Silas arbitrarily named the net and spear wielder Marcael, and named the barehanded drak Helaticio, not knowing or caring about their genders. Helaticio stopped at the border of the arena and narrowed their bright yellow eyes as they manifested a spell in front of them. Meanwhile, Marcael edged towards Silas, hanging the net back so that they could throw it onto him the second he tried to engage. Either way, it didn’t matter.

Silas sighed and casually walked forward, holding his spear the wrong way around. The net flew over him in the following second, but he simply ducked to the side. When Marcael lunged at him with their spear, its blade glinting in the half-light of the bog, he caught its shaft with one hand and tugged it so hard that Marcael fell onto him. Simultaneously, he thrust his spear with the other hand, catching Marcael on the chin with the wooden butt. There was enough force behind the strike that the drak immediately crumpled down, losing all strength in their body as they mewled on the ground.

Turning to face Helaticio now, Silas became engulfed in a thick cone of fire, roaring and spitting like a crabby campfire which had just been fed the wrong kindling. All the same, it harmlessly washed over his runified mana barrier, and he walked through the stream, nearing the flustering mage and knocking them out too with a single strike. Looking back, he noted Marcael had been unharmed by their twin’s fire attack, so he made a mental note that the drakkar were either fire-resistant or magic-resistant like the shaerd.

Haurun, the aged drak, whistled to the soldiers in the area to clear the twins from the arena, then addressed the other Magi in their scrying windows. “Do you have any issues with this victory?”

There was a momentary silence before one Magi answered for all of them. “None. Proceed onto the next round.”

Haurun nodded and made a beckoning gesture to the colossal drak which had just got here. “I call upon the Titan, Descending Skies, to take the second round.”

Likewise, Silas focused all his attention onto the drak who stepped forth. From appearances alone, he would have said they were the true boss of this drakkar outpost. At twelve-foot, Descending Skies was the largest bipedal creature he had ever seen, even taller than the swamp troll from an eternity before. Where the troll had been lumbering and obese, this drak maintained a physique which screamed of vicious strength and foxy agility. They wore no armour over their scales, which were as black as night with streaks of vivid red and yellow drawn down it.

Apart from their absence of wings, the Titan looked awfully similar to Vivienne’s dragon, and Silas could suddenly see why the drakkar viewed Vivienne as a slaver. It didn’t matter even if the drakkar were from Xiivet and the dragons from Caen as the familial resemblance was clear to see. Then again, it could simply be parallel evolution which caused this, not that Silas thought the drakkar had an evolutionary theory, nor would they accept it as a satisfactory answer even if they did.

The Titan’s different name format was likely a reward for its status, just like the ratkin sorcerers had differently formatted names to the rest of the ratkin population. Descending Skies wielded no weapons, but Silas supposed they didn’t need any when they could just pummel him to death. And that was a genuine danger too as their aura suggested they were at least an E-5, perhaps even E-4, certainly stronger than Xe’Hekon. There was no doubt this would be Silas’s strongest opponent to date, and unfortunately it wasn’t one he was confident he could beat with his own abilities.

Well, that was a lie. If he could use his manastone-edged sword, this fight would be no sweat since he could easily cut through their scales and continuously activate Harrying Wounds to gradually break them down. No matter how fast Descending Skies were, he was faster, so this would have worked. Yet he was restricted to this dull spear - which he doubted could even crack through their scales - but even if he hadn’t been, he couldn’t risk killing them unless he wanted to ruin his chances of saving Chloe. Which left…

Silas grimaced while he fiddled with his belt, hiding his fingers from view as they edged into a hidden pocket and grabbed a gummy vitamin. Suddenly overcome with an irrepressible urge to yawn, he chucked the gummy vitamin into his mouth and felt it fall to his stomach. After returning to Riverside from Brightmoor, he had given Emmanuel’s Transcendence to the alchemists to analyse. Through hasty testing they had returned with results which agreed with the prophet’s judgement: this drug was a brilliant combat stimulant, but it was as addictive as it was effective. The following day, Silas had trialled half a Transcendence himself, noting then that the alchemists spoke truly except for they forgot to mention the battlelust side-effect. Right now, he was taking a whole one since he wasn’t willing to take any risks of losing, and even if he did, hopefully this would give the others enough time.

“You going to fight barehanded?” Silas asked the Titan, stretching his arms above him.

“It would not be honourable to give you no chance of victory,” Descending Skies answered with a high-pitched voice. Female, he figured.

“Then I’ll do the same,” Silas said, throwing his spear aside, cracking his knuckles. There was no point in taking this weak weapon when it would break under his soon-to-be-enhanced strength, anyway.

He could feel Transcendence seeping into the marrow of his bones now, overclocking his very core into speeds which humans shouldn’t be able to attain. The air tasted sour and bitter, the soil under his boots soft and giving, the colours so vivid they jumped at him. Euphoria teased him, tickling his mind with constant threads of pleasure. A dumb smile spread across Silas’s face as he stepped forward, his aura beginning to fizzle like an electric hum.

Descending Skies’s expression grew severe as she detected the changes in him. She adopted a boxer’s pose, towering over him, but kept her position.

Some of Silas’s steps lagged, while others burst forward with shocking bursts of speed. His aura was now cracking with thunder, small bolts of lightning flashing into life and unlife around him. Then he was gone, launching himself into the sky with such force he appeared a blur to the onlookers, reaching Descending Skies’s head faster than a heartbeat. She raised her arms to defend, but he was quicker still, spinning and snapping his leg to her face, propelling his foot so fast that she went stumbling from the kick.

Dazed, she was waving her hands as if searching for something to steady herself, her head spinning, when he jumped over her. Joining his hands together, he created a makeshift mace and swung his arms onto her back, hammering down. Simultaneously, a white flash of lightning burst from his body into hers, cutting through her scales and diffusing through her flesh into the ground and air. She shrieked as she fell with a booming thud, plastering her body against the arena floor. When the Titan tried to rise, she felt a deadly ball of crackling lightning inches from her back.

“Stand and you’re dead,” Silas said, grinning manically. The lightning orb was stuck to his palm but horribly volatile, its fuzzy borders rising and falling every nanosecond. He had no talent for magic usually, but the first time he took Transcendence, he discovered a hidden yearning for lightning deep in his core. Since then, he had received guidance in it from Mia and Ajit, more from the Elemantalist who specialised in such magic, even if her instruction was harder to understand. That was not to say his magic skills were anything worth writing home about, but that changed the second he took Transcendence. Then he became lightning incarnate; this was his element.

“I submit,” Descending Skies shouted out loud enough for everyone to hear.

Silas withdrew his hands with difficulty, his bloodlust telling, no, demanding that he snuffed her life, anyway. He was breathing strenuously when he turned to look at Haurun, his primal feelings attempting to seize his own body from him.

“Do you have any issues with this victory?” the aged drak asked its peers.

“There has been foul play,” answered a Magi immediately, its voice accusatory and grave. “This human changed their very nature through external means during the battle. I consider this a weapon different to the provided spear.”

“Agreed,” yelled another Magi, then another, and soon the entire circle.

“You have heard my fellows,” Haurun said once all of them had spoken. “You have broken the rules which have governed our Trials for centuries, human, and so your kinsman is dead.”

Silas’s bloodlust leaked from his body to his aura, colouring his vision red as he glanced around at his surroundings. Finally, his eyes found his companions, in particular Ajit, who nodded.

“Oh, yeah, I found her midway during the first round. Just thought it’d be fun to see how this all ended before I told you,” Ajit said jovially. Aengus beside him regarded the nearby drakkar like a hungry wolf considering sheep, and Bandit swooped down from above with a haunting hoot.

“What do you—” Haurun started, before stopping when he spotted a portal open up beside the Warlock. Out of it came all the imprisoned humans, accompanied by dark angular creatures with no faces. They appeared vaguely bipedal with limbs made of variously sized triangles, including scythe-like arms. They did not look the sort you would invite to a party.

“Surely you didn’t think an illusion would be enough to hide them? You’re practically insulting me if you did,” Ajit said teasingly.

The drakkar in the audience were getting rowdy, but none of them had summoned the courage to start anything yet. The human auras had grown exponentially in the last few seconds, now blazing like wildfires and suffocating the drakkar of all their courage.

“My mistake. There appears to have been no foul play, after all,” one of the Magi in the scrying windows suddenly called out. “I believe an ability caused the aura change and not an alternate weapon.”

Its peers were slower in following up this time, but they all still found their senses within seconds. “Agreed. Apologies for the hasty decision.” This went on until all of them had reversed their decisions, leaving only Haurun now.

A wry smile entered the aged drak’s face. “It would appear I have been a fool to not see through to your true identities until now. I brought only a single Titan for the Slaver, but who could have expected worse monsters than her to appear suddenly.” Finally, the drak’s expression levelled out. “You have won the Trial of Combat and freed your kinsman, human. And for our initial mistake, we will also release all the other humans with her. I hope this is enough to put the past behind us.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Ajit said, coming closer to the Magi. Descending Skies was now afoot and standing before Haurun, slowly pushing the Magi back. This didn’t at all deter the Warlock as further angular shades spawned from the ground. “Sounds like you were awfully cocky before. Might have to beat that out of you before we—”

“Go!” Silas shouted, struggling to keep his facilities under rein. He could vaguely make out a woozy Chloe amidst the other prisoners, and yet he felt nothing but a dreadful yearning for violence. He wanted to cut her, bleed her, and butcher everyone here. Then he would reach euphoria and ascend from this mortal shell. His breathing was thin and desperate. “We leave now!”

Mia was the first to run to him, being careful not to get too close but raising her hands reassuringly. “It’s okay, Silas. Just breathe. It’ll all be okay.”

“It looks like you got very lucky today,” Ajit said, opening another portal and beckoning to the humans who proceeded to run in, none quicker than Silas who sprinted through before he lost control. “I’ve put tracking marks on all of you. For a bit of fun, I’ll give him the freedom of deciding your fates when he comes to. Now, if you’ll excuse us,” he said, pointing at Aengus and Kasim who lingered on. “My fellows and I have a wild man to fetter down. I hope you’ll be prepared for when we return.”