Chapter 177: How Did They Know?
The clip that spread fastest was not the explosion.
It was a single exchange from the middle of the fight. Kai changed direction mid-air after Lily had already fired at the new position before he arrived there. The arrow was waiting when he landed.
People replayed it over and over.
Not because it was flashy but because nobody could explain it.
...
Sora had been live for forty minutes before she admitted it and has been constantly rewinding the footage. "I still don’t understand," she said.
The chat exploded.
She laughed. "Usually I can break down what happened and explain it to everyone. I can show you the decision, show you the counter, show you why it worked." She rewound the clip one more time. "This time I’m trying to catch up the same as everyone else."
Someone in the chat asked how Lily knew where Kai was going.
Sora watched the moment again. "She wasn’t reacting to where he was," she said. "She was already waiting for where he was going to be."
Another viewer asked how Kai still got through if that was the case.
Sora was quiet for a second. "Because he changed direction after he had already made the decision," she said. She shook her head. "Even saying that out loud sounds ridiculous."
...
At the Research Institute, three analysts had slowed the replay to five percent speed.
One of them pointed at the screen. "There."
Another frowned. "No." He rewound it again. "Right there."
The third researcher leaned closer. "Kai changed direction but Lily had already adjusted."
Silence fell over the area.
Someone quietly said, "How many decisions happened in those two seconds?"
Nobody answered.
One researcher eventually sighed. "More than I could keep track of."
...
At a training hall in the central district, a group of young hunters had gathered around the wall screen with the replay on loop.
One of them pointed at Lily. "She’s aiming where he isn’t."
The hunter beside him shook his head and he rewound it. "No. She’s aiming where he’ll be."
The group was quiet for a moment.
One of them said, very quietly, "That’s terrifying."
Nobody argued.
Three beginners were watching the same replay on a phone in the corner of the same room. One of them said, "I’d never even get close to her." Another nodded. "I wouldn’t know which direction to move." The third watched Lily fire six arrows in different directions and said, "I’d probably just freeze."
Their instructor had been standing near the wall listening to this. He walked over.
"Exactly," he said.
Everyone looked at him.
"That’s why prediction is the most dangerous skill to fight against," he said. "Not because it deals the most damage. Because it takes away your choices before you make them." He looked at the screen. "If you freeze, you’ve already lost."
He walked away and left them thinking about it.
...
In a café near the guild district, two hunters were eating lunch with the replay running on the screen mounted near the door. One of them pointed at Lily mid-bite.
"Look at her," he said. "Watch her face."
The other turned to look.
"She never panics," the first one said. "The whole time Kai is getting closer. She never rushes. Never fires early. Just calm."
The second hunter watched the sequence where Kai closed to thirty feet. Lily’s expression did not change. The arrow left the bow at exactly the right moment.
"She already decided," the second hunter said.
"Before he moved," the first confirmed.
They both looked at the screen for a moment.
"I could not do that," the second one said.
...
A group of junior archers had gathered in one of the equipment rooms at the Archer’s Association building, huddled around a screen showing the fight on repeat.
One of them said, "Can we learn to shoot like that eventually?"
A veteran archer who had been leaning against the wall nearby laughed. Not unkindly.
"Eventually," he said.
Everyone looked at him.
He added, "After about twenty years."
Everyone laughed.
Then someone said, "Is that actually true?" and the veteran considered it for a moment and said, "Depends on the archer," which was not exactly reassuring.
...
A young girl carrying a beginner’s bow watched the replay beside her older brother.
She looked at Lily for a long time. "She looks calm."
Her brother nodded. "She always does."
"I want to shoot like that someday." The young girl’s eyes shine.
Her brother smiled. "Then you’ve got a lot of practice ahead."
...
In a different section of the training district, a swordsman had been watching the explosion sequence for the fifth time.
He stopped the video. "Wait," he said.
His training partner looked over.
The swordsman rewound to the moment Kai stopped advancing on Lily and drove his sword into the ground instead. "He stopped trying to reach her," he said.
His partner watched.
"He fought the map instead," the swordsman said.
They both stared at it.
"I would never have thought of that," the swordsman said. He did not sound embarrassed. He sounded like someone who had just discovered a new category of thing that could exist.
...
Near the gate district, several construction workers had stopped beside a food stall, watching Kai’s final attack on someone’s phone.
One of them blinked. "...He blew up the whole valley."
Another nodded slowly. "To hit one person."
Silence.
A third worker scratched his head. "Couldn’t he have just chased her?"
The first replayed the clip.
They watched every spirit disappear inside the blast.
"...Guess not."
...
In a neighborhood plaza, a group of children had been recreating the fight for twenty minutes with increasing creative license. One of them had drawn a large circle in the dirt.
The child standing inside the circle said, "I’m Kai."
The child standing outside said, "I’m Lily."
The Kai child stomped the ground. "BOOM!"
The Lily child immediately jumped backward. "I predicted that!"
The other children burst into laughter. One of them tried to recreate the position swap and ran into another child by accident, which was not accurate but generated significant entertainment.
A parent watching from a bench nearby smiled. "They’re getting more creative with it," she said to the parent beside her.
"Better this than running into traffic," the other parent said.
...
The forums had not quieted since the fight ended.
The top thread asked how many times Lily had predicted Kai correctly. It had accumulated over eighteen thousand replies. The second thread debated whether the explosion was planned from the beginning or something Kai had decided mid-fight. The thread had produced hundreds of responses split between two camps, neither of which had any actual evidence, and both of which were absolutely certain.
A third thread asked whether anyone else in Mythal could have beaten Lily in that fight.
The most common reply was a single word.
No.
Several replies said definitely not.
One reply said:
"I would respectfully lose."
With tones of likes while another replied with.
"I’d just go home."
It had over three thousand likes.
Another few said I’d surrender immediately. One had a longer argument about class matchups that had generated its own sub-debate.
...
At a hunter academy, an instructor had paused the replay mid-fight.
"When did Kai stop trying to reach Lily directly?" he asked.
Several students answered.
"When he started destroying the spirits," one said.
The instructor shook his head. He rewound the footage to an earlier moment. An exchange where Kai destroyed two spirits back-to-back instead of pushing toward her position.
"He stopped trying to reach Lily," the instructor said, "the moment he realized the battlefield mattered more than she did."
The room went quiet.
Everyone started writing.
...
Outside a shop in the market district, a blacksmith had closed up for his lunch break. His apprentice was sitting on a crate nearby watching the fight on his phone.
"Kai’s stronger," the apprentice said.
The blacksmith sat down across from him. "That’s not what impressed me."
The apprentice looked up.
The blacksmith pointed at the screen. "Look at her. Every time he gets close, most hunters panic. They rush their shots. They move too early or too late." He watched the section where Kai closed to twenty feet. "She didn’t change anything."
"She was still calm," the apprentice said.
"She had already decided," the blacksmith said. "Before he got there."
The apprentice watched it again with this in mind.
...
The news anchor that evening led with a direct comparison.
"Yesterday, Mythal discussed how Elden Ashcroft prepared a battlefield for twelve hours," she said. The footage played behind her. "Today, citizens are asking a different question."
The replay cut to Lily firing three arrows in three different directions simultaneously.
"Can prediction itself be fought?"
...
Near the end of her stream, Sora answered one final question.
Someone asked what had surprised her most about the fight.
She thought about it. "Lily," she said.
The chat paused.
"I expected Kai to be impressive," she said. "That’s not surprising at this point." She watched a section of the replay where Lily adjusted to a new movement pattern in real time. "I didn’t expect someone to keep up with him mentally."
She rewound it one more time.
"That might have been the hardest he’s had to think in any of these fights."
She ended the stream.
...
Across the city the replay kept running. Children were pretending to predict each other in playgrounds. Archers were studying Lily’s positioning. Swordsmen were studying Kai’s decision to stop advancing. Hunters at every level were slowing the footage down frame by frame trying to find the moment the outcome was decided.
Nobody came away thinking Kai was simply stronger.
Nobody came away thinking Lily had been the better fighter.
They came away thinking about something that had not come up in any of the previous fights.
Both of them had been one move ahead of each other.
And then the same thought appeared in conversations across the city, in training halls and cafés and living rooms, without anyone coordinating it.
The city had watched four different styles of fighting.
Mira’s defense.
Raze’s overwhelming offense.
Elden’s preparation.
Lily’s prediction.
They knew what made each of them terrifying.
Sera...
Nobody knew.
Somehow, that made tomorrow even more exciting.
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