This time, the terrain was like the Outside: a field of dunes, rising and falling like humps on a herd of camels. Not a shadow in sight.

Already Dorian was off to a rough start.

He eyed the Rat-King, who stood idly on the other side of the arena. His arms were crossed, his eyes narrowed to brooding, angry slits.

And here—in the brief span of the referee’s stroll from ringside into the arena, in the few seconds he got before the battle began—Dorian cast out his mind, scrambling for a plan.

There were two things any great fighter had to keep in mind.

The first was an utter, irrational confidence in himself. Each time Dorian fought he didn’t only know he would win. He believed it.

The second was a sober assessment of reality.

Which, in this case, was that he was likely screwed to all hells!

The truly great fighters were very good at holding those two thoughts side-by-side. Especially when they directly contradicted each other.

So here, Dorian believed he would win. He also knew that to bridge a gap between the current him and a fighter of the caliber of Bin Heilong?

Suffice it to say, he didn’t blame the Oasis Lord for betting on the Rat-King.

He’d need a plan. A really, really good plan. And he really only had two things he could possibly exploit. They were the first two things he’d noticed.

The terrain—a field of dunes, chock-full of sands…and the brooding Rat-King, who had a tendency to let his opponents come to him.

The plan seemed to suggest itself. It was simple. It was obvious. That was how Dorian knew it was good. Good enough to bridge the gap?

I guess we’ll see!

The referee made it to his post at last. “Begin!” he cried.

As expected, the Rat-King did not make a move. Instead he simply stood, eyes locked on Dorian. An unspoken challenge hung between them.

And Dorian, baring his teeth, took the bait. He cried out and the Heilong Javelin blasted through the air, scattering sands in its wake—

—and, at the last moment, swerved. Making one big loop around the Rat-King, almost gloating, between curling back at Dorian’s side. A little tease.

The Rat-King frowned. Snickers rained down from the crowd.

By now Dorian knew his enemy was a counter-striker; he liked to use his enemy’s powers against them. So of course Dorian wouldn’t feed him!

But he did loop the Javelin around again for another run.

And, just like last time, swerved around the Rat-King, making a lazy loop about the perimeter.

Two harsh black lines marred the Rat-King’s temple.

“Hmph! Have you come to fight, boy? ” he growled. “Or are you merely here to waste my time?”

Dorian pretended to consider it. The Javelin made another fake-dip, then curled out the way again. Then again. And a third time, zipping by—this time not even making an effort to go anywhere near the Rat-King!

By now even the crowd was getting restless.

“Do something!” came a shout.

“Booo!”

“Fight, damn you! What the hells is this?!”

The Rat-King’s hands clenched to fists. Dorian could nearly see the blood boiling in his veins. “You have not been taught respect. Life, to you, is but a playground! You have not a care for honor not tradition! You would spit on our way of life!”

Zip-zip went the Javelin again.

“Eh.” Dorian grinned. “Are you sure you’re not just mad ‘cause I spanked your girlfriend? Twice?”

“Knave!” A vein stood out in the Rat-King’s neck. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them his face had hardened back up. “Pebble has spoken well of you,” he said softly. “He thinks you can one day make a good business partner. He thinks you can learn respect.”

He heaved a long, rattling breath. “I am not so optimistic. I see now that the only way you shall be taught such a lesson is if I carve it into your flesh.”

Zip-zip went the Javelin, playing along the perimeter. It was all but a background hum as the Rat-King held out his hand.

A blood-red handle dropped into his palm. At its end, gleaming wickedly, was the slick blade of a huge, hideous axe. It was soaking wet—wet with a viscous, crimson qi that dripped endlessly from its tip.

Where it fell the sands hissed, as though scalded by acid. But Dorian got the sneaking suspicion that thing would do a lot more than merely burn him if it touched him…

“Halt!” He cried, throwing up both hands. Zip-zip-zip. “You want honor from me? Fine! Here’s my try at respecting you Oasis-dwellers’ customs: as a representative of the venerable Heilong Family, speaking to the great Rat-King of the Oasis, I demand you give me the face of hearing me out! Before we begin this final showdown, it is of immense importance that you listen to what I am about to say. The fate of the Oasis could depend on it!”

“What? Why are you speaking like that?” snapped the Rat-King, frowning. “Fine. I shall grant you some face—this once. Speak!”

Dorian nodded. “Thank you, senior Rat-King. In times of great distress—indeed, in times of battle, or even war, as in the one in which we currently find ourselves—you must know your enemy’s strategy, indeed, his very intent!” said Dorian seriously. He looked the Rat-King dead in the eyes so the man could see just how serious he was. “Indeed, if your enemy is speaking at length nonsensically and without a clear and discernible point, it may simply be because he is in the process of creating, formulating, and otherwise installing a veritable stalling tactic! He could even be setting up a trap—and using his words as a buffer, a way of filibustering, mayhaps—ee! wait—wait, I said! I’m not done—!”

But the Rat-King had already launched himself at Dorian.

And good Gods the man was fast! As fast as Eudora—maybe even faster!

Dorian turned tail and ran.

Which worked for about two seconds, and then the Rat-King was upon him and he was forced to whirl around and face the threat head-on. The axe carved for Dorian’s skull; he only managed to dodged it via a desperate limbo. Even so the thing dripped on him. Right on the forearm.

It felt like a chunk of flesh had been carved right off him. It wasn’t only the impact, which felt like burning coals on tender skin; it was the aftermath. The thing was a parasite! It ate away at the wound, and only after stumbling back and willing his qi to shuck the damned thing off did it stop. Just a drop had to have shaved off a solid chunk of his health. A drop!

Then the whole thing carved straight into him.

He screamed.

***

What the hells was her brother doing?!

He was running around like he’d lost his head!

Kaya was almost indignant as she watched him stumble over himself. He was just too small, too weak, too slow—and it showed. The axe nearly missed him once.

Then it came back around and sliced him clean across the stomach.

His scream curdled her blood. He fell to his knees. In the same instant, high above, his health bar fell so low she almost thought he’d been killed on the spot. No—it hovered somewhere just above ten percent.

Was it over? Her heart dropped. That fast?

Then she squinted.

A gust of wind buffeted her, sending her hair streaking in all directions. Her sight was suddenly grainy. She squinted, confused—the gusts were picking up, the sands rising steadily. A sandstorm? Indoors?!

Neither of the competitors seemed to notice.

Underneath it all went the subtle zip-zip-zip, the Javelin swerving gently around the arena. Kaya gaped at it. It’d seemed nonsensical to her, at first—her brother’s typical taunting—but suddenly it all clicked into place.

The air in the arena had changed. It would be imperceptible to those within, but outside, she felt it tearing at her skin like stormwinds, all flowing in one direction, spurred on by one whirring Spirit Weapon going round, and round, and round…

The sands rose with it. A chill went up her spine.

“A pitiful performance. A deceiver until the end—and where has that gotten you? Trickery will only work for so long. Then you find there are some who tricks alone cannot defeat. What is left of you then?” sighed the Rat-King. “You would’ve done better to give fighting me honestly a try. Alas.”

He held raised the axe high above his head like an executioner’s blade.

Then Io started to laugh—a keening, mad, hysterical sound. There were tears in his eyes; his shoulders shook. “I can’t—“ he gasped through snorts. “I can’t believe this actually worked!”

The Rat-King paused, frowning. For only now did he notice that he was utterly surrounded.

The whole crowd had been blocked off by a whirlwind of sands, whipped into a rising frenzy, by the slow, patient build-up of gust, to wind, to current, to full-blown tornado, cresting on its own momentum, rising to ceiling and smothering the lights above.

And what happened in the absence of lights?

Too late the Rat-King realized that he, too, was drenched in shadow.

There was the shadow of the sand-cloud all over him. There was the shadow of his own scythe on his face.

Then there was the shadow that the sand-cloud high above cast on his axe. Its head was covered in shadow. A blade which, held above him, hung less than an arm’s length from his face.

Some part of him, some primal warning, didn’t even need to see it. He felt it happen. But even still in moments like these, that urge, so natural, so instinctive, overcame him.

He looked up.

All he saw was white.

For a gleaming white fang had emerged at mach speed—from the shadow cast on the blade of his very own weapon. And in that infinitesimal moment, he saw it in its entirety, filling up his field of view: the wide, conelike end, tapering down to broad, curved sides of pale bone, all the way to that devilishly sharp, the tip gleaming wickedly despite the gloom. He’d had but one tiny fraction of a second to react. He’d wasted it by looking up. Now the Javelin was less than an inch from the watery film of his left eyeball.

There was something sublime about the whole thing, in the throes of the sandstorm, the man staring down the point of this massive Fang: the instant before the reckoning. If only time could stop, and an artist could be shuttled in to paint a fresco of the scene! But alas—the loveliness only lasted a moment. Time went on, relentlessly, brutally. Something very sharp and hard and heavy, moving at lightning speed, met something very soft and squishy.

Then the screaming began.