The fight was over, but the mood in the arena hadn't calmed down for a long while yet. Arthurs had won, but the way he carried his victory felt colder than the blow itself that had brought his opponent down. Without pausing for even a moment or paying his opponent any respect, he turned away and walked back to the stands with calm, even steps, as if this fight had never held any real meaning for him.
While the spectators' reactions mixed between loud cheers, shocked silence, and scattered discontent, the elf of the seven legends stepped forward and began speaking a formula in a calm voice, its sound drawing through the arena like a fine, barely visible current. In the next moment the warding circle appeared once more beneath Ogor, and although he had just been barely able to breathe from the pain, his body was healed in a single breath of the Aether, so that his wounds vanished as if they had never existed.
Ogor slowly straightened up, but unlike before, there was no more fighting spirit in his gaze, only a heavy, quiet realization. Head lowered, he stared at the ground, fully aware of his defeat, while he summoned all his strength to hold back the tears gathering in his eyes. Still, he remained steadfast, forced himself to calm down, and finally began walking, step by step, back toward the crowd.
On the way there, something happened that he clearly hadn't expected—cheers broke out from the rows of his own kind, loud and genuine. For a moment he didn't understand what was happening. Confused, he glanced to the side, while only a single question formed in his mind.
He had lost, hadn't he?
So why were they cheering?
But this people wasn't celebrating only victory. They were celebrating courage, resistance, endurance, even when everything seemed lost. As ruthless as they might appear toward others, that's how strong their bond was among themselves, and it showed clearly now, as they honored Ogor not for his victory, but for his fight.
Nouel watched the scene in silence for a moment before turning slightly toward Alvios and Viktoria. His voice grew quieter, but gained depth.
"If you want to win this tournament, be prepared—from now on, you'll only be fighting opponents like that."
Alvios and Viktoria immediately turned serious and nodded, without wasting another word. They had understood: from this point on, no more mistakes would be forgiven, and every fight could decide between life and defeat.
The king raised his voice again.
"Well then… time for the next round."
With a calm motion he reached into the drawing jar, but the atmosphere in the arena shifted instantly, as if someone had made the air itself heavier. Alvios felt his impatience mixing with a faint unease—part of him wanted to fight already, while another part still thought of the danger slumbering within himself, one he still hadn't fully learned to control.
The king drew two slips.
A brief moment of silence followed.
Then the drumroll began.
"Valentine and Robert. Step forward!"
Two figures rose from the stands at almost the same moment, yet their movements couldn't have been more different. One leapt without hesitation straight down into the arena, landing with a dull thud; the other walked calmly down the stairs, step by step, controlled and without any haste.
Valentine seemed calm and composed, her posture upright, her movements precise, and the rapier at her side immediately suggested experience and discipline. Robert was the complete opposite: a young orc of tremendous size and raw presence, whose mere appearance created pressure before he had even launched an attack.
Before the king could announce anything, Robert had already drawn his axe and taken a fighting stance. A bead of sweat ran down Valentine's forehead as she murmured quietly:
"Well, this ought to be something…"
Robert grinned broadly, raised his hand in front of his face, and began muttering quiet words that sounded like a personal prayer. The name Orkangri came up—a name that carried weight among orcs, standing for power, war, and blood.
"I won't hold back…" he whispered, barely audible.
The king rolled his eyes slightly and cut him off dryly.
"Are you finally done?"
Robert nodded.
Then it grew quiet. The king's presence shifted, his voice deepening, growing foreign, as the spirits began to speak through him.
"Show us what you've got up in that little head of yours."
The voices merged.
"May the better strategist win."
At that same moment, the arena began to change. The ground split open, shifted, and rose anew, until finally two towers formed, on which Valentine and Robert stood facing each other. Between them, a checkered field of black and white squares took shape, threaded through with Aether that began taking form and creating figures—warriors made of pure light and shadow, each the size of a child, each carrying its own barely perceptible presence.
Valentine looked down. Then she smiled.
"We're playing chess."
In that moment every trace of uncertainty vanished from her posture, and she straightened up slightly. "I am Valentine Luxtrena, strategist in training and right hand of Twylmir."
Robert crossed his arms. "Robert Anak Kruga."
Beside each of them an hourglass appeared, its fine stream of sand beginning to run without pause.
And with that, no ordinary fight began, but a war that would be decided not with blades, but with thought.
Up in the stands, hardly anyone understood what was truly unfolding. Even the king stroked his beard thoughtfully and muttered something that sounded more like an attempt to seem wise than genuine understanding.
"Most impressive…"
Nouel, on the other hand, had leaned forward slightly, and his gaze carried an entirely different kind of attention. To him, this fight wasn't confusing but fascinating—he recognized the patterns building move by move, long before they became visible to anyone else.
Alvios, meanwhile, screwed up his face. "I don't understand any of this… I used to play this with my old man, but I always lost." His voice grew quieter, his gaze dropping briefly. "He was just too good at it."
Nouel answered dryly, without taking his eyes off the field. "Be glad you don't have to play this one."
What followed didn't need to be understood by anyone who had never pushed a piece across a board themselves—one only had to watch how the two of them did it. Valentine moved her troops with the composure of a commander who already knew how the battle would end before the first stone even fell. Every one of her orders came calm, almost casual, and every one of her figures obeyed with a curt "Yes, my commander," which even after several moves still drew a small, irritated furrow of her brow—the constructs felt that alive, even though they were shaped from nothing but Aether.
Robert played differently. He played the way he fought: direct, with raw force, every move an advance, every piece a battering ram. His warriors moved sluggishly, almost crudely, a mirror of his own style—and that was exactly where his weakness lay, because while he treated the game like a frontal assault, Valentine wove a net, piece by piece, that slowly but inexorably closed around him.
Time began working for her—against him. Where Valentine placed her moves almost instinctively, without pause, without visible hesitation, Robert took longer and longer to decide. The sand trickled relentlessly through the hourglass beside him, and even the spectators, who didn't understand a single word of the actual moves, could see how the pressure gnawed at him: fists clenching tighter, jaw tensing, his gaze wandering more and more often to the trickling hourglass instead of the field.
Then came the moment that tipped the match.
One of Robert's bishops broke through Valentine's line with a leap that made the entire stands hold their breath. Her knight suddenly stood completely unprotected, directly within his reach—even Alvios could tell something wasn't right, even though he didn't understand the exact details.
Nouel sat up, a faint smile on his lips. "Now it gets interesting."
Valentine saw the threat immediately. But instead of reacting hastily, she let the tension hang for a single heartbeat before answering with the same clarity as before—a countermove that reversed the pressure with a single stroke of the pen. Suddenly she was no longer the one who had to react.
It was Robert.
And it was exactly at that moment that the match truly began to turn.
"You surprise me, Robert," Valentine said finally, her voice neither mocking nor admiring, but a sober observation. "I'd have rated you higher than that, for an orc."
Robert's face twisted, but he didn't let himself be shaken. "If I were you, I'd hurry. You're running out of time."
Valentine raised her arm slightly, as if not even taking his words seriously. "I have plenty of time."
Robert threw himself into one final major advance with all his strength—his knight charged deep into her ranks, and a murmur ran through the arena as the cry of "Check!" echoed through the space. Every gaze turned to Valentine, who now appeared to be cornered.
Robert lifted his chin slightly. "Well, Valentine. What are you going to do now?"
But instead of falling into panic, she merely touched her forehead briefly and let a small, almost weary smile show, as if she had been waiting exactly for this moment.
"Are you stupid?" she said quietly, without raising her voice.
Robert's expression changed. First confusion. Then anger.
Valentine raised her eyes, and this time they held clarity. "I hope you expected more out of that."
Without hesitation, she gave the order. Her queen—the most powerful piece on the entire field, even Alvios knew that—surged forward and destroyed Robert's knight with a single, clean strike, while his Aether form dissolved instantly, leaving only a faint shimmer behind.
Robert said nothing. But his gaze betrayed everything. He had miscalculated.
From that moment on, he truly began to falter. Every one of his advances came a thought too late, every attempt to regain ground only opened another gap, one Valentine immediately pushed through. She gave him no room to breathe, no moment to regroup.
"You know, Robert," she said at some point calmly, already preparing her next strike, "attack is the best defense… but this isn't an attack." A brief pause. "This is just pressure without control."
Robert threw himself forward once more, risking everything on one final, desperate advance with his own queen—a strong move that briefly won him back ground and made the crowd cry "Check!" once again. Valentine bit her lip, not out of fear, but out of concentration, as she took in the situation in a single, clear moment.
Then she made a decision that made even experienced observers pause for a moment.
She sacrificed her own queen.
A clean, controlled move—not an act of desperation, but pure calculation. As Robert's piece struck hers and brought her down, a shadow fell briefly over Valentine's face. Not from doubt, but from the weight of what this move meant: she had deliberately given up power to regain control.
She was still in check.
But this was exactly where the difference showed.
Her king stepped forward. Not hastily. Not fleeing. But with calm resolve. A blade appeared in his hand, shaped from light and memory, and with a single, precise strike he shattered the pawn that had threatened him, as if it had never existed.
"Know your place."
The voice echoed across the field, calm yet carried by an authority that allowed no argument. Up in the stands, the dwarf king had to laugh. "Hoho… worthy of a king."
But the match was far from decided. Both of them knew that. Time kept running, relentless, as they now found themselves in that part of the fight where every mistake was punished instantly—no more great advances, only a grueling struggle over every single square of the field. Rooks pressed forward, cutting off escape routes, knights leapt deep into enemy territory, pawns pushed forward relentlessly. The moves followed each other tighter, faster, yet never chaotic—more like a dance where every step had to land, because a single wrong one would have meant the end.
Then came the breakthrough.
One of Valentine's pawns, unremarkable and long overlooked, pushed step by step through the crumbling defense, while Robert desperately tried to stop it—but every one of his attempts came a move too late, a thought too slow.
The pawn reached the last row.
A brief flash of light. The Aether responded. The piece transformed, grew, changed its shape, until where the simple pawn had stood, a new queen now stood, radiant and untouched.
A murmur ran through the arena.
But Valentine wasn't finished yet. She seized the moment at once, brought her remaining pieces into position, cut off every escape route for Robert's king, and forced him into a corner from which there was no more escape.
Robert moved once more. One last attempt. One last step.
But it wasn't enough.
Valentine raised her hand slightly. Her voice stayed calm.
A single, precise strike from her new queen struck the king right in the heart of the field. No haste. No uncertainty.
The king fell.
Checkmate.
For a brief moment, absolute silence reigned, as if even the arena itself had held its breath, before the crowd reacted with full force and cheers broke through the stands.
The king rose. "The match is decided!" His voice rang through the arena. "The winner is: Valentine Luxtrena!"
Valentine remained standing, calm, composed, without any exaggerated reaction. She only took a deep breath and let her gaze sweep briefly over the now-silent field.
Up in the stands, Nouel leaned back, a small smile on his lips. "Cleanly played."
Raiiko said nothing, but his gaze stayed fixed on the field, as if he weren't just seeing the victory, but everything that lay behind it.
Alvios only shook his head slightly. "That was… no ordinary fight."
Viktoria smiled faintly. "No," she said calmly, "that was control."
And that was exactly the difference. Because in this tournament, it wasn't the strongest who won.
It was whoever kept a cool head.