Chapter 20 : Cut and Flow 

But Terty… Terty was no ordinary warrior. A candidate for Gold. Among the elite of Silver.

He danced around the troll, never trading blows. That would be suicide — the creature had too much mass. Instead, he struck and moved. Cut and flowed. Each time, his blade tore flesh from limb.

But trolls were not like men.

Their flesh was thick. Their bones dense. Their skin, tough as old bark.

Even now, despite multiple wounds, the troll barely slowed.

The real problem is the regeneration.

Not the fairy tales of arms reattaching themselves — that was nonsense. But deep cuts, punctures — they closed far faster than a human’s would.

And time was not on Terty’s side.

Prolonged combat wore at even the best.

But then… he doesn’t have to fight alone.

Curtis  drew a deep breath and shouted, “Terty! I’ll aim for the upper body!”

“Understood!”

Curtis  stepped closer to the stream, water brushing the edges of his boots.

Then, he lifted his hands.

The water did not fall — it rose.

Ten spheres. Each the size of a man’s head.

Not mist. Not droplets.

Bludgeons — forged from the stream itself. Denser and deadlier than anything he’d pulled from air-bound vapor.

His eyes narrowed.

It was time to end this.

The Shape of Water, The Fall of Flesh

“Just a bit to the side. You’re blocking my line of sight.”

“Y-yes! Sorry!”

The three mercenaries hastily scrambled out of the way. Though clad in steel and seasoned by battle, their eyes held a glimmer of something ancient — reverence. They were witnessing magic, not crude sorcery but focused, deliberate artistry.

Then the assault began.

Orbs of water, dense and gleaming like liquid crystal, launched from Curtis ’s hand — each one fired like a cannon shot. The troll, until now focused solely on Terty, roared in confusion at this unexpected barrage.

Thud! Thump! CRACK! THWACK!

A few spheres it managed to deflect — but the crude club in its hand, already weathered and splintered, shattered under the force like a bat struck by a meteor.

And still the water came.

Blow after blow rained upon the beast: chest, shoulder, skull, spine — no surface was spared. It staggered, arms raised to shield its head, while swinging the remains of its broken club in blind desperation.

Terty was quick to seize the moment.

In a blur of movement, he slipped to the side, sword gleaming as he drove it into the troll’s raised arm.

SHLASH!

A geyser of blood erupted.

The strike was clean, decisive — the kind one can only deliver when one has time to aim and breathe. The troll’s right arm was nearly severed, hanging by ragged tendons. Its grip failed, and what remained of its weapon clattered to the earth.

Terty kicked it away without ceremony, ensuring the beast could not hurl it at Curtis  in a desperate bid for vengeance.

“KRUAAAAARGH!”

The troll bellowed in rage and lunged — but Terty had already danced beyond its reach.

And Curtis ’s magic was far from done.

His hands moved like a conductor at the peak of a symphony. With his left, he drew fresh water from the stream, shaping it into another orb. With his right, he reclaimed the spent water from previous strikes, reforming it, readying it anew.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM.

More than twenty spheres now. A relentless, unholy hail of water, hammering from every direction. The troll could do nothing but endure — it looked less like a monster and more like a condemned soul at a public stoning, pelted from all sides.

“By the Rulers, this thing is durable,” Curtis  muttered, brows furrowed.

Had it been a lesser monster, or a human, even a single strike would have been fatal. But trolls were known for their unnatural fortitude — their flesh like rubbery stone, their pain tolerance inhuman.

Still, Curtis  wasn’t discouraged. Not yet.

This was a training exercise too, wasn’t it?
Time to try something new.

Hydromancy — at its most basic — was the art of shaping water through invisible touch. The simplest application? Gather water. Compact it. Hurl it.

It was efficient. Minimal mana, minimal thought, maximum effect. The bread and butter of any water mage.

But it had limits.

And Curtis  had no interest in staying limited.

What if… I could reshape the form entirely?

He’d never tried it. He’d never even seen it done. Zerion, his former mentor, had never demonstrated anything like this.

But in his mind, the theory held.

Curtis  stopped.

The barrage ceased.

The orbs, once dancing through the air like wrathful spirits, froze.

And then… they merged.

The spheres drifted toward one another like droplets on glass, fusing, swelling, pulsing — until one single, massive globe of water hovered in the air.

It was larger than the troll’s head.

Slowly, with gravity defied and wind parted, it floated toward its target.

The troll, weary and dazed, didn’t react in time.

THUD.

But instead of shattering bone or pulping flesh, the orb simply burst upon impact, spilling its contents downward like a broken jar.

It was… underwhelming.

The troll blinked. Confused.

And then — the trap snapped shut.

The water, instead of dispersing, flowed upward — swirling and folding back in upon itself — until it formed a translucent prison around the troll’s head. A sphere. An aquatic coffin.

Like a goldfish caught in its own bowl.

“KRRRRKK?!”

Panic surged.

And panic, Curtis  knew, was what truly killed those who drowned.

The troll stumbled, flailing. Water filled its lungs where air should be. It gagged, coughed, thrashed wildly, trying to claw the fluid from its face — but it was no simple splash to swipe away.

The water clung.

It was held.

Even when the troll managed to splash some away, Curtis  — cool, unwavering — simply drew it back.

Hold it from all sides, Curtis  thought. Grip it with invisible hands. Keep it pinned tight.

Had the troll not already been battered senseless, it might have broken free. Holding water in place over a flailing creature’s head was harder than anchoring it mid-air.

But the troll was too slow now. Too broken.

It had missed its only chance — the moment, however fleeting, to lunge at Curtis  and shatter his concentration.

Now, all it could do was drown.

THUMP.

It collapsed — a beast defeated not by blade, not by fire, but by suffocation. Its mighty regeneration was useless. There was no blood to clot, no flesh to stitch — just a lack of air.

And then, like a tide pulling back from the shore, the water receded.

Silence.

A moment passed.

And Curtis , who had felt it before only long ago, felt it again.

[Hydromancy Lv. 40]
[Progress to Next Level: 1%]

A plateau, broken. A boundary, crossed.

The first level in nearly two months.

He grinned.

“Now that was satisfying.”