Richard's face blanched. He shot a dirty look at the crowd for a moment, before turning back to Felix.

"Okay, fair enough, I guess house Belrose is still an Earldom, so having one or two tricks up their sleeve is to be expected, and you have been living with them for a while. But even so, this just means I have to step it up a little bit from what would be needed for a peasant." he said with a snort. He lifted his hands into the air, and began to concentrate the power of light, drawing it from the rising crescent moon. After a couple of moments, where he was glowing as brightly as the mid-day sun, he shouted "Cleanse!", and a large beam of light shot down from the heavens above, looking for all the world like Richard was receiving a divine punishment, if not for it's holy light being the gentle light of cleansing, and not the harsh light of smiting and retribution.

After a couple of moments, the light faded. Everyone looked at Richard. The hexes were still there. They hadn't even dimmed a little bit.

The snickering from the crowd grew. Some of the young Ladies giggled. Felix looked away from Richard in pity.

It really wasn't Richard's fault. There was no way he could know he was trying to personally cleanse darkness which was channeled through the grand darkness spirit herself. But obviously there was no way Felix was going to bring up this fact.

Dark lines appeared on Richard's face. "I refuse to believe I, the second Young Master of the Duvain Dukedom, cannot cleanse the evil magics of some fluffed up backwater peasant!" he yelled angrily. He held his arm out to his side, and a long wooden staff coalesced out of the moonlight, imbued with a white jade at the top. Richard absorbed the light of the crescent moon again, engorging himself on as much of it as possible, before slamming the staff onto the ground and shouting. A flash of light happened, and two angel's wings appeared behind him.

He floated in the air, with a halo of light surrounding him, with rainbows in it's midst, shining like a lone torch in the newly night sky, held aloft by his two angel's wings.

"If I still can't cleanse this dark magic, I'll eat my own shoes!" he yelled loudly.

"To purge all evil!" he shouted, raising the wooden staff in the air.

The crescent moon looked like it wobbled in the sky for a moment. The moonbeams coalesced and became tangible, and rushed into Richard. The rainbows of light bloomed and blossomed, before converging on to him. The halo of light expanded, before shattering and striking Richard's body. Even his angel wings turned into motes of light and struck Richard. The world once again lit up for a brief flash, but this time a hundred, or even a thousand times brighter than before. The spectators had to channel dark element into the barrier and close and avert their eyes so that they wouldn't go blind. Felix even cast the Blind spell on himself for a moment.

Felix removed the Blind from himself cautiously, and looked at Richard. He was back on the ground, obviously, since he had even burned his own angelic wings to try and cleanse the hexes on his body.

The hexes were still present. Not only were they still fine, they had started to slowly look a bit more sinister and dark, after a bit of time had started passing. Their effects were probably beginning to manifest now, albeit weakly.

There were murmurs and a couple of gasps from the crowd. It was apparent none of them expected the hexes would be able to survive even that. Not only did they survive, they weren't weakened in any way, and not a single one had shattered.

Richard was kneeling on the ground, panting. He slowly stood up after some time, and looked down at the hexes with a grimace. Felix didn't interrupt him, if anything, he wished Richard would spend all night futilely trying to cleanse the hexes! If he attacked him, then Richard would probably seriously fight him back, instead of letting his hexes tick away slowly.

"It seems the Belrose family picked up a rare diamond in the rough." Richard barked out coarsely. He wiped off his suit.

"I don't know what this dark magic is, but it seems somehow even I can't cleanse it. It is eating away at me slowly. I can feel it." he remarked. He looked directly at Felix.

"But even if my light magic can't cleanse it, it definitely won't be able to keep working if I cut off the source of it's power. If I smash you." he said.

"If you want to fight me using darkness, you're still far from qualified to do so. But even so, I will oblige you tonight." Richard continued, as he raised his hands and began to draw in the darkness around him. Felix waited around still, watching. The darkness wasn't known for high burst damage which could kill him quickly, it was known for corrosion. He was more than happy to take darkness attacks. But more than anything, Felix was playing the psychological warfare game.

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After he cast the eight hexes, he had not moved a single step, nor attacked again. And yet, he was obviously winning. It was a deep insult to the prestige of Richard.

Felix raised his arms in front of himself defensively, and cast Harden with all his muster. His whole combat strategy was hex and defend, after all. It was time to defend. He reinforced his Gypsum skin as much as possible with the earth element, but made sure to purposefully broadcast the half-wooden aura of Harden.

"Flood of darkness!" Richard yelled. Suddenly, it felt like a tidal wave of dark energy surrounded Felix, threatening to carry him off. It slammed into him, trying to course into his body to corrupt him. After a moment, however... it became pretty clear that the darkness couldn't just pierce through Felix's defenses, as buffed up as they were. So instead it began trying to gnaw away at him, and to corrode him.

It wasn't really doing all that much to Felix, however, if anything. He was actually kind of disappointed.

"A wood mage? Hmph! Unfortunately for you, your regeneration won't count for much! Black demonfire!" Richard shouted. The darkness shuddered, and a dark flame sprouted on Felix, before covering his entire body, making him look like a dark candle.

However... it didn't actually do anything as far as Felix could tell.

"Hah! Do you feel it now?" Richard shouted mockingly. "My black demonfire prevents your regenerative abilities! Now surrender so I don't have to hurt you too badly!" he said.

Ah, now Felix understood why the black fire did nothing to him. It targeted regeneration, but he hadn't actually been resisting the dark corrosion through regeneration, but instead through pure solid earth defense.

Felix thought for a moment, and put on a pretend face like he was struggling, and intentionally lowered his defense so that the darkness would be able to corrode his outer layer of skin just a little bit, giving himself a slightly corrupted and withered look outwardly, before pretending he was being forced to start breathing heavily.

Richard laughed mockingly. "You're still struggling? That's fine! Admirable even! Since it's come to this point and you humiliated me earlier, I'll just let everyone watch as you slowly fade away! I want to see just how long you can last for!" he declared, as he increased the power of the flood of darkness surrounding Felix by some.

It still didn't really do much to Felix. This was exactly the type of fight Felix had specialized his magic in, a long, slow battle of attrition. He had intentionally stacked defensive spell upon defensive spell for just this scenario.

Felix made a show of gritting his teeth and looking pained, and pushed away the flood of darkness using some basic dark element sometimes, to make it look like he was struggling. After a few minutes, he bent his back over, and stood back up. Then, he bit his tongue to produce some blood, and infused it with a bit of dark element to make it look like it had been corrupted by the flood of darkness, and spit it out, like he was suffering internal injuries.

"What the..." Richard said. And then, the flood of darkness and the black demonfire were retracted.

"You bastard, you were acting! The corrosion never would have damaged your internal organs yet!" he yelled angrily.

"Oops, laid it on a bit too thick." Felix said, after using Regenerate to fix his tongue.

"Forget it then, I'm just gonna crush you into a pulp!" Richard said, raising his arm and summoning dark energy. He formed a giant mallet of darkness, and swung it down at Felix. Felix raised his arms to defend against the blow and-

The mallet missed. It hit to the left of Felix, only narrowly and harmlessly grazing his arm. However, it did dust up quite a bit of dirt, making it so no one could see Felix for a moment, and the aura of the mallet covered up Felix's own aura. There were loud gasps from the crowd as Felix's aura disappeared.

"Shameless bastard, that was a killing move!" Leo yelled out from the crowd. "How dare you kill a member of my household, see if I don't tear you apart myself!" he said angrily, as he stood up and began to walk to the field. Richard smirked at him. "A spar is a spar, and injuries are only to be expected." he said uncaringly.

However, Earl Belrose stopped Leo, locking him in place temporarily with his magic. "Look again, Felix is just fine." he said.

Everyone turned to look, and a gust of wind blew, clearing the dirt and dust that had been whipped up... and saw Felix just standing there with an awkward look on his face, as the mallet of darkness sat next to him and faded away.

Man, Hex: Distortion really is something, isn't it, Felix thought silently to himself.

"He.... he missed?" Leo said with a blank look on his face, as he fell back into his chair, with Earl Belrose releasing his magical hold on him.

The crowd was muttering. "Is this a joke?" "How could Richard miss a spell on a stationary target?" "What on earth is Duke Duvain doing to raise his children..."

Richard himself looked bewildered, and blushed furiously, his face burning with shame. He raised his arm, summoning the darkness again, and created another mallet in rage, slamming it down on Felix.

And this time, it didn't miss.

Felix felt like he got hit by a truck as the mallet smacked him from overhead. However, all it actually did was force him down to his knees. He still just kept his arms raised.

"What the hell are you, a cockroach? Fucking die already!" Richard shouted angrily, as he lifted the mallet again, and smacked it down on Felix again. And again. And again.

Felix got pounded into the earth like a nail that got hammered into a piece of wood, and his arms hurt like hell. However, he just used Regenerate to fix them up in-between smacks from the dark mallet. After ten or so smacks, the dark mallet faded, and Richard bent over, panting heavily. He took a bit to catch his breath and looked over towards his opponent.

And all he saw was Felix crawling out of the hole in the ground, covered in dirt, but otherwise none the worse for wear.