The potions crashed at his opponent's feet and they pulled out an enchanted golden apple and began eating it. Degritone ran toward his opponent, but they seemed to also have accelerated time of some sort, as they finished their gapple faster than would have been accurate to Minecraft and they began sprinting to meet Degritone after pulling out an enchanted diamond sword.

As they met around 65 feet from where Degritone started, Degritone started an up right slash, but his opponent stopped unnaturally fast just out of Degritone's reach. The instant the slash passed his body, his opponent instantly jumped forward slightly and slashed in an unnatural fashion, hitting Degritone once before their air teleported to begin another swing.

Degritone cast his Omens twice each before the attack hit and Degritone began a down left slash. His opponent landed on the ground and unnaturally accelerated backward out of the way of the slash. They jumped forward again, getting two hits off before Degritone could start another slash, during which time he cast each of his Omens twice. As he started a third attempt at a swing, his opponent unnaturally threw a green orb to the side and stepped back.

Degritone stopped his slash and turned to follow the ender pearl. "See, chat? I told you," his opponent said as Degritone ran away from his current position. "I told you we would need these." Not sure what he meant, Degritone kept running and arrived at the position the pearl would land a few subjective seconds before it landed. He began a slash that would hit fractions of a subjective second after the pearl landed.

His opponent appeared in the way of Degritone's slash, but disappeared before the hit could connect. Degritone's legs, protected as they were by his Mana Armor, lit up in pain and, soon after, exploded into steam. Before he could fall, Degritone began actively utilizing his Young Immortal Troll image to replace his legs and jump away. He looked at where he just was and saw a near-cube of lava just sitting on the ground where he'd been standing.

He began to look around the clearing and an arrow hit him in the chest and bounced off his armor. Looking in the direction the arrow came from, he saw his opponent standing in front of a blue Wither with white, blocky, but thin fog swirling around it. Degritone was startled to see the Wither, but knowing he had around 185 subjective seconds before it spawned, he steeled himself as another arrow hit him when he landed. He began running toward his opponent, but they swapped to snowballs and hurled them at Degritone.

The snowballs were easy to dodge, but doing so delayed Degritone's arrival by a few subjective seconds, which his opponent utilized to eat another gapple. Once his opponent was in range, Degritone cast and recast his Omens during the approach, but with each cast, he felt something prick him with each cast, and he looked at his staggeringly low Health. One test cast of Omen of Famine lost him about 3% of his Health before Omen of Famine's heal reduced that to around 1%.

After Revitalizing to full, he tried casting Omen of Pestilence away from his opponent and saw that that cast didn't hurt him. He figured his opponent must have switched to Thorns-enchanted equipment and decided to only go for melee attacks, since those dealt almost triple the damage of his Omens right now, which would make each attack be a much better trade.

He temporarily sacrificed one leg to reach his opponent immediately and was hit by another jumping attack as he plowed into the Wither, completely stopping his momentum, his opponent having dodged the jump. "Too easy, chat, too easy," his opponent mocked as Degritone began another slash. However, as his opponent dodged, he stopped the swing and converted it into a thrust.

The thrust met his opponent's blade as it teleported between his sword and his opponent, but Degritone's sword slid off it and stabbed into his opponent's chest. Suddenly, Degritone found it very hard to move his legs and he looked down to see his legs surrounded by a cube of spider web. He materialized a box around his opponent and slashed at the webbing thrice before it disappeared.

When he looked back at the box, he saw its side had a perfectly rectangular hole in its side and his opponent wasn't inside it. He looked to the side, and an arrow hit him right in the throat, bouncing off his armor. Degritone realized at this moment that he could use his opponent's Thorns to quickly stack his Adaptive Palisade.

He did some non-mathematical estimations of the Mana and Stamina he would need to fully Bastion the damage stack up enough for it to deal less damage than his Omen of Famine healed and decided it wouldn't be worth it, as it would leave his Mana too low for any future Revitalizes or important Omen casts.

So, he yet again temporarily sacrificed a leg to reach his opponent, but just enough to where he'd land near him. He overshot by about 12 feet as his opponent dodged out of the way, getting one jumping attack off in the process. After finding his balance, he quickly shot himself at his opponent while they were pulling back their bow. They quickly swapped to their sword and reduced the impact of his blow.

Another green orb was thrown, but Degritone intercepted it with a wall of steel. His opponent appeared on the wall and started falling to the ground. His opponent shot an arrow off at Degritone, but missed and hit the ground near his feet, then threw a potion with a black liquid inside at Degritone. Degritone tried to gently stop its momentum, but it shattered with the lightest touch and his Health plummeted by almost 20%, through a 30000 Bastion.

Two casts of Revitalize and another 30000 Bastion and he was back to where he was, minus a large chunk of his Mana and Stamina, which he began to rectify with Energize. As he went to send an upward slash through his opponent while they were falling, they unnaturally accelerated to their side and got another two attacks off while Degritone recovered from his missed swing. At this point, his Adaptive Palisade, combined with his large Guard, were nearly negating his opponent's swings' damage.

His legs once again exploded into steam as another bucket of lava was placed under him, and this time, he created a steel box around it before his legs reformed. "I should have brought more lava, chat," his opponent said while jumping at Degritone. He brought his sword up to block the hit, as it has always been the exact same trajectory each time, and he was successful.

While he could use the stacks of Adaptive Palisade, he still needed to protect his Mana and, through protection his Bastion shield, his Stamina while they regenerated. His opponent placed another spiderweb under Degritone's feet and backed up, pulling out a bucket of milk and drinking it. They turned away from Degritone and threw another dark purple potion so its splash radius wouldn't hit Degritone. This one, however, was slightly brighter than the previous dark purple and had was a little more red.

His opponent jumped forward just as Degritone cleared the spiderweb and delivered two devastating blows into Degritone, bringing him to under half health. Degritone looked worried and confused at his opponent before sending another slash accompanied by multiple casts of Revitalize to bring him back up to full. His opponent turned and ran away while saying, "All war is deception, chat! That is why I used Weakness on myself!"

Degritone's world erupted into pain as his lower body and his surroundings were blown to bits. His body was quickly replaced with a gray copy and he looked down at the now-crater around where he was to see two more blocks of TNT lit and ready to explode the moment he hit the ground. He materialized a platform of steel between himself and the ground with legs going all the way to the ground, then jumped off it, away from the blast radius.

It wouldn't be another subjective 9 to 27 seconds before they actually exploded, but he wanted away from them now, though not enough to sacrifice a leg for it. His attempt was met with two snowballs to the face, which completely stopped his momentum. So, he sacrificed a leg and jumped off the platform. He crashed through a couple trees before stopping. As he turned, his face was met with a green orb, followed immediately by another Health-destroying hit from his opponent.

As Guard ran out, he decided to give it a significantly larger portion of his Stamina, depleted as it was, to the Skill before Revitalizing back to full just in time for another attack to land. With his now much higher Guard, even with whatever DR-penetrating Skill his opponent had, he was only taking around thirty thousand damage per hit, rather than the over eighty thousand of before.

It was at this moment that Degritone realized this was an opponent he couldn't keep his Mana at a safe value against. Even if it would chew through his remaining Mana, he would be restored to full after this fight, so he needed to go ahead with the Omen of Famine spam strategy to quickly charge Adaptive Palisade. With his upped Guard, he was already able to out heal his opponent's Thorns.

His opponent placed two perfect cubes of wood between the two of them, but that didn't stop Degritone's cast, as his Omens did not need line of sight. However, as he was moving around the pillar to get at his opponent, he felt Omen of Famine fail without a target and saw his opponent in the clearing. He sacrificed a leg to reach him, and heard the TNT from before explode.

He did some mental approximations, and realized the Wither should be exploding soon. He was within the blast range, but only barely, as it exploded just in time to catch him mid-flight, accompanied by the Wither spawn sound. The damage was minimal, but he then heard another explosion and saw a huge chunk behind the first Wither explode, followed by another, each accompanied by the sound of before.

"If you wish to defeat me, train for another one hundred years," his opponent said before ender pearling into the woods behind him. Instantly, all nine Wither heads locked on to Degritone and they began flying upward. They, unlike the one who created them, were unaffected by any form of time dilation, and as such, were slow. One projectile was launched at him and it traveled in slow motion.

He began to move, but he was trapped by more spiderwebs and he heard a crash of a potion behind him, making him feel almost as sluggish as the skull. He tried to turn to look at his opponent, but his body was agonizingly slow. The only part of him that was even somewhat responsive was his troll flesh legs and hips. He tried converting his non-troll body into troll flesh without first removing anything, but it didn't work.

So, he took the skull directly to the chest, infecting him with the wither effect, which his Health Regeneration completely outstripped. It didn't penetrate his armor, but the blue skull that came soon after did, turning his torso and shoulders into pulp. He used the opportunity to turn all that was destroyed into troll flesh, and willed the arms attached to this new body to be made fully new out of troll flesh, rather than reattaching his old arms.

With his opponent's probable plan to make him slow enough to get hit with Wither attacks only somewhat working, Degritone sacrificed a leg to escape the spiderwebs and it wasn't long before he took down the Withers. Four casts of Omen of Famine followed by two full power attacks took each one down, which only allowed them time to fire off a collective single extra projectile.

With that, he had 3 real seconds to find his opponent before Adaptive Palisade began to wear off. He searched in the direction he had pearled off to, but found nothing in the 13 real seconds it took his Adaptive Palisade to completely reset. This did, however, mean he was back to full Health and Stamina, and nearly back to half Mana, when he did finally find his opponent 18 seconds after he began his search.

Unluckily for him, however, his opponent spotted him before he could do anything and said, "Well, chat, I didn't want to have to use this, but it looks like I'll just have to deal with not being able to use it for a subjective year." As his opponent finished speaking and Degritone was three feet away from getting into Omen range, the world around him turned blocky and red.

He turned around to see his opponent take one obsidian block out of a Nether Portal, deactivating it, before disappearing in a puff of purple particles. He looked around for where he could have gone, and saw him disappear behind a pillar of netherrack. Degritone sacrificed a leg to reach him and he saw a field full of Zombie Pigmen; however, unlike the Withers of before, these mobs were all moving at what appeared to be normal speed.

Degritone experimentally reduced his Exotic Nervous System a bit and it was like he had sped up the Pigmen. He heard a Ghast to his side, put ENS back to full, and sacrificed another leg to reach the human clad in blue, shoulder bashing them to the ground. They disappeared in another puff of ender particles as he heard the Zombie Pigmen around him enrage. He was certain he didn't hit any of them, but they moved in to begin attacking, anyway.

Degritone saw his opponent up a cliff of netherrack and sacrificed his just regrown leg to reach him. He created as large a sphere around them as he could in order to trap the two of them together, and his opponent appeared on the far side of the sphere. Degritone replaced the material his opponent was mining away as it was mined and sacrificed a leg just as a Ghast fireball hit his sphere, sending it rolling.

He reached his opponent and materialized a much smaller box around them while starting a downward slash. "I was hoping to waste a bit more of your Mana, but it seems this ends here," his opponent said as the box tumbled to the side from another Ghast blast. The attack landed and his opponent jumped as the box began falling fully, unleashing devastating blow after devastating blow onto Degritone.

However, with a max power Guard, he was only taking single digit thousands of damage per attack, rather than the tens of thousands of before. He rapid cast Omen of Famine and Revitalize until his Adaptive Palisade was enough to overcome the damage, which didn't take long, while trading blows back and forth with his opponent.

Each attack Degritone landed was reduced in power by his opponent blocking, but each attack his opponent landed and each time he cast an Omen, he grew in power. Not a majorly significant amount of power, but an amount, nonetheless. It wasn't long before the box landed on something and slowly began to sink. Degritone's eyes widened slightly as he realized he would now be required to keep the box whole for a more important reason than simply keeping his opponent in range.

He couldn't risk his opponent using a potion of fire resistance or swapping to fire resistant armor while he quickly turned to steam. His opponent took out a pickaxe and began mining the floor, but Degritone slashed his opponent's arm, drawing his first blood of the entire fight by cutting half his opponent's forearm off. "And this is why you should never be cocky, chat," his opponent said, throwing a splash potion of healing on the ground to bring both of them back to full Health.

He quickly reequipped his pickaxe and broke the floor, with Degritone's second disarming attack doing nothing. A small amount of lava seeped in before he could patch the hole, his brain being tired after materializing images for so long. Win, he heard. His blood began to boil and he puffed his chest in anger as he felt the wither effect on his body. Win! His troll flesh began to stretch as his body was slowly replaced by that of the Immortal Troll's, rather than a troll flesh version of his own body, and his hands began to blacken.

His opponent broke the floor again and Degritone replaced the box with a larger one to accommodate his larger stature. WIN! After he had fully replaced his body with that of the Immortal Troll, whose hands and claws now looked charred and flaky, he sent a thrust of his claws through his opponent, who was unable to react. His opponent's armor shattered as its durability reached zero, but it was quickly replaced with more armor.

While his armor was gone, Degritone could see the wound around his opponent's stab wound turning black. WIN! Degritone sent another stab into his opponent, this time through the throat. Another splash potion of healing made his opponent snap off the claws of Degritroll's right hand, which explosively regrew. WIN!

His opponent attacked Degritone, but it effectively did nothing and Degritone grabbed his opponent by the head, lifted them up, and began squeezing. WIN! With his free hand, Degritone sent jab after jab into his opponent's torso until his opponent's head finally popped and he was floating in a white space.

Congratulations!

You have won the level 26-40 bracket of the Architect Tournament!

You have won a minor wish, which must be redeemed before you leave this space.

Degritone's head throbbed with pain and his Immortal Troll body disappeared as his unconscious head floated in the nothingness.