At the tumble, the Monarch felt a strange emotion, different from the rage it had felt from the death of its subjects. It felt the rage of humiliation. The Sand King frowned and spared a portion of its aeter to manipulate the sand masterfully. The grains rose and solidified in perfect harmony, attaching to the Sand Spider as a functional, prosthetic limb. With its mount restored, the Sand King looked down on its opponent for a moment, and then screeched with violence, with neither the air nor the dignity of a monarch.

***

Daiden watched an unusual sight unfold in front of him. After a blood-curdling screech, the Sand King resumed combat by raising the desert sand to take the form of several small spheres, in the hundreds. In rotation, the spheres tapered into needles and shot at Daiden at irregular intervals and strange angles. Still in effect with the Jade Serpent’s Breath, Daiden willed his body to evade the incoming attacks – scratching and chipping away at his armour in bits. He ignored the rising sand cloud around him, even the loosening ground. His eyes shifted rapidly between the attacks and the Monarch, noticing something strange in the latter’s demeanour.

“Is he back to smiling already?” wondered Daiden, with a frown. He shook away from the distraction and lightened his feet to faster steps. One, two, three, Daiden counted the attacks. He felt a sliver of impatience crack into his heart in that moment, waning from the improvements caused by the Jade Serpent’s Breath. In haste, he sprinted ahead, hoping to further weaken the Monarch’s mount.

A misstep.

Closer to the Sand Spider, Daiden felt something sharp pierce into his thigh. He lowered his head to notice the sharp end of a needle sticking out to the front, and turned to find several more rising from the ground. He cussed at the trap and scrambled to the side, avoiding the boomeranged needles by a thread. Daiden pulled the needle from his thigh and hobbled until the light from Ehedus embraced him once more, numbing him from the pain.

“There we go!” exclaimed Daiden, in thought, swerving to clash against the needles now. He parried the attacks with speed, forcing into an inevitable yet futile battle of endurance. As the seconds passed, he slowed. His aura diminished, unable to sustain the Jade Serpent’s Breath. But in lacking speed, Daiden improved with skill. He peered through the patterns of unpredictability and managed to hold his own, heaving, tired, and with a weakening arm.

The Natural Monarch refused to relent as well, increasing its attacks in volume, while also commanding its mount to an offensive.

“Am I really in over my head here?” wondered Daiden, drenched in a mixture of sweat and blood. “I should run…can I run?”

In time, the Sand King slowly managed to bore through its lone opponent’s defence. Daiden felt the pressure weigh on his arms as well. He clicked his tongue and persevered for seconds at first, then minutes. He counted on the light from Ehedus to relieve him from his fatigue. His feet continued to move, pushing past the limits of his body, even past the effect of the Jade Serpent’s Breath. Now drained, Daiden functioned on muscle memory alone. His mind flickered between memories of his time on earth and his memories as a trainee within the Godvildian Military, then his friends.

Daiden blanked. He returned entirely to a memory in that moment, his coach screaming at him, the eyes of hundreds trained on him. His arms carried the weight of his body, one at a time, spinning across the narrow, curved platform and on handstands when pressed against the handles. It meant everything, to carry from one end to the other, on the pommel horse, the finish even more. But upon the end, he slipped. In a fall, Daiden remembered straining his arm on the handle to straighten his posture and land on both feet, declaring victory.

“Was it intentional…?” thought Daiden. “Of all the memories I could’ve drawn from…But I suppose it makes sense. Wasn’t that the moment I decided to become the best in the world, there ever was?

“No, not yet anyway! I can’t run.”

Daiden glared past the attacks, even as he fell behind on the defensive. Pushed further away, he tapped on his spatial ring and armed his free hand with the Sword of Broken Probability.

“When you refuse to use a shield…” whispered Daiden, recalling a conversation with Kir. “You might as well multiply on offense.”

With a sword on either arm, Daiden clicked his tongue and smiled a little. “Well, Kir, if I manage to learn this here, I wouldn’t have to invest my training reward on learning the skill…ah, the positivity!”

As Daiden looked to the future, his chest swelled with confidence. He parried faster now, and in inches, moved towards the Natural Monarch. His body danced through the attacks from the Sand Spider as well, striking back with his left at every opportunity. His sword slipped through the limbs, in an ethereal form, leaving the Sand Spider unharmed. But through the march, Daiden counted to thirty. Deeper into a range of attack, he felt the creature breathe onto him. He felt the heat seeping into the cracks on his armour and pinch at his skin.

“Let’s see…fifteen…” counted Daiden, his lips arching on either side to a wide grin. “Don’t think about it, don’t jinx it. You’ll live through this. You’ll live through this!”

On thirty, Daiden carried into a dance that veiled his ethereal sword in jade. He waited for another attack and blurred into evasion, raising his left in a swing from bottom to top. His attack launched in the form of a large, sharp projectile – larger than normal, sharper than normal. He pursed his lips and followed the aeter to its point of impact. “Fuck! Don’t you dare fail on me.”

As the probability shifted, the projectile smashed past even a hastily raised sand shield, splitting the Sand Spider’s head. Daiden rushed away from a downpour of blood and climbed onto the falling creature to grab the Monarch’s face. He swallowed his disgust from a grimy touch and pushed the Sand King from its mount, slipping to crash onto the ground as well.

Daiden swiped both swords against the air, cleaning the bloodstains, and marched towards the Natural Monarch, the corpse of its mount behind him.

“Not my best work,” said Daiden, out loud, in assessment of his attempt at dual wielding. “I’ll still need to acquire the skill, but I guess this will do.”

Swollen with pride, Daiden raised his sword to claim the Sand King’s head, but experienced something harsher. He groaned and traced to a stab that had emerged into execution within the blink of an eye. Around his thigh, Daiden kicked his leg back to avoid greater damage and threw an attack in retreat, knocking the crown from the Monarch’s head.

“Why did I have to go and open my mouth?” cursed Daiden. His vision blurred. “No, no, no! This isn’t how it ends…fuck me.”

***

Sword of Broken Probability

An unbalanced, ethereal sword that takes twenty-nine strikes to attain solid shape. It inflicts no damage in its ethereal form. On its thirtieth strike, it inflicts slightly more damage than a normal iron sword. Despite the use of high-grade materials, the sword is imbalanced and suffers from performance irregularities. Enough use might help improve swordsmanship. It is imprinted with Kir’s anxiety.