Clone 1 and Bethan flew through the expansive opening of the arena, following behind Rikilda.

She moved without waiting, banking hard into the arena’s interior, cutting through the open air between active rings with ease, like she had flown this space a thousand times. Clone 1 tracked her line and followed, adjusting his trajectory to match her turns without losing ground.

As they flew, he noticed the heads turning and tracked him as he flew. He kept his gaze forward, not taking note of the faces as they were simply too many.

He noticed that they all wore human aspects, the way Bethan and Rikilda did, rather than the enormous winged forms he had seen in the sky above. At least a vast majority of them were.

But the pressure coming off them was not human. It was the same class of pressure he felt from Bethan and Rikilda.

He assessed the dragons’ strength watching him as he flew.

Most were beyond him. A clear majority, by a significant margin. A smaller number sat in a range he might contend with if the fight ran in his favor. A very small handful he assessed as roughly equivalent.

He filed all of it and kept flying.

Rikilda dropped onto a ring at the far end of the arena’s middle tier, landing at the center and turned to face the approach, already settled into a relaxed combat stance, her weight distributed evenly, her hands loose at her sides.

Clone 1 descended to the far end of the ring and landed.

Bethan peeled off toward the stands, found an elevated position with a clear sightline, and settled into it, looking entirely comfortable.

Clone 1 took a moment to assess the ring properly.

At least 80 meters across. The floor material was dense and slightly yielding, clearly designed to absorb impact rather than shatter under it. The barrier enclosing the ring was visible as a faint shimmer at the edge, the same containment he had seen holding other rings’ exchanges from spreading.

He looked at Rikilda.

She looked back at him, with focus and impatience, as she simply waited for the spar to begin.

"Ready?" she asked.

Clone 1 nodded. "Come at me."

She smirked. "Don’t regret saying that."

She crossed nearly fifty meters in an instant, appearing instantly in front of him, her right fist driving upward in an uppercut aimed at his jaw with the full momentum of her acceleration behind it.

Clone 1’s response was immediate. He didn’t step back. He brought his left forearm down across the inside of her wrist, deflecting the punch’s line outward past his left shoulder, absorbing the redirected force through his stance. In the same motion, without resetting, he brought his right hand down in a downward chop angled toward her neck, the attack already moving before the parry had fully completed.

Rikilda dropped, bent at the waist, her upper body dipping below the line of the strike — but the chop tracked her, the angle adjusting mid-motion, following her downward as though the target had locked onto her.

She read this and shifted immediately. Her left leg swept low, a wide arc aimed at his ankles, intending to pull his base out from under him while he committed to the downward attack.

Clone 1 lifted his left leg from the sweep’s path and pushed off his right, launching himself upward and slightly forward. His left foot came up in a driving kick aimed at her face from below, using the elevation the jump had created.

Rikilda was already moving. She brought both legs up in a rapid windmill sequence — two kicks in quick succession at head height, the second following the first before it had fully extended, designed to intercept his kick and reclaim vertical space simultaneously.

Clone 1 pulled his kick back a fraction and rotated, letting her windmill pass through the space his head had occupied, the air from the second kick moving against his face as he cleared it. He landed, turned, and watched her come down. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

She landed cleanly, both feet hitting the ring floor at the same moment, and looked at him.

The smirk had shifted into something more focused. "You’re fast," she said.

"You’re strong," he said.

She rolled her shoulders and came again.

This exchange was faster than the first. She opened with a feint — a right hook that pulled back before it arrived, drawing his guard, and when his attention moved to track it she was already driving her left knee upward toward his midsection. Clone 1 caught the knee on his forearm and felt the impact travel up through his shoulder. He was pushed back two steps.

She pressed the advantage immediately, closing the distance he had gained, throwing a sequence of three strikes — right, left, right — each one aimed at a different target and each one coming faster than the previous. Clone 1 blocked the first, slipped the second, and took the third on his shoulder, absorbing it and pivoting with the force rather than against it, using the rotation to create distance.

He stopped himself at the ring’s edge and breathed.

The third hit had landed clean and he felt it in his shoulder. He looked at his shoulder briefly, then at her.

Rikilda had not followed him to the edge. She stood at the ring’s center, watching, letting him reset.

Clone 1 moved back toward the center and the next exchange began without announcement — he initiated this time, crossing the distance and throwing a straight right that was genuine, not a feint. She deflected it outward and countered with an elbow toward his face. He ducked under it and drove his shoulder into her torso, attempting to take her off her feet.

She didn’t go off her feet. She braced, absorbed the impact, and locked her arms around his shoulders. For a moment they were locked together at close range, each testing the other’s base, and Clone 1 felt clearly how much stronger she was in static force. It was like pushing against a mountain. He released and stepped back before she could use the grip.

She let him.

They stood facing each other, breathing steadily, and the ring around them had acquired an audience.

Several dragons had drifted from nearby rings or from the air above and settled at the barrier’s edge, watching. Clone 1 registered them without looking directly at them. He had been aware of the shifting attention since the second exchange.

He kept his attention on Rikilda.

She noticed the gathering observers and didn’t cared, as her attention was fully on Clone 1, with an expression said she was pleased with how this had developed.

"I think it’s time we start taking this serious. Stop pulling your punches. You can use everything you have. Just come at me," she said.

Clone 1 looked at her with a smirk. "Are you sure about that? Don’t try to take back your words," he said.

"Try me," Rikilda smiled.

She reached out into thin air and pulled out a sword, took a fighting stance and vanished from the spot, leaving afterimages behind her.