The two men charged straight at each other.

  There was no duplicitous attempt in either of their attacks, no feints, no magical tricks. Shoulder smmed against shoulder, causing a dual rebound. Stubbornly, they smmed right back against each other. Shoulders first, then foreheads. Teeth grit, one in cocky smile, the other in determined battlefury, they pushed against each other.

  The air around them sparked with infernal fire and raw arcane might, the character of their individual mana pouring from their skin, where it failed to further reinforce saturated muscle fibers.

  Both of them seized up for a split second, drawing fresh air into their lungs, before pushing again. It was a primitive push and shove. Rykard boosted the oxygen in his bloodstream with alchemy, reduced the build up of exhaustion in his fibres, and just generally did everything to dey the onset of exhaustion.

  It wasn’t enough. Ahdean pushed and pushed until a sudden surge of pressure made Rykard stumble backwards. It was only a half step, but that was all Ahdean required to swing his fist.

  Rykard caught it in his own hand. Reverberations rippled down his shoulder. Pale fingers cwed into the bck fist. Still, they stuck to a match of endurance and endurance alone - albeit now Ahdean had the advantage. An advantage he ruthlessly pushed, standing before the Contestant, a spawn of the deepest hells, here to challenge him and him alone.

  “YOU ARE STRONG!” Ahdean roared and pushed forwards with all of his weight.

  Rykard gave at that moment. He gave, focusing instead on redirecting the force behind the fist. A ruse that Ahdean was wise too. The Firelord pulled his punch, whirling straight into a left hook.

  The impact was such that the king for a moment forgot where he was. Something just happened, something that rattled his skull to such an intensity that it knocked all thoughts out of his mind. He was dazed, then the pumping of his personally transmuted heart rushed fresh adrenaline through his system.

  Rykard chuckled and wiped a little trickle of blood from his chin. “Likewise,” he honoured the Firelord.

  For a short, undeniable moment, the coal-skinned man showed Rykard a grim smile. Then, he assumed his battle stance again.

  Rykard poured the mana coursing through his system into a new form. Energies from the outer realms joined in the spell, flowing through him as conduit and conjurer. It all came to a point in his left hand, cascading outwards as pale blue light.

  Reacting instantly, Ahdean charged. The tip of his spear thrust in a multitude of directions, as if he was simultaneously thrusting dozens of times. Rykard saw through the mixture of illusion and genuine spatial magic. One he was adept in, the other he rend like tissue paper on a daily basis.

  A swift grab stopped all spears, confining them into space, one continuity. Destruction rippled outwards, freezing and shattering the spellworks of the king’s enemy. The cold glow manifested into creeping crystals of ice, rapidly spreading down the shaft of the weapon and towards Ahdean’s hands.

  The infernal man dropped the spear, put his wrists together, and channeled his might into a ball of fme. It grew within the split seconds that, to their accelerated perceptions, were regur motions.

  Ahdean brought his hands upwards, unleashing the fire in a continuous, point bnk bst.

  Simultaneously, Rykard had transferred the chilling touch into his right hand. Now, he unleashed it. Gcial winds met the scorching ray, hot and cold competing, creating steam and thunder where they met. The sheer might of the Destruction magic unleashed pushed them apart. They were equally matched for the time being, although Rykard had a feeling that neither of them had created their proudest spell in their haste.

  It not being his best work did not prevent him from gloating.

  “Chill out, you’ll give yourself heartburn,” Rykard joked, then surged the might of his cone of cold. Winds turned from gcial to such a deep, bitter cold that all the moisture in the air instantly dropped as a yer of snow.

  Ahdean pushed against the increased force. His focused bst widened into a cone of his own, the prevent the chill from covering his sides. It worked, for a few moments, then the might of Rykard’s arcane work pushed further. It pushed further. The struggle was overcome, and the Firelord overwhelmed by a wave of frost.

  For a moment, he stood there, frozen over in a moment of surprise. Then, the crystal yer steamed. It shattered and there stood the panting Firelord, hurt but far from beaten.

  “Good,” Rykard hummed, as his own spell fizzled out. “It wouldn’t do if I couldn’t show this was worth both of our whiles, now would it?”

  “Your existence proves that it is worth my while,” Ahdean answered. “The gods chose me as a challenger to your might. Thus, your might must at the very least be equal to my own. A fight with an inferior is not a challenge.”

  “Then what would this be, from my perspective?” Rykard asked, hands back in his pockets. “Since you seem to categorically agree that I must be your equal or superior in strength.”

  “Exercise. Reputation building. Entertainment.”

  “I suppose all three of those are correct.” Cocking his head, Rykard waited for Ahdean’s next move. “Do you resent that?”

  “No. I would do the same in your situation.”

  “Just like I would face this challenge in yours.” A low chuckle escaped the king. “Admittedly, I’d be a lot more chatty about it. Duels like this have no need to be dire. We aren’t fighting to the death.”

  “We will be, before the st sunset on this world.”

  “Hm, what interesting wording. What if I win a Divine Game and decide the sun shall never set?”

  Ahdean blew air out of his nostrils. “Then we will drink on your choice to alter the very sky for a joke.”

  The spear was cast aside and Rykard charged at his opponent. The two men met again in a straightforward competition of pure muscle. Hands locked on impact, foreheads smmed against each other. Rykard’s grin was not mirrored on Ahdean’s face, but the glory of battle was.

  They leaned into each other. They pushed, withholding the truest extent of their strength in favour of measured aggression. Sweat dampened Rykard’s clothes and covered the bck skin of his opponent in a bck sheen. They breathed as evenly as their situation allowed.

  Rykard’s heart pumped mana and blood into every corner of his being. He repositioned his feet, before they could slip away under him. Ahdean did the same.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Rykard pushed forwards. A spark of surprise showed on Ahdean’s face. The competition of sheer endurance, which he had won earlier, he was now gradually losing. Ahdean continued to struggle, his lungs moving like the air pumps of a furnace.

  Then, he gave.

  The resistance disappeared suddenly. Ahdean’s power was outpaced and Rykard tackled him to the ground. Hard, the Firelord smmed into the ground. Rykard was right on top.

  A loud crunch followed the heavy impact of Rykard’s fist on Ahdean’s nose. The man was dazed, remaining stunned when the king showered him with punches. Regenerative factor rapidly righted the broken bone. His head was moved left, right and left again. Rykard did not let up. Infernal blood spilled, burning before joining the rest of the rust-red ground.

  Prepared for it, Rykard blocked the sideways strike of the Firelord. Blocking did not neutralize the desperate thought of the impact. The king was thrown off. He hurried to get back on top of the opponent. Ahdean wrapped himself in a wreathe of fme, colpsed into a singur point, then appeared once again where his spear was.

  It was not a graceful teleportation. The man was struggling to breathe, barely making it onto his feet by using his armament as support.

  Rykard did not allow him the breather - not yet. His own heartbeat was accelerated, and his lungs worked hard, but he was not taxed. Charging straight back at Ahdean, he caught the exhausted man with an uppercut.

  The Firelord stumbled back and Rykard had him pinned once again, now against the wall of the pit. Swift punches to gut and sor plexus kept knocking the wind out of him. Ahdean was id into until he bowed over and Rykard grabbed his head with both hands. Harsh, he ripped him down, straight into the hardest part of his rising knee.

  The nose that had just healed broke again, spttering fming blood all over Rykard’s expensive pants. Demon tailored cloth withstood such difficulty. For a short moment, it seemed that Ahdean had passed out, colpsing to the ground with no will or grace to any of it. Rykard pced his foot on the man’s back without putting his weight behind it. A gesture of domination, not one of humiliation.

  Ahdean came back to consciousness with a loud gasp. Immediately, he began to struggle. Rather than keep taxing his own limbs, the king backed away. Three steps back, he skipped, then tore the veil between dimensions open.

  The gesture was unfocused, cumbersome, and imprecise, but Rykard’s expertise as a conjurer made even this tired gesture a success. Ahdean raised his head to a sentient chain flying his way.

  More metal than flesh, the cmp smmed against the Firelord’s wrist, weighing that arm down with heavy chains. Crafty, the man tried to swing it as a weapon, but the binding was an extension of Rykard’s will. The chain pulled on itself, curving the weight at the end out of the way before it could strike the summoner.

  Another gesture ripped open the space and another binding came flying through. This cmp grasped the left leg of the exhausted man. Just trying to get his breathing level, Ahdean was in no position to dodge either it or the two additional binding that followed. In the end, he stood hunched over, the weights of his wrist bindings lowered to sit on the ground.

  Now, Rykard felt like giving the man a breather.

  “Feel like giving up?” the king asked and inspected his blood-covered knuckles. Alteration quickly removed that stain on his pale skin.

  “You know… the answer… to that…” Ahdean huffed. Each measured cycle of in and exhale was getting him closer to recovery. His face had once again fully regenerated, although the twice-broken nose remained evident by the amount of crimson covering the space around his mouth.

  Rykard cleaned the remains off blood from his knee. “Perhaps, but I still like to hear it.”

  “My answer remains… I am here to… fight you.”

  “Hm, I suppose I asked for you to repeat yourself.” The king rolled his shoulders, then began to prowl up and down in front of Ahdean.

  “Why are you not finishing me off?” Ahdean wanted to know.

  “Because it's such a rare pleasure to be challenged.” Rykard let his eyes wander over the watchers. “Because I have a reputation to prove.” His fists rexed. His fingers rhythmically tapped against the base of his thumb. “Because I conquered a city recently and it left me dissatisfied in the base entertainment of violence.”

  “All good answers.”

  “I’m known for good answers.”

  Barely had the cocky decration left his mouth that Ahdean suddenly colpsed into a singur spot again. Chains fell to the ground. Sentient csps hissed at the fire that had enveloped them for a split second. A slight change in the air was Rykard’s warning.

  He tilted his head to the side, dodging the first jab of the spear, then whirled around. The roundhouse kick smmed against Ahdean’s leg, a successful block by the Firelord.

  One successful block did not matter. Neither did the storm of successful blocks that followed during the exchange. A flurry of motions on both sides pushed their physical limits to the utmost.

  Rykard was every bit willing to engage in another confrontation of simple stamina, but Ahdean seemed to have deemed that a riskier strategy was needed now. Constantly advancing, he tried to stab Rykard with multiple executions of every thrust of his spatially bent spear.

  The king countered it all casually. Ahdean was engaging in a desperate gambit and so all Rykard had to do was dey. Swatting aside the spear where he could and simply dodging where he could not, he kept his breathing measured. Every bit of ground seceded was another set of filing heartbeats from the fully exhausted man.

  The moment of total domination came inevitably. Ahdean pushed forward on leaden legs, stumbled, and fell forwards. Hand raised to block the spear, Rykard instead seized the opportunity. One chop at full might against the side of the Firelord’s neck and he went to the ground once again.

  Rykard saw no use in drawing this out any longer. Harshly, he smmed his heel down. Ahdean managed to dodge the stomp by rolling onto his back. An immediate follow-up met the raised shaft of his spear. The resistance put up against the king was barely worth the description.

  Humming, Rykard raised his foot from the weapon, then kicked it away instead. There was no grip strength left in the Firelord. “Well, this was entertaining,” the king said, “but I think this is as far as we can go without getting too serious for this building.”

  The Firelord huffed and puffed, then slowly nodded. “Victory in this spar… is yours.”