I had to push through a sheet of invisible resistance to sink my teeth in. It was tough, and took all the strength that I had. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Damian had sheeted his body in mana in the same way our weapons had been dulled, and try as I might, it was a struggle to bite through it.

  That said, eventually, I managed. I felt the barrier fade, and my teeth found purchase.

  Damian screamed as I attempted to lock my jaw, tasting blood in my mouth, holding on with my legs as I felt him trying to shake me off with increasing intensity by the second.

  My vision seemed to go double. It was insane. For a moment, I felt as if I was looking at the world through Damian’s eyes. I couldn’t explain it at all.

  He smashed my back into a wall behind us, then threw us both to the ground when that still didn’t deter me. My head rattled as we hit the stone floor, my jaw finally detaching from his bloodied shoulder and the strange vision fading completely.

  I rolled and made to stand, disoriented, but he tackled me to the ground before I could. I brought my arms up just in time to stop him from clobbering my face, but he started aiming blows at my stomach instead. I grabbed him by the hair and held him in place, then fired a right hook straight at his eye.

  It connected. He howled, and then leaned back with both hands clasped to smash down onto my chest.

  The slow move just barely gave me enough time to shuffle my way out, and he ended up colliding with the stone instead.

  That didn’t deter him. He shuffled towards me on his knees as I scrambled back on my hands and feet, then once again launched myself onto the man’s back.

  I got my arms around his neck, but he dug his chin into my forearm so hard that it threatened to snap, then threw his body forwards, sending me sailing straight over him and landing upon the ground with a harsh thud.

  He was panting heavily now, his body heaving as he clasped a hand around my throat and readied a powerful right hand, holding me in place.

  I saw an opportunity then, and I took it. I brought my leg all the way up and kicked him right in the head.

  He attempted to continue holding me down, but it only led to me getting a second kick off. His right eye was swollen and bloody at this point, and my cheek was throbbing and numb as he finally let me go.

  The fight devolved further as both of us rolled away from one another and attempted to stand. Neither of us concerned ourselves with dodging so much as we did trying to deal the most damage to the other. Despite all the finesse and discipline I’d been instilled with, all the artistry of combat Cael had been taught, this was what it came down to at the end of it.

  Two men, battered and dizzy, doing everything in their power to knock the other guy out without falling down in the process.

  It was difficult. It was exhausting. When there wasn’t one clear victor in a fight, when the two appeared to be evenly matched in a lot of ways, a lot of it came down to who was the most resilient, who would give up first, or who would be the first to make a terrible mistake.

  I was determined to not let that be me. I couldn’t die here. I’d come too far in this place to die.

  My jian was nearby. I could see it glinting in the corner of my vision.

  I decided to make a lunge for it, fully aware I was exposing myself in the process. Hand to hand was too difficult. Damian was definitely stronger.

  He managed to get off a kick on me as I leaned down to pick up the sword, but I anticipated the movement. I let my body fall with the force of his kick, sliding along the floor as my hand wrapped around the sword’s handle.

  I pressed both hands to the ground and pushed myself back to my feet, fighting a cough, feeling blood dribbling from my mouth.

  I didn’t have the energy to sprint at Damian, but he was still unarmed. I walked at him deliberately, watching as he inched closer to his own weapon, then delivered a stab against his arm as he bent down to pick it up.

  The spear fell from his grip, and once again he tried to shift to the side and grab it.

  This time I stabbed at his side, a powerful lunge that would’ve pierced his whole body if my blade wasn’t dulled.

  He quit trying to pick up his weapon. I finally felt that I might be able to win this thing…

  I aimed a swing straight for his neck, hoping to incapacitate him, but he brought a forearm up and deflected the blunted blade.

  His fortitude was incredible. I kept on attacking him with the jian, and he kept raising his arms to block the blows. He was powerful beyond measure, more than a match for me even with all of my improvements, and even in spite of me having a weapon and him having none, he was beginning to not just block but deflect my sword, seeming to grow used to my patterns and be ready to push the weapon away, no matter how many horrible bruises his arms might sustain.

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  I needed to find a way to put him down for good. I needed to find it fast, too. It was clear that even with my superior speed, I couldn’t damage him enough like this to tear through him completely, and even if I did have more stamina, one or two more blows from Damian were gonna be enough to completely total me.

  He looked to be gearing up for another attack, too. Now that he’d gotten the hang of deflecting my sword, smashing his arm into it in brutish fashion, he was attempting to follow up with his own strikes, and they were becoming increasingly close to landing. It was soon going to reach the point where I wouldn’t be able to fend off his attack with this weapon, where he’d break through my offense entirely.

  He looked devilish in his approach. Face masked by blood, a toothy, determined grimace on his face. He was a warrior. He didn’t show fear.

  But I still had a trick up my sleeve. If I was gonna win this thing, if I was going to cement myself here as a member of this guild who was planning to stay, I couldn’t hold back. I had to use every tool at my disposal.

  He was a formidable opponent. Deserving of my ultimate attack.

  I swung my sword at his neck once more, and as he moved to deflect it, I dropped the weapon. With all the power I could summon within myself, with all my power and rage and passion and fear, I took a half-step forwards, dodged a punch to the chin, and launched my final move.

  My leg sailed between his, and my foot reached its target.

  I kicked Damian Voss in the nuts, and he crumpled like a sheet of newspaper.

  I heard gasps all around me. I didn’t let the gawking onlookers distract me. With a flourish, I spun my body to the side and aimed a kick directly at Damian’s head.

  He grabbed my leg in midair. There was a coal furnace burning in his eyes, looking like it’d been lit in the furthest reaches of hell.

  He held me there, my leg trapped, a smile slowly forming across his face.

  He pulled back his right hand.

  I could only describe what happened next in colours and flavours of pain. The sensation erupting across my entire body as Damian delivered his world-class, ferocious nut punch was nothing short of armageddon. I felt as if the synapses in my body were attempting to burst all at once, as if a black hole had opened within my core and was attempting to rip me open from the inside out.

  I watched, half-conscious as Damian finally crumpled to the ground.

  I fell to my knees. Held on for dear life to retain my consciousness.

  I watched as even in spite of everything, even after all of the punishment I’d delivered to him and all of the pain he’d withstood, Damian stirred.

  I felt true fear grip my heart. This man was inhuman. How could he move? How could he stand?

  He grunted as he attempted to move himself to standing. He slipped once and fell. Even still, he continued to push himself further, blood leaking from his head and down his face, his arms already beginning to turn various shades of yellow and purple.

  He finally made it to standing. He walked towards me. I braced myself for yet another kick or punch. Forced myself to be ready for whatever this monster could throw at me next, refusing to back down no matter how much I hurt…

  I wasn’t ready for him to offer his hand.

  He slumped as he stood, looking as if a slight breeze could knock him over.

  I didn’t understand it. Had this man not wanted to kill me until now?

  Had I proven myself to him somehow?

  I eyed his position. It truly was precarious. One strike from me here and I might be able to end everything. Be proclaimed the victor of this battle and remove any doubt from my name.

  I refused his help up. But I didn’t sucker punch him either. I couldn’t bring myself to do it a second time.

  I forced myself to stand through the blinding pain assailing me. I stood before him, and him before me, both of us looking as if we could faint from a powerful enough gust of wind.

  “Does this settle the matter between us?” I asked Damian, looking him in the eye, a man three stages above me, a man from the most powerful clan in Skyreach.

  “I… I believe it does,” Damian spoke between pants.

  He grabbed my hand by the wrist, then raised it into the air.

  There were cheers from the crowd around us, alongside an equal portion of jeers.

  The elder made to speak.

  A man entered the arena in a flurry. He wore the same purple colours on his robes as Damian.

  “Worry not, brother, I will kill this dog in your name!”

  “Brother, no,” Damian spoke, his voice weak, “we’ve agreed, the matter is—”

  “Not settled!” Damian’s relative insisted, drawing his own sword and pointing it straight at me. “To think that an Ascendant would fight so dishonourably, he should be banished or killed immediately!”

  “Nothing either of these young men did was against guild rules,” the elder presiding insisted. “We should honour the results of this duel.”

  “Okay, old man.” The spikey brown-haired Voss laughed. “If our clan wants him dead, then he’s dead, and we both know that’s how it works. Why don’t you go take a walk?”

  A fierce argument erupted around me, but I couldn’t pay attention to it. Not anymore.

  At first I thought I was falling unconscious, but that wasn’t quite it.

  No. Something had sparked within me, a feeling, a notion, a truth. It’d started developing the moment I’d taken the high road and stood beside Damian.

  And now that feeling was growing to envelop my entire body, radiating out of my core like a burning star.

  Whatever was happening inside me, it was changing me.

  Cael Soulgrave had felt this feeling three times before, and it’d been different every single time.

  This was the fourth, but for me… my first.

  My first breakthrough.