Takeda advanced in measured steps, blade low and pulsing faintly in his hands. There was no hesitation, no wasted movement. He approached like a tide—inevitable, unwavering.

  Joran remained where he was, his palm pressed against the shallow gash along his ribs. The sting barely registered. He closed his eyes and focused. With a single breath, he called on the power coiled deep within him—vast, familiar, and entirely his.

  His magic obeyed.

  Warmth spread under his touch, not wild or erratic, but controlled—like a finely tuned instrument. The flesh mended beneath his hand, the wound closing without so much as a scar. He lowered his hand, his cloak settling around his shoulders in fluid waves, untouched by the dust and debris.

  His eyes flicked to Vermillion Fang, half-buried several paces away.

  He lifted his hand, palm outstretched.

  The sword stirred.

  And then—crack!—an arc of energy slammed into the ground between him and the blade, detonating with a sharp, concussive blast. Sand erupted in all directions. The force knocked Joran clean off his feet and sent him skidding across the arena floor.

  He came to a stop, rolled once, and landed on a knee. His hair hung in front of his eyes as he looked up, breath steady.

  Takeda stood ready—two hands on his sword now, his body angled forward, poised like a drawn bow. His expression was focused, calm, deadly.

  “Oh… so you’re going on the offensive now, huh?” Joran muttered, brushing grit from his cheek with the back of his hand.

  He rose, eyes locked on Takeda’s. Again, he reached toward Vermillion Fang, calling it with a thought.

  But Takeda was faster.

  Three more arcs erupted from his blade—precise and relentless. One screamed into the sand between Joran and the sword again, blocking the path. The other two flew straight toward Joran like lances of pure force.

  He didn’t flinch.

  Joran's eyes narrowed. His arms swept upward in a fluid motion as he summoned his strength—not in desperation, but with confidence born from years of training and a lifetime of control.

  The shield snapped into place.

  A perfect sphere of translucent magic enveloped him in an instant—clear, flawless, and radiant with raw power. It shimmered faintly with internal energy, its surface unmarred by stress or flaws.

  The first arc hit.

  The impact flared across the barrier like a sunburst, energy dispersing evenly across the surface. Not a flicker of strain.

  The second collided a heartbeat later, and again, the shield absorbed it completely—no tremble, no break, just a pulse of heat and light that faded almost instantly.

  Joran stood tall within the barrier, unfazed, the dust swirling harmlessly around the edges of his defense. His cloak fluttered behind him in the aftermath, pristine and untouched.

  He exhaled slowly, dropping the shield with a flex of his fingers.

  Takeda still hadn’t moved. His blade was steady. His focus absolute.

  But now, so was Joran’s.

  And his sword remained just out of reach.

  His fingers curled at his side.

  “All right,” he said softly, stepping forward, eyes burning with renewed purpose. “Let’s see what I can do without it.”

  The arena air crackled with pressure, thick with heat and silence as the two combatants faced each other across the torn ground.

  Takeda moved first.

  His hands tightened on the hilt of his katana, and with a sharp, downward slash, a glowing arc of compressed force erupted from the blade, tearing across the sand toward Joran. The ronin followed with two more slashes in rapid succession—left, right—and three blinding arcs streaked forward in a tight formation, aimed high, mid, and low.

  Joran’s eyes sharpened. He didn’t retreat.

  Instead, he stepped into the first strike.

  His left hand flicked upward, fingers curling inward. A disk of golden light snapped into existence in front of him—Aegis Bind. The first arc struck it dead-on and shattered into harmless sparks, scattering across the sand.

  But the second was already closing in.

  Joran dropped the shield and planted his foot. He swept his arm in a wide arc, his palm glowing with crimson energy. “Mirror Veil.”

  A thin sheet of reflective magic flashed into being just inches in front of him. The second arc slammed into it—and was deflected sideways in a streak of light, sailing past Joran’s shoulder and crashing into the far wall with a thunderous boom.

  The third arc came low, aiming for his legs.

  Without hesitation, Joran stomped the ground. A ripple of magic burst outward—Force Spire—and a slab of stone erupted beneath his feet, launching him upward like a springboard. The third arc exploded harmlessly beneath him as he flipped once in the air, twisting like a dancer mid-flight.

  Takeda was already moving again, dashing sideways to keep Joran in his sights.

  He slashed again—four times—and sent a volley of energy arcs curving from different angles, each one faster and sharper than the last.

  Joran landed in a slide, dirt trailing behind him, and slammed both hands together. “Breakfield.”

  A surge of kinetic pressure burst from his body in a spherical shockwave, pushing outward. The incoming arcs struck the expanding field one by one and fragmented—dispersed like glass on stone, their energy unraveling into harmless streaks.

  Takeda narrowed his eyes.

  Without pause, he lunged forward and dragged his blade across the air—this time creating a single, massive arc that twisted like a serpent, homing in on Joran’s chest.

  Joran planted his stance and raised his hand. His palm pulsed once—steady, centered.

  Then he closed his fist.

  A thin beam of energy lanced from his fingertips—Threadpiercer, a needle of pure force—and struck the arc dead center. The larger spell rippled, destabilized… and detonated midair, the explosion rocking the sand but never touching Joran’s cloak.

  Smoke curled in the air between them. The arena had gone quiet.

  Joran exhaled and lowered his arm. “Nice aim,” he called across the distance. “But I’m not running.”

  Takeda’s eyes narrowed further. Then—for the first time—he smiled.

  Just slightly.

  And raised his blade again.

  The arena floor was a battlefield of scorched stone and trailing smoke, the sand beneath their feet warped by magic and heat. Takeda stood at the far end, motionless save for the steady rise and fall of his breath. Joran mirrored him at the opposite end, one hand lowered, the other glowing faintly as he gathered power.

  Neither spoke.

  Takeda struck first.

  His blade moved so fast it was barely visible, and from its edge burst a ribbon of refracted energy—sharper than light, compressed into a silver line so fine it hummed like a string being plucked. It split the air in two as it raced for Joran’s chest.

  Joran raised a single finger.

  A Mirrorfold Barrier shimmered into existence—not a dome, but a razor-thin sheet of curved force that bent the ribbon away midflight. The attack curved off-course and struck the wall behind him, slicing into the stone like a blade through silk.

  But Takeda was already moving.

  He slashed again—five quick strikes, each sending a Spectral Fang into the air, ghostlike arcs that flickered in and out of visibility as they howled toward Joran from multiple directions, circling like wolves closing in.

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  Joran’s eyes lit up. He stomped the ground with his heel and whispered, “Scattercore.”

  A pulse of dense mana exploded outward from his body—not a shockwave, but a disruption field, crackling with controlled precision. The Spectral Fangs hit it and unraveled instantly, their forms ripped apart by the dense turbulence around him.

  In response, Joran raised both hands, magic forming in a tight weave around his fingers. In a blink, he fired off a Fractal Lance—a jagged spear of pure willpower that broke into three mid-flight, each piece angling unpredictably toward Takeda.

  Takeda’s aura surged, coating his blade in translucent gold. He leapt upward, midair twist snapping his robe like a banner. With one clean arc of his sword, he summoned a Shattering Bloom, a circular shockwave that detonated midair and destroyed the Fractal Lances in a burst of splintered mana.

  He landed fluidly—and launched another spell the instant his foot touched ground.

  “Echo Blade.”

  He slashed twice, and from each swing, phantom afterimages of the strike launched forward—half-speed but twice as heavy, warping gravity around their path to pull in whatever they neared.

  Joran grinned.

  He drew a line in the air with two fingers, and as the echo blades closed in, he muttered, “Momentum Shear.”

  Time around him bent.

  His form flickered forward in a streak of blurred light, a high-tier temporal shift spell, placing him ten feet to the side in less than a breath. The echo blades passed through empty space, detonating a moment later in twin thunderclaps that rolled across the arena.

  Takeda skidded into a new stance, breathing faster now.

  Joran raised one hand to the sky, and with a single snap of his fingers, a pulse ring of energy formed at his back—wide, rotating slowly like a halo of sharpened light.

  He pointed toward Takeda. The ring launched six streaks of raw magical force, each one spiraling erratically in midair as they honed in on the ronin’s aura signature.

  Takeda didn’t dodge.

  Instead, he grounded his stance and took a deep breath. His aura exploded outward—not with light, but with a moment of perfect stillness. When the bolts hit his energy field, they didn’t explode—they simply vanished, absorbed into a flawless counterfield of internal flow.

  He opened his eyes. His next attack came without a word.

  Takeda thrust his blade into the air, then swept it down in a vertical cut. From that motion came a Heavenfall Wave—a massive arc of descending force, twenty feet wide, crackling with refined ki and cutting wind, capable of leveling stone.

  Joran met it with both palms open.

  His voice was calm, but his magic was not.

  “Arcanum Guard.”

  An octagonal field erupted in front of him, layers of shifting plates made of light and compressed mana, rotating in sequence. The Heavenfall Wave struck—and the guard responded.

  Plate by plate, the wave was absorbed, dispersed, dismantled mid-strike in a collision of raw magical mastery. When it ended, the plates flickered, dimmed, and dissolved like drifting ash.

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  They stood again, eyes locked, energy radiating off both of them like fire.

  The air between them burned with tension, charged and humming with unspent power.

  Joran’s eyes narrowed. He extended both arms forward, hands clenched into fists. Crimson light bled from his fingertips, growing brighter by the second, until it engulfed his forearms and licked up to his shoulders like flame.

  “Let’s end the warm-up,” he growled.

  From his palms erupted a spiraling column of violent red energy—twisting like a double helix of compressed mana, shrieking through the air as it gathered speed and momentum. The arena trembled beneath its weight. The blast howled across the distance, radiating raw fury and precision.

  At the same moment, Takeda’s blade rose.

  He inhaled once, deeply, and his entire aura surged in response—his body framed in golden-white light that pulsed like a heartbeat. His katana was lifted above his head, gripped in both hands.

  Then he brought it down.

  A single, focused vertical slash.

  “Severing Arc.”

  From the blade shot a towering wave of condensed spiritual force, radiant and razor-edged, wide as a gate and fast as lightning. It shimmered with the brilliance of a star, trailing edges sharp enough to cleave through stone, spellwork—anything.

  The two attacks met in midair.

  BOOM.

  The collision cracked the sky.

  Magic screamed as fire met light. The blasts tangled, spun, and finally detonated in a cascading shockwave that knocked debris across the entire arena. A blinding burst of force surged outward, rattling the walls and silencing the crowd for a breathless moment.

  Out of the smoke, they came.

  Takeda charged forward through the smoke, blade drawn, his footfalls light, deadly.

  Joran stood tall, cloak fluttering in the wake of the explosion. His sword was still across the arena, unreachable.

  No time to call it back.

  He raised both hands. Magic poured from his palms, wrapping around his forearms in glowing strands of deep violet and silver.

  With a sharp breath, he clenched his fists—and the energy hardened.

  Twin Arcane Bracers locked into place over his forearms, shaped like overlapping bands of armor forged from pure force. Their surface shimmered with pulses of protective energy, designed to withstand direct magical contact—and steel.

  Takeda reached him.

  Their first clash came in a blur—blade to bracer.

  CLANG!

  Takeda’s katana struck Joran’s forearm shield in a powerful downward cut. Sparks erupted from the impact, but the bracer held. Joran twisted his body, deflecting the blade to the side, and retaliated with a sharp elbow aimed at Takeda’s jaw.

  The ronin ducked and countered with a rising slash, but Joran raised his opposite arm and blocked it cleanly.

  Takeda pressed in, relentless.

  His strikes were elegant and economical—clean horizontal cuts, rising thrusts, short slashes meant to open flesh. Joran caught or deflected each one with his glowing bracers, the force of impact making his feet slide back inch by inch.

  He gritted his teeth—and struck back.

  Joran launched forward with a quick step-in knee to Takeda’s ribs. The ronin twisted, letting the blow glance off his side, but Joran followed up with a right hook reinforced by mana, the punch whistling through the air.

  Takeda caught his wrist—but Joran dropped low, spinning into a sweep kick.

  Takeda jumped, flipped, and came down with a vertical slash.

  Joran braced both arms together. The blade crashed onto his crossed bracers, pressing him to one knee, the force intense—but again, they held.

  He drove a palm into Takeda’s chest, sending a concussive blast point-blank from his bracer’s edge—a pulse shock.

  Takeda was thrown back several feet, sliding through the dirt.

  Both men paused.

  Takeda’s chest rose and fell, his sword held loosely at his side, the edge glowing from the contact.

  Joran stood slowly, arms raised, bracers steaming slightly from the effort.

  Joran and Takeda exploded into motion, both figures a blur of speed and precision. Their feet pounded across the arena floor, kicking up trails of dust as they hurtled toward one another with everything they had left.

  CRACK—!

  They collided once again, the force of the impact sending a shockwave rolling through the sand like a pulse from a detonation. Takeda’s blade struck the reinforced bracers on Joran’s forearms with a thunderous clang, the shriek of steel on enchanted force ringing through the coliseum.

  Joran met the sword not with fear—but with his fists.

  He punched into the strikes like a hammer against a chisel, each impact rippling with dangerous energy. His bracers flared with light as they deflected, redirected, and absorbed blow after blow. It was raw, brutal, and close—the very air between them cracked with force as they exchanged hit after hit.

  Takeda’s movements were precise, fluid—like a man dancing along the edge of a blade. He wasn’t slashing wildly; each swing had purpose. Each angle was meant to maim, to remove Joran’s defenses by removing the limbs that bore them.

  And Joran was just fast enough to stop him.

  For now.

  He twisted into another punch, bracer slamming into Takeda’s katana with a spray of sparks—but even as he struck, he saw it.

  A fracture—running across the length of his right bracer. Faint but spreading.

  His eyes widened. Another crack had already formed on the left one, webbing outward like frost across glass. The arcane energy that formed the bracers was losing cohesion. A few more direct hits, and they’d shatter entirely.

  I can’t keep tanking him, Joran realized, gritting his teeth. These bracers won’t last another ten seconds.

  He shifted tactics.

  Joran dropped low, rolled past Takeda’s sweeping strike, then vaulted backward. Now he began to weave—ducking and dodging, narrowly slipping through the arcs of the ronin’s blade. Every missed strike left a whisper of wind on his skin.

  He countered when he could—fast jabs, low kicks, sweeps—but nothing landed. Takeda moved like he could see the fight before it happened. Every time Joran spotted an opening, it vanished. Every attack Takeda made flowed perfectly into the next, like a pattern only he understood.

  Joran’s eyes darted across the arena, toward where his sword had landed earlier—Vermillion Fang, still buried halfway in the sand, too far to call without giving Takeda time to strike.

  I need to end this, he thought, breath shallow. Now.

  He dodged another slash—but only barely. The edge nicked his shoulder, slicing his cloak and drawing a thin line of red along his skin. He hissed through clenched teeth, backpedaling, mind racing.

  He’s too precise. Too disciplined. The only way I get through is if I give him exactly what he’s waiting for.

  And just like that—he knew.

  Joran exhaled slowly.

  The next time Takeda came in, sword arcing high for a vertical strike, Joran stepped into the motion.

  The blade pierced clean through his left shoulder with a sickening crunch of flesh and force.

  SHHK—!

  The crowd screamed. Blood sprayed. Takeda’s eyes went wide in alarm.

  But Joran didn’t stop.

  With a growl of pain and fury, he clamped both arms around the blade, bracers locking it in place through sheer magical pressure and muscle. The sword was buried in him, but he had it now—anchored.

  Takeda tried to pull back—too late.

  Joran roared, spun his body, and twisted with everything he had. The bracers wrenched the blade sideways, ripping it from Takeda’s grip and sending it clattering across the arena.

  Takeda stumbled backward, disarmed.

  Joran dropped to one knee, clutching his wounded shoulder, blood pouring down his arm—but he was grinning, wild and fierce through the agony.

  The katana lay behind him.

  The fight had changed.