All Jobs and Classes! I Just Wanted One Skill, Not Them All!

Chapter 603

Freyra’s grin widened further, almost delighted.

And somewhere above them, on the wooden platform, Ludger could feel the master’s attention sharpen to a point, because this was what he’d been waiting for.

Freyra didn’t step in like a duelist. She charged like a storm deciding it was done being polite.

Her breath snapped out, one sharp inhale, one brutal exhale, and Rage Flow surged through her with a level of control that wasn’t supposed to belong to someone her age. It wasn’t the sloppy red energy most fighters called “rage.” This was a technique. A channel.

Her skin flushed. Then it went deeper, like heat spreading under iron.

The red climbed up her neck and across her arms in a fast crawl, and her muscles swelled as if her body had been waiting for permission to become something heavier. Shoulders thickened. Forearms tightened. Veins rose along her biceps like cords.

And it didn’t stop there.

Her sweat, barely visible from the cold, began to evaporate instantly, turning into faint, steaming wisps that peeled off her skin and vanished into the air. A thin red aura shimmered around her like heat haze over a forge, clinging to her outline and making the torchlight bend wrong when it passed through.

The crowd felt it. You could hear it in the way their noise hitched. Freyra’s eyes locked onto Ludger, pupils tight, grin gone. Not anger. Not madness.

Focus.

She crossed the distance in a heartbeat and threw a punch that wasn’t meant to score. It was meant to end. Her fist came in straight, hip, shoulder, knuckle, perfect alignment, full body behind it. The kind of strike that turned ribs into a memory.

Ludger didn’t move. He didn’t slide back. He didn’t brace with a visible flinch. He simply raised his forearm.

The impact hit… And the air cracked.

A sharp pop rang out as her fist collided with his armored forearm. Snow puffed outward from the shock, and a ripple ran through the packed ground beneath them like someone had struck a drum.

Freyra’s eyes widened a fraction. Because Ludger didn’t even shift his foot. He stood there like the world’s heaviest post had just been tested and found acceptable.

No strain in his shoulders. No tremor in his stance. No breathing hitch. Just calm steadiness. Freyra didn’t pause to admire it. She went faster.

Another punch, this one a hook, brutal and tight, aimed for his jaw.

Ludger tilted his forearm up and caught it on the outside edge, redirecting it with a small turn of wrist that looked almost lazy.

Her other hand came in immediately, a straight punch toward his throat. Ludger’s second forearm rose and met it, armor flashing.

Crack.

Then a third strike, elbow this time, swinging in like a hammer toward his collarbone. Ludger’s shoulder rolled. His forearm intercepted again, the block so solid it looked like she’d struck a wall.

The ground shivered with each collision.

Freyra’s Rage Flow aura thickened, red steam sliding off her skin as she poured more into the technique. She chained strikes like a veteran: left-right-left, hook-straight-elbow, each one thrown with full body commitment and no wasted motion.

Ludger absorbed them all. His feet stayed planted. His posture stayed upright.

Only his arms moved, small angles, tight adjustments, each block placed with surgical efficiency. It was like watching someone hold a door shut while a bear tried to break through.

Freyra switched levels. A sudden knee shot toward his ribs. Ludger dropped his elbow and caught it on the point of his forearm. The impact thudded deep enough to make the snow jump.

Freyra spun off it into a sweeping kick meant to take his legs. Ludger didn’t hop. He didn’t retreat.

He simply lifted one foot an inch and stamped down at the right moment, pinning the kick line with pure timing. The collision made the ring stakes tremble. A few loose bits of packed snow fell from the nearest posts.

Freyra snarled, not in pain, in delight, and came in with a rising kick, heel aimed for his chin. Ludger’s forearm snapped up and met it.

BOOM.

That one sent a visible puff of frost outward, like their impact had slapped moisture out of the air. The crowd roared, the sound delayed by a half-second like even they needed time to process the violence.

Freyra landed and immediately launched a punch combo that would’ve shattered most fighters’ guard by sheer attrition, two fast jabs to set the rhythm, then a full-power cross meant to break it.

Ludger caught the jabs without blinking.

Then the cross came… And Ludger’s block didn’t budge.

Freyra’s fist slammed into his armored forearm and the arena seemed to inhale. The packed snow under Ludger’s boots compressed. But he still didn’t slide.

His Rage Flow wasn’t loud like hers. It didn’t flare into a steaming aura. It sat inside him like a controlled furnace, heat without waste.

Overdrive reinforced tendons and joints like invisible bracing, and his armor took the bite of impact without leaking strain into his frame. Freyra stared at him mid-combo, disbelief flashing for a fraction of a second.

“You—” she started.

Ludger’s eyes stayed flat. Calm. Almost bored. He spoke quietly, like he was making an observation rather than provoking her.

“Is that all?”

Freyra’s answer was a roar and a kick that came in like an execution. Ludger blocked it. Still planted. Still unmoved.

And with every удар, every cracking punch, every thudding knee, every whipping kick, one truth became impossible to ignore:

Freyra was hitting like a monster. And Ludger was taking it like a mountain.

After a bit, the rhythm shifted.

Not because Freyra slowed down, she refused to, but because her body started demanding payment.

Her shoulders rose and fell harder. Breath came out in sharp bursts that fogged white and then got swallowed by the thin red heat haze around her. The aura still clung to her skin, but it flickered now at the edges, uneven in places, like a fire that had been fed too fast.

She backed off half a step, fists still up, eyes burning. Ludger hadn’t moved from his spot.

His forearms were marked with faint scuffs where blows had landed. His breathing stayed steady. His face stayed calm. No tremor in his stance. No tightness in his jaw. Freyra stared at him like he was personally insulting the laws of fatigue.

“How?” she growled between breaths. “Why aren’t you sweating? Why aren’t you hurting?”

Ludger blinked once, slow.

“Because I can control it,” he said.

Freyra’s nostrils flared. “Control what?”

“My rage.”

He lifted his hand slightly, palm open, as if showing her something invisible. “Valk trained me. Not to get stronger, any idiot can get stronger. He trained me to stop wasting power.”

Freyra’s eyes narrowed, still angry, still listening. Ludger’s voice stayed flat, matter-of-fact.

“Your Rage Flow is more powerful,” he admitted. “You push more out. It’s louder. It burns hotter.”

That made Freyra’s mouth twitch like she wanted to take it as praise. Then Ludger continued.

“But you can’t control all of it,” he said. “So you have to keep it active the whole time to hold onto the output.”

Freyra’s jaw tightened.

“That’s the difference,” Ludger finished. “You’re paying for your power every second. I’m only paying when I have to.”

For a heartbeat, Freyra just stared at him, sweat evaporating off her skin in thin wisps, chest heaving, eyes sharp with the ugly realization that she’d been brute-forcing a technique he was using like a scalpel. Then she clicked her tongue, loud and irritated.

“Tch.”

Her shoulders rolled once. And then the air around her changed again. Freyra’s eyes sharpened, and her stance tightened, lower, coiled, like she was about to spring. Ludger felt it before he saw it: the subtle ignition under her skin.

Overdrive.

It hit like a switch.

Not as clean as his. Not as smooth. But unmistakable, muscles tensing with an extra layer of force, joints suddenly reinforced, her whole body gaining that predatory snap that didn’t come from adrenaline alone.

Ludger’s eyelid twitched. He’d taught her that. The basics. Limb-first ignition. Controlled pulses. How to keep it from frying you.

But teaching something and mastering it were two different beasts. Freyra’s Overdrive flared in uneven waves, strong in her legs, a fraction late in her shoulders, too eager in her arms. She was trying to stack it on top of Rage Flow while her Rage Flow was still running hot.

That was… dangerous. For her. And for him. Because if she got it right, even for a few seconds, she would hit like a siege engine.

And if she got it wrong, she might tear her own body apart mid-strike, or lose control of her balance, or spike her output into something neither of them could cleanly stop.

Ludger inhaled. His calm didn’t break, but his focus sharpened to a razor.

“This could be a problem,” he murmured.

Freyra grinned through the burn in her lungs, teeth flashing, eyes wild with determination.

“Good.”

And then she launched again, Rage Flow roaring, Overdrive snapping, forcing both of them into a narrow line where either she learned control…or something broke.

Freyra charged again, this time with two engines running.

Rage Flow boiled around her in that thin red haze, sweat flashing to steam the moment it surfaced. Overdrive snapped through her frame in uneven pulses, legs first, then shoulders, then arms—like lightning trying to follow a path that wasn’t fully wired yet.

Fast. Powerful. Also… dangerous.

Ludger felt it in the way her stride bit into the snow too hard, in the way her hips drove forward with more force than her upper body had stabilized for. If she landed wrong while stacked like this, she wouldn’t just lose the exchange.

She’d damage herself.

And as much as Ludger enjoyed seeing Freyra humbled, he wasn’t interested in watching her tear her body apart because her technique outpaced her control.

So this time, he moved.

Not a retreat. A step into it.

He slid forward at the same moment she surged, matching her timing instead of resisting it. His posture stayed compact, spine straight, feet light. Rage Flow stayed contained, hot, ready, but not spilling. Overdrive hummed through his limbs in controlled bursts, reinforcing tendons and joints like invisible braces.

If she’s going to crash, he thought, I’ll be the wall that teaches her how to stop.

Freyra’s fist came in like a cannon shot, straight line, full body behind it.

Ludger threw his own punch at the same time. Not to hit her face. To meet her. Their fists collided in the centerline.

CRACK.

The sound wasn’t skin. It wasn’t cloth. It was knuckle against knuckle, bone against bone, enhanced by mana and sheer will. A sharp, violent pop that made the nearest stakes tremble and sent a puff of frost spiraling outward.

Freyra’s eyes widened a fraction. Then she grinned like she’d found a language she liked. She followed with a hook.

Ludger mirrored it, same arc, same timing, meeting her forearm with his own and turning it aside by a hair. Their arms smashed together and the impact ran up Ludger’s shoulder like a dull bell toll.

THUD.

Freyra pivoted into a knee. Ludger pivoted into a knee. Their legs collided mid-rise.

WHUMP.

Pain flashed hot and immediate across Ludger’s shin, and he felt the mana reinforcement take most of the bite, most, not all. Freyra’s Overdrive was surging hard in her lower half now, dumping force like she was trying to hammer reality into a new shape.

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