Soron did not respond to Leo’s confusion right away.
Instead, he loosened his grip on the wooden dagger and let it rest naturally at his side, the weapon treated less like an instrument of combat and more like a forgotten prop now that the spar had shifted into something else, as his gaze remained steady, patient, and quietly analytical.
"Fighting gods or demi-gods at your current stage is stupid," Soron said calmly, his tone neither harsh nor condescending.
"There is not a single metric in which you can match them."
Leo frowned slightly, but he did not argue.
"Strength, speed, skill, endurance, aura control, experience," Soron continued evenly.
"In every measurable category, you lose."
The words did not sting the way Leo expected them to. They landed cleanly, like statements of fact rather than criticism, and that made them far harder to dismiss.
"So if you insist on fighting them on equal footing, you die."
"There is no honor in that, only waste."
Soron said this as Leo lowered his blades a fraction, his jaw tightening as the truth settled in.
’Then what am I supposed to do?’
The question surfaced unbidden, sharp and uncomfortable, as the solution continued to elude him.
"That is why the answer becomes obvious," Soron said, as though responding directly to the thought forming in Leo’s mind.
"You cannot win against immortals on your own terms."
Leo looked up.
"But you can deny them the right to win on theirs."
The sentence lingered between them, and Leo felt his thoughts finally begin to align.
"What do you think immortals rely on when fighting mortals?" Soron asked, his head tilting slightly, not in challenge, but quiet contemplation.
"They do not rely on power, because power is abundant to them."
"Nor do they rely on technique, because theirs has already been refined beyond comparison."
He paused, allowing the implication to settle.
"They rely on certainty," Soron said.
"Certainty that they are stronger. Certainty that they cannot lose. Certainty that you are beneath them."
He explained as something shifted inside Leo’s thoughts, faint but unmistakable.
"And certainty breeds negligence," Soron continued.
"When a being believes it cannot lose, it stops guarding against loss."
"It is like competing against a child in sport.
You know you cannot lose, so you stop paying attention."
"That confidence feels natural, but it is dangerous."
Soron explained, as Leo felt a thin fog starting to lift from his mind.
"Their belief in their own superiority makes them more likely to make mistakes," Soron said. "Because while they fight equals with perfect form, perfect focus, and absolute discipline, they fight mortals far too casually."
His voice remained calm and unhurried, as though he were stating a law of nature rather than offering advice.
"So the question becomes simple," Soron continued. "How do you make them commit a mistake?"
"You destabilize them with creativity," Leo answered, certainty entering his voice for the first time as Soron smiled.
"Exactly."
"The only metric where you can match a god, or even surpass one, is creativity," Soron said.
"It cannot be trained in the same way. It does not rely on experience. And it cannot be predicted."
"For someone as weak as you, it is the only path to victory."
"But used correctly, it can lead to miracles."
Leo’s eyes brightened with understanding.
"You fabricate scenarios out of nothing, you introduce variables they did not account for, and you force them to react instead of act," Soron said.
"And if you are fortunate, maybe once in ten thousand times, they make a mistake you can exploit."
Leo felt something stir in his chest as the concept finally locked into place.
"When any warrior is forced to react to an unexpected situation they were not taking seriously, their judgment falters," Soron explained. "And immortals are no exception."
His gaze remained fixed on Leo, measuring understanding rather than readiness.
"And in those rare moments, they make mistakes they would never make otherwise."
"That is your window."
Soron let the silence settle.
Leo slowly lifted his head, his eyes no longer clouded with confusion, but narrowed in thought as the lesson fully took hold.
Against gods, power meant nothing.
Fairness was irrelevant.
The fight was decided long before the first strike was ever thrown.
And the only chance he had, a one in ten thousand shot at best, lay in creativity, in forcing the unexpected, and in turning a single mistake into victory.
"So don’t get dragged into a dog fight when you fight a god.
Don’t engage them stupidly in a battle of brawns.
Don’t try to out fight them.
Because all that would inevitably lead to you losing.
Instead, just be creative...."
Soron offered, his voice calm and unhurried, as if he were correcting a simple misconception rather than dismantling everything Leo thought he understood about combat.
And in that moment, Leo finally understood what he had done wrong in today’s spar.
He had stood against Soron like a fool, daggers raised, posture locked, waiting for him to advance as if he could truly block a god’s attacks if he unleashed a flurry at the right moment, when what he should have done was run, reposition, distort the flow of the fight, or force Soron into situations he did not expect.
He had treated the spar like a duel.
When it had never been one.
’Against a God, standing still is the same as losing.’
The realization settled deep, heavy and undeniable, as Leo replayed the opening seconds of the spar in his mind, seeing now how absurd it had been to wait, to brace, to pretend that timing and technique alone could close a gap measured in dimensions rather than skill.
*Sigh*
Leo let out a deep sigh as his shoulders finally loosened, the tension bleeding out of him not because the pressure was gone, but because understanding had replaced confusion.
Even if he did everything correctly, even if he ran, baited, misdirected, disrupted Soron’s rhythm and forced him to react rather than act, the odds were still overwhelmingly against him.
Against a God, his chances of victory were next to none.
Even with perfect execution, even with fate bending in his favor, the only scenario where he could truly kill a God was if he wielded an Origin Blade, something capable of cutting through the laws that protected beings like Soron.
Without it, creativity could only buy time.
While against a demi-god, the picture was marginally better, but still brutal.
Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine losses out of ten thousand.
Those were the real numbers.
Cold.
Unforgiving.
Honest.
Yet instead of discouraging him, that truth grounded him.
Because now he understood that today’s failure had not come from weakness alone, but from approaching an impossible opponent with the wrong mindset.
He had tried to fight a God like a warrior.
When what he needed to be was something else entirely.
’I get it now....’
Leo thought, as he straightened slowly, blades lowering at his sides as he looked back at Soron, no longer confused, no longer frustrated, but thoughtful.
This spar had never been about winning.
It had been about stripping away the illusion.
And now that illusion was gone, he finally saw the slim path to victory.