Ordin looked at Mark at eight feet.

At the silver eyes looking at his face.

At the simulation building.

He clapped—Arrow Burst, immediate, the eight-foot compression, the burst arriving at Mark’s position in a fraction of a second. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Mark’s reflex read it—the evasion at eight feet minimal but present, the burst passing his shoulder rather than hitting center mass.

He didn’t create distance.

He maintained eight feet.

Ordin clapped again—the same thing, Arrow Burst, immediate.

Same result—evasion, graze, maintained distance.

The sustained gaze between exchanges—Mark’s silver eyes on Ordin’s face during each brief reset between claps, the simulation building in the seconds the exchanges provided.

Forty percent.

Ordin recognized the specific quality of Mark’s gaze—the same recognition that Gorr had eventually produced, the same recognition that Ragnor had produced. The silver eyes weren’t just reading his technique. They were building something.

He looked away.

His eyes dropped to Mark’s body—the shatterpoint-reading position was Varen’s technique, not Ordin’s, but the principle was the same. Breaking direct eye contact interrupted the simulation’s construction.

The simulation stalled at forty percent.

He fired a rapid succession—Thousand Arrows at eight feet, the barrage technique at the range where the coverage was densest and the evasion windows were smallest.

Mark evaded four of the first five—the fifth hitting his chest at close range, the force at eight feet more concentrated than the thirty-foot hits had been.

He went back one step.

Nine feet.

He came back to eight.

The crowd produced the specific noise—the step back and the step forward, both significant, both receiving response from the sections that were invested in each direction.

"He’s not letting the distance open," the announcer said. His voice had the quality it carried when something had been happening for long enough that the pattern itself was remarkable. "Every time a hit creates distance—he closes it again. The eight feet is deliberate. The simulation needs close range and he’s holding the range even through the barrage."

Ordin tried the Vacuum Spear.

Extended compression at eight feet—the buildup window shorter than at thirty feet, the silver eyes having less time to read the expansion and act on it.

Mark read it anyway.

He dropped again—the same evasion, the horizontal-clearance technique, his body removing itself from the Vacuum Spear’s horizontal plane before the drilling force could reach his position.

The Vacuum Spear drilled through eight feet of air and hit the far wall.

Mark was on the floor at eight feet.

He pushed up.

Eight feet.

Ordin looked at the configuration.

His large techniques weren’t creating distance. His barrage was hitting but not pushing Mark back more than a single step. His Arrow Bursts at eight feet were grazing rather than landing clean. The range that should have favored his ability—the space where compressed air projectiles had the distance to travel and the force to impact—had become the range where the simulation was building fastest.

He needed to change the range.

He stepped forward.

Not away—toward, closing the eight feet rather than trying to extend them, changing the geometric relationship between them in a direction the simulation hadn’t been accounting for.

Six feet.

At six feet the Airbreaker Palms operated differently from at eight. The burst had less distance to travel but arrived with more concentrated force per unit area—the air compression not having dispersed across as much distance, the impact denser.

He clapped.

The burst hit Mark’s shoulder at six feet.

The force was significantly more than the eight-foot hits had been carrying—the concentrated close-range impact pushing Mark backward two steps.

Ten feet.

The distance had opened.

Mark closed it immediately—the two steps back becoming two steps forward, the eight feet reestablished.

Ordin clapped again.

Two steps back. Two steps forward.

The exchange pattern at six feet—Ordin advancing to close, clapping, Mark absorbing and returning, the distance oscillating between six and ten feet and always being pulled back to eight by Mark’s deliberate maintenance of the range.

The crowd was producing continuous noise—not the sharp detonations of individual moments but a sustained wall of sound that had been building since the exchange began at fifteen feet and hadn’t diminished since, the fight demanding the crowd’s investment rather than extracting it in discrete moments.

Atlas in the stands was standing on his seat.

Mira had both hands pressed together in front of her face.

Jelo watched from his position—the silver eyes, the simulation building, the distance maintenance, the pattern he had been watching build through all of Mark’s previous fights now operating at its highest output against the most technically challenging opponent Mark had faced.

The simulation is at forty percent and stalled, he thought. Mark needs Ordin’s eyes on his face for three consecutive seconds. Ordin is looking at his body. The pattern is the same as it was against Ragnor—the simulation can’t complete without the gaze and Ordin isn’t giving the gaze.

But he gave it to Ragnor.

How.

He watched.

Ordin fired a full Sky Splitter at six feet.

Maximum stretch—both palms at their widest, the atmosphere drawn from the widest separation, the full devastating force at the closest range he had used it.

Mark dropped.

Same evasion—below the horizontal plane, the floor, the technique that had worked at eight feet working at six because the principle was the same regardless of range.

The Sky Splitter passed over him.

He pushed up.

Six feet.

The Sky Splitter’s recovery debt was significant—the maximum stretch at six feet having cost the elastic tissue more than any previous Sky Splitter because the proximity had required maximum output without the distance to let the tissue recover between applications.

Ordin’s arms were at their lowest position of the fight.

Mark read it.

At six feet with Ordin’s arms compromised—the window where the large techniques were unavailable, the recovery debt requiring time the fight wasn’t giving him—the sustained gaze was more available than it had been at any previous moment.

His silver eyes found Ordin’s face.

Ordin looked at Mark’s body—the deliberate break, the eye contact avoided, the shatterpoint-reading position he had been using all fight to interrupt the simulation.

Mark said nothing.