, even before he consciously realized it himself. His mind struggled to keep up, lagging behind his own body as it moved at impossible speed.

  He felt like a spectator watching someone else fight, except this performance was playing on fast-forward.

  His heart pounded violently in his chest, struggling to pump blood fast enough to keep up with the sheer speed at which his body was moving. Despite the situation, despite the pain, he felt something else as well—a strange exhilaration. Fear and satisfaction blended into a single, overwhelming emotion.

  The Auto Fairy Defence skill wasn't just teaching him how to fight.It was rewriting his instincts.It was molding him into something beyond a normal human.A seedling warrior.

  Soon, Arnold began closing the distance rapidly. Wind swirled around his feet like a living entity, boosting his speed and propelling him forward. His movements became sharper, more aggressive, as he prepared for close combat.

  Fai's body darted forward in response, fists flying. The moment he was close enough, he launched a flurry of punches—fast, swift, and powerful strikes aimed with lethal precision.

  Arnold's reflexes were equally sharp.

  Instinctively, he evaded Fai's punches by sliding to the side or blocking them with his own fists reinforced by wind. Each clash sent little ripples of force through the air as their movements overlapped in rapid succession.

  Arnold slid sideways again, leaving Fai's punch to connect with nothing but empty air. However, this time, it wasn't a problem. The System had already predicted this outcome. Fai wasn't dragged forward by his own momentum like before. The moment his punch missed, his body immediately prepared to reposition itself for another strike.

  But that next strike never came.

  The instant his fist began to move again, Fai felt something coil tightly around his arm.

  Green, rope-like vines.

  "You didn't forget about me, did you?" Dian's voice rang out as she pulled hard.

  The sudden force yanked Fai off balance completely. His feet left the ground as he was dragged backward, his body twisting helplessly in midair before gravity reclaimed him.

  'Damn it! I totally forgot about her,' Fai cursed internally.

  Right now, he was airborne, falling backward toward the ground. Seeing such a perfect opening, Arnold wasn't about to waste it. His eyes gleamed with focus as he surged forward.

  'Thanks for the opening, Dian,' he thought.

  Without hesitation, Arnold went in for the strike. His knuckles were coated in rapidly spinning wind currents as he drove a powerful punch straight toward Fai's stomach.

  The collision was brutal.