Our weapons were handed to us. I grabbed my trusty mace and took up my shield, while my opponent took a spear in his hands. It was a good choice, as the superior range of his weapon would have given him an edge against a close-fighter like me.

We faced each other, separated by a few metres of distance. He lowered his stance and got into a guard position. I remained standing, with my body weight evenly distributed between my legs and my mace resting on my shoulder. My opponent's eyebrows twitched and a grimace appeared on his face.

“Do you think this is a game?” he growled at me.

“Considering I’m not having fun, I would say that it is not” I replied honestly.

His face turned red. I was pretty sure he was ready to assault me, but the stern gaze of the man in yellow seemed to warn him and forced him to calm down.

“Well, the rules are simple. The duel will end when either of you gives up or when me and Miss Bridges rule so. Aside from the usual rule "don't kill the opponent", everything goes. Are there any questions? I don’t think so. At my three, you can start” he said.

My opponent's eyes narrowed in two slits.

“One”

His fingers gripped the shaft of the spear tightly.

“Two”

A pale halo tending to a light blue colour rose from his body.

“Three!” Shouted the man in yellow.

My opponent snapped like a spring, closing the distance separating us in instants and he tried to sink his spear in my face. The halo surrounding him took on a more defined colour and infused his weapon, surrounding it and leading to the formation of frost on its surface.

Before I could actually process what was going on, my head had tilted about thirty degrees to the right side. The spear passed a few millimeters from my face and I could feel the cold air brushing my cheeks.

I clumsily raised my club and waved it in the air, before aiming it at my opponent's body in a wide swing. A surprised expression appeared on his face and I could see a sense of urgency in his eyes. Planting his feet in the ground, he pushed himself backward, managing to remove itself from the trajectory of my attack before it hit its target.

The mace made an arc in the air. Once it had passed my body’s midline, I let go of it in order to avoid being dragged with it along its motion. My weapon flew through the air in a straight line, impacted the wall of the training area and embedded itself in the stone of the mountain.

A deathly silence fell. Nobody dared to say a word or even move. The man in yellow had an unreadable expression on his face, while Marnie's jaw had dropped. My opponent had broken out in a cold sweat and seemed like he had seen death. His eyes, which had been filled with derision toward me a few moments before, were now completely empty.

“Let’s continue” I said, breaking the silence and starting to walk towards him.

Unfortunately, I hadn't dosed my strength and had lost my main weapon, but I still had my shield. Although it wasn't his primary function, it could still be used as an offensive weapon.

My opponent regained his bearings and got into guard once again. And once again he thrusted his spear towards me, this time trying to hit my lower abdomen. My current condition made me unable to move nimbly, so I simply opted to grab the shaft of the spear with my right hand, before it could hit me.

“I got you! “ he yelled.

The halo around him intensified and his aura flowed through the shaft of the weapon. The icy energy began to envelop me and frost began to form on my skin. My heart rate raced and my body temperature rose significantly, successfully fighting off the drastic drop in temperature. My body had become impervious to my opponent's aura and the cold could not penetrate beneath my skin.

“How is this possible?” he whispered appalled.

He began to yell and insult me, trying to free the weapon from my grip; but although he could move me around, being bigger than me, he couldn’t move the spear an inch closer or further from me. I had become like a rigid body.

Although his aura couldn’t hurt me, it still had an effect on me. It wasn't just my heart rate that had changed: my field of vision was shrinking, focusing on my opponent, and my mind had begun to blur. "Hostility" and "danger" were the ideas that were asserting themselves unchallenged among all other thoughts.

I reacted automatically. I moved my arm to the right side, moving the spear away from my body and pointing it towards the sky. I planted my toes in the ground and yanked the spear hard. My opponent flew towards me and, when he was at the right distance, I hit him in the lower abdomen with the shield.

My opponent vomited blood upon impact. He flew into the air and tumbled to the ground. During the commotion, he had lost his spear, which I took in my hand. Aiming at him, I hurled it with strength.

The spear hit the ground less than a metre away from where he landed, then bounced up and fell on him. I was unable to hit my target. I would have to work on my aim. My toes gripped the ground through my shoes. My calves and quadriceps twitched. In moments, I found myself facing my opponent.

His face was shocked and frightened. He felt in danger. His aura rose from his body, generating a cold wind that hit me. For an instant my body temperature dropped and a thick layer of ice formed on me, but a wave of heat swept through my body, cancelling its effects.

I tried to hit him with the shield, but he managed to roll away before the edge made contact with his body.

“What the f**k are you?! “ he shouted incredulously.

My shield had sunk into the ground a few inches. In the time it took me to extract it, my opponent had recovered his weapon.

“Die!” he desperately cried.

The tip of the spear approached my face. I raised the shield and let it slid across its surface, deflecting it away from my body. The icy aura had receded and had concentrated around its body. He had finally realised his initial strategy of freezing me wouldn’t work, so he had decided to focus on using his aura to amplify his physical abilities, trying to keep up with me.

Within seconds, numerous thrusts were aimed at my face and legs, but I instinctively blocked, deflected, or dodged them, responding with punches, kicks and hits with the shield that rarely missed the mark. With every second that passed, my opponent became more tired, battered and desperate, while I became more and more energetic. Pushed by the perceived threat embodied by my opponent, my body was rapidly recovering and reaching its optimal condition.

At the same time, I was becoming more and more aggressive. My combat style was becoming savage, if not animalistic. Everything I had learned while training with Marnie was rapidly getting deleted from my mind. Punches and kicks were being replaced by open-handed attacks and headbuts.

My opponent was sweating profusely. The only reason he was lasting so long against me was that it had taken me quite some time to finally get into shape. It was not time to get over with this duel.

I took off my shield and threw it like a discus. My opponent managed to dodge it: had he not been able to do so, it would have embedded itself in his skull.

“Crazy bastard, you threw away your last weapon!” he exclaimed. Looking into his eyes, he seemed to have regained hope and energy.

Being too close to me to thrust his weapon, he slashed with the tip of the spear through the air, trying to cut me. I grabbed it with my hand. I bled slightly, but my skin had grown quite thick and the weapon could not make a deep cut. I grabbed the shaft with my free hand and, with a sudden movement, broke the weapon in half.

My opponent gasped and stared at the stump that was left in his hand. Due to the distraction, he realised too late that I had entered his guard and therefore he was unable to react when I put both of my hands on the sides of his head. I started to apply pressure.

The scream of pain that escaped from his throat was the cry of a suffering beast. He fell to his knees in front of me and started to grab my wrists trying to remove my hands, punch me, claw at me, but it was all in vain. Something creaked under his skin and his eyes went white.

The next instant, something hit me on the cheek, sending me flying. I rolled on the ground before getting up and seeing Marnie standing in front of me, with my mace in her hand covered in blood. Bringing my hand to my face, I could feel something viscous flowing from an open wound and I realised that blood had to be mine. I had been hit with my own weapon.

“John! Take a hold of yourself, for heaven’s sake!” she yelled raising the mace once again and taking a swing at me.