By the time Soren reached the arena floor, the noise from the stands felt distant.
Not quieter, just less important.
Down here, everything was sharper: the scrape of boots against stone, the clink of weapons being lifted from the rack, the way even the overseer's voice seemed louder and heavier, like the words had weight simply because they were spoken inside the circle.
Soren headed for the weapon rack and took what he had already decided on.
A handaxe and a buckler.
The buckler rolled once in his palm as he tested its weight, then he slid the strap over his forearm and tightened it until it sat snug, the leather stiff and unfamiliar, like equipment that belonged to someone else.
It had been a while since he had bothered with one.
Back during summer break, clearing dungeons without a proper tank, a buckler had been a lifesaver; it was small enough not to slow him down, solid enough to turn a fatal hit into a near miss, and simple enough that you didn't need to trust anyone but your own arm.
Somewhere along the way, though, he had stopped bothering.
Not because he thought he didn't need it.
But because he'd had relics.
Bloodrop.
Labrys.
Convenient, unfair things that made mistakes survivable.
Mock duels didn't allow relics, which meant this was the closest thing he had to a safety net.
His fingers flexed around the handaxe's handle, and the difference hit immediately.
The grip was fine, the balance was fine, everything about it was technically acceptable, but "fine" felt awful once your body got used to "better."
After Labrys, after a weapon that listened, shifted, and conducted mana as if it belonged to him, this felt like picking up a rock and pretending it was a blade.
A quiet breath left him, and he stepped into the arena with a blank expression, keeping his face calm on habit alone.
Across from him, his opponent was already waiting.
Shaggy brown hair, fit build, a bastard sword resting in both hands like it belonged there.
Nothing about the boy screamed threat, nothing about him demanded attention, but Soren had learned the hard way that "doesn't look special" meant absolutely nothing.
The overseer began reciting the rules with the same bored authority Soren had heard all day: no killing strikes, no relics, no outside interference, stop immediately if ordered.
Soren nodded in the right places, eyes half-lidded as if he was listening properly, while his mind did something far more useful.
Distance.
Timing.
Footwork.
How quickly the opponent adjusted their grip when the overseer spoke, how their shoulders sat, relaxed or tense, ready to move or ready to react.
Dunlem's shoulders were tense, his sword grip steady, but his knuckles were a little too white.
Nervous, then.
Or at least cautious.
Pros: Cautious people didn't rush into obvious traps.
Cons: Cautious people didn't give you openings for free.
Soren finished tightening the buckler strap, then lifted his gaze and let out a slow exhale.
The tiredness was still there, sitting behind his eyes, but it didn't change anything.
Letting his guard down wasn't an option.
Not anymore.
Not after that night near the dungeon.
That tiny mistake, that single moment of arrogance, the flash of 'I'm fine' that had almost turned into 'I'm dead.'
The memory sat in him like a bruise you could press from the inside, and time didn't erase it; it just made it quieter, constant and persistent in the background.
Never be careless.
Never assume you're safe.
The overseer's hand lifted.
[Duel between Soren Arden and Dunlem begin!]
Soren moved the instant the words escaped.
No hesitation, no testing, no "let's see what you do first."
His palm snapped up, and mana surged.
"「Shockwave」."
The spell tore outward, invisible but violent, a sudden pressure change that shoved at the air itself, then at everything caught inside it.
Right behind it, Soren ran.
Not after checking whether it hit, not after waiting to see Dunlem's reaction, he ran as if it was guaranteed to land, because even if it didn't, it would still force something out of Dunlem, and forcing a response was the entire point.
Surprise flickered across Dunlem's face for a fraction of a second, then calculation snapped into place.
He drove his bastard sword into the earth, blade glowing as mana gathered and anchored to the impact.
「Fialova Swordsmanship - Iron Wall」
The stone cracked faintly around the point, and the air in front of Dunlem seemed to solidify for a split second, as if the mana had formed a barrier with the sword as its spine.
[Shockwave] hit.
The pressure buckled and spread, flattening into the wall and bleeding outward at the edges, and Dunlem slid back several steps with his boots scraping hard, but he didn't lose his footing.
His sword held.
His stance held.
He was unharmed.
Soren didn't slow down, because the result wasn't the point.
'Commit,' he thought, not even as a proper sentence, just the shape of an intent.
He stomped his left boot down, and mana flashed at the sole.
"「Breeze」."
Wind snapped around his legs like a sling, and his dash turned into a launch, his body leaning into the momentum with the kind of recklessness that only worked because he had done this enough times to know how far he could push it.
In seconds, he was close enough to smell sweat and steel.
The handaxe rested on his shoulder in a loose stance, casual on purpose, like he wasn't taking it seriously.
Dunlem raised his bastard sword to intercept, trying to settle into something stable, but Soren didn't give him time.
「Einhardt Axemanship - Crescent」
The axe cut through the air in a clean horizontal arc: fast, sharp, and deceptively heavy.
Steel met steel with a long, ugly ring that vibrated up Soren's arms, and the cheap weapon rattled unpleasantly as if it was offended at being forced to do real work.
Dunlem's stance dipped, braced to lean into a bind, braced to turn it into strength, to force Soren into a contest of power he would probably win.
Soren didn't let it.
Before Dunlem could commit to pushing, Soren's ring shimmered.
The handaxe vanished.
Dunlem's eyes widened for half a beat at the sudden lack of resistance, his sword slipping forward into empty space, and Soren used that half-beat like it had been handed to him.
"「Breeze」."
Wind snapped again, and Soren flung himself back, creating distance before Dunlem could step in and punish him for the trick.
Boots skidded across stone, friction whining under the sudden retreat, then he came to a stop with the buckler raised and his weight already set.
In one smooth motion, he pulled the handaxe back out of his inventory, grip resetting as if nothing had happened, stance shifting to match the distance.
Dunlem stared at him, expression tightening, the surprise smoothing into something hard and wary.
Soren stared right back, unimpressed.
"Ugh," he muttered under his breath, barely loud enough for anyone to catch over the arena noise. "This axe feels like shit."
It wasn't even an insult to the weapon itself, not really.
It was just reality.
After Labrys, everything else felt cheap.
Not only could it shift shape, but Labrys had mana conductivity that would make even the strongest knights jealous, and if it had been in his hand, that [Crescent] would've shattered Dunlem's sword and ended the duel instantly.
But there were no relics.
So he adjusted.
There was no point whining about it.
He rolled his shoulder once, then pushed mana through his body, letting it spread in practised channels, heart to chest, chest to arms, arms to legs, then upward into his head until his senses sharpened and his body felt lighter, more responsive, like the world had slowed down by a fraction.
A thin white light bled outward from him.
Mana enhancement.
Dunlem watched carefully, then raised his own mana in response.
The air around him thickened, unstable in the way that always came right before enhancement completed, mana gathering tight around muscle and bone as if trying to wrap him in invisible armour.
Soren didn't wait for him to finish "getting ready."
Letting someone prepare was just handing them a free advantage, and he had learned that lesson enough times to stop pretending fair fights existed.
"Hey!"
His shout cracked across the space, sharp and sudden, and Dunlem's eyes snapped to him—
An axe was already flying.
Soren had thrown it mid-word, timing intentional, the cheap weapon spinning end over end with the blade aimed straight for Dunlem's face.
Dunlem reacted fast, bastard sword flashing up with a clean, controlled motion.
The axe met steel with a sharp clang, knocked aside and sent skittering away to the left.
But in the time it took Dunlem to swing, Soren was already moving.
"「Breeze」."
Wind snapped, and he closed the distance like a bullet, not running so much as being thrown forward.
Dunlem was still recovering from the interception when Soren got in, too close and too fast, right inside the range where a long sword wanted space.
Soren pulled back his right fist and drove it into Dunlem's stomach.
Dunlem folded with a strangled sound as the breath punched out of him, and a small, ugly flare of satisfaction lit behind Soren's tired eyes.
It wasn't cruelty; it was just confirmation, this worked, pressure worked, denying space worked.
Then Dunlem recovered faster than Soren expected.
Even hunched, Dunlem's mana surged, and his sword flashed from low to high.
「Fialova Swordsmanship - Rising Edge」
The slash climbed like a rising wave, violent and fast, and Soren stepped back immediately, trying to create space before the blade could climb into him properly, but he wasn't fast enough.
The bastard sword grazed his arm.
A shallow gash, bright and stinging, and blood began to trickle down his skin in a slow red line.
Dunlem straightened, eyes sharpening at the sight of it, sensing opportunity the way fighters did, then he charged.
Soren raised his buckler.
Not too high, not too low, and very deliberately, he kept his mouth shut.
The glowing bastard sword came down like a sledgehammer.
「Fialova Swordsmanship - Guard Breaker」
The impact was brutal, heavy enough that Soren's entire arm jolted and his shoulder screamed in protest.
The buckler pinned him, metal biting into leather, and for a moment, it genuinely felt like Dunlem might crush him through sheer strength, forcing the guard down until bone gave way.
Dunlem leaned into the pressure, jaw clenched, trying to drive the buckler lower, trying to turn it into a break.
He was strong.
Far stronger than Soren had assumed from a glance.
It should've been terrifying.
Instead, Soren smiled.
Because Dunlem had done exactly what Soren wanted.
He had committed.
Soren's hand moved slowly, carefully, not yanking, not panicking, just steady.
His fingers reached up toward the buckler strap as if he was adjusting his grip, as if he was trying to fix the position to survive the pressure, and Dunlem's eyes flicked down for a split second, confused by how calm Soren looked while being pinned.
Soren undid the strap.
The leather loosened.
The buckler shifted.
And because Dunlem had been putting so much force into pushing against it, the moment the buckler slipped, the bastard sword followed, sliding forward into empty space.
Dunlem's balance tipped.
"Eh?"
The stupid sound escaped before he could stop it, surprise cracking through his focus for just long enough.
And that was the moment Soren had been waiting for.
His lips parted.
A dark red light flared.
On his tongue, a familiar magic circle ignited.
"「Hemokinesis」."
The blood on his arm stopped dripping.
Instead, it rose.
First, a floating bead, trembling in midair as if it didn't belong outside his body, then a thicker ball forming as more joined it, and finally a long, thin line stretching into shape.
It hardened in the air, condensing, turning crude and functional.
A blade.
A thin, blood-forged sword.
It wasn't elegant, and it wasn't complex.
Soren still couldn't make anything truly intricate with [Hemokinesis], not yet, not without the shape collapsing or the density becoming useless, but he didn't need intricate.
He needed sharp.
His hand closed around the handle as if it had always been there.
Dunlem's eyes widened as he finally realised what was happening, the shock landing a heartbeat too late, because Soren didn't give him time to process it.
And then—
Soren disappeared.
Not literally, of course, but in a fight, a sudden acceleration at the right angle was indistinguishable from vanishing, especially when your balance was already compromised, and your eyes were still catching up.
His feet stepped in so fast the motion blurred, body cutting through the space Dunlem thought he still controlled.
「Fialova Swordsmanship - Step-In Thrust」
The technique wasn't supposed to belong to him.
But Soren had been watching Martial Studies students for months.
Watching, memorising, copying the parts that worked with his body, stripping away the bits that didn't fit until the technique became something he could actually use.
[Library of Memories] didn't let him forget the footwork, the hip rotation, the timing of weight transfer, and even without a perfect sword, even with a blood blade that felt wrong in his grip, the movement itself still held.
He appeared behind Dunlem as if he had slipped through a crack in reality.
Then he drove the blood blade into Dunlem's side.
Dunlem jerked with a broken, choking sound, shock smashing into him all at once, and the bastard sword clattered against the stone as his grip failed.
He collapsed hard, one hand clawing at the wound, body trying to fold around it as if that would stop the pain, as if that would stop what had already happened.
Foam gathered at his lips, not from poison or magic but from the sudden panic of his body misfiring under fear, eyes unfocused as he tried to understand how a duel that had been pressure and steel had turned into blood and a blade in his ribs.
Soren exhaled.
Slow.
Controlled.
'Done.'
His grip loosened, and the blood blade fell from his hand, dissolving mid-drop, returning to liquid before it even hit the ground.
It looked almost lazy, like the magic itself was tired of holding shape.
Soren lifted his hand, voice flat, almost bored.
"「Blood Absorption」."
The scattered blood wriggled back toward him, pulled by mana as if it were being reeled in, thin streams crawling over stone with unsettling obedience.
It flowed into the gash on his arm, slipping back into skin and muscle where it belonged, and the sting faded, the bleeding sealing shut as if the injury had never happened.
Only after it was finished did he wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist, expression still blank, still heavy-lidded, as if the entire exchange had been more inconvenience than adrenaline.
The overseer's voice rang out across the arena.
[Soren Arden wins.]
A soft chime followed immediately after, bright and cheerful in a way that didn't match the mood at all.
Ting—♪
A quest window appeared.
.
▶ Quest Complete! [Mock Duel] ◀
[Reward: 500 Points]
.
Soren stared at the reward for half a second, then let out a tired sigh, the kind that came from finishing a chore rather than winning a fight.
"There we go," he muttered.
Dunlem was already being checked by the staff, healers moving in with practised speed, and Soren glanced over just long enough to confirm he wasn't dying, then turned away.
He didn't wait for the crowd to react properly, didn't wait for cheers or gasps or the delayed buzz of people realising what they had just seen, he just started walking toward the exit of the arena at the same steady pace he had used all day.
There was no triumph sitting in his chest, no rush, no pride that wanted to flare.
Just tiredness.
Just the quiet, stubborn desire to sit down again.
————「❤︎」————