"I’m pleased. I had worried you might lose your nerve and flee."
Jorghan stepped into the arena proper, feeling the sand shift beneath his feet. This was different from the training grounds—deeper sand, less stable footing, more treacherous. Intentional, undoubtedly.
"I don’t run from my mitments," Jorghan replied, keeping his voice level.
"mitments." El’ran smiled, cold and terrible.
"Is that what you call the lie you and Sarhita constructed? Tell me, half-blood, did you truly think I would believe you’d pleted a mating bond in mere days?"
"Does it matter what you believe?" Jorghan countered.
"The challenge has been issued and accepted. Everything else is just words."
"True enough," El’ran acknowledged. He drew his weapon—a curved blade that seemed to be forged from a single piece of metal that shifted colors in the light, red to gold to amber. "Then let us move past words to the more honest language of bat."
A clan elder stepped forward, an older female elf with silver-white hair and eyes that had faded to pale amber with age.
Her voice, when she spoke, carried the weight of absolute authority.
"This challenge is witnessed by representatives of the main clans. bat is to submission or death, as agreed. No interference will be tolerated. Magic and physical bat are both permitted. Begin when ready."
She stepped back, and suddenly the arena felt much larger and much smaller simultaneously. Just Jorghan, El’ran, and the sand between them.
"e then, boy," El’ran said softly.
"Show me what you learned in your single week of preparation. Show me whether Sarhita’s faith in you was justified or fatally misplaced."
Jorghan settled into the opening stance of Kir’stalan, feeling the flow of the form settle into his bones. The bracelet on his wrist pressed against his skin, a tangible reminder. The blood-red dot in his consciousness pulsed steadily, the system monitoring every variable.
[bat Initiated]
[Opponent Analysis: EXTREME THREAT LEVEL]
[Remended Strategy: Defensive patience, wait for openings, conserve energy]
[Bloodborne Rage: 0% - Locked unless manually released]
[All bat skills: ACTIVE]
He frowned deeply; extreme threat level. The system hadn’t given such a warning before, and it made him apprehensive of the elf standing before him.
Jorghan took a breath, centered himself, and met El’ran’s amber gaze with steady determination.
"I’m ready," he said.
And the ancient elf moved.
The morning sun blazed overhead, turning the desert sand into a furnace that would have killed a normal person within hours. But the assembled clans had gathered anyway, representatives from several different clans settling into the tiered seating carved into stone over millennia.
Word had spread through the red elf munities with the speed of wildfire—the patriarch of Nue’roka was about to face a half-blood challenger, a duel that would determine not just the fate of one woman but the honor and political standing of multiple clans.
It was never done before, an outsider fighting an official duel with a patriarch and drawing the attention of the prominent, too.
Jorghan stood in the center of the arena floor, barefoot on sand that still held echoes of countless past battles.
[Mana - 580%]
[Bloodborne Rage initiated]
El’ran didn’t waste time with posturing. He moved forward with the speed of someone who’d fought ten thousand duels, his blade sweeping in a horizontal arc that would have bisected a normal person cleanly at the waist.
Jorghan sidestepped with minimal movement, letting the blade pass inches from his body. The displaced air created a visible shockwave that rippled outward, causing sand to rise in a small cyclone.
"First move to the challenger," someone muttered in the crowd.
But El’ran wasn’t done.
He transitioned smoothly from the horizontal sweep into a vertical slash aimed at Jorghan’s head, then immediately pivoted into a thrust designed to catch his opponent if they tried to dodge backwards. It was a bination taught to elite swordsmen—a three-part attack that covered escape routes in multiple directions.
Jorghan blocked the vertical slash with his forearm, feeling the impact as a sharp sting despite putting up a barrier.
The blade bit into his skin, drawing blood, but blood didn’t flow out of the slashed wound, and it was healing quickly, and for a moment, El’ran’s expression flickered with surprise.
Then Jorghan rotated his forearm, moving with the blade rather than against it, and used the ancient Kir’stalan techniques Sarhita had taught him. He redirected El’ran’s own momentum, spinning in a tight circle that used the patriarch’s strength as the driving force for a counterattack.
He drove his elbow backwards toward El’ran’s face with devastating speed.
The older elf saw it ing and abandoned his thrust, instead raising his blade to block. The impact of Jorghan’s elbow meeting the flat of the sword created a shockwave visible to everyone watching—a ripple of pressed air that tore across the arena and sent sand flying in both directions.
It seemed like a simple clash, but the shockwave it radiated stunned the audience.
The crowd gasped as both batants were forced backwards by their own collision’s rebound effect, sliding several feet across the arena floor.
"Better than expected," El’ran acknowledged, respect flickering briefly in his amber eyes before being replaced by cold determination.
"But not good enough."
He advanced again, and this time his attacks came faster, harder and more plex. In that sense, he changed the trajectory of his blade when he moved back.
The curved blade flowed like water, each stroke a masterpiece of technical execution refined through centuries of practice. He wove between strikes with the grace of a born killer, bining sword techniques with bursts of magical force that he channelled through the blade itself.
Jorghan fought defensively, using Kir’stalan’s principle of flowing with attacks rather than meeting them head-on. He redirected, evaded, and countered with minimal explosive force. It was exhausting work, playing the role of the outclassed challenger while internally analysing every aspect of El’ran’s technique.
The patriarch was incredibly skilled.
His sword work was flawless, his footwork perfect, and his magical control impeccable.
Behind all these perfect flow sequences, there was something that Jorghan noticed.
It was the patterns, one refined over seven centuries into something almost mechanical in its precision. He favoured certain binations, returned to particular techniques when pressed, and telegraphed his most devastating strikes with subtle shifts in his stance.
Weaknesses.
Every fighter, no matter how skilled, had them.
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