The dust had finally settled down around the dungeon. The fall was brutal, and the heavy iron bars had been knocked badly out of shape due to the sheer impact of the body flying into them.
With seven chakras hovering ominously in the air, Lord Namor slowly approached the dungeon entrance.
His legs were trembling from accumulated damage, and a thin stream of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, but Araegon forced himself to stand up with the help of the bent dungeon bars.
A stark blue imprint marred his chest—the lingering signature of the brutal punch he had just endured.
And I was thinking to myself: How is he even going to win this? I know he's supposed to make it out, but how? Did Kit misread the signs, or was he confusing him with somebody else entirely?
"Don't you have anything more, Araegon?" Lord Namor cried out across the arena.
"Don't be a disappointment. Show me something! Show me your Zenkaichi ability, show me something—anything!"
"If you won't show me, I'll make you show me!"
With that declaration, the seven chakras began spinning and hovering in erratic directions, completely devoid of any predictable sequence.
If those chakras attacked from every angle simultaneously, calculating and dodging all of their trajectories would be mathematically impossible.
To my utter surprise, however, Araegon didn't wait for the chakras to launch their assault. Instead, he exploded upward into the air with terrifying force.
The vertical leap was monstrous; he landed with a deafening boom directly on top of Namor.
It was a staggering sight. Namor managed to brace and block the crushing weight of Araegon's descent, but the ground beneath their feet cracked and splintered from the sheer kinetic force of the impact.
The entire stadium seemed to shudder before the two fighters violently bounced away from one another.
Eager to close out the match, Namor whipped his hand forward to direct the swarm of chakras straight toward Araegon. But before the blades could converge, Araegon vaulted into the sky once more.
He was repeating the exact same maneuver—launching himself high into the stratosphere and diving down toward Namor from above. Using his spring-loaded, grasshopper-like legs—which I could only assume was his true Zenkaichi ability—he was weaponizing gravity.
It was a clever tactic to bypass the floating chakras and deal heavy aerial pressure, but it had a glaring flaw. It was essentially a stalling strategy; Namor simply blocked or sidestepped the dive every single time without taking meaningful damage.
He was going to burn through his stamina at this rate. Even from my distance, I could see Araegon's breathing turning ragged and heavy with every jump, compounding the severe injuries he had sustained just moments before.