Neil stood there for a moment longer, watching the spot where Cynthia had disappeared into the crowd, then turned back to face the stage.

Mantis had already climbed up and was standing at the center with the natural authority of someone who had run events like this many times before. The hall settled quickly, conversations dropping to murmurs and then to silence as people shifted their attention forward.

"Welcome everyone, we are now entering the main part of this great event!" Mantis announced, his voice carrying cleanly across the entire hall without effort.

The crowd responded with immediate enthusiasm.

Whatever conversations had been happening across the hall died completely, replaced by that particular energy that only appeared when people sensed they were about to watch something worth watching.

Lords, wardens, traders, heirs, all of them turning toward the stage with varying degrees of interest.

Some of them genuinely wanted to see talented young lords compete. Others were here to scout, to evaluate, to find weaknesses or opportunities in whoever stepped forward. And the rest simply wanted a spectacle, which was an equally valid reason to attend.

"As always, this competition is open only to lords who have taken their domain within the last three years. Step forward when you are ready to challenge!" Mantis said, the smile on his face relaxed and practiced.

Randy materialised beside Neil from somewhere in the surrounding crowd, appearing the way he always did, suddenly and without warning, as though the concept of walking from one place to another was beneath him.

"My trump card," he said, leaning slightly toward Neil with a grin that suggested he had already made several bets with people in this room, "you give it everything and beat those little idiots into the floor. Break something if it’s convenient. I will handle the rest."

Neil glanced sideways at him and rolled his eyes.

He had no interest in breaking anyone or creating enemies he would have to deal with later. A clean win was enough. Several clean wins, in fact, since that seemed to be what tonight required.

Randy looked entirely unbothered by the eye roll and went back to scanning the crowd with visible satisfaction.

The first match started without delay.

Two lords stepped onto the stage from opposite sides of the gathered crowd. One was a young human, broad-shouldered with a short sword at his hip and the upright posture of someone who had trained formally for years.

The faint glow of his rank mark was visible at his collar, 2nd Origin, Gold class.

The other was from the wolf race, lean and relaxed in his movement with grey fur visible along his forearms and the back of his neck, his yellow eyes sweeping the audience once before settling on his opponent with complete calm.

Mantis announced his name as Holt, from the Greymane Pack.

His rank mark was Gold class as well, same tier on paper.

The fight lasted less than a minute.

The human lord opened with a wide diagonal slash meant to test both reach and reaction in the same motion, a reasonable opening against an unknown opponent.

Holt stepped past it without any visible effort, let the blade travel through empty air, and by the time the human was trying to reset his stance, Holt had already closed the gap entirely and drove his elbow hard into the underside of the human’s chin.

The crack of impact was audible from where Neil was sitting.

The human went down and did not get back up.

"Winner, Holt of the Greymane Pack." Mantis announced.

Applause moved through the hall in a wave, though not everyone sounded happy about it.

"Didn’t even use his ability." Someone nearby said with a low whistle. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Didn’t need to." Their companion replied.

Neil watched Holt walk back to the edge of the stage. His movement was exactly the same as before the fight, unhurried, no visible fatigue, no change in expression.

He hadn’t needed to reach for anything extra because his opponent had never made him. Clean read, clean response, fight finished before it had the chance to become complicated.

’Decent instincts.’ Neil thought, reaching for a new glass of wine from a passing tray. ’And he’s not showing everything yet.’

Randy dropped into the chair beside him.

"Wolf cubs always go for joints and elbows. No elegance whatsoever." He said.

"He won in under a minute without an ability." Neil replied.

"Exactly, no elegance." Randy said firmly, as though that proved his point. He leaned back and started scanning the room again, already looking for whoever he was going to bet against next.

The second match was more interesting.

A beastkin girl walked onto the stage, cat-type from her build and the sharpness of her movement, twin short blades already drawn and held loose at her sides.

Her rank mark read 2nd Origin, Diamond class, a full tier above Holt on paper, and she moved like she knew what that difference was supposed to mean.

She did not open cautiously.

She came in fast and low, blades angled for his ribs, forcing him to react immediately rather than read and wait. Holt moved, catching the strike on his forearm rather than his side and using the point of contact to feel her momentum before she could redirect it.

She tried to create distance after that first exchange, pulling back to reset her angle, and he simply didn’t allow the gap.

What followed was quick and sharp, three exchanges back and forth across the stage with neither of them landing anything clean, until Holt caught her ankle mid-jump as she tried to break away and brought her down onto the stage hard enough to crack the surface faintly beneath her.

She tapped the floor twice.

The hall was considerably louder after that.

Several wardens along the far wall were leaning forward now, exchanging words in low voices. Caleb was standing near one of the stone columns with his arms folded and his expression unreadable, though his eyes had stayed on Holt from the start of the second fight and had not moved.

Randy was having an intense whispered disagreement with the warden standing to his left, and appeared to be winning it through sheer persistence rather than logic.

"Two hundred. My man, whoever steps up next from our side, takes the wolf in under a minute." Randy said.

The warden gave him a flat look. "You have someone here?"

"I might." Randy replied pleasantly.

Neil finished his wine and set the glass down.

Then he stood up.

He walked to the stage without any particular hurry, passing through the edge of the gathered crowd, and stepped up without announcing himself.

Holt looked across at him, taking in the 1st Origin mark at his collar with a slight narrowing of the eyes, though his expression stayed even. He was not the type to let rank on paper make him careless. Two fights had already told him that much about himself.

"You are challenging me?" Holt asked.

"Yes." Neil said.

Holt rolled his shoulders once. "Alright then."

Mantis glanced between them. "Neil Yates of the uh settlement 2 challenges Holt of the Greymane Pack. Begin!"

Holt moved first, covering ground fast and leading with a shoulder feint before pushing a closed fist toward Neil’s temple, the same opening motion that had ended both previous fights before they had the chance to develop.

The adjustment mid-movement was subtle and practiced, the kind of thing that only showed up after doing it enough times that the body did it without being asked.

Neil tilted his head back slightly and the strike passed close enough that he felt the air shift beside his ear.

Holt pivoted and reset immediately, coming from a lower angle this time.

Neil sidestepped.

Holt adjusted and came again.

Neil sidestepped again.

The murmur that moved through the nearby crowd was not entirely complimentary.

"He’s just moving backward. Why isn’t he countering?"

"Look at where his weight is sitting. He hasn’t shifted his feet more than twice total."

"What is he doing?"

What he was doing was watching. The rhythm of Holt’s weight transfer between strikes, the length of the window between a miss and the next commitment, where his balance went during a pivot and how long it took to come back.

A few exchanges was all it took to map that out clearly, and once it was clear there was no reason to rush anything.

Holt came in again with a genuine feint low before redirecting high toward the shoulder, sharp enough that it would have caught most people mid-adjustment.

Neil’s hand came up and caught his wrist cleanly in the middle of the motion.

The section of crowd nearest the stage went quiet.

Neil shifted his hip, turned his weight, and threw him. Nothing complicated, no technique with a name, just leverage applied at exactly the right point with a level of physical strength that had no reasonable explanation given what his rank mark said.

Holt hit the stage on his back and was up in under two seconds, which drew a short sound of appreciation from the audience even in the middle of the silence. He was breathing harder now. His eyes had changed.

"You haven’t used an ability once." He said.

"No." Neil agreed.

The grey light of Holt’s ability rose along his arms and his speed stepped up sharply, each movement now faster and heavier than his frame alone could account for.

He came forward again, this time targeting a chain of three points in sequence rather than a single strike, the kind of combination that forced the opponent to choose between what to cover and what to accept.

Thanks for reading...