Bryson jumped out of his seat as he watched Kristel go down. This stupid fight! He cursed internally as he looked up towards his parents.

Sable who sat next to them had covered her mouth with her hands in shock as she looked on in concern as Kristel dropped to the ground. But Duke and Duchess Coldwater both made no reaction of note.

Bodger raised his hammers in the air and roared in victory. At the same time Gilles laughed and clapped with joy. He had won, and Bryson was going to be forced to do all his paperwork. It was deserved considering that he believed that he could beat him. Now Bryson would know who the superior Coldwater son was.

Gilles then paused and looked up at his father. He still hasn’t called the match yet. Confused he looked back down at the arena and his eyes widened in wonder as he watched Kristel. She was stirring.

“Get up. Fights are not over. Please have enough left.” Bryson whispered mostly to himself as he watched Kristel slowly get up.

“Come on Kristel! You can do it!” Lottie shouted from the crowd so loudly that a few others in the crowd began to clap and cheer for Kristel as well.

Bodger whipped around and stared in disbelief as Kristel, albeit unsteadily, successfully got up to her feet. Sable involuntarily began to slam her fist against the table repeatedly as a form of cheer.

Duchess Coldwater looked over towards Sable with great interest. Sable noticing that she was being watched and very quickly stopped and looked embarrassed for being spotted. Duchess Coldwater in response simply laughed as she turned back to the stadium and looked down at the two fighters below.

“Come now Kristel! You wouldn’t want to break my precious baby boy’s heart now, would you?” Duchess Coldwater shouted down at them.

Bryson blinked once before looking up back towards his mother with a look of sheer perplexity while Coni stifled a laugh. Is that supposed to be encouraging her? Wait. Mother is trying to encourage her? She’s showing bias?

Duke Coldwater looked over at his wife with great interest. He simply stared in silence as she gave him a sly smile.

“Come now dear. I’ve been watching her run around the place for the past year. Of course I’m biased. I mean just look how cute and healthy she is. Think of the children.”

“What?” Sable said aloud staring at her mother utterly confused by her last statement. Duke Coldwater simply gave a small nod and looked back down at the arena.

“Mother! Are you cheering against me?” Gilles shouted up, sounding wounded.

“Come now dear! You should’ve brought your champion around the place more if you wanted me to have a more favourable opinion of him!” Duchess Coldwater quickly said.

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“Stupid.” Gilles said whispering under his breath before screaming loudly, “Take her down!”

Bodger immediately snapped out of his stupor and rushed the still-hazy Kristel. Her sword wasn’t even raised yet, her hair was covering her face.

“Move damn it!” Bryson shouted.

In an instant, right before the hammer was brought down on her head she took a step backwards and narrowly avoided the swing. Bodger surprised tried with his other hammer. Once more she adeptly stepped back.

Bodger continued to swing at her a few more times, never successfully finding any purchase as she dodged and weaved her way around them. After Bodger finished a backswing, through her now messy hair she saw an opening.

Leaping upwards, her knee collided straight into the mouth of Bodger, and a loud crack echoed through the stadium.

“Grlaargh!” Bodger cried out in pain as he stumbled backwards. With his hands busy holding both hammers it allowed everyone to see his bleeding face. Blood dripped out of his mouth as a couple of yellow-stained teeth clattered to the ground.

“Okay. That works.” Bryson whispered.

“Impressive.” Coni said floating up next to him.

“That was awesome!” Lottie cheered.

“Eugh, his teeth.” Lila said with a grimace.

“She needed to go more forward with it. He would have been knocked down if she did.” Florence said studying her form.

Kristel used this tiny moment of space between the two too quickly with one hand adjusting her hair out of the way as she swung with the other. Bodger, still wracked with pain barely managed to block the slash.

But very quickly Kristel was able to grip her sword with both hands and her strikes quickly increased in speed. Bodger narrowly blocked the first slash, then the second; a third one forced him to lean to one side and the fourth was feinted from the same direction. With a full opening Kristel quickly slashed her blade down across Bodger’s thigh.

“Yearrgh!” Bodger cried out panicked as he began to swing wildly towards Kristel. But now too scared to advance lest he be cut, he simply shuffled backwards as he swung. His already shorter weapon range now rendered his strikes completely useless.

With the wild and clumsy manner in which he was swinging, it didn’t even make for a good deterrent for Kristel to advance. Nor did this state he was in allow him any defence from strikes to get through to him.

Two more swift slashes to Bodger’s hand and waist caused him to lose his grip on his left hammer. Feeling blood trickling down his body he looked at Kristel in disbelief.

“Yield.” She said, ignoring her own small trickle of blood leaking from her temple.

“You found your stride Kristel.” Nico muttered to no one in particular.

“Shut up. Shut up! Shut up!” Bodger screamed as he rushed her wildly.

Kristel without any effort quickly leapt into the air and over him. Mid-air she brought her heel down hard on the back of Bodger’s skull sending him crashing down. Landing gracefully she looked up towards Duke Coldwater standing at attention.

“Bravo.” Duchess Coldwater said clapping her hands while Duke Coldwater looked much more reserved as he stared down at her.

Gilles on the other hand was currently cursing and breaking everything around him, “Oh, is fighting that hard? I thought you said you did it all your life! Worthless! Idiot! Loser! Piece of shit!”

Bryson was about to breathe a sigh of relief right before he noticed something odd with Bodger. Mana began to surge through him.

“What is happening?” Bryson said in a quiet voice.

Bodger very quickly rose back up to his feet despite just a second ago looking as out cold as someone could look. He turned around and Bryson saw a flash of unhinged rage in his eyes as he stared at the back of Kristel breathing extremely heavily.