Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 306 - 301: The Rhythm Beneath the Power (2)

"I’m baiting you," Gabriel said, letting a soft coil of ether trail down his wrist like smoke, "because you look like you need it."

The words were velvet, but the challenge beneath them was steel.

Damian’s gaze dipped to that thin wisp of power—too delicate for real offense, too controlled to be careless. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It never did when he was like this.

"Then you won’t mind if I respond."

Damian’s voice was calm, but his stance shifted with intent—fluid, grounded, precise. He had never fought Gabriel before; they didn’t really have the chance. He knew the reports, of course. Knew Gabriel had spent more time on the field than in the office during Claymore’s expansion. But his role hadn’t been that of a soldier. Gabriel had built the circuits, stabilized the generators, and rerouted energy from collapsed grid lines while ether cracked overhead. His hands were made for control panels and ward design, not for wielding a blade.

But his grip on ether, on the science of it, the rhythm beneath it, was no less dangerous.

Damian moved first, testing. A strike, fast and sharp, aimed to shift the adversary’s focus. Gabriel sidestepped neatly, not with the speed of a trained fighter but with the reflexes of someone used to dancing between live wires and unstable reactors. A low wave of power followed, soft and coiled, trailing behind his fingers like smoke diffusing through crystal.

"Someone has to humble you from time to time," Gabriel said, his voice light but anchored.

Damian’s answering smile was brief—feral and fond. "You’re not the only one watching how far I’ve healed."

He was enjoying it more than he thought. Not the fight itself—though there was satisfaction in the challenge—but the precision of it. The purpose. Sure, he could’ve sent Gabriel into the ring wall with a flick of his wrist. Could’ve ended it in the first thirty seconds with a targeted burst of pressure and the right pivot of his stance.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was to make sure he still couldn’t do that by accident. That he could move his arm without triggering a cascade. That the veins he’d burned from fingertip to elbow still remembered how to shape power without spilling it. That he hadn’t lost the discipline that made him more than a weapon.

Gabriel circled him in a wide arc, fingers trailing low glimmers of ether like he was sketching something in the air, deliberate and clean. He wasn’t fighting to win. He was tracking.

"You’re holding back," Gabriel said, tone dry, like he already knew the answer.

Damian tilted his head. "So are you."

Gabriel gave a thin smile. "I don’t have to hold back. My ether listens to me."

Damian laughed, low and sharp. "Spoken like a man who’s never broken a containment seal mid-strike."

"Oh, I’ve broken plenty," Gabriel replied smoothly. "I just don’t lie to myself afterward about why."

The next blow came faster—a low sweep of light and compression—and Damian met it with a twist of his arm, ether flaring along his skin in tight, controlled pulses. The impact didn’t even echo. It absorbed into itself. Just the way it should.

Gabriel hummed, pleased. "That one didn’t hurt."

Damian’s lips quirked. "I wasn’t aiming to."

And it was true—every strike was pulled just short. Every reaction contained, every shift measured, like the world was watching.

But only Gabriel was.

And he knew exactly what to look for.

Gabriel lunged, this time with purpose. His ether lanced forward—not brute force, but a targeted line of pressure meant to test reaction time, not power. Damian stepped into it without hesitation, hand flicking outward, catching the edge of the flow and turning it, redirecting the energy into the floor with a crackle.

The ring shimmered briefly under the strain, then settled.

From the sideline, Gregoris made a quiet sound—amused, maybe impressed. "He’s toying with him."

Alexandra didn’t take her eyes off the ring. "Which one?"

Gregoris grinned. "Exactly."

Inside the circle, Gabriel pivoted, dragging his hand through the air and letting a series of condensed sigils pulse into being—short-lived, rotating defense forms, outdated in most military codices but still efficient for someone who understood structure over scale. He wasn’t as fast as Damian, but his finesse? Surgical. Clean. Controlled like only an engineer with field experience and something to prove could be.

Damian met them with calculated brutality—he didn’t smash through the sigils; he dissected them. Broke them down at weak points mid-spin, his ether dancing around the edges like blades on invisible wires. There was no waste in his movement. Just intent.

Gabriel didn’t fall back. He adjusted. Adapted. Moved in again, low and close, palms lit with burning threads that sparked violet against the Emperor’s gold. There was no explosion. Just tension so thick the air cracked around them.

Gregoris, arms now folded, leaned toward Edward. "If he wasn’t the Emperor’s mate, I’d have recruited him. Dominant omegas like that don’t come around often. Strategic, aware, and too calm for his own good."

Edward sniffed. "If he wasn’t the Emperor’s mate, you’d be missing your head."

"I said if."

Inside the ring, Damian was breathing a little harder now from the sheer mental sharpness required. Gabriel didn’t give him time to relax. The spar wasn’t about brute displays—it was a conversation in power and rhythm, and Gabriel knew exactly how to steer the tempo without dominating it.

"You’re doing this on purpose," Damian said, eyes narrowing as he caught a faint shift in pressure and immediately stepped to the side, avoiding what should’ve been a slow spell-chain. "You’re baiting me into using more than I should."

"I told you I was baiting you," Gabriel said sweetly, twisting back into position. "I never said I stopped."

Another blow—a faint burst of ether striking Damian’s right flank. He caught it, then released it immediately in a scattering pulse that lit the edges of his sleeves.

Irina leaned forward from the bench, stunned. "He’s matching the Emperor. With mid-range magic."

Alexandra sipped her tea. "He’s not matching him. He’s testing him. There’s a difference."

Gregoris murmured, "And he’s good at it."