Li focused his senses, seeing the pinky flying towards the old man's ear in slow motion. He was ready to bat down the pinky if he felt that it would potentially cause a lethal wound. It was legitimately very impressive that Azhar had even pushed Li to the point that he even worried about the old man's safety.

In the end, this situation could only arise due to Old Thane's training. Azhar was willing to do whatever it took to get stronger, and the old man had seen that and decided that the most efficient way to mold that indomitable and reckless will into something that would make the ranger stronger would be to channel it into a brutally savage drive to win at all costs. A mindset that the old man was himself deeply familiar with.

But ultimately, no matter how brutal and intensive the training was, it had just been a day. Azhar would never get strong enough to overcome Old Thane in a mere day. Perhaps never considering the ranger's self-assessment of his natural talent.

Old Thane turned his head at the very last instant the severed pinky was about to drill itself into his ear. The pinky had halted between Old Thane's teeth, the flesh smoking from the sudden deceleration it experienced from having been fired at shock wave inducing velocities.

What primarily made the old man such a deadly combatant even as a blind man was not his hearing nor his smell, though those senses certainly did help. It was his reaction speed which, augmented with his vast physical capabilities, allowed him to make instantaneous movements at the smallest warning. 

The striking thing to think about was that no matter what, Old Thane was still at a massive handicap being blind. If he had his sight, then his godlike reaction speed, monstrous physical stats, and honed senses would have surely put him right out of the realm of human strength and into the level where he truly could beat demons down his fists.

Azhar slumped his shoulders as the smile faded from his face, understanding that his last ditch effort had failed. But defeat did not set into his eyes, for he knew once he took another beating, he would have a chance for another final effort, then another, then another.

Azhar wrinkled his brows in a mixture of shock and surprise as Old Thane began to chew on the pinky. The pinky turned into ground meat and bone in quick order, and Old Thane's nose wrinkled as he spat the glob of flesh to the forest floor.

"Foul." Old Thane wiped his mouth. "The taste of a weakling. But at the least, a weakling that learns. Now we begin a new lesson."

Old Thane took his casual walking pace up to Azhar again, though those curled fists promised anything but a casual time.

Azhar crouched slightly, getting back into his hybrid of a fighting and charging stance. He could no longer form a fist with two fingers, but he stuck out his index finger like a brandished dagger, intending to stab Old Thane with a high velocity charge.

No doubt, that charge would completely break his finger and his hand now that it could not form a fist to more efficiently absorb impact, but in light of all the devastating injuries he had suffered, those issues seemed comparatively trivial.

Old Thane grinned. "Another charge? Come at me, boy."

He stuck out his fist, daring Azhar to come into his range, to be struck down with all the powerful precision of a hammer crashing down upon an errant nail.

Azhar took in a breath, relaxing before his muscles tightened. His charge was about to begin. The glowing aura of several self-buffs wreathed across Azhar, heavily boosting the speed and strength of his next blow.

Li got ready to cast another healing spell to help Azhar recover. There was simply no reasonable way for Azhar to do any reasonable damage to Old Thane in this state. Logically, Azhar would be aiming for Old Thane's other eye or groin considering he only had a finger left on his functional hand, and those were the only parts of Old Thane's body soft enough to actually damage.

But the old man could simply bat him out of his charge – there was no way the ranger could ever get past the old man's fists to hit any viable target.

Li figured Azhar simply performed this charge to let himself get beat up to heal and get another chance to fight.

Once again, wrong.

Azhar shot forward with his fastest speed yet, so fast that he was upon Old Thane even before the leaves he cast up with his charge had reached the top of their floating arcs. His charge was empowered with bonus damage, bonus accuracy, bonus critical chance, and bonus critical damage: a massive amount of magical energy to sink for what should have been a convenient way to simply let himself get beat up for another round of healing.

Old Thane thrust his fist out, aiming at the ranger's outstretched arm.

But at the very last moment, Azhar withdrew his arm and instead lowered his head, using it as a battering ram. Azhar did not aim at any soft spots. He flew forwards straight at the old man's fist.

Old Thane's eyes widened for the first time as his fist cracked into Azhar's skull.

A resounding impact blew through the air as Azhar hurtled backwards, his body flipping several times as he unceremoniously slammed onto the forest floor.

Old Thane looked at his hand in surprise. His pinky was broken, jutting sideways in an unnatural angle.

Azhar had never intended to try and seriously damage Old Thane – that was simply an impossibility.

If he had no chance to get past the old man's fists, then simply aim at the fists to begin with.

From there, he had determined his realistic chances and aimed to break a single finger, but even that seemed a far off dream. He could not rely on the strength of his own finger: a finger that had never been conditioned to fight in close quarters.

No, not even his full fist would have been able to deal any real damage to Old Thane's hardened fist. To have any chance of chipping Old Thane's durable bones, Azhar needed to hit them with something equally hard.

His skull.

And why had Old Thane not simply reacted to this?

Surprise.

Li knew this because surprise was what he felt also.

The surprise came from the fact that though both Old Thane and Li had warned Azhar over and over that this was training meant to push him to the brink of death again and again, they had always been making sure, at some level, to hold back and not kill the ranger.

They did not expect that the ranger was himself willing to throw his entire life away and use his skull, risking immediate brain death untreatable by anything barring resurrection magic that nobody in this world knew Li could use, to accomplish something as middling as breaking a pinky.

"Lad!" shouted Old Thane. "The boy!"

Li immediately healed Azhar, not even wasting the time to wave his hand as he willed his spell into existence.

Old Thane rushed to Azhar's side, kneeling down as he took ranger in his arms. Where just before his club-like hands had beat Azhar down, now they gently felt around the ranger's face, feeling for signs of significant damage.

Azhar's eyes had rolled into his head and blood streamed form his nose. Before, there must have been a massive dent in his skull that surely would have mashed some of his brain. But thankfully, the ranger still breathed, his brain damage instantly healed by Li before it could worsen into death.

And it was sheerly by virtue of Old Thane's own superhuman reactions that Azhar even remained alive. In a timeframe spanning perhaps a tenth of a second, right when Azhar's skull came into contact with Old Thane's hand, the old man had overcome his surprise and relaxed the muscles in his fist, making the impact much softer for Azhar.

"He'll be fine," said Li as he made sure that Azhar's breathing was regular and rhythmic.

"Aye, lad, that he will," said Old Thane as he strung Azhar along his back, carrying the ranger. "And that will end this training."

As he ended that sentence, Old Thane began to age, little black shards of demonic power escaping from his body, dispersing into sooty particles.

"How I missed the spryness of youth," laughed Old Thane as his back started to hunch again, his muscles deflating. His white mane of hair began to fall, carrying away in the breeze like dandelion seeds. "But there is a reason I buried that savagery. How Aine would have scolded me for turning my back on the civilization she taught me with such dear effort."

"I'm sure she would've approved letting you cut loose once in a while," said Li. "So, training's over? Planning on doing a repeat session?"

Old Thane shook his head. "Nay, lad. I could never have taught him technique. But I have planted the seeds of the mindset I wished him to grow, and there is nothing more I can do for him."