Tormund tightened his grip on both swords.

  Dane tried to create distance, boots skidding through the sand as he retreated, but his mana pool was nearly dry. There was no room left for cleverness, no space for control. He decided without thinking and leaned into speed instead.

  To a spectator without a fast-motion capture crystal, the fight would have vanished entirely. Their steel blurred. They were moving faster than even a B-rank eye could track, two afterimages colliding and separating in violent flashes.

  Tormund didn't give him time for a complete transformation, but Dane forced it anyway. Scales rippled across his forearms and shoulders just in time to blunt the worst of the impact as the blades crashed into him.

  They tore across the arena.

  Every parry cost blood. Every block vibrated through his bones. Each red drop that struck the sand was another subtraction from his HP. Dane dragged in a breath.

  He almost never thought about his stamina. Mana usually failed long before his body did. But now, under constant pressure, he felt it draining fast. The edges of his vision narrowed, and his muscles burned.

  If it emptied, he'd start burning HP.

  And then it would be over.

  "You know," Tormund said, voice calm even as his blades hammered Dane backward, "I'm glad you won."

  A smirk tugged at his mouth.

  "A man of flesh and blood makes for a better opponent than a cyborg."

  Steel clashed again.

  "If a man must be rebuilt to stand," Tormund continued, almost idly, "then he never deserved legs in the first place."

  Ryn flashed through Dane's mind. But beneath that was something else, something closer. The feeling of his core being torn apart and forged. The thought made his cadence miss a beat.

  His movements grew wild. Tormund punished every wasted step, every overextension, every desperate strike.

  "I thought you were a rational man," Tormund said as he drove Dane back again. "Especially after I killed your city. This was supposed to be a civilized duel."

  There was no mirth in his voice.

  The short blade slipped past Dane's guard.

  And then everything went black.

  Dane's core anchored his soul to the physical plane.

  He wasn't an expert in dying, but he'd done it more than most. He'd expected warmth and the presence of people he'd lost.

  Instead, there was only the shroud.

  "Child of Aon," a voice said, rich and amused. "I hadn't expected our next meeting so soon."

  Dane groaned.

  "Yeah. I'd have been fine if we never met again."

  The astral being laughed, deep and genuine.

  "So dramatic. This isn't a purgatory. You still carry renewal in your core. You can afford a few deaths yet.... with only slight consequences."

  "Great," Dane muttered. "Then send me back. I have a fight to finish."

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  "Before you go," the being said, tone shifting into something more serious, "a word of advice."

  Dane looked up.

  "You are fighting a man at the absolute peak of the Legionnaire system. And yet, you are not bound the way he is. You are an ascendant."

  The words pressed against him.

  "Stop fighting like a mortal," the being continued. "Stop asking permission. Bend the world to your will. You are free from any system."

  It paused for a moment in a way that a being as old as time could.

  "Even the one you bound half your soul to."

  Dane felt the coarse grit of sand against his cheek.

  His lungs burned as air tore back into them.

  Tormund didn't give him time to recover.

  The long blade slashed through the air. Dane rolled left, barely avoiding the cut. Stone exploded behind him as part of the stadium sheared away.

  The Shroud had been right.

  He could feel it now; his core wasn't just a reservoir. It wasn't just fuel. He wasn't even using a fraction of it.

  Tormund closed the distance.

  The long blade came in low and fast, meant to take Dane's legs out from under him before he could reset. Dane didn't dodge. He didn't block.

  He stepped into it.

  The sword slowed slightly. Not enough for a spectator to notice. Not enough for the crowd to react. Just enough that Dane's boot found purchase where it shouldn't have, the sand compacting unnaturally beneath his weight.

  The blade passed where his knee had been. Tormund frowned.

  The short sword followed immediately, aimed for Dane's throat. Dane raised his hand on instinct, too slowly. The strike missed anyway.

  It slid past his jaw, close enough to cut air, but the space it should have occupied shimmered with something just beyond sight. It wasn't teleportation or even blinking. The air around Dane was a Domain.

  Tormund withdrew both blades and took a step back.

  He didn't look surprised. He looked… alive.

  Dane, for the first time in the fight, began to control the tempo. He swung in an overhead chop, and the sheer force of it was enough to strike Tormund before the blade ever arrived.

  Tormund slid back a half step.

  But it happened.

  Dane didn't think about it. Didn't chase the moment. He just kept moving, cutting away wasted motion, letting instinct guide him. The pickaxe rose and fell in short, efficient arcs. No flourish. No overreach.

  Tormund adjusted quickly, countering harder, faster. The long blade drove down, the short sword cutting across in a killing cross meant to overwhelm by precision alone.

  Dane caught the long blade on the haft of his pickaxe. And held it without a grunt.

  The weapon screamed as it stalled, vibrating violently as if the strike itself wanted to finish but couldn't. The short sword came as a follow-up... and struck nothing.

  Tormund disengaged, boots carving a shallow trench as he retreated.

  His eyes locked on Dane.

  "What is this?" he said quietly.

  Dane didn't answer.

  He stepped inside the opening. The pickaxe came up and struck Tormund square in the chest.

  There was no explosion. No flare of light. No system announcement.

  Tormund was driven backward, sand parting beneath his heels as he slid to a stop several paces away. The arena fell silent, cracks racing outward from where he stood.

  Dane stayed upright, blood still running down his side, lungs burning.

  The fight had changed.

  Tormund straightened slowly. A thin line of blood traced down from beneath his armor.

  He smiled.

  "Good," he said.

  Then he raised both blades.

  And Dane knew that it wouldn't take long now.

  Tormund lunged.

  The seasoned duelist had no caution left. Both blades came in at once, the long sword cleaving downward while the short blade drove for Dane's throat.

  Dane stepped inside the strike.

  The world compressed.

  Tormund's blades slowed as they crossed into Dane's reach, lines of perfect intent breaking apart as the space around Dane rejected them. Dane turned the long blade aside and drove forward, shoulder-first.

  The blow landed square in Tormund's chest, and the impact folded him.

  Armor shattered inward. Ribs crushed under the force. Tormund was lifted off his feet and slammed into the sand hard enough to leave a shallow crater beneath him. He coughed, blood spilling freely as he tried and failed to rise.

  Dane was on him in an instant.

  The pickaxe head pressed to Tormund's throat, the edge biting just enough to draw a thin, trembling line of red. One more inch and it would be over.

  The arena held its breath.

  Tormund looked up at him, blood on his lips, eyes still sharp.

  "Do it," he said hoarsely. "Give me a warrior's death."

  Dane's grip tightened.

  For a moment that felt longer than it was, the arena waited.

  "No," Dane said.

  The word was quiet and final.

  Tormund's eyes flicked, not to Dane, but to the stands. Understanding settled in. Dane stepped back.

  The crowd surged forward in a wave of sound and steel. Shouts became screams. Blades rang against stone as Legion soldiers and spectators alike poured into the arena, fury long restrained finally unleashed.

  Tormund tried to rise.

  He made it up halfway, but the crowd reached him too fast. Steel fell. Again. And again.

  There was no glory in it. No final stand. Just bodies piling in, striking until the movement stopped.

  Dane turned away before it finished.

  Behind him, Tormund screamed, raw and unrestrained, the last of his composure stripped away.

  "You can't do this to me."

  Dane didn't look back as he left the arena.