With the end of that battle, the arena had been tense.
The final battle for the day was coming up, and people were of differing opinions.
First, because a damned had proved superior against the most difficult attribute they knew, and the next battle involved a damned.
And as the final battle, they were expecting so much from them.
Before they could even settle their minds, narrow channels cut through the stone floor like decorative veins, glimring beneath their surface with a faint blue light.
The air slled faintly of the ocean, and the temperature of the arena dropped till it felt refreshingly cool against skin.
Appearance spoke a lot about them when they stepped out, and if you failed to make a statent when you ca forward, your morale could drop several hundred ters below redeemability.
The announcer hesitated only a mont before speaking, distracted by the way she moved.
"From the revered halls of the Abyssal Tide Academy… the lady of flowing elegance, Lyssa Neriel!"
Applause erupted. Cheers, whistles, and petals were tossed from the upper stands.
Lyssa walked out calmly and leisurely like soone arriving at a festival, and not a battlefield.
A pale fan hung loosely in one hand, fingers relaxed.
With each movent, thin ribbons of water followed, swirling and srizing. It was difficult to take their eyes off of her, but they did.
The mont he stepped out, the air felt thinner. Dust stirred. The stone looked duller.
The crowd faltered.
"…And from the Iron Monastery… the Damned… Vekran."
The announcer tried to put in so hype with the way he said it, but he couldn't force it well enough.
A ripple of discomfort spread through the audience.
There was no title or praise, and he entered so blandly, it shifted all focus on his odd appearance.
A low, irritated murmur passed through the arena as people shared their thoughts.
His Damned Form was ugly—a tall, hunched humanoid with hard, chitinous plating.
His jointed limbs looked like they were forcefully attached to him, looking too wrong.
A segnted tail dragged behind him, tipped with a crackling red node.
One eye glowed violently, his view reflected in the nurous lenses of his compound eye. The other was nothing but a scarred, clouded wasteland—grey and empty.
For an ant type Damned, his form was rather ugly.
Soone in the crowd scoffed."What a disgusting form."
"Ugh! Is that even allowed in the arena?"
"His na is even ugly."
"He looks like a pest."
Vekran heard every word.
He didn't care.
He stopped several steps from Lyssa and, to the shock of everyone watching, bowed his head.
"You are far stronger than I am," he said with a rattling voice that crackled uncomfortably. "This much is obvious."
The crowd went silent.
Lyssa tilted her head, amused. A faint smile played at her lips.
"…Then surrender," she replied lightly. "Save us both ti." She wasn't being cocky or disrespectful, just stating the obvious.
Vekran lifted his good eye.
"No."
A few confused laughs. filled the emptiness.
"I propose a condition," he said evenly.
"Reduce your power. Fight at a fraction of your true strength, and give fifteen minutes. If I cannot defeat you by then, I will consider myself beaten, and you can use your true strength to defeat ."
The crowd exploded.
"How shaless!" Soone shouted.
"Does he think this is bargaining?" Another said sarcastically.
"Who is he to make demands!?" A third echoed.
"He's scared!" Another laughed.
Lyssa glanced at the people, and Vekran frowned slightly.
"For soone like you, I don't think the comnts of spectators should influence your thoughts. Besides, I don't think you want the final duel of the day to be a boring one."
Lyssa chuckled behind her fan… a soft, beautiful sound.
"I love her!" Soone from the crowd shouted. "Marry !"
She didn't even glance at him, only focusing on Vekran.
"Very well," she agreed to him. "I suppose even an insect deserves a mont in the sun."
The words stung, but he ignored them.
The announcer, after understanding that they were ready, gave the go-ahead.
The drum banged loudly.
Lyssa didn't even move. She just watched him for a while, waiting for his first move.
"Your fifteen minutes have already started," she said, then started to move around.
Each step she took left faint ripples in the stone as thin layers of water coated her path.
The air around her shimred slightly as light refracted, passing through slow-moving streams suspended in invisible patterns.
Vekran lunged at her, his ugly form barreling towards her with the rage of a warrior out for revenge.
He was fast, but Lyssa saw his every move like she was watching a toddler.
A claw slash that could've split a tree in two went for her head, but she was already gone.
She drifted aside effortlessly, gliding on the ripples like a leaf falling in the autumn wind.
She quickly shot at him and twisted her sleeve, brushing his arm as a thin ribbon of water flicked across his plating.
Shnk.
A piece flew off and clattered loudly, the sound drawing all attention.
The crowd gasped, and Vekran froze. He stared at his lost piece, then regrew it, but it was softer this ti.
Lyssa didn't even look at it, but smiled at the regrown piece.
"You can't harden that piece? It's a weak point now," she said.
Vekran didn't reply and attacked again, but Lyssa was smooth with it.
Each ti he attacked, she slipped aside. Each ti, a plate cracked… shattered… torn loose.
His armor was being dismantled piece by piece, like she was dismantling trash, which was how she saw him.
And every ti, he'd regrow a weaker version of it.
Finally, he dropped to one knee, his breathing heavy and raspy
But when Lyssa prepared to attack, Vekran frowned.
"I'm done playing."
He quickly made a complicated hand gesture, and the fallen plates shuddered, scraping over the floor as they dragged themselves back onto his body, fusing into place.
The audience went quiet.
"So you can do that when your life is on the line," Lyssa said, rather to herself.
Her eyes sharpened slightly.
He sounded confident now, but Lyssa wasn't going to give him a chance to pull anything. She began tearing them off rcilessly.
He did all he could to avoid her attacks, but she was in control of the arena, not even allowing him to inhale without taking a hit.
Insects were blessed with compound eyes that enabled them to see clearly and avoid danger, but in a situation where the predator was faster than the insect, this proved rather useless.
"One minute," she murmured to herself.
The crowd started mocking him louder.
"Look at him rebuilding scraps!"
"She's playing with him!"
"Humiliate this pest!"
But then, they noticed that as Lyssa was counting…Vekran was smiling. It was a small smile at the corner of his lips, but enough to disturb anyone who saw it.
The Last Plate fell off, rolling to the center of the arena.
Lyssa walked toward him slowly while counting down.
"…Three… two… one."
Her next strike shattered the final solid plate over his heart.
He froze, then, for the first ti since stepping into the arena, Vekran smiled openly.
"It's all set," he whispered.
"What?"
His eyes glowed, then his hands snapped through a complex formation. This one was different from the first one, and then suddenly, every discarded fragnt of his broken armor ignited with red veins of light
Half of them shot up and launched toward Lyssa.
They wrapped around her limbs, her waist, her shoulders, and her throat.
The rest of the pieces tore around the arena, embedding into the stone in a circular pattern around them both.
A red line connected them all, then the plates began to vibrate.
Heat exploded in the arena as the vibration increased in intensity.
The water in the air evaporated instantly, hissing into mist.
Cracks ripped through the floor, and the channels that held water dried in seconds, leaving dark marks.
Lyssa cried out in pain, knees weakening as blistering heat consud the air around her.
"The Swarm…?" soone breathed in terror, realizing where this technique is from.
"Is he cooking the arena!?"
Vekran stood at the center, veins bulging, with the crimson light burning from his blind eye socket.
"I watched bees when I was a kid," his voice rattled. "They killed monsters bigger than their kingdoms for their queens."
The vibration reached a horrifying pitch.
Then he cut it off.
All the plates flew back to him, snapping into an orbit, floating rings, spinning around his body like demonic halos.
Steam rose from Lyssa's skin.
Her clothing was scorched and ruined, clinging scantily to her skin.
She exhaled slowly, humiliated by her revealed skin.
The crowd went silent, but they weren't looking at the exposed beauty. No one looked at her with the lust one would have under normal circumstances.
Vekran had taken the spotlight.
They had mocked him, but now, only fear remained.
Lyssa straightened herself, then slowly… she picked up her fan from the floor, her eyes burning with rage.
She was intelligent and quickly understood what he'd done.
With the arena being as arid as ever, things would be difficult for her.
She called for what little water remained and whispered:
"…Dance of the Moonlit Waves."
She stepped forward seriously now.
"You had the upper hand, but your luck is out," Vekran said.
He was certain of himself now, but he was still too ignorant.
Lyssa suddenly split into three.
"What?"
But she wasn't done. She split into five, then five more.
Her mirages flowed around Vekran, and when he tried to attack, he realized every one of them was real enough to cut.
Every step she took ca with an attack.
Her strikes were close, graceful, and impossibly beautiful.
He shot a shell at her and missed.
Cuts suddenly appeared across his torso.
Blood dripped across his limbs onto the floor.
"Impossible…" he rasped.
But even with this, she wasn't fighting at her best.
"You forced to get serious," she said, slipping close to him.
She swung at him, and a deep slash crossed his chest.
Vekran collapsed to the floor, weakened.
The mirages dissolved as Lyssa ca to stand over him...but she was shaking.
This would have been mistaken for weakness or tiredness, but she was furious.
Her people valued virtue above all else, and Vekran had trampled on that.
Before the announcer could even open their mouth, she turned and walked out of the arena, burned fan still in hand.
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