Cypher was panting as sweat and blood ran down his face. He was tired and weary, but he had not lost just yet. He pooled his strength together and conjured the Duality Shield. It formed in an instant, just before Elaine's attack slammed against it. His reaction time had gotten much better.

He pulled the spell closer to himself, almost like a second skin, and charged forward. Several more spells came flying his way and they all bounced off the reflective barrier. It really was impenetrable, even at his low level. Elaine wasn't pulling her punches now that he could defend himself against her.

She had handicapped herself all throughout their training that year. As for her body, she kept that at the second Rank, however, her spells and battle prowess were unleashed at her full Rank-Four power. During their time training, she had finally broken through to the fourth rank right in front of Cypher in the middle of a fight. He didn't know it just yet, but in truth, her power had just grown so strong that her enchanted ring couldn't suppress her true level as effectively.

He rushed forward and jabbed his saber at her waist. She twisted to the side and dodged the attack, following up with one of her own. She swung her Collapscythe at his head and he ducked under the blow. The two exchanged several attacks in rapid succession, but they each managed to dodge the other.

Elaine jumped back with a frustrated grunt and flipped her Collapscythe into bow mode. She fired off several large shots of Zight and Cypher deflected two of them and dodged the rest. As he regained his footing and turned to face her, she fired off another of her death-dealing spells.

Cypher took the initiative and dodged again while loading up another spell of his. He sent all the energy of the Duality Shield to one point and concentrated. If this worked, it would almost guarantee his success. However, just as his spell was beginning to take shape, the Duality Shield flickered, and the barrier vanished with an explosive burst of energy.

His idea failed. But he didn't have time to worry about that as Elaine's spell shot overhead, missing him by only a few centimeters, and flew into the far wall of the time barrier. The noise was thunderous and created a shockwave that knocked both of them off their feet.

Elaine's training was incredible, and thanks to it, he had avoided being hit by one of her full-power, deadly blasts. The intensity of the training had caught him by surprise at first. He hadn't expected her to come at him with such force and determination.

However, over the course of that year, he showed that he was more than capable of handling whatever she threw at him. They grew closer and bonded in a way that only a master and a student could. Even their relationship as Godmother and Godson became better as a result.

He had known it would be difficult to go against her. But he could never have imagined how strong she would actually be. Several times he had almost died, and each time he came close to the brink of death, he pulled through and became stronger because of it. He took in his lessons and almost never forgot anything she taught him.

It was more than clear that he was far stronger than when he had first started, and his chances of saving his friends had gone up dramatically. Cypher wasn't stupid. He had known that this was a trap by the Order to either capture or kill him. But now his ideas of saving his friends became more than an illusion, there was real hope in his heart.

However, time was running out. According to Elaine he only had a single day left to meet with the Order. The sun was just starting to set outside the violet barrier, and Cypher couldn't help but admire its beauty no matter how many times he had seen it. Time inside the barrier had been very strange.

For them, it passed as it normally would for everyone else. However entire months had been spent in the darkness of the night outside and likewise in the bright light of high noon during the days. This trained him to fight in various lighting conditions. Even as Conductors they were still limited by their natural senses.

"Pay attention!" yelled Elaine as she fired yet another painful nerve spell his way. Cypher barely had enough time to move out of the way and he fired off a similar spell of his own. His spell, however, was blocked by Elaine's own Duality Shield.

He made many discoveries about combat during his solo sparring with Elaine. Even Spark had joined in the fray multiple times, and the two had drilled against her enough to be more potent in combat together.

However, one of the most important lessons he learned, was that when using a weapon, the effectiveness of his spells dropped by about 25%. Using both hands was ideal when spellcasting. It allowed for a more focused stream of power and less focus went on wielding a weapon. That in turn meant that more focus could be used to better bend and influence the laws, and improve the spell overall.

More often than not in this past year, he had been calling forth his saber and sending it back into his dimensional pocket when casting spells. It also helped to keep her guessing his movements. He could fool her into thinking that a spell was coming when in actuality, he would pull out his weapon and deliver a melee attack instead.

Elaine was a monster of a Conductor, and truly deserved her title of Barrier Master. However, Cypher was slowly starting to match her level of combat mastery. He couldn't express the same amount of power, but his technical skill was impressive. He had achieved things most thought impossible in only a year, but he still had a lot to learn. He couldn't get complacent now.

His centers of power had improved during this time as well. His body was at the peak of the first rank and nearing a breakthrough. His Orrium was nearing the Plasma stage and could now hold more than twice the amount of Zight it could before. Even his mind hadn't been left behind during this last year. It had become stable enough to begin using the second volume of the Rank-Two Architect's Draft.

Their time together might be almost up, but the gains they received were well worth the cost. They only had to ride out the rest of the day, and the barrier would come down, returning them to the normal flow of time. Until then though, they trained relentlessly just as they had during the previous weeks and months.

Cypher grunted as he called on the power of the Duality Shield to fend off another deadly wind slash. This time he had pulled it off with time to spare, so he came at her with his saber in hand to strike while her attention was still on the cloud of dust caused by the impact.

Elemental attacks were even more worthless against the Duality Shield than melee attacks. Since the barrier was composed of every element, when another element struck it, the element that opposed the attacking force did most of the blocking. Like this, her wind slash was primarily blocked by the earth element.

Cypher quickly came up behind her, moving too fast for the normal eye to see thanks to his infused Zight Stanza. Inches from making contact with her, she spun around and countered with her own weapon, that horribly sharp Collapscythe that had left its mark on numerous parts of his body.

As she made her move to slice through his flesh, Cypher sidestepped to the right and delivered a devastating blow of his own. This time his saber caught neither the air nor a barrier. It made full contact with her shoulder, passing through the layers of armor there easily. It came to a stop midway through her torso.

The two were showered in a crimson rain of blood as she grunted in pain. She then jumped back freeing herself from his saber’s bite. She instantly began to heal thanks to the barrier, but pools of her blood still sloshed to the ground below in thick globs before fading away and returning to her body as if they had never been spilled.

Outside of this barrier, that injury would have been at least crippling and at most fatal. But, as she had said, and as it had demonstrated many times, it healed her completely and within moments at that. Cypher almost believed that its powers were well beyond the third rank. Certainly, they had to be, this kind of Magick was just that impressive.

Inside they were completely invincible, their physical energy never fell below a certain threshold, and their Zight refueled itself as soon as it was depleted. They hadn't slept, eaten, or even felt the need to relieve themselves. It was an endless barrage of attacks and exchanges of spellcasting for an entire year. He had been able to train unhindered and without holding back. Even death had been held at bay by this awe-inspiring barrier.

Of course, they had broken up the combat by doing a few other things. Cypher had brought his Architects Draft, and Elaine had procured a map for study. It was a map of the docks that Cypher would be venturing to and was quite helpful when planning his assault.

"Alright you little shit," began Elaine, holding up a hand to stop him from attacking again. "That will be more than enough, we've made some amazing fuckin’ progress since we began. Now that you can form the barrier on your own, I'll teach you the chant that improves it even further."

"What? There was something like that all along?" asked Cypher.

"Of course, you mastered the basics of the barrier. That was important, but a spell is unfinished without the chant to improve its grip on the laws of the world. Here it's different, time and space have been altered to our will. This might as well be another universe for all the rest of the world is concerned. Out there things work differently," replied Elaine.

"Wait, but I'll still be as good as I am now out there right? I still haven't even mastered the variation yet. Having to remaster the Duality Shield first would put those prospects in danger." Cypher was truly concerned as he spoke but Elaine shook her head and smiled.

"It'll be fine, you won't have to remaster it, that's why I'm teaching you the chant dumbass! In any event, you've done something nobody else has since your father. You've nearly mastered the Duality Shield in only a year's time and once you do, you'll be able to cast aside the chant altogether. Not to mention your variation of it."

"As today's training has shown us, it's still incomplete. But despite that in a day you'll face the Order head-on. Do you think you're ready?" asked Elaine as the time barrier around them began to fade away and dissipate.

"I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be!" returned Cypher as the normal flow of time took hold of them once more. They both fell to their knees as they re-synchronized with realtime, and felt something immaterial pulled from their bodies as the last of the Anzephelo Barrier faded away.

Elaine had explained that this was the time from the end of their lives, or at least, what would have been the end in the event that they didn't live longer than a year. If they were to die right now, their souls would enter a state of nonexistence for the span of a year as per the cost of the Anzephelo Barrier. However, instead of returning to existence as they were, they would likely be reincarnated instead.

The details of that were hazy at best, even Elaine didn't know for sure what happened if they died before a year was up, this was only her speculation according to what she knew. They left his house and returned to her abode to prepare for tomorrow.

Cypher knew that the task ahead would be difficult and that if he failed it would mean the end of him and his friends. He shook his head to get the images to vanish. He didn't want to think about what might happen. He stared out the window at the last sunset he might ever see while he and his friends were still alive. Tomorrow would be rough, and he began to really think about what he would be facing.

It wasn't as if this was the first time. All throughout that year of hellish training he had considered this. The deck was clearly stacked against him, and he didn't know how many Order members would be waiting for him. He would have Alex and Melodi, of course, but even with their help, escaping still held low odds.

Actually, the goal of his plan was quite simple after he and Elaine had carefully studied the layout of the entire warehouse district in Pire Allario. Honestly, he didn't even really need to fight, if he could simply get to them, then he could activate the Duality Shield and hold out until help arrived. That was the best outcome he could see, and the one that he and Elaine had planned for.

Despite all of their planning, Cypher was sure that the Order of Eternal Night wouldn't hesitate to throw everything they had at him. They wanted him for some purpose, but neither he nor Elaine could even begin to guess why. Of course, finding out would eventually be important.

If he knew why they needed him, then perhaps he could eliminate that reason, or perhaps use that knowledge for his own gains. But finding out that reason would be costly and most likely require violence. If it did come to a fight, he couldn't afford to fight at any less than 100% and he couldn't even show any mercy.