Avoiding Wren's wrecking ball charge didn't mean that we escaped it. As he landed from what I now saw had been an incredibly long, low leap, the impact sent sand geysering up into the air around him and shook the ground beneath us, displacing our footing. Unfortunately for Wren, he made the immense mistake of picking the wrong one of us to prioritize. Or rather, picking the RIGHT one to prioritize, leaving the other open to defend.

On landing his spear lashed out at Callie, who, having much more impressive stats due to specialization, was a bigger threat. I had no clue how he could TELL that, but he clearly had some way of doing so, and he went right for her. Sadly for him, Callie had zero defense during our combat trance, she left that up to me. Making a sharp gesture with one hand, I pointed at a spot in the air near her, triggering Cloud Step. While her footing had been disturbed, I'd made sure to put it close enough to plant her hands on the surface, allowing her to arch up into a backbend handstand.

The spear smashed through the air where Callie's ribs had been with bonecrushing force, failing to find any purchase as she pushed off and sent herself flying out of range, at an angle that kept her close to me. During this whole mess, I was able to regain my footing easily enough, and as she distracted Wren with her acrobatics, I used a Sucking Mud skill on the sand to prevent the shifting ground from being as big of a problem, then layered Consecration of Flame and Touch of Tears on my cane as I lashed out at the side of Wren's knee with the weapon.

To my surprise, Wren choked up on his grip, smashing the butt of his spear into the mud and using the ground to create a blockade between my cane and his leg. My blow bounced harmlessly off it, not even managing to corrode the bone. He barely showed any difficulty yanking the spear from the mud, but before he could turn to attack, he was forced to wheel in place and swing the spear to deflect a massive pitch black ball of shadow swinging at his head on a wide chain.

Balam and the combat trance combined to show me exactly where I needed to attack, and I silently activated my overlay, resonating it with my Balam Skill to find the perfect trajectory to attack from. Selecting the option that best mirrored Callie's own attack, I rolled sideways through the mud, smashing out at Wren's lower spine with a vicious blow that left me in his blindspot provided he was focused on Callie.

It...sort of worked. He didn't notice the attack until the last second, and avoided it by pivoting his body around the spear that was driven into the mud again to fend off Callie's offensive. That took his feet off the ground for a second, and as he came down a barrage of shadow spiked lashed up from the ground. He's slipped on the mud, but I was doing the same damn thing. This mud was vaguely better than sand, but not by much.

With the split second of distraction the blades brought me, I used Consecration of Flame again, but this time, I strained my soul to force it to treat Sucking Mud's area of effect as a focus, causing the mud to harden as it was imbued with the same magma like properties my stone limb could get. I dropped the skill nearly instantly, then used Mistwalking, creating a bank of mist around us, which quickly turned into hissing steam.

Wren's frustrated growl was music to my ears as I used Seek Hidden, wincing a bit at so much soul weight so quickly. Still, he came into view perfectly and my mask kept the steam from bothering me. Callie wasn't inside the bank of mist, since she'd been attacking from a distance and I activated Stealth as I walked, keeping my footsteps silent as I circled in the obstruction, looking for an opening.

"Ok." Wren's voice snarled. "I admit. That's really fucking annoying. What the hell is your ability? Fire, water, earth, some weird poison shit if that cane glowing was anything to go by. You're not exactly super powerful, but you're versatile as hell." I snickered at that internally, though I didn't let out a noise. He had no clue how powerful I was. I hadn't used a single stored attack yet.

There were two reasons for this. Firstly, we were trying to see where we stood against an opponent from the star system. Second, the less of our tricks we used here the less we gave away for the tournament. And finally, because this was GREAT training for our dual combat style. This guy was absurdly good with his weapon. I didn't know how he was picking up our attacks so quickly (maybe a Perception specialization) but his ability to react to them without leaving openings was first class.

Sadly for him, that lack of openings didn't extend to his monologue, because as he vented his frustration, I finally noticed a gap in his guard. I flashed in, triggering Flurry of Blows to massively speed up my attack, and swung for his hip joint in what should have been a blind spot. I was kind of suspicious, so I didn't commit too heavily, and that turned out to be a life saver. I was barely able to react to the shift in his center of gravity in time to dodge the blazingly fast attack he launched because I was staring at his midsection for the attack.

The boom of displaced air crashed into the mist and steam, dispersing them both as I landed out of a handspring. Wren grinned at me viciously, opening his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by having to dive sideways to avoid a massive black hammer Callie brought down right on top of him. The impact compacted the ground, which had been sort of loose after being quenched from magma and heated from sand, flattening out a section of it. I considered using my magma leg combo, but it seemed stupid this early in the fight, so I just quietly slipped around to join up with Callie, who was in her dark distorted form, taking advantage of her armor's disguise features.

She'd been waiting for the opening he made with that strike, preparing to cover me if I was in trouble, and I gave her a grateful nod, which earned me a happy smile, one with a violent edge I only saw in fights, and which made me all the more aware how well we fit sometimes. She raised an eyebrow at Wren. "You're pretty good. I heard you're the second in command of the Spear Legion's team. Is Lament really that much better than you?" While it seemed like info gathering or smack talk, I could tell she was just genuinely curious.

Wren's laugh was good natured and rolling. "Are you kidding? Lament is a monster. Three of me would have trouble taking her. You two are damn impressive for such a backwater. Your cooperation is seamless and it's incredibly irritating, and all those fun tricks and the shaping power make you a versatile and surprising team. That said, Lament would pulp you both in a single blow. That's not to denigrate your skills. She'd kill me just as easily. Some people can't be described with common sense."

That was...unfortunate. But then again, she wasn't the only monster. If we couldn't take her, maybe Abel could. Of course, considering how fucking scary Wren was turning out to be, we would need to handle him, or let Mel do it and handle the other two. Assuming they were fielding a four man team. I wasn't sure if teams could be smaller. Either way, no use worrying about it now. We had a fight to win.

I spun up my cane as he spoke, easing myself into a circling movement to try to get to the other side of the disk of solid earth we were using for the fight. Wren noticed, but didn't so much follow as step back so he could let his eyes take in more of the circle. He let them unfocus the same way Abel had done in training, letting his field of view expand so he could react more quickly.

He was not, however, watching behind him. Which was why he didn't notice Callie rise from the sand in one smooth motion and launch a cascade of shadow spears up from behind him. I dove forward in a quick juke before withdrawing, and Wren reacted, tensing up and then looking at me confused before his eyes widened in understanding. He spun on his heel, lashing out with another air smashing strike that dispersed the shadows and hit Callie directly.

My eyes widened in horror before she started to dissolve, and I grinned. She'd used the cover of the mist to make a clone, but had sent the clone around for the sneak attack instead of going herself. Wren's distraction left him open with his back to both of us, and we flickered forward as a single unit, coming around from opposite sides, my cane flashing out for his ankle with a Mercy Kill layered on it as she swung another massive hammer construct almost as tall as she was right at his head from the other side.

Between the shock and the perfect timing, he didn't have time to block both, and dug the but of his spear in to stop the hammer. It was an understandable move, the head was the most vulnerable part of the body, but he left himself open, and I took advantage. Unlike my shadow strikes or flame attacks, the triple stack density shift was completely viable to use without drawing attention. I layered that one onto the cane along with a Mercy Kill to boost it even higher, and unleashed every bit of stored force along with the strike as the head of my cane smashed into Wren's ankle.

There was a loud crack as the bone shattered, prevented from regenerating by the creeping poison fire that I heavily suspected hurt WAY worse when it was getting into broken bone. Wren roared in pain, forced to shift onto his other foot and effectively ruining his footing. I spun off the strike, reversing to spin out into a blow aimed at the back of the mans head as Callie attacked his ribs with a pair of condensed shadow tonfas, even as the hammer dispersed into a concealing shadow fog.

That was a new trick, and my Seek Hidden let me see right through it just as Callie could. We spent the next five minutes whittling him down. Cracking his ankle broke his concentration, and as the pain and damage from the poison fire mounted every time I got in a hit, he got slower and slower as our teamwork chipped away at him. Finally he roared out. "Enough!" Swinging his spear in a full circle to drive us back, then drove it into the ground to lean on. "That's enough. I concede."

I let my body relax, feeling relieved as the constant skill use had been slowly cranking the pain in my head, and held up a fist in triumph. As the match ended, an arena healer scurried out onto the field to treat Wren, who grinned at us widely. "Well, you two are certainly worth watching." He let the healer patch him up as I allowed the poison fire to dissipate from his body.

As he turned to walk away, he looked back over his shoulder, still with that same grin. "Don't lose too quickly in the tournament. I want a rematch." It was only after he disappeared behind the gate that I realized that he hadn't used his ability once in the battle. He'd been holding back as much as we had, maybe more. I mirrored his grin, my mouth stretched wide behind my mask. This tournament was going to be so much fun.