Every moment that this duel continued, the other elders watching could see more clearly that the outcome... was already decided in favor of Navuill er Yecine. Not because he was expressly faster or demonstrably stronger. Nor because his Fire gave some insurmountable advantage in the exchanges, especially with the constrained way he used it.

His willpower was simply higher in a way that was present for all to witness. Unwavering, honed to a single minded pursuit, and masking something else that slowly dawned on those who had been hoping he would lose rather quickly. He was *controlling* himself better than the Patriarch. In moments that repeated themselves through feints and commits, the mercies that stacked without first notice eventually proved too hard for experienced onlookers to ignore.

Until the right moment, when the final exchange occurred - and Navuill unleashed his full ’aggression’ on the flaw within the man’s foot slightly forward, third stance transition. With the flat of a very hot blade spinning to a crash onto a shoulder, with enough force to spasm the nerves leading to a set of fingertips. Causing the old man’s disarmed weapon to hit the sand an instant before his knee did.

Nobody moved far for seven heartbeats, though the Fire held close on a weapon did wink out completely. As the combatants both decided things were essentially over with. It was a young girl that shuffled awkwardly in the silence which forced things in motion again.

"The challenge stands resolved."

A voice projected from above, from the woman sitting solemnly on the stone seat, was not the sort of triumphant that one might expect when invoking the required phrase. She did not celebrate the outcome of the old man forced on his knee. Her heart just carried the sad burden of someone who had watched this family fail, other families disappear, and the world around her continue on.

’Like our history was a pathetic footnote carelessly listed under the entry for the Marching Pace of Civilization. May I live to see it rise higher than our prior mountain of deserved pride, and not live to see it take another plunge into the valley of deserved shame.’ 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

While Lirades had her complex moment of victory, the Patriarch rose back to both of his feet without assistance. He bent over and retrieved his blade from the sand, cleaning it against pant leg first as habits began to demand that he tend to it with his maintenance kit now that the fighting was done with. His tired eyes found the set of steel gray that were growing slightly unfocused, even as the anger had sharpened - and bent back upon the user. A man who knew he’d been waiting here all night while his wife and children were likely back, just like Elua was.

"So it was Ratified, in the only way our founder would have wanted. Leadership of the Yecine family passes on, effective immediately. Navuill er Yecine will assume the role."

His head inclined toward the man who was presently taking sliding, shaky steps across the sand as the now former Patriarch spoke. Not that *deeply*, because he had enough of overwrought displays for one week, but plenty *enough* to show his acknowledgement to the most recent family elder who had now turned... total autocrat. At least, that was how his way of rule seemed in the very next moments, judging by the first words to escape his mouth this whole morning.

"All council positions are hereby subject to review under my authority. Grand Elder Lirades will handle all planned administrative transition in my absence and knows how to reach me in any real emergency. I have duties elsewhere, as should all of you."

’To people that have waited more than long enough for me to finish this.’

Those adrenaline rattled steps evened out by the time he made it to the exit door. Where he paused, spending a private moment and letting go of the feeling he’d been emitting. Just a bit... for he’d finally done the first part to fix something that his cousin knew was broken long ago. He felt that result deserved a touch of self-absolution, however he recognized it was only one win. That the string of figurative ’duels’ for expanding what was accepted was never going to end.

"Any member of this family who wishes to contest the outcome may submit their challenge in the same way. Simply gather the appropriate-"

Letting out a steadying breath, Navuill tuned out her prepared speech - one he’d already read on the train last night - and just started walking. It was a little ways off to the Goltbred estate, and each second and every stone on the path he took felt like an eternal distance when the man was already months too late. Overdue to express his profound ’joy’ and sharpening ’terror’ to Rezzue, at the prospect of their first time choice...

Actually producing three offspring!

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

He was sure that the woman who dethroned him wanted his assistance. However, as willing as he might be to provide Lirades with backing some other day, the old man instead found himself heading back to his room and consuming a meal that he instructed one of the family retainers to bring him. Reviewing the fight while eating, meditating on the outcome while polishing and checking the metal, and standing up to try and recreate his earlier mistake again... the former Patriarch fully focused on how to fix the fault he’d been shown.

"Morning is for sword training, after all."

For the first time in decades, he actually *smiled* as his hands found his sword. It was good to learn new things and it was exciting to feel a sense of personal growth - whether you were under twenty five or over one hundred. So as the essence lanterns in his private space left clear but shallow shadows all around him, he sharpened his inner focus, expanded his essence field, and tugged at the Light itself.

The area around him was designated by an uneven and long unpracticed spheroid that experienced a brief moment of violet sheen before the darkness inside it *grew*. Shadows turned sharper as the illuminating photons produced by the lanterns were sucked into the Patriarch’s tight control. Gathering in a flickering, hazy distortion above his head that looked quite a bit, at its center, like the the hole in reality that was Void Element.

Of course, unlike the anti-material of the cyclical invaders - a Something that was actually Nothing - what sat *fairly* still inside this Yecine’s ever straining manipulation only *looked* like ’nothing’ to an observer who was using physical sight alone. Spiritual sense would see the rising, tinged essence contained... quite insecurely within. When it reached the point he could no longer force himself to hold it, which was not actually all that long with how energetic this Element was...

The containment burst in a blinding flashbang that could be avoided nimbly enough. By practically anyone that expected it or had the reaction time to blink. However, if he could learn to time it right, he was sure it could easily cover his footwork problem that Navuill punished. Something caused by the improper range of motion available in his knee joint, from an injury he had been nursing and trying to train through for about two and a half decades now.

Obtained as a battlescar serving in the same Descent that later labeled Ondua er Goltbred as a Hero - a man who himself used a weapon that boldly expressed the Crystal user’s far more tangible and stable Element. For a while now it was clear that not all of the famed cultivators on the continent were entirely like Corde, but all of them had tricks and gimmicks outside of pure martial ability.

"Quicker than I remember, but perhaps I am spreading my attention too far. Should I focus on the Light that touches close by me instead? Or is prioritizing my spiritual sense’s range, to catch an opponent’s situation... the optimal decision."

And if he could learn to bring an Element to bear in this way, well enough to use in a spar, he would move on to trying to line the edge of his blade. To wield a different intentional glow and coincidental heat akin to that of a particular Fire user. For he had been challenged today in more than one way... and Yecine men rarely lost at anything that made them decide to quit growing as fighters, no matter their actual limits.

Stubbornness that sounded good and noble on one hand, but that also had led to the state of many glory clinging, council-bound elders. Men who were willing to use the potential of not only the women cultivators in their family, but also those boys with lesser momentum and obvious talent, as if they were only bailing buckets on their great sinking ship. Ignoring the rot in the black timbers as long as they could stand on the gilt deck, eyes toward the horizon of the next realm.

Even as the figurative vessel listed in direction, closer to turning back on itself than reaching any sort of next shoreline. How much easier a journey might it be if even a few of those ’buckets’ were trained Water Element wielders - or Air users that could fill the sails? Or even an Empath that could properly understand how to read a room and advise the captain on the state of the crew.

"How should I even practice my Astralism...? Beyond knowing the supposed effect of what is listed in the archives as Synergy, I have spent too long ignoring the actual function."

For too many centuries now, the cultivation ethos had been hamstrung by the activities of the Ouras cult... but only by feeding into the very complacency problems inherent in human nature. When everyone else was saying things were fine, you began to believe it if you had nothing shaking you out of that belief. You began to reinforce it through ignorance and inaction.

Luckily an issue now being dealt with in the open by all sorts of people, but undoubtedly caused by a rippling on the social seas thanks to the existence of a very particular ’mintdrop’ of ancient-minded provenance. The kind of wellspring for dramatic change currently yawning at the same time the Patriarch of the Yecine trained that morning... and wiping at the drool she’d left on her husband-wife’s knee.

After sleeping the very best, uninterrupted slumbers she’d had in as many years as it had been since Qat led her strikeforce away. So serene that she missed one mother’s rather emotional crying... and a set of Numbers being given Names by a father who had his three clear choices agreed to immediately, with a kiss placed so dearly on his arms seared wound.