The arena was alive with fire. Not real fire, but the kind born of roars, stomping feet, and an endless sea of eyes watching every twitch of the duelists below.
Shadow exhaled slowly. His arms were already tingling from the shock of Rena's first blows. She wasn't just strong—she was suffocating. Every swing of her halberd carried precision honed by years of killing in this arena.
His gauntlets groaned, cracks spiderwebbing across the plating.
Hold together, he muttered in his mind.
The gauntlet's voice answered, faintly amused. "You break me, and we're both dead."
Rena spun the halberd, dragging the blade across the sand with a metallic hiss. "You're fast, I'll give you that. But speed alone can't keep you alive."
She lunged again.
This time Shadow didn't retreat. He shifted his gauntlets mid-swing, the metal flowing like liquid as the blades folded back and reformed into a pair of tonfa. He crossed them, catching the halberd shaft just inches before it would've split his ribs.
The impact rattled his bones. Rena smirked. "Better."
Her knee shot up.
Shadow barely twisted aside, her strike grazing his hip. He spun with the momentum, tonfa snapping into short blades, slashing twice across her chestplate. Sparks erupted, but the armor held.
The crowd howled with excitement.
Rena retaliated instantly. Her halberd blurred into a storm of thrusts, each faster than the last. To the spectators, it looked like she wielded three weapons at once; to Shadow, it was a blur he could barely follow.
He ducked, deflected, sidestepped. Sweat poured down his face. Each deflection drained his stamina.
She's faster than me in a straight clash… I need to shift the rhythm.
He feinted back, then launched a mana bolt from the gauntlet's crossbow form. Rena batted it aside like a toy.
Another. Deflected.
The third he laced with mana overload—when she swung at it, it exploded, kicking up sand into her eyes.
Shadow closed in immediately, gauntlets snapping into hammer form mid-sprint. He swung downward with everything he had, the weight amplified by a sudden coating of lightning mana.
The sand cratered under the strike.
But Rena wasn't there.
The halberd hooked his hammer mid-swing, redirecting it. Before he could recover, she twisted, driving the blunt end of her weapon into his stomach.
The air left his lungs in a gasp. He staggered back, coughing blood.
"Good trick," she taunted, crimson hair whipping around her face as she advanced. "But tricks don't win wars."
Shadow's vision blurred, but he gritted his teeth. The gauntlets hummed, vibrating against his skin.
"She's better trained, better equipped. But not smarter. You see it too, don't you?"
His eyes flicked across her movements. Her stance. Her recovery time. Her halberd sweeps left her exposed—briefly—but enough.
He tightened his fists. "…Yeah. I see it."
The fight wasn't over. Not yet.