The New Suchi Arena. On a map comprised of flat, white, unbloodied sand (recently replaced by the cleaners), an Arcanist and an Earthfriend squared off.

Henry, poison-deafened, was focusing on the officiator’s mouth counting down to the beginning of the duel.

6...

5...

He was starting with 2 Fauna, 3 Flora in his sword-hand, a slight change from his fight against Destined To Rule The Stars. Against this Arcanist, who would be superior to him melee-wise, he would rely more on his spells and would thus use to amplify his magical damage. His spell-hand throughout the fight would gather both Celestials for and Floras for healing, depending on the circumstances.

4...

To create the space for collecting the rest of his Charges, he’d situated in the far corner of the arena. His back rigid like a British military officer, he was angled in a guard with his profile towards The Arcanist and his sword twisted to present them the flat of his blade. This Wingless Dragon guard, Claw Swats The Flies, was designed to protect one's lightly-armoured limbs from spell harassment and arrows by blocking them with the weapon.

In contrast, the Arcanist stood right on the arena’s dividing line, waiting to charge when the countdown finished. He hadn’t adopted a guard yet, but his form was looser, his teacher in Wingless Dragon being an immigrant to The Slums who practised an unorthodox variation.

3...

Tier-0 Arcanists possessed 4 abilities. , , and , which were respectively analogous to the Celestial Earthfriend , , and the weak damage-over-time . And , a 3-second cooldown Basic Attack.

They also had a passive, . This was a mouse-sized, phantasmagorical dragon familiar that could switch between amplifying their Magic Power or Magic Affinity stats by 30%. Presently, the phantom was sleeping on the Arcanist's shoulder, an indigo-tinge to its flesh indicating a boost to his Magic Power.

2...

In terms of health handicaps, Henry would be eliminated at 82% and the Arcanist at 20%, the health advantage going to them because their class was trash at 1v1s in Tier-0.

These numbers were balanced around the typical format at the highest level of his tournament, where Arcanists used some or other hybrid-melee style like Wingless Dragon, Earthfriends a Gorilla-heavy Fauna. Those matches played out quite similar to his duel against the pretentious Earthfriend. The Arcanist darted around whittling through the bonus health of , the Earthfriend tried to capture them.

But since he was using Wingless Dragon, the dynamic was different. With unavailable in his human form, he could never, ever receive an attack more severe than a superficial cut to the limbs. Every , he would need to dodge, parry, mitigate with his armour, or block with his shield. On the bright side, human form allowed to him to heal off the minor damage of the Arcanist's spells.

Overall, it was a terrible stylistic match up for him on a terrible map, so his chance of victory was below 10%.

1...fight!

Henry activated , the spell causing his skin to glow with a leaf-green aura and seedlings of flowers to burst from the sand around his feet.

His first Charge was a Celestial.

Across from him, the Arcanist, sprinting his way, raised their hand to grab a constellation and mouthed a spell-syllable.

VIS!

A spurt of indigo-azure shot towards Henry.

He returned fire with a .

Because the projectile speed of both spells was 120 metres per second, faster than an arrow, neither of them could dodge. Both were struck in their lightly-armoured thighs, then the spells began to eat their health at a rate of roughly 1.7% every 3 seconds.

LAM!

A 1-syllable aimed at his leg.

ALN!

Another at his arm.

Unlike , had no restriction on the number of spell-gestures that could be invested into it. On the one end, if there was infinite Arcane Energy in the environment to draw upon, the Arcanist could theoretically grow their spear large enough to instakill anything. On the other, the weakest, 1-gesture version of the spell was so quick that it could be cast while moving. The latter effect would be more troublesome for Henry; his own required his feet to be planted for 0.5 seconds, giving him a mobility disadvantage.

Not interrupting his Charge-gathering, he flicked his sword down. The first , phasing through the flat of the blade, shed three-thirds of its mass in the Mithril, reducing its damage. When it then passed through his Mithrilhide leg armour, it inflicted an ignorable blip.

TA!

His sword was up, blocking the to his arm.

0.78 seconds later, it was back down again, intercepting a third that'd been shot with a delay to disturb his rhythm.

Claw Swats The Flies wasn’t too hard to execute given that only moved at 30 metres per second, slower than a fastball. After Henry’d spent hundreds of hours swatting at spells and arrows in rain, sun, and hail, he could even perform the technique with the sword’s edge. However, he would refrain from doing that, as the extra cognitive demand would excite the power-limiting poison into adding errors to his movements. Also, it would look superhuman.

When he flung a back, the Arcanist assumed Claw Swats The Flies, too, and blocked it.

Drawing near, the two entered a complicated dance of shuffling back and forth along the sand, while continuously zapping each other with spell spears. Henry did most of the retreating, while the Arcanist advanced.

Some spells, their swords didn't intercept, either because they'd temporarily moved too close for their swords to react to the action or because blocking would have opened them up to a stronger attack from the opponent's weapon.

When Henry paused to gather a Flora Charge, the Arcanist stepped in and delivered a flurry of stabs, while still him. As Henry, collecting the Charge, parried the attacks, none of them were enhanced with , the Arcanist preserving their Stamina for a proper hit.

He managed to step back out, healing the damage he’d sustained.

And on went the dance.

Wingless Dragon was a fencing-style, with 6 main ranges from the opponent for the practitioner to consider.

The furthest was the Sibling range, corresponding to any distance beyond about 8 metres, where the other two 'sibling' Dragon styles were superior.

The next nearest was Tranquil Wife, the range where the opponent couldn’t react fast enough without a boost-augmentation to dodge a standard 30-m/s spell projectile but could still block them with a weapon or a shield. Then, in Raging Wife, spells were unblockable but multiple steps were needed to deal a melee attack.

Tranquil Husband was within distance to stab or slash with a single step, and Raging Husband to attack without any foot movement.

The last was Human, close enough to smell a man’s sweat, too close to use the sword tip, too close for any sensible dragon.

Presently, Henry was trying to maintain a position in Raging Wife, near the edge of Tranquil Husband. From here, he could continuously exchange spells while avoiding attacks, but still be close enough to step if an opportunity for himself arose. Trading damage was favourable to him due to his ability to heal it and the fact he was outplaying the Arcanist by making all their hit reinforced points of his armour.

The opponent, meanwhile, was trying to enter Raging Husband, where their superior motor skills would favour them in an extended sword exchange.

Those were their general goals, but, in practice, the distances were shifting every second.

Within 7.7 seconds of their dancing, Henry'd managed to land 3 decent while keeping himself topped up. These, in combination with the , had dropped the Arcanist down to 71.7%.

Duels against non-healers were quick.

He could see, in the Arcanist’s concentrated gaze, the difficulty they were facing. All they needed was one opening to the arm, back, or legs to win. No matter how they shifted their sword, though, Henry readjusted his guard, his body, and his distance to seal off the approach.

Just when Henry was getting into the rhythm, the poison changed phases, his hearing returning but his vision constricting to the size of a coin in each eye.

He responded by adjusting his goal point two steps back in Raging Wife to slow the pace of the fight and minimise the extra burden on his brain.

With the skill of The Arcanist, however, he soon screwed up.

They immediately lunged forward to deliver an -enhanced stab to his thigh.

The point of their sword struck the glowing green forcefield of a . Since Henry’s Magic Power was below their Strength, their sword retained some of its force after popping his shield, enough to pierce his Mithrilhide pants and inflict 2.8% damage.

With a 12-second window before the shield cooldown reset, the Arcanist pressed on, keeping Henry within the dangerous zone of Raging Husband while parrying his thrusts and slashes that were seeking out a vulnerability.

When their was .24 seconds from refreshing, Henry simultaneously cast and stabbed at their thigh.

The green-aura of his suddenly vanished, converting his Magic Power back to Strength in prep for an attack. The tip of his sword glowed white with .

refreshed.

The Arcanist, wanting to make a trade, didn’t parry and instead went for a stab at his shoulder, hoping to eliminate him.

As their weapon glowed, Henry cancelled his stab and parried theirs.

The pulse on his sword's tip was no brighter than a matchstick, little Stamina having been invested into it.

Baited and outplayed.

He riposted his parry into another stab at their leg. His sword glowed with a second pulse, which contained the rest of the cycle’s power.

Since their body was still open from their attempt at the trade, his sword pierced their thigh, chunking off 17% of their health.

He thrust his spell-hand at their throat.

The Arcanist shoved the spell-arm away with his sword, sending the zipping off to the side, over the heads of the spectators.

“VAR!”

Their spell-hand reached for a constellation.

Henry knocked it off path with his sword, reapplied , and dove headfirst to the ground.

Mid-air, his limbs shrank while his skin sprouted the spotted coat of a cheetah.

The Arcanist, their attack on cooldown, could only reapply their and give chase as cheetah Henry to safety.

But the exchange wasn’t over yet.

After 1.84 seconds of cheetah sprinting, Henry dropped back to his human form. Spinning around, he swapped the sword between hands with a quick throw.

"IRAK!" chanted the Arcanist, casting a spear.

Henry blocked it, gathered one of the Fauna charges he'd expended from his sword-hand during the previous exchange.

"NAT!"

Blocked. Fauna.

The Arcanist entered Raging Wife.

"VAT!"

To the leg for 1.6%. Flora.

The Arcanist reached three steps from Tranquil Husband.

Henry reactivated , threw the sword back to his sword-hand, and began a .

Two steps from Tranquil Husband.

His sword landed in his sword-hand.

Tranquil Husband.

The Arcanist lunged.

They noticed the position of his sword and decided against . Henry’s pierced their eyeball and entered their brain for 11%.

The cooldown for refreshed.

Henry, although his parry worked, also in case they'd used bullet-time at the last moment.

Safe, he retreated to Tranquil Wife and back to full.

He'd planned out more, but the Arcanist, aiming for Tranquil Husband, didn't continue the assault, needing some time to pause and think.

From the crowd, there were a few scattered claps for Henry, but most, being supporters of the Arcanist, were silent.

That trade had been highly successful on Henry’s end. The Stamina expenditure was similar, 51% of his, 52% of theirs, being more Stamina-efficient than . But, in addition to that, he'd stripped away 28% of their health, dropping them down to 37% total.

He wouldn’t reattempt anything similar, though. With the Poison of Mercurial Debilitation, there’d been a significant chance he’d have flubbed the first parry. Now, the need to play that riskily had gone, as the Arcanist was close to elimination. It was only three or four —one struck their thigh, knocking them to 31%—two or three before victory.

However, at that moment, Henry's vision returned to normal. His chest inflating with an arrogant warmth, he gave a haughty snort.

Raging Wife...how pathetic! Was he supposed to win from this cowardly range with Dragon Does The Laundry Aggressively? Dragon Picks Up The Kids from Soccer in a Mood? Hah!

Under the poison’s hubris effect, he dashed forward into Raging Husband.

Both of them activated bullet-time.

Henry went on the offensive. In his unrivalled genius, he’d calculated the precise capabilities of this Indian kid, so he administered a sequence of expert feints, parries, ripostes, and fakes that quickly overwhelmed their puny defence.

“Not bad,” he announced in conceit. “Most of the youth these days would have been-” He flicked a into their face, forcing them due to their low health to shift their head. Simultaneously, he lunged at them, sending a fully- stab to the bicep of their sword-arm.

The Arcanist, ranked 32nd in the zone, had more than enough skill to still parry the attack during the distraction.

When their swords were about to clash, though, Henry’s disintegrated into particles of light, the weapon being desummoned back to his Spatial Bracelet. The sword-hand, now free, grabbed the basket-hilt of the Arcanist’s sword, used it to pulled them towards him into Human range, then chained this motion into 'Dragon Shelters In The Storm' – a basic double underhook, where one wrapped their arms under the opponent’s arms and around their back, a move designed to wait out cooldowns.

“Gotcha!”

The Arcanist struggled to free themselves from the clinch, but due to Wingless Dragon's lack of emphasis on grappling and the short, light frame of their avatar, Henry controlled them with ease.

While stalling until his Stamina regenerated enough for an eliminating blow, he tossed them around with needless brutality.

“Ya dirty bastard!” shouted a fan, enraged by his manhandling of their hero.

“Get your grubby fingers off him or I’m gonna climb in there and rip them off myself.”

“Stop groping our Indigo!”

"%$#$!"

Their complaints were a massage to Henry’s arrogant eardrums.

From this position, he could eliminate the Arcanist in a million simple ways. However, for such a wonderful audience, wouldn’t it be better to execute a more spectacular finisher?

"Fine, dear fans!" he shouted back at them. "Because you've asked so politely, grandpa will give you a taste-tease of what's to come!"

Calling upon his decades of training, he heard the sound of a distant battle.

Closing his eyes a moment, he glimpsed a vision of a barehanded martial artist wrestling a thief in the air as they both descended into the mouth of a dragon with a jaguar clamping at its throat.

Sword return misdirection. Wingless Dragon Takes Flight. Nine-Fists, Realignment. For Friends in The Branches. Brainspear. Steal – Helmet. Facestab. GG.