BOOOOOOM!

Wind and dust blasted outward as Kayle struck Huang Li. Releasing a deep sigh, Paolo pulled his envious gaze from the tumbling form of Huang Li and looked back at Huang Shou in front of him. “You know, you are more tenacious than I would have thought. But please give up. Your teammate is at the end of his rope and I don’t wish to win more slowly than Kayle.”

“And I don’t wish to lose to you,” The wrinkled old man said in response. But he didn’t glance upward and his hands were constantly moving. In the brief span of time that Paolo stopped to speak to him, he was rapidly creating a more sophisticated barrier to keep Paolo at bay for even a few seconds longer.

Paolo rolled his eyes; truly, this old man didn’t understand the concept of futility. And the combination of his strange mental cantrip Skills and the energy constructions he could rapidly make with a few nodes of energy made him an extremely tiresome foe to face. Yet truthfully, the difficulty only made Paolo’s enjoyment of the situation shoot upward.

Paolo clenched his fists and boldly stepped forward. The wind was so loud that he couldn’t hear the cheers of the crowd, but they still reached him through the fuzzy barrier of noise. The belief and spectacle of the performance inevitably drew their gaze. The absolute certainty that he was the center of their attention filled Paolo’s body with strength. He threw out his punch as the energy array closed in around him. At the last second, Paolo’s eyes gleamed.

Instead of clashing with him directly, the newest array the old man had summoned twisted around his arm like a living net that sought to engulf him in its strands. Yet as the energy net neared his skin, it slowed and began to wither. While in the arena, Paolo released rather constant waves of an extremely intense aura of indomitability. It was part of his image as a champion. A tiny net like this…

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Paolo took great pleasure in shattering the net to pieces. His blow even cracked the reinforced marble beneath his feet and sent Huang Shou fleeing.

BOOOOM!

Paolo’s pleasure sky-rocketed as Kayle pursued Huang Li on the other side of the arena and created a smaller detonation than when Paolo had struck. The victory was a small one, but it made Paolo feel better. He practically floated forward, inwardly gloating about his superiority, despite the handicap of holding these useless metal sticks.

But at the same time… Paolo glanced sideways at Kayle and Li’s battle. His mood soured further. Huang Li’s image is sharpening so noticeably… and he’s starting to be able to trade blows evenly with Kayle… ugh, why am I stuck with this boring old man…

Paolo accelerated forward and Huang Shou knocked his cane against the ground. “Blind!”

After dealing with his antics for quite some time already, Paolo closed his eyes and planned to proceed forward while ignoring the few seconds where his eyesight would be taken from him. But he almost stumbled and fell as he did so; rather than stealing his sight, the man had yelled blind but in fact inflicted a tingling numbness across Paolo’s body.

Paolo opened his eyes and laughed, stomping his feet to dispel the strange tingling. His blood burned through his veins and quickly suppressed the effect. “Do you really think this will be enough?”

“Yes,” Huang Shou said simply as he knocked his cane against the ground again and began to create yet another energy net.

Still, Paolo’s patience was at an end. He pressed his foot into the ground and accelerated forward. He ripped directly through the howling wind and the half-constructed edifice of energy and arrived in front of Huang Shou. This time, when the old man rapidly slid sideways with his strange footwork, Paolo smashed the surrounding area with his image.

For a brief second, Paolo revealed the true, primal glory of his image. Conflict. Confrontation. Strife.

In that single moment that Paolo’s image was ascendant, Huang Shou was compelled to stand his ground and face Paolo. And to his credit, the old man immediately recognized the situation and adjusted his stance to strike back at Paolo.

Paolo’s grin widened. For that bravery, I’ll make this quick.

Paolo brought his right hand down in a hammering blow across his body to finish it quickly. But Huang Shou leaned to the left and accepted the long gash across his chest from the knife in order to avoid the explosive power of Paolo’s punch. In an even more delightful surprise, Huang Shou didn’t then retreat; the man twisted his cane and jabbed it forward in a counterattack.

With extremely sharp eyes, Paolo examined the on-coming cane attack. Gradually, his intensity eased and he ignored it to prepare for his next strike. So when the cane landed on his stomach and Huang Shou intoned, “Slow,” Paolo just exploded into motion and shattered the Skill before it could bind him.

Huang Shou recovered quickly and brought his cane up across his body to defend, but Paolo simply smashed that implement downward. Huang Shou took a half step back and frantically tried to firm the shaken grip of his left hand. Then he adjusted the positioning of the cane, but it wasn’t in time; again Paolo simply blew him backward with raw force.

Even through the wind, the sounds of the crowd's cheers reached Paolo and drove him onward. He raised his left arm in preparation for a wicked hook that would likely be his final punch. With this, he would-

“Cloud-Slaying Slash!”

“Sever.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The confrontation on the other side of the arena was enough to briefly distract Paolo, and he allowed that distraction to persist and Huang Shou to slip away from him. Gradually, the flexing muscles of his left arm loosened and relaxed. He lowered his limbs and studied the results of Huang Li and Kayle’s clash.

Huang Li was covered in wounds, holding his wo dao with only a single hand, and panting. But Kayle stood with a strange smile on his face. There was a long cut across his shoulder that oozed a few small drops of blood. This time, it seemed like Kayle was on the losing end.

Paolo almost felt bad for the young man from Zone 7.

“Like I said,” Huang Li managed to cough out while he struggled to catch his breath. “I am unable to control the full might of the Skill. So if I use the Sky-Slaying Sword-”

“Then we will finally have an interesting clash,” Kayle interrupted. He rolled his shoulders and accelerated forward. “Don’t waste any more of my time.”

Huang Li’s eyes narrowed. But Paolo couldn’t help but notice how the sharp image around the young man was becoming more concrete. He was growing at an extremely fast rate. So quickly that he couldn’t help but be impressed.

But in the end… Paolo thought with a hint of sadness.

“Fine then,” Huang Li announced. That endless tide of wind that had risen and towered above the arena finally shattered and the waves crashed downward. Clouds howled and churned beneath the sheer mass of air that was swirling above. There was a dragon crashing down to condense on Huang Li’s wo dao, but it was so large that Paolo could barely see light reflecting off of its scales. It was a blurry and massive thing.

With a simple cut toward the grinning Kayle, Li yelled. “Sky-Slaying Slash!”

The vast pillar of air condensed around his sword was ignited by the power of the motion. The image exploded outward, a huge spectral pair of jaws snapping shut on Kayle’s body. But Paolo’s partner’s smile never wavered. His eyes, in fact, widened with joy. “Sever.”

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Kayle staggered backward, several fingers on his hand bleeding and broken from colliding directly with the Skill. But in front of him, Huang Li fell to his knees with a shocked expression; the dragon above him was completely bisected.

A cold sun shone down through the fissure Kayle’s Skill had made in the cloud cover.

“Damnit… Kid! The preparations are ready!” Huang Shou said loudly. Paolo glanced at the old man but didn’t bother to move at all as the other activated some Skill. Inwardly, Paolo was quite impressed at the old man’s gumption; the different spots where he and Huang Shou had clashed now began to glow in a grand formation. The fact that he had managed to sneakily do so was a surprise.

...but in the end, this is not a stage for the two of you.

“Hey, Kayle,” Paolo grunted. Huang Li spat out a mouthful of blood, forced himself to his feet, and then began to tremble as the formation Huang Shou created pumped power into his body. His eyes narrowed into slits. His image sharpened even further. “You took the first one, how about I handle this next one?”

“I believe you already lost your chance,” Kayle replied smugly, looking up at the writhing body of the dragon that was condensing in the sky. Whereas before it had simply been a hanging specter, now each scale stood out in sharp relief. The dragon’s claws were the size of coffins. Thin flames spurted out of its nostrils as it imperiously surveyed the humans below it. “This is all mine.”

“Sky-Slayingggggggg-” Huang Li began. Huang Shou sagged to the ground, seemingly haven given all his strength to the formation. The sky above darkened further, the dragon casting a long shadow across the arena floor. People in the stands chattered excitedly, enjoying the powerful display.

“Thank you, Huang Li,” Kayle replied with a satisfied expression. Then he went completely still and focused his entire person on his image. For a split second, the purest form of Kayle image was like a blinding lunar eclipse below the massive body of a dragon. A single pure divider between two vast swirling darknesses. Or perhaps it was to distant points in the darkness, connected by a single tether of energy. The image spun slowly, infinite and shifting.

Even Paolo didn’t know the true form and function of that image. That was why fights against Kayle were so interesting.

“-SLLLLLLAAAAAAASSSSSSSSH!” The blade of Huang Li’s sword was covered in a tornado that he brought brutally downward in a vertical cut. Kayle adjusted his footing and moved his hand horizontally. That blurred motion became the line of energy, the divider.

Before the force of the Skills met, the two images clashed. Without any fanfare, Kayle’s image devoured the dragon of wind and ripped to shreds the hollowed-out Skill that remained beneath it.

It is not a fair contest. Paolo reflected, almost sadly, as Huang Li collapsed. In terms of specificity and dedication, he is not in our league. They might seem close, but that last difference is not a simple gap to cross. If images were colors, Huang Li would be blue and Kayle would be turquoise. Both a similar color, but considering the total package...

Across the stage, Huang Shou released a long sigh as he saw his younger partner collapse. A few seconds later, the audience erupted in cheers.