"Really a shame."
The words barely left his lips before the final strike came down.
The angle was precise. The weight perfect. His blade arced through the air with the full command of someone who'd performed this execution a hundred times across a dozen battlefields.
The contact point?
Lucavion's neck.
An attack on the neck would be enough to register defeat.
And the boy—
He didn't move to dodge.
Didn't raise his sword in panic.
Didn't scream.
He just… smiled.
A crooked thing. Half a sneer. Half something else entirely.
"...Heh..."
And then—he moved.
Not like a student.
Not like someone trapped beneath suppression.
But like a shadow stepping sideways from its body.
Arcten's blade descended, cutting through air, inches from connection—
And met resistance.
CLANG—!
Lucavion's sword rose—too sudden, too sharp—and intercepted the strike at an impossible angle.
