The world narrowed to the circle of cracked stone. The roaring crowd became a distant ocean, their voices blending into a formless white noise. Thaddeus stood opposite Leonel, but the playful cousin was gone. In his place was a warrior, his breathing slowed to an almost imperceptible rhythm, each inhale a deliberate drawing-in of focus. The grip on his sword wasn't just tight; it was fused, his knuckles pale against the leather-wrapped hilt. The air around him didn't just grow tense; it thickened, humming with a low-frequency energy that made the fine hairs on the arms of the front-row spectators stand on end.
"Leonel," Thaddeus's voice was calm, but it carried an undertone like grinding stone, a promise of what was to come. "I hope you can block my attack like before." There was no arrogance in it, only a stark, confident challenge. Then, he declared the name of his technique, and the words seemed to physically manifest in the air: "Celestial Blade Art: Radiant Dawn!"
It began not with a bang, but with a bloom. A soft, radiant energy, the color of a sun-washed pearl, enveloped Thaddeus. It wasn't a harsh light, but a pervasive glow that spilled outwards, washing the grim grays of the arena in an ethereal luminescence. The air itself began to shimmer, a heat-haze effect as Thaddeus's Vitalis Energy coalesced, pulling the very light in the arena toward him. Then, a flash. Not the blinding, painful kind, but a swift, total whiteness that stole vision for a single, disorienting heartbeat. When sight returned, Thaddeus was gone.
Leonel didn't think. His body reacted, a lifetime of brutal training and sharper instincts taking over. His grip on his own sword became an anchor point in a suddenly unstable world. A split second later, the air screamed as a blade tore through it from his left. He was already turning, his own steel rising in a perfect, economical parry. The clash wasn't just loud; it was a thunderclap that slammed into the crowd, the sound so dense it felt like a physical blow.
"Thaddeus," Leonel's voice was cool, a stark contrast to the explosive energy he'd just deflected. He didn't even sound winded. "You used the light to disrupt the optic nerve. A clever trick. It might work on others who rely solely on their eyes." He allowed a sliver of a smirk. "But not me."
Despite the calm dismissal, a wide, genuine smile spread across the space where Thaddeus's face should have been. It was that smile, more than any attack, that sent Leonel's senses into overdrive. A faint flicker, a distortion in the shimmering air behind him. It wasn't a sound or a scent, but a pressure change, a violation of the space at his back. He was already spinning, his body a coiled spring releasing, his sword swinging up and around in a desperate, backward block.
CLANG!
The impact was just as solid, just as real. A second Thaddeus stood there, blade locked with his, grinning with the same fierce joy. And then, the first Thaddeus—the one he'd just parried—simply dissolved, not like a phantom, but like a mirage wavering back into empty air.
Leonel's mind, usually a placid lake of calculation, was a roiling sea. That wasn't an afterimage. It wasn't an illusion you see through. My sword met solid steel. It carried the full weight and torque of a real strike. If someone else… if Liora had been facing this, she'd have taken that first block and had her spine shattered by the second. How?
Thaddeus chuckled, the real one, as he stepped back, his sword gleaming with captured light. "As expected, Leonel. You figured out it wasn't just a feint."
Leonel's eyes narrowed, his analytical mind clawing for purchase. "I'm surprised. What is that? It wasn't just an illusion; it carried real kinetic force. The weight, the strength behind it… it was a tangible construct."
"Perceptive as always," Thaddeus said, his grin widening into something triumphant. "That's the specialty of this technique. What you fought was a Vitalis Clone. A hard-light projection imbued with about ten percent of my own power and combat intent." He paused, letting the implications sink in for Leonel, and for the astute elders watching from above. "And here's the best part—creating it is the hard bit. Maintaining it? It barely tickles my energy reserves."
Leonel couldn't help the incredulous raise of his eyebrow. "A technique of that complexity… our family's archives have nothing like that."
"Not quite," Thaddeus admitted, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes—a hint of a secret, a teacher, a journey taken alone. "This isn't a Graythorn heirloom. But enough chit-chat." His posture shifted again, the air around him growing denser, heavier. "Let's get serious."
The atmosphere in the arena became oppressive. It was like the moments before a summer thunderstorm, the air pregnant with a coming violence. Both fighters released the dampers on their energy cores. A visible wind whipped out from them in a circle, kicking up a spray of dust and small pebbles, forcing the spectators in the front to shield their faces and lean back. The elders, in their shaded pavilion, stopped their casual commentary. Their postures straightened; their eyes, old and keen, saw past the flash and recognized the substance.
Leonel's voice cut through the gathering storm. "Graythorn Sword Art: First Form—Skyfall Slash!"
He didn't just say the words; he gave them weight. His blade came down not with brute force, but with the inexorable certainty of gravity, a single, devastating arc meant to cleave the world in two.
Thaddeus countered without a moment's hesitation, his own style a stark contrast. "Celestial Blade Art: Starfall Barrage!"
Where Leonel's attack was a single, monumental event, Thaddeus's was a meteor shower. His sword became a blur, not of metal, but of falling stars. Each strike was rapid, precise, and terrifyingly unpredictable, a relentless hailstorm of light and impact. The two techniques met not with a single crash, but with a continuous, staccato symphony of clashing steel—ting-ting-CLANG-ting-CLANG! Sparks flew not in ones or twos, but in great, fountaining showers, illuminating the two cousins in strobing flashes of orange and white.
Leonel's mind was a fortress under siege. He's not just attacking randomly. Each strike is a probe, testing my defense, looking for a rhythm. The angles are all wrong—they don't follow conventional swordsmanship. It's like fighting a storm. If I misread one, just one, the chain reaction will break my guard.
His body was a separate entity, operating on a mix of ingrained muscle memory and hyper-aware instinct. He sidestepped a thrust aimed at his knee, felt the wind of a slash pass millimeters from his ear, dropped into a low crouch to avoid a sweeping strike that would have taken his head off, and used the momentum to spring up into a parry of an overhead blow. The movements were fluid, but they were desperate, a dance on the edge of a razor.
"You're good, Thaddeus," Leonel grunted, deflecting a strike that jarred his arm to the shoulder.
"And you're annoyingly calm under fire," Thaddeus shot back, his grin never slipping even as he breathed heavily. "Let's see how long that cool head of yours lasts."
Their swords met again and again, a flurry of strikes and counters that was less a duel and more a conversation spoken in the violent poetry of steel. Every block, every parry, every near-miss was a sentence laden with years of shared history, of rivalry, of a deep, unspoken respect. They weren't just trying to win a tournament; they were testing the mettle of the only person who had ever truly been their equal.
In the stands, Liora Moonshadow watched, her knuckles white where she gripped the railing. She saw the speed, the power, the techniques that seemed to bend the rules of combat. "Leonel…" she whispered, the name a breath stolen by the spectacle. A complex emotion twisted in her gut—awe, a sting of her own defeat, and a fierce, burning resolve. "You're incredible. But next time…" Her grip tightened until the metal of the railing groaned in protest. "Next time, I'll be the one standing across from you."
Back in the heart of the storm, Thaddeus finally broke the relentless pattern, leaping back to create a pocket of space. His chest rose and fell, but his eyes gleamed with undiminished fire. "Let's see how you handle a change of pace, cousin."
The air around him began to shimmer again, but this time it was different. It wasn't a soft glow, but a fierce, gathering brilliance. His blade became the focal point, shining with the intensity of a captive star, so bright it was painful to look upon. With a roar that tore from the depths of his lungs, he unleashed it. "Celestial Blade Art: Radiant Collapse!"
This wasn't a barrage. It was a wave. A solid-looking wall of concussive light and pure force surged across the arena, not so much flying as erasing the space between them. It wasn't just an attack; it was the negation of everything in its path.
Leonel's instincts screamed at him to run, to dodge, to get the hell out of the way. But his mind, that cold, calculating engine, remained unnervingly calm. It processed the speed, the trajectory, the way the energy churned and destabilized the air around it.
It's too wide to dodge completely. A direct block would shatter every bone in my body. The force is immense, but it's not uniform. There's a turbulence, a ripple… there.
His body moved with a preternatural grace. He didn't retreat. He took three sharp, diagonal steps to the left, placing himself directly in the path of a slightly weaker eddy in the energy wave. As the leading edge of the collapse hit, he dropped into a deep, rooted stance, not blocking, but guiding. He let his sword be pushed back, his entire body acting as a shock absorber, redirecting the catastrophic force down and around him. The stone at his feet didn't just crack; it vaporized into a cloud of fine dust. For a terrifying second, he was swallowed by the light.
Then it passed.
The wave of energy spent itself against the far barrier of the arena with a sound like a mountain sighing. And there, standing in a small circle of untouched ground amidst a freshly carved trench, was Leonel. He was unscathed, his chest heaving slightly now, a fine layer of white dust covering his clothes and hair. His counterattack wasn't a named technique; it was a simple, brutally efficient lunge that shot forward like a viper, aimed with lethal precision at the momentarily exposed Thaddeus.
Thaddeus's eyes widened in genuine shock. He hadn't expected a counter; he'd expected a corpse. He threw himself backward, his own blade coming up in a clumsy, desperate parry that saved him from a grievous wound but sent him stumbling, his balance broken, his rhythm shattered.
The crowd, which had been holding a collective breath, erupted. The sound was primal, a release of pent-up tension and sheer, unadulterated awe.
Thaddeus caught himself, his breathing heavy now, ragged. He looked at Leonel, standing calm amidst the destruction he'd just survived, and a slow, incredulous grin spread across his face. It was a grin of pure, unadulterated respect. "Not bad, Leonel," he panted, his spirit visibly unbroken. "Not bad at all."
Leonel finally allowed a true, sharp smirk to cut through his composed features. "You're not too shabby yourself, cousin."
High in the pavilion, the elders were silent for a long moment. The Third Elder finally let out a slow breath he seemed to have been holding for minutes. "They're not there yet," he murmured, his voice thick with a mixture of critique and profound pride. "The control is still… youthful."
The Fifth Elder, uncharacteristically solemn, nodded. "Indeed," he rumbled. "But by the ancestors… they're getting closer with every passing second."
Down below, Thaddeus shook the numbness from his sword arm and twirled his blade, the energy around him beginning to pulse again, a rhythmic, threatening heartbeat. He took a measured step forward, his eyes alight with the thrill of a fight that was far from over. "You're quick on your feet, Leonel, I'll give you that," he said, his voice regaining its steady timbre. "But how long can you keep dancing?"
Leonel chuckled, a dry, quiet sound. It wasn't mockery, but the sound of a man truly enjoying himself, pushed to his absolute limits. "You've got your bag of tricks, cousin. Impressive ones." His grip on his sword adjusted again, a minute shift of his thumb that spoke volumes to those who knew how to read it. He was recalculating, adapting. "But let's see if they can outlast my patience."