Blake wasn’t in perfect condition the next morning. His arm had regained some feeling, but moving it was still a pain. He could feel severed muscle slipping against itself, sliding around and generally feeling more uncomfortable than outright painful. He pushed Honour through the limb, and though it wouldn’t help heal it yet, the rush of black, misty fire helped him mitigate the discomfort.

  And wrapping it tight with a bandage always helped, even if it was only in his mind.

  It was hard to look on the bright side, but his ribs had returned to perfect condition. His entire skeleton was iron.

  As soon as he was ready, he reported to Ulfreld. The Elder handed him a new shirt and trousers. “For the fight, Junior Brother. You must look presentable.”

  Blake took them and nodded thankfully. “But…uh, I couldn’t help noticing this shirt is blue.”

  The elder snorted, then patted Blake on the shoulder—his uninjured shoulder. “Consider it a gift that will last you beyond your time in the sect. We know you’re not Hunter material. Indeed, you’re probably not even meant for Shell. I don’t know what you’re meant for, but it’s not wallowing in the shadow of a dying sect, lumped with all our troubles.”

  Holding up the shirt, Blake let it unfurl. Much like Heron’s shirt, this one had a v-neck with twine criss-crossing back and forth across it. Runes ran around the bottom of the shirt and around the collar.

  Blake began, “If you feel guilty for getting me into this—”

  “It’s not about guilt, Junior Brother,” Ulfreld insisted. “It’s about doing the right thing. Now you get out there and do your best. We will speak when it’s done…if we can.”

  If Blake wasn’t dead.

  Blake quickly put the shirt on, then tried to fill the runes. He half expected them to be fake, but instead of just being embroidered on (as fake runes were), they had been etched and burnt into the fabric.

  When he fuelled them, like he was exerting claim over his elixir, they activated. As a test, when he walked outside into the plaza, he dipped his arm in a puddle. The water absorbed into the shirt like it was the most absorbent fabric ever. “What…?” he breathed.

  Then he remembered that his Honour made mana runes function opposite. He tried fuelling them in reverse, and the water whisked off the shirt like it was made of wax. No mud stuck to it whatsoever.

  He walked with a group of Hunters up to the edge of one of the raised fighting platforms, and slowly, more eyes drifted toward him. The morning crowd, which was especially thick today, began muttering and murmuring.

  “You’ll do fine, Junior Brother,” Froskur said.

  “You would be wise to surrender,” Iver added. “Silverbeard will not take kindly to you attacking his fiancé.”

  “They shouldn’t have made her their champion, then. Slimy bastards.” Blake sighed. He reached into his pocket, where the Honour Ring remained. Ethbin was silent, but Blake knew he was there, watching everything play out.

  “Best of luck,” Konuth said. “You will need it.”

  Blake glanced over the gathered crowd. Sclera stood with Ulfreld, looking grumpy as ever. Ulfreld himself held the hilt of one of his swords and thumbed the pommel nervously. Deeper in the crowd, Heron Silverbeard stood. A small circle had formed around him, with people trying to stay as far as possible from him.

  Blake climbed up a ladder at the edge of the platform and swung up on top, then rose up to his full height on the platform. It was about thirty paces across, and the beams had a spongy give to them that promised a slightly less painful fall.

  He lifted his staff up and twirled it into an upright position, then tucked it behind his back. On the opposite side of the platform, his opponent already stood at the ready.

  She was a Blended—a tiger-blend, with black-striped orange hair and rounded ears. He raised his eyebrows first at that, then at the fact that she wasn’t wearing Green Bear armour, like most of the other fighters. Instead, she’d donned practical, simple trousers with a few straps overtop to hold a throwing knife on each leg, and bandolier across her body with three knives tucked into it as well. A green strip of fabric wrapped tight around her upper body, but Blake could see a decent slice of her midriff.

  It looked normal. Just normal.

  Not fair, he thought. That I have to be covered in scales, but the tiger just gets away with funky hair and cat ears.

  No matter how much he hated to admit it, that made him instantly dislike her.

  Then she opened her mouth and said, “You’re the Red Pines’ Champion?” giving him a more grounded reason to dislike her. That tone of voice, the perfectly practiced cadence, the complete lack of sneer or any meaningful emotion.

  He hated it because he couldn’t just dislike her off the bat.

  “You know me?” he asked.

  “I’ve seen you around. I like to know my potential enemies.”

  He scrunched his eyebrows. “I think I saw you around maybe once or twice, but—”

  Before he could finish, Heron shouted, “Begin!”

  Blake moved backward defensively, waiting to see what she would do. She drew both daggers from her thigh sheaths and gripped them by the tips of their blades. The edges rippled. A Smite technique rippled down the blades, but he couldn’t tell how it worked. It was like the daggers themselves were getting sharper, like the splitting force on their blades was concentrating and increasing.

  He was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to use lethal force. He was also pretty sure no one would care if he got killed. The same would not apply if he killed this woman.

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  “Attack, Mingel!” Heron yelled from the crowd.

  Her name was Mingel? Or was it some other code?

  But she looked like a ‘Mingel.’ He couldn’t explain it, something about the name just fit, so that was what he decided to call her.

  She whipped one of the daggers. It cracked through the air with a thunderous boom, but he evaded it with a small spin to the side. The dagger pierced the wood of the platform up to its hilt and stuck in. The boards around it splintered from the force of the impact.

  “Well, Mingel, that wasn’t very nice, was it?” Blake said, forcing a smile. “You could have killed me.”

  “Silence.”

  “I dunno who you are,” Blake said. “But I’m already in massive trouble with one of the most important people here, so I don’t think it can get much worse by—”

  She threw another dagger. This time, he jumped over it, spreading his legs apart in the splits midair. He wasn’t as flexible as he’d been in his elementary school days, but training with Wind-Eyes helped. The maneuver kinda looked ridiculous—at least Blake thought so—but the dagger flew clean under him, and a muted laugh rolled through the crowd.

  At that, Blake’s worth surged, and Honour rolled through his siphon.

  Mingel, however, had aimed low. Instead of thundering off into the distance, her dagger pierced the wood at the edge of the platform and stuck in.

  “Aw, aiming low,” Blake said. “You really don’t want to kill me?”

  She was probably just trying to preserve her knives. As best he could see, she had five of them, but that could run out quickly if she ended up throwing them across Mergewatch.

  “Silence!” she snapped again.

  “Why’s that?”

  “I cannot—”

  Blake charged forward while she was slightly distracted. It wasn’t fair, but he needed to win, not have a friendly chat. Surely, she had more experience than him.

  Drawing a dagger from her bandolier, Mingel blocked one of Blake’s initial attacks, but the force of the blow pushed her out of the arena’s center. She stumbled back, then whirled around and threw the dagger.

  Blake ducked under it, but only barely. It nicked one of his horns, cleaving off a chunk of keratin before spinning off across the platform.

  He took stock of his situation as quickly as he could: he was stronger than her physically, but she was faster than him. He didn’t know about durability. All he had going for him was his Augmentation techniques, and the fact that last night, he’d prepared five aftershocks in his staff in case he needed it.

  “You’re pretty good at that,” he said. “Been throwing knives a lot?”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I wasn’t. I was just asking—”

  While he was talking, she threw her last two knives one after another. Sneaky, turning his tricks against him.

  Blake didn’t have time to dodge the first, so he activated his Augmentation technique and swatted one out of the air, giving himself the speed and strength to deflect it. It wasn’t just a knife. It hit with the strength of a cannonball, and it threatened to tear a gash through his staff’s wood even by touching the flat of the blade.

  The second dagger flew clean over his shoulder, but he flicked the tip of his staff up and caught its tip. He sent it tumbling off the platform and into the crowd. They parted, and it hit the dirt harmlessly.

  Mingel had four daggers left.

  Already, his injuries from yesterday were catching up with him. His chest heaved, and his shoulder was bleeding again. It didn’t stain the shirt Ulfreld had given him, but it was dribbling down his fingers.

  He had to end this soon.

  While he had been distracted, Mingel dove to the other side of the platform and recovered the daggers she’d thrown, grabbing up the remaining four of them.

  Much to his displeasure, the fight didn’t end quickly. He tried to avoid using his arms, and instead favoured dodging and evading with jumps and aerials. Once, he’d taken a direct hit. A dagger flew right at his chest as soon as he landed. Its tip raced toward his chest. The tip sliced his shirt and parted his flesh with ease, but it came up against his reforged sternum and stopped. The wedge of force tried to part his enhanced bone, and it dug a half centimeter in before stalling and falling to the platform. It hurt, and it sent him skidding backward, but his lungs were safe.

  “You tried to kill me,” he said.

  “Or I knew you could survive that,” she countered.

  This time, both of them were too exhausted to attack and interrupt the other. They circled for a few seconds before attacking again.

  Each passing second, frustration grew on Mingel’s face and fear glimmered in her eyes. He knocked a second throwing knife off the platform, she carved a slit in his staff and landed a gash along his cheek and thigh. He countered with a jab. It struck her in the chest, and he used an aftershock to wind her. It probably would’ve killed a regular Tempering stage two cultivator, but her bones were stronger than that.

  Whatever she’d done to enhance her body, she was the prized disciple for a reason.

  Blake wanted to be mad. He wanted to hate her, but he just couldn’t, not really. Of everyone he’d fought so far, she was the only one who hadn’t chosen to fight him. She’d probably been put up to this.

  “What happens if you lose?” Blake panted.

  “You’ll die. Heron will kill you.”

  “But what happens to you?”

  “Why do you care? No cultivators ever care.” She jumped back and pulled one of her knives out of the wood. It was the only dagger she had on-hand. The others were on the other side of the platform, behind Blake.

  “Well, I’m not the average cultivator.” He leaned back, and the dagger sailed over his chest. It flew high and shot off into the city with a roll of thunder.

  Blake held up his fingers. “Two left. And they’re both on the other side of the platform.”

  “I manage,” Mingel snapped. “I always do. With everything.”

  Blake sighed. He wasn’t going to get a straight answer, but he had a few guesses of what would happen if she lost. Heron didn’t seem the type to take kindly to defeat.

  The problem was, Blake’s will to live screamed louder.

  When Mingel charged forward, trying to slip between his legs and get to her daggers, he planted his staff down on her ankle, then swung around his staff and kicked her in the shoulder with both feet. Skidding and tumbling, Mingel slid to the edge of the arena.

  Blake sprang off with Augmented legs and rushed toward her. Before she could get up, he pressed his knee into her back and held his staff against her neck. “Come on, just yield. You don’t have to die…”

  Aside from the fact that he didn’t want to make things worse for himself, Mingel really hadn’t done anything to deserve death—except exist, and be slightly less Blended than him, which really wasn’t a good reason. It was a reason regular cultivators would use.

  Blake clenched his eyes shut, trying not to look at her. Fates, he knew how this looked—him pinning a woman who looked about his age, and her being kinda pretty and all, and—

  “Enough!” Heron shouted. “Let her go! She yields!”

  Blake breathed a sigh of relief and pushed Mingel to the side. She rubbed her throat and glared at him, and the sheer anger in her eyes made him want to take back everything he’d just thought. But he didn’t.

  The crowd parted around Heron, and he marched up to the edge of the platform. “What kind of monster have you created, Ulfreld?”