Svarikson leapt forward faster than he should’ve been able to. His muscles still flexed and contracted with the immense strength of someone who had powered through stage two of Body Tempering.

  It was like a wild ox was charging at Blake. He jumped to the side just in time and struck Svarikson on the back with his staff. It collided with the man’s rock-hard skin and unshatterable bones.

  The apparent indestructibility combined with the raw strength had Blake’s mouth watering. More than anything, he wanted that.

  He’d never get it if he died right now.

  Svarikson sprang to the side, and Blake realized he’d made a mistake. He hadn’t gotten far enough away, and he’d never react in time to Svarikson’s next attack.

  The man whipped his rope-axe at Blake, and it whistled through the air with a blur. The axehead chopped his shoulder, biting into his muscle like it was a tree’s wood, then smacked against refined bone. The sheer force of the impact sent Blake skidding across the arena. At some point, the axehead ripped out, but he didn’t know when.

  But it didn’t break the bone.

  Still, the process of reforging his hands was taking too long, and his focus was slipping. The new sources of pain were almost too much.

  He clenched his teeth tight together, then pushed back up to his feet.

  “How…” Svarikson said. “That should have shattered a Foundation cultivator’s bones!”

  Before Blake could rise up to his full height, Svarikson’s boot smacked into his back and pushed him face-first into the ground. Mud sloughed up around Blake’s chin, and gravel scraped against his jaw. Blake coughed and choked. He tried to roll, but Svarikson was too strong. Just physically too strong.

  He could use a Black Palm, but that wouldn’t work. Everyone would see, and everyone would be suspicious. He just didn’t know how they were going to react to a dark lightning user, especially a fiend-blend.

  There was no point winning if he was just going to die moments later. He classified that as, in fact, not winning.

  Svarikson coiled his axe back to himself in an ugly, unpracticed manner, then lifted it above his head. The pressure of his foot was already lightening.

  “You were a slippery bastard to catch,” Svarikson said.

  “Why…now?” Blake gasped. “You had an entire week to kill me. And you wait until now?” Until I’m almost done reforging my hands, until I’ve almost advanced to the next stage of Tempering?

  Blake distinctly remembered Svarikson casting him a knowing smile. The man could’ve attacked any day. Why wait?

  Svarikson loudly proclaimed, “It is known that Land-master Svarikson is merciful, is it not?”

  The crowd stayed silent. They’d probably heard of him, and the real stories about him.

  Svarikson leaned closer to Blake, putting his lips right beside Blake’s ear. Gloating. Right where Blake wanted him. Close enough to smell the cheap mead and sausage on the man’s breath. “I would’ve attacked you hours after you killed Cag and Ley, but I still have to keep some face. If I appeared to be looking for scum like you, it would be a degrading self-insult. But if I happened to stumble upon a thief while trying to return a poorly-made product…well, I would be within my rights. And I couldn’t return a pelt only days after buying it, without inspecting it thoroughly…”

  “I don’t have your ring,” Blake grunted. Svarikson was pressing his weight down on Blake again. His back might not have been at risk of breaking, but his muscles were straining, and even the tread of Svarikson’s boots was trying (and succeeding) to strip away the upper layer of Blake’s flesh.

  “But you stole it from me and lost it. All odds say I won’t find it.”

  “You won’t find it because you’ll be dead,” Blake hissed.

  “Fool,” Svarikson said. He tightened his grip on his axe.

  Blake clenched his eyes shut, so tight colours whirled in his eyelids. He focused on his hands and nothing else, chasing the fiendsmoke with Honour. It was almost there…it just needed one last push.

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  His Honour swelled. More was flooding in. The indignance, the misbehaviour of Svarikson, his need to protect Ethbin—his loyalty to the ring. And then better yet, the crowd watching him. Starting to favour him. Was that worth? It was hard to say with all the other sources of Honour, but it made sense. He was standing up to Svarikson. Even if the man had his excuses, people saw through it. Everyone knew Svarikson, knew what he was like.

  Blake pushed the fiendsmoke faster. His heart thrummed. His meridians vibrated, widening like a blood vessel in the summer sun, allowing more Honour through their channels. The impending death was a good enough reason to expand. With a shout, he blasted through the last of the agony in his fingers.

  Something resonated in the back of his mind, then spread through his entire body. His bones became windchimes, and a subtle pulse of force rolled off his skeleton. The burning sensation disappeared, the vibrating stopped.

  All that was left was a stable skeleton—the foundations of a mountain. His fists were rock. He was pretty sure his rank seal shifted and changed to display two stars, but he couldn’t see it.

  Svarikson was strong. He was heavy. But he didn’t know that Blake had an Augmentation technique.

  Blake’s eyes opened wide. His extensive use of Honour made them flare bright orange.

  The man pulled his head back slightly, but he wasn’t fast enough. Blake filled his veins with Honour, Augmenting his entire arm and springboarding off his muscle and heart meridians. He snapped his hand back. Knuckles as hard and unbreakable as steel slammed into Svarikson’s nose. The man stumbled back, gasping.

  When the weight of his boot lifted off Blake’s back, Blake jumped up to his feet, then snatched up his staff.

  “Wha…” Svarkson gurgled, nursing his broken nose. Blood dribbled down his chin.

  Blake glanced around. He knew he had to kill Svarikson. The man would keep coming after him, no matter what he said in public.

  It was a good thing Svarikson began whirling his axe, preparing to strike. He was coming back for more. Blake lifted up his staff with a kick and grabbed it in both hands. His left arm, which Svarikson had hit with the axe-swipe, was going limp and numb. Blood dribbled down his bicep and beaded beneath his fingernails.

  But Blake countered the weakening effect with Augmentation.

  Svarikson swiped and slashed with his axe, whirling the weapon around in a circle. It trailed water behind it. The liquid churned on the cutting edge, giving it a sharper, more destructive bite to it, and increased its speed.

  Blake blocked every strike. He was expecting them to shatter his staff even with a glancing blow, but as promised, it was infinitely more durable than a regular shaft of wood.

  He needed an opening. He fought his way closer to Svarikson, breaking into striking range, and forcing the man to take hold of the axe by its haft. Blake never let it strike his staff head-on yet, because that would surely break it. He matched the man’s speed with his Augmentation, countered the immense strength of a Body Tempering Five cultivator with his own techniques.

  And when he saw his opportunity, he took it.

  Svarikson aimed a blow at Blake’s chest. Blake let it hit. He let the axe strike his ribs, the enhanced water crack against his bone. It would’ve been a fatal blow for anyone else, but Blake knew his new bones could take it. There were still hairline fractures in his rib. They were agonizingly painful.

  He was alive, Svarikson’s technique hadn’t worked, and that was all that mattered.

  But what Svarikson didn’t see was Blake’s staff whirling in from the side. Blake still had two aftershocks ready in the staff. One collided with Svarkson’s temple with an icy blast. Skin froze and shattered, and bone cracked.

  Shouting, Blake spun away, built momentum, and slammed his staff into the other side of Svarikson’s head. Augmentation combined with Wind-Eyes’ technique drills and the aftershock of the Black Palm broke through even Svarikson’s enhanced bone.

  Svarikson had nowhere near as good of a skeleton as Blake had made for himself. It was an average cultivator’s.

  Svarikson’s skull shattered. A chunk of it broke free along the trajectory of Blake’s staff, and then the man fell still, the contents of his head leaking out onto the ground.

  Blake stumbled back, panting, then fell back on his hands. The crowd stared at him in shock, and hundreds of voices whispered in surprise and amusement. A moment later, they parted, allowing a cluster of red-garbed hunters through, with Ulfreld at the lead.

  “What happened here?” Ulfreld demanded.

  “This man accused Junior Brother Bjarke of thievery," Sclera said. “And tried to kill him. Our sect member defended himself honourably.”

  “You could’ve helped,” Blake gasped through clenched teeth. The pain of reforging his bones might have been gone, but that didn’t mean the pain of his wounds didn’t disappear. One of his ribs was fractured. Every breath was agony.

  “I could not have,” Sclera said. “That business was between you and him.”

  Ulfreld grumbled something, then dismissed Sclera. “It should have been imperative that you were under my protection, even to Sclera…” he said softly. Then, more loudly, he addressed the crowd: “This man is under the protection of the Red Pine Hunters’ Sect, understood? His disagreement with Svarikson has passed, and as a sect elder, I declare him innocent of whatever Svarikson may have accused him of.”

  The crowd slowly began dispersing, glancing at each other and murmuring softly.

  Blake inched closer to Ulfreld and whispered, “Sir, why didn’t you do that before? I mean…being under your protection would’ve been pretty helpful.”

  “I assumed it was implied,” Ulfreld said. “How the Red Pines’ influence has already decayed, it seems…”

  Blake grimaced. “What about the thugs?”

  “They were not a direct threat,” Ulfreld said. “Now—”

  A wave of distant exclamations rolled through the crowd, and people began parting, giving way. A deep voice rang out, louder than the rest of the voices, shouting, “Ulfreld? What is the meaning of this?”