Arena One looked nothing like it had before.

  The Adventurer’s Association had widened the boundary ropes, reinforced the posts with braces and cleared every scorched patch of sand until the ring was clean and pale again. Their efficiency was through the roof.

  They had built a proper scaffold this time too. Not the hurried platform from earlier rounds, but something sturdy with planks lashed tight and mana crystals mounted at the corners like lanterns.

  The crowd had reached extreme numbers.

  Players stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the ropes, packed onto the dunes, even perched on crates and barrels.

  The noise rose, an impressive wave of cheering and chanting, roaring our names back and forth.

  This was it.

  Shieldbreaker’s voice boomed through the mana-speakers, loud with that practiced excitement.

  "Oakenlight! Tidemark! This is the finals!” he shouted. “Two challengers! Two regions’ pride! But only one will be called Champion!”

  “This is going to be a fight of precision!” Virtune added. “A ranger who defies death versus a swordsman favored by the ocean itself!”

  “THE BLACK RANGER VERSUS THE BLADE OF THE SEA!” Thorax’s voice was a notch deeper than his colleagues, and the low base echoed through the beach.

  The chant of Athos’s name started drowning mine out. He has home turf, after all.

  He walked into the arena with a smile that oozed confidence. No swagger, no badmouthing, just a calm presence. Like he belonged here the way the sand belonged to the beach.

  Athos rolled his shoulders once, drew his sword - a blade covered with moss and seastone - and took a balanced stance.

  He turned to me, smile sharpening slightly. Not in arrogance, just as a sign of quiet respect.

  “I had a feeling we’d meet in the finals,” he said. “Raid leaders, battling it out. Let’s have fun!”

  “Good luck,” I nodded.

  The referee stepped between us, her flag raised.

  “Combatants ready?”

  We nodded as the entire beach seemed to hold its breath.

  “Begin!”

  I drew and loosed an arrow immediately. He stepped left with a flowing motion, dodging the attack.

  I fired again, two shots in quick succession, one aimed at center mass, the other at the head. He blocked one with the sword and dodged the other.

  “Athos is reading the arrows like they’re in slow motion!” Virtune called out.

  The swordsman started walking forward slowly, much like Cyrus with his Gust trick a while ago, however instead of the mage’s heavy control aura, his was a pressure flooding with intent to finish this fast.

  I backpedaled, loosing a third arrow. He parried with ease, then launched forward.

  “Blade Rush!”

  He blurred across the sand, closing the distance in a heartbeat.

  I Quick Stepped sideways, the sword barely missing. He turned the miss into the motion for another skill.

  “Horizontal Slash!”

  The arc of the attack carved a clean line, but I dodged it in time, and fired a Burning Arrow mid-step.

  He tucked his shoulder, dodging direct impact, but the flames licked his arm.

  I widened my circle, trying to keep ranged advantage, but Athos followed, pivoting with me like a shadow, forcing the duel into dangerously close quarters.

  He feinted a forward dash and then stabbed sharply with Piercing Stab. I barely hopped back, the point missing my abdomen by mere inches.

  Again, he was already transitioning into a vertical cut.

  “Vertical Strike!”

  I decided to try and parry with the bow. I could have used Leap Attack to dodge, but he was burning cooldowns and I wanted to keep that as an advantage.

  I also wanted to see how much damage I take by blocking a skill from him. Vertical Strike was the level 15 basic skill of a swordsman, so it had decent damage, but I had to grasp the amount of danger I was in.

  I raised my bow like a staff and let the blade glance off the upper limb, sparks flying. The impact rattled my arms. A bow wasn’t built to parry, but my high strength held. I lost about 15% of my HP instead of the 30 or so I would have in case of a direct hit. Not bad.

  “Orion is blocking with the bow! Is he desperate?” Shieldbreaker called out.

  “No,” Virtune corrected him. “He’s grasping the pressure. It’s a bold move, but smart; knowing what to block and what to dodge in the future will definitely help in the long run!”

  I used the recoil to retreat and fired a quick Fan of Arrows to force him to move, but Athos didn’t retreat.

  He sidestepped into the volley with his blade weaving like a metronome, deflecting two arrows, dodging another two and tanking the last pair. Just like me, he was measuring my power.

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  He was willing to eat small hits to keep momentum.

  Fine.

  I tossed a Web Trap as I moved, subtle, planted in the sand between us, to narrow his options.

  Athos’s eyes flicked down for a fraction of a second, he clearly saw through the disguise, but I expected nothing less.

  However, what came next surprised even me. Instead of stepping around it, he dashed straight at me and used Quick Step to use the i-frame against the trap.

  He phased through the trigger radius, but I was ready. Just as I saw through his move, I activated Flaming Arrow.

  Then he did it again. A second Quick Step came right up, carrying him beyond my planned attack.

  For a heartbeat I froze. That wasn’t a normal Quick Step.

  “There it is!” Thorax roared. “Quick Step: Level Two makes it’s debut in the finals. Athos’s the only one I have seen so far who managed to unlock it! Such a simple skill, yet what a sight to behold!”

  “What a sight, indeed!” Virtune agreed. “Pure control.”

  “Hey, Thorax?” Shieldbreaker asked. “Who did you bet on this time?”

  “Orion has lost a lot of money for me, Breaker,” Thorax admitted. “but I just can’t bet against the Blade of the Sea!”

  Athos arrived inside my comfort zone, blade swinging. I reacted on instinct, using Leap Attack, vaulting back and to the side, firing a Piercing Shot mid-air. The arrow hit his shoulder clean, but all he did was smile.

  “Nice!” he called it, and then lunged again.

  It was different than my previous duels.

  Athos was definitely on a whole other level compared to the likes of RagingBuddha or even El Rafael. His control was exceptional, his movements fluid, and the way he chained his skills meant he constantly kept planning out his moves.

  However it didn’t feel like I was fighting against someone like Kaelith, who was barely more than a blur of motion throughout the entire duel, or Cyrus, where the temperature rose even when he didn’t even cast a spell just from the sheer pressure.

  Athos’s moves were slower, more deliberate. He didn’t do any fancy dodging and even took the hits that could have been avoided. I could see through his attacks and anticipate what skills he was going to use before I saw the animation. And yet…

  Why do I feel like I’m in constant danger?

  My intuition was working overtime, danger sense going off like crazy.

  When I faced off against Kaelith’s Blade Dance I knew I had to do everything perfectly in order to win.

  When I dueled Cyrus I knew exactly what to do in order to have at least a chance to survive his barrage of spells.

  Right now? Athos was pressuring me with basic swordsman skills, and he seemed like he didn’t mind taking damage to dish out some in return. With my other opponents I knew what they were going to dodge. I knew how they were going to react.

  With Athos, all I had were assumptions.

  If I had to describe his play style, it was imperfect perfection.

  We exchanged blows. He kept dodging and parrying my shots while I evaded his slashes, both of us only clearing the attacks by mere inches.

  I took initiative.

  I fired a Silk Shot at a driftwood post outside of the arena, slightly to the left. The filament hissed through the air and caught on the wood.

  Athos’s eyes flicked to it, just a millisecond of distraction. He did not expect me to open with such a valuable cooldown.

  When he looked back at me, it was too late. The string went taut and yanked me sideways at an angle that put me in a favorable position. I cut into his approach line, slid past his sword range like a shadow, and as I passed-

  “Fan of Arrows!”

  It was a full draw. The volley exploded from point-blank range, shafts fanning outward like shrapnel. Athos raised his blade and tried to deflect, but the angle threw him off; my reposition put him off guard.

  Four arrows struck clean. Poison was applied. His HP dropped hard, and the crowd detonated.

  “Orion finds the angle! Clean hit after a beautiful reposition!” Thorax called.

  Athos didn’t look angry. He didn’t look rattled either.

  But the smile thinned.

  He stepped back, rolled his shoulder then surged forward again, using basic slashes tightened into a clean combo, trying to reclaim tempo before the poison ticks stacked too high.

  I was already moving. I dropped a Web Trap where I thought he’s going to go, trying to predict his movements. He committed anyway, clearly dazed from the previous encounter.

  His boot hit the trigger zone and the silk snapped up like a net, wrapping around his shin and ankle. His eyes widened, clearly not expecting the trap there. Did I rattle him that much? I didn’t waste a second.

  “Burning Arrow!”

  The shot hit center mass, fire blooming across Athos’s chestplate. His HP dropped again.

  Athos broke out of the trap a second later and retreated.

  And then I saw the smile reappear.

  “You’re good, Orion!” he said. “You’ve earned my respect!”

  As he said that, his entire body started glowing with a faint green and blue aura.

  “No one has ever triggered Rising Tide from two skills alone, your damage output is crazy!”

  Then he came at me with the full force of a tsunami.

  I didn’t know what this Rising Tide was, but I knew one thing: he became a different beast.

  His movement speed and attack speed rose. I used Piercing Shot but he flickered around the skill with such velocity it was my turn to be rattled.

  “Blade Rush!”

  I could barely dodge in time. He sped past me. I turned around to take him on and saw him bending his knee. Then he was gone.

  Where-

  “Comet!”

  He was in the air for a split second, but when I realized, he was already burning with blue fire, about to crash into me.

  As he started the descent I activated Leap Attack, trying to dodge.

  His calculation was impeccable.

  Not only did he anticipate Leap Attack and targeted my landing spot even before I used the skill, he had also timed it in a way so after landing I had no time to do anything else.

  BAM!

  “Comet connects!” Shieldbreaker shouted. “The skill Athos had used to finish off his lady Seraphina now comes out sooner!”

  “Such a powerful ability!” Thorax said. “It pretty much turns him into a shooting star.”

  “For our more technical viewers, I have put my hands on the details of the skill,” Virtune added. “It’s an Epic rated ability, and is most likely the strongest movement skill as of now. Has no class restrictions, but the damage it does is way stronger if used by a melee class!”

  I forced air back into my lungs and raised my bow, but Athos didn’t let me catch my breath.

  He pivoted smoothly and swung his blade in a wide arc, mana tracing along the edge like sea foam turning into waves.

  “Saltstone Edge!”

  A crescent wave of power ripped across the sand, aimed to catch me mid-recovery. It carved a line through the arena as it traveled. Another new skill. Looks like he’s not sticking to the basics anymore.

  I ducked, the arc missing me by half a centimeter. The wave passed over me and detonated behind, leaving a scar on the beach.

  I fired a Burning Arrow even before I was standing straight again, but Athos dodged it.

  We started trading, more careful this time. Neither of us had the spare HP left to take unnecessary hits.

  Arrows against blade. Footwork against footwork.

  Athos stepped forward again, sword leveled, the smile finally gone, and I realized something with a cold clarity.

  The finals were just starting to get serious.