The General of the Qing Huan Alliance’s military force, Lord Yao Feng of Xianren, was considered to be the strongest arcanist alive. Rivalled by none in the art of the spear, it was safe to assume that Feng was a force of nature when faced against. Most would shiver at just the thought of fighting him, yet the child in front of him stood his ground. It was clear as day that he was unmatched, and the child certainly understood that, yet he didn’t give up. There was a look in his eyes, one which piqued Feng’s curiosity, for it was neither a look of despair, nor of determination. No, it was a look of absolute confidence, in himself and his actions. He didn’t stand his ground out of stubbornness. It was as if he was screaming—’even if the odds are against me, I’ll still find a way to win.’ No, that wouldn’t be quite right. Perhaps it was more so, ‘The odds are slim, but I can still win.’ As for what were his conditions for victory, the General didn’t know, but he was sure that they weren’t to defeat him head on.

‘Burn!’ shouted Zhe, and as soon as he did, flames pitch black engulfed his blade. Feng’s eyes widened. A cursed sword? To think that Her Highness would hand one of Qing Huan’s sacred treasures to a child was unfathomable. He knew her tendencies, but even this was too much. He dodged the incoming flames with ease, and glanced at Her Highness, who merely nodded to his gaze. Perhaps she was simply playing around as she always did, but it was difficult for him to believe that. It was possible that she saw promise in him, but other than his skill with the sword, which was impressive no matter how he looked at it, especially for a human who was merely, judging solely on his appearance, around sixteen years of age, he couldn’t find anything that would make him worthy of wielding a cursed blade, especially not one such as the Blade of Amaterasu. The General was interested in knowing her intentions, but more so than that, at this very moment, he was more interested in what else this child had to offer. Just what conditions did he deem as “victory”? Those eyes were clearly of someone that knew that they would win. This is getting interesting, the General thought with a soft giggle.

Black flames surrounded the child, erupting from the floor he pierced with his blade, growing into a whirlpool that reached the ceiling. It formed a circle around him, and the child could be anywhere inside that small circle; Feng could neither see nor feel the presence of anything beyond the boundary created by the flames. It was a strange skill, and an effective one. To completely separate the space within, isolating it from the outside world was a feat he did not know the Blade of Amaterasu was capable of achieving. Or perhaps that wasn’t what he was doing? It wasn’t in the blade’s nature to be able to perform something that was akin to the manipulation of space, for that would require a set of skills that was completely different from what the blade offered. There had to be some sort of trick to it, but what was it? Flames extended from the whirlpool, slithering like a snake, swiftly making their way to wherever Feng stood, and each time he made a move, the flames would follow. They would overlap each other, yet be unphased, which was natural—they were flames after all, which made them annoying, for though they moved and acted as if they were snakes, trained to follow their master’s words and move with such precision and speed that they would be impossible to run around from forever, they couldn’t be dealt with like snakes. They would twist and turn, go through each other, yet they wouldn’t tangle into a mess that would render them immovable. They couldn’t.

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Quite annoying, he thought, but this won’t be enough. With a swing of his spear, he blew the flames away from him and dodged with ease, yet the flames didn’t disappear like he hoped they would. In fact, it barely seemed to have any effect on the flames. Interesting. He stopped in his tracks. The flames jumped onto him, launching themselves onto their prey, ready to burn every inch of skin, then his muscles, then every organ within him, then finally his bones, leaving nothing behind but ash, but Feng had different intentions. He wasn’t about to let himself be defeated by a child. He certainly wished to see more of what this child had to offer, but it was clear to him that he intended to continue this fight while protecting himself with that whirlpool he surrounded himself with, and without knowing the exact mechanisms of how it worked, Feng was afraid that he had no way to progress this fight to anywhere without also ending it in the process.

The world slowed down, coming to a complete halt. His senses heightened to their highest peak. He could sense everything around him, everything that had come to a complete stop. He couldn’t see the flame anymore, instead, in its place he could only see what he termed as its presence, the slight warping of the environment around it, and the heat that surrounded it, being the only evidence of the flames left in this standstill. He could still move, even better than he normally could. He was well used to it all; he had used this several times before, but what he found strange was that he could feel the child’s presence. No, more specifically, he could feel that the child had used the same technique that he did now, or at the very least something very similar to it. He couldn’t see the child; all he could see was the flame’s presence, and beyond that the rest of the room. He knew the child was somewhere within those flames; he could tell by his presence, yet even with his senses, the flames were a transparent window to whatever was behind them.

The General smirked. He is quite an interesting child, your Highness. He moved towards the wall Zhe made, dodging every flame in his path, which was more so an obstacle course, and the easiest one he had ever been to at that, for everything was at a standstill. With the tip of his spear, he sliced the wall top to bottom. Immediately, the world started to move again. The flames reappeared, but only for the shortest of moments, before completely disappearing. Immediately, Zhe fell back, confusion visible in his eyes as he tried to assess his situation, but before he could think anything, or even stand back up, the General pointed his spear at his neck, and declared, probably with a soft smile on his face, ‘I win.’