With Law's words, Jordan pulled his daggers from their sheaths before settling into a low stance with the weapons held before his face in a guard, the dagger in his left held in a reverse grip while the other remained forward, pointing their blades and points at the armored individual, clenching and relaxing her raised fists as Jordan prepared himself.

After Jordan's motions ceased, a long moment of stillness quickly grew between the two; almost as if time had crawled to a standstill while their individual consciousnesses churned at full speed, allowing ample time for Jordan to scan and log the noticeable gaps and holes in Law's armor while she carried out whatever mental rituals she favored before a duel.

Without warning, the Field Marshal seemed to stagger in place for a moment before shifting into a glossy blur of motion. With a lunge forward and a wild swing that Jordan noticed far too late, Law threw out a wild hook that thunderously impacted the left side of Jordan's ribs, contouring his body into a crescent shape around her gauntleted fist as his ribs collapsed and flexed around the gauntleted fist.

Knowing he could do nothing but eat the punch, Jordan sheathed the dagger in his right hand during the moment of impact, then snapped his right arm across his body before they were flung apart from the transfer of energy. With the sensations of shiting and collapsing metals traveling up his arms, Jordan's fingers clamped tighter around Law's gauntlet as his body spun violently around in a half-rotation, causing a painful groan to escape Jordan's lips as he snapped taught in a near-horizontal orientation, relative to the surface.

As a result of the energy being transferred back into her, Law was forced to take a step-in, in order to counter her thrown off balance. After studiously watching her leg shallowly lift from the ground to be pulled forward under her and waiting until the moment before she stomped onto the ice, Jordan tugged hard on her arm, teetering her completely off of her feet into an orientation that mimicked his own and pulling his own body on a rapid approach towards her with his left dagger dangerously descending towards her neck.

Predictably, Law raised her free hand to block, giving Jordan the opening he needed to follow through with his slash before reversing the thrust towards the base of the arm he had hold of.

With a meaty thud and a notable lack of resistance, the blade sank a few centimeters into the undersuit of Law's armor before the force accompanying the stab dissipated. Seemingly uncaring of the shallow wound, Law raised her free arm high overhead before raining a hammerfist down on the crook of Jordan's neck, sending a spike of numbness to drive into his shoulders and pitching Jordan's body down to the surface.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Jordan released his grip around Law's wrist to quickly unsheath his right dagger and counter with a wide swing before she could respond.

Much like his first attack, the blade sank three or four centimeters into Law's undersuit before the blade refused penetrate further; possibly as a result of subdermal armor that vastly outranked his, Jordan assumed in that split second, before he saw Law's legs kick in midair beneath her.

Before Jordan knew what'd happened, the sounds of choking and wet coughs quickly filled and echoed around his helmet as he felt his body coil around his stomach. Only after the fact did Jordan feel the sickening pain in his belly and the pressure of the knight's fist pushing against his torso, forcing the air from his lungs and rotating his body upwards, towards the now-grounded Law's zenith.

Approaching a forty-five degree pitch relative to Law, Jordan quickly pulled his daggers from the regrettably shallow wounds he'd inflicted on her armpit, before curling his arms upwards to send the blades on a vicious ascent towards her chin.

Almost at the last minute, Law jerked her head back, causing the blades to miss her helmet by mere centimeters and causing one of the weapon's crossguards to harshly scrape along the curved grooves in her helmet.

Tenaciously continuing on with his assault, Jordan flicked the daggers around his hands to reverse his grip before plunging the weapons downwards once more towards the crooks in her neck. Law's body immediately contorted in response to Jordan's actions, leaning backwards at the waist once more in order to dodge the quickly approaching blades.

Through the peripherals of his focused aim, Jordan clearly saw the glimmering gauntlet cocking backwards and launching towards him just as his his attack landed. He felt the blade in his left hand continue unimpeded until his wrist slammed against to dorsal side of Law's shoulder. In his right, Jordan witnessed the blade as it threaded the small gap of armor on the top of Law's shoulder, just as her fist rocketed past her body to met his own collarbone, ripping the blade from Law's flesh just after it had found purchase in the relatively shallow chasm, and torquing the metal around the chink in her armor until a resonating snap raced through Jordan's arms to ring at his ears with a rage inducing frequency.

With his grip on the knight gone, Jordan was sent hurtling backwards with nothing but the throbbing pain in his clavicle and the sharp ringing of the blades lingering resonance to plague at his senses as he bounced helplessly and comically slowly across the surface, the grayed surface of Ganymede and the speckled black sky nauseatingly churning about him.

Being stuck in a helpless rotation, Jordan could only watch helplessly as each turn about his axis made him witness to the armored figure rushing him with animalistic bounds and leaps across the ice, relegating him to rain a flurry of slashes and jabs to his front in a meek attempt to keep her at bay until he managed to get a foothold.

In a disheartening display of blatant disregard for Jordan's attacks, Law closed the distance with a final lunge forward, her fist clenched above her in preparation for a hammerfist. After raising his own arm into a block just as the stable surface settled beneath his feet, Jordan's knees buckled as her strike oppressively rebounded against his forearm.

Being unwilling to allow Law to be freed from his grip again, Jordan reached forward to wrap his arm in a hold around her shoulder before clenching her closely and swinging downard madly with the dagger in his left hand.

Surprisingly to Jordan, Law bent her remaining arm at the elbow to both close off her armpit and block off the exposed areas of her shoulder and neck with by tucking her ear into her free shoulder and placing an open palm over the gaps closest to Jordan's hold.

Disregarding her reactions, Jordan continued arcing the dagger towards its target and gleefully watched as the blade plunged a few centimeters into a diamond-shaped gap in the crook of Law's elbow.

Despite the apparent shallowness of the wound, Jordan was certain he applied some degree of damage of the cluster of nerves of nerves and veins housed beneath the relatively thin skin of the area.

Being lost in the pride of his small triumph, Jordan failed to see the glimmering gauntlet falling towards him until the belated flashing of dim light twinkled above him, giving him no time to prepare for the devastatingly thunderous impact to again drive a numbing spike of pain into the top of his shoulder, releasing his grip from her shoulder and forcing his knees to painfully slam into the rocky-iced surface at his feet.

Before he could regain his footing and respond in kind, Jordan felt a dense force push against his head that was accompanied with the long familiar ringing of bells within his helmet. His body lunged forward again, followed by a dense ball of pain on his shoulder blade. Then forward again, again, and again as he was stomped and punched and kicked into the ground by the knight towering above him.

After enduring the hellish assault and fighting to right himself for what felt like an eternity, Law seemed to pause before the unmistakable point of Law's boot dug into Jordan's ribs; forcing a wet cough to splatter the insides of Jordan's helmet and giving his body enough momentum to be rotated above the surface so that he once again faced Law directly to see a large, diamond-shape patch of undersuit staring at him from the ass and kneepit of a leg raised skyward in preparation for an axe kick.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Without thinking, Jordan pulled his legs beneath him before pushing off the ground in an ascent towards Law. With his remaining dagger held firmly in both hands, Jordan thrusted the blade into the back of Law's knee with all his strength and continued pushing through his ascension; causing Law to stagger backwards before being pulled helplessly from the surface.

Placing his palm on her kneecap, Jordan pushed and pushed harder against the handle; driving the blade deeper into the pit of her knee by a centimeter at a time while Law churned and kicked and clawed around him.

Using her body as a climbing pillar, Jordan crawled around to Law's backside to sway and toy around in the edge of her peripherals until she began clawing overhead in an attempt to grasp Jordan by the head or collar, leaving her wide open for Jordan to twist around to her side and plummet the dagger back into her armpit.

Using his grip around her torso, Jordan worked to produce as much leverage as he could to drive and twist and churn the blade deeper and deeper into Law's torso, drastically multiplying the tenacity of her struggle until her strikes came too close for Jordan's comfort, causing him to crawl around to the other side her torso to administer the same treatment.

Once they'd drifted back to and bounced off of the surface, Jordan transitioned into a mount before continuing to stab at and shank Law's armpits, elbows, kneepits and neck while attempting to ignore the perpetual onslaught of brutal punches, hammerfists, kicks and knees that more than occasionally tormented his body.

As the exchange continued, Jordan noticed an undeniable diminishment in the power behind Law's strikes. While certainly still painful and holding the same amount of zeal found in their prior duels, it was more than evident to Jordan that his tactics were bearing fruit.

Acknowledging such notions, Jordan turned the focus of his daggers to Law's chestplate. Relentlessly, he began stabbing and shanking and prying at the holes, gaps and obvious seams of overlapping plates surrounding the piece while numbingly facing the slightly weakened assault of the knight headon.

Hissing through the pain of a backfist to his scaled neck, Jordan slid the dagger's tip through a small gap in the armor at the base of Law's throat and leaned the entirety of his miniscule weight onto the pommel at he pushed the blade deeper.

As before, the blade seamlessly slid through the fabric of her undersuit before finding purchase into her skin. Feeling the energizing rushes of excitement well into him, Jordan watched with disbelief as the blade continued sliding into the seam, causing Law's flailings to escalate to their apex as she clawed and hammered at whatever part of Jordan she could access.

With the cross guard of the blade coming to rest against the rim of her chest plate, Jordan churned the dagger in his hands; sliding in and out as he twisted and turned while the dampened sounds of groans, gurgles and screams conducted through their bodies to perform a triumphant symphony to Jordan's ears.

In a horrific display of tenacity, Law's hand snapped forth to grip Jordan's arm by the shoulder and pull him tightly towards a cavernous straight punch to the sternum.

Jarred from the impact, Jordan hacked and coughed more phlegm and blood onto the inside of his helmet as he used all his strength to pull his dagger from Law's chest and thrust it into a gap near her ribs. Taking another backhand to the ear, Jordan fell from his mount and landed to Law's side, opposite the dagger; where he scrambled to climb on top Law's body and reach around to the dagger embedded in her far flank to pull and smack and drive the blade hilt-deep between her ribs, uncaring of the cascade of punches, claws and slaps falling upon his body.

After what felt like agonizing hours of continued stabbing, prying and hacking at the armor under the rain of strikes and blossoming pain, Jordan's pride welled as the dimpled and lumped chestplate jarred lose from its mount. Twisting his body around, Jordan oriented his head close to Law's feet before placing his boot on the underside of her chin and gripping the plate tightly by the seam with his free hand.

Using all his strength and leverage, Jordan pushed with his legs while he pulled with his arm. Little by little, the chestplate bent and separated from the pieces surrounding it until the holds eventually broke loose, flinging Jordan's arm away from Law and sending the battered plate cartwheeling through the sky.

With renewed vigor, Jordan clenched the dagger in both hands before plunging the blade directly towards Law's sternum. With a dull wet crunch; and after suffering an instant throat punch in retaliation, Jordan watched as the weapon sank deeper into her suit and skin and sadistically twisted and churned the blade inside Law's chest cavity before pulling the blade free and gleefully repeating the motions like an enraged child avenging their murdered parents.

Despite her unyielding tenacity, the lethargy of Law's thrashing became more and more apparent as her punches and strikes quickly lost their oppressive luster. While her blows grew weaker, Jordan's only grew stronger and stronger as a result of his rising pride and adrenaline, until a cascade of notifications brightly bloomed through the clumps of blood and viscera that'd accumulated around him over the past few minutes; remaining in near-suspension in oblong spheres as they slowly freezed or off gassed into the void.

As if they were a sedative, Jordan's vigor quickly diminished until his strikes ceased entirely. Wearily, Jordan pulled himself from her corpse, to his feet, and took a moment to study the fallen knight.

Within the body-sized gap of her armor, shallow pools of frozen blood could be seen clumped around any of the few dozen wounds scattered over her torso. The armor surrounding those wounds was now dull, dimpled and bruised in most places; soiled with blood and dirt in others.

Considering the terror he felt after their first meeting, it was hard to put into words what Jordan felt after gazing upon the slain knight. An insurmountable pride was obvious, he'd just accomplished something few Galileans have; something many others told him he shouldn't try, or couldn't do.

More obscure than that however, was the immense respect Jordan now had for his opponent. Zoltan, Biff, and the many others Jordan had recently fought against, left a feeling of vacancy; of near-regret, once the obligatory awards would plague his vision. He didn't necessarily want to slay them, it was either a matter of circumstance, or a stepping stone to achieve his ultimate goal. Yet, as he now stood, Jordan found himself indifferent to the awards he'd just received; just a sense of complacency that he could only describe as... satisfaction.

The toll his body took to get it however, was a struggle to be ignored, and a presence that nearly ruined the moment.

Surely as a result of his dwindling adrenaline, the aches and pains of his body and the loud wheezing echoing through Jordan's helmet became more apparent as he turned to survey the landscape. After spotting the chestplate, he coiled his legs beneath him in preparation to leap across the surface; intending to cross the distance in one fell swoop.

Unbridled regret immediately swarmed Jordan's mind as his body left the ground, triggering dense waves of pain to wash back and forth through his body as he drifted across the void.

After coming to an even more painful landing, Jordan waddled over to retrieve the plate and snugly secure it under his arm before turning to wearily wobble off in the direction of the safe zones; fighting desperately to focus his fading mind on the digitally perfected landscapes surrounding him.

The more he focused, the more Jordan felt as if he'd take another trip to purgatory; to the water-filled dreamscape of his comatose mind. His body throbbed all over and his head felt like there was a shard embedded in it that seemed to deepen with each laborious step across the surface.

As time passed, it became apparent to Jordan that he was losing time. Landmarks would appear and disappear entirely from the horizon; his coordinates would sometimes remain the same while the time would repeatedly jump forward at increasingly large intervals.

Up until the moment the unbreachable sea of darkness consumed Jordan's consciousness, pulling him into a blissful slumber under the faint sun.

***

As Jordan groaned himself awake, he felt a warm pressure probing and poking his body, attempting to lift him from the surface.

In his still-cloudy mind, Jordan could only visualize a pair of hands attempting lift him from the surface; or perhaps recovery drones. Regardless, the thought produced a panic that caused Jordan to begin wildy thrashing about as he struggled to judge the security of his surroundings.

As a result of the reawakened pain spreading through his body, Jordan's assault significantly lessened, permitting him to see a gilded visor shining brightly from the head of a humanoid figure towering above him.

"Gelos?" Jordan muttered.

"Looks like I beat the recovery drones." Gelos' voice rang through Jordan's consciousness.

Jordan couldn't even begin to think of a reply before he felt his eyes flickering shut on their own, followed by the all consuming darkness spreading around him once again to drag his mind into a deep slumber. By the next time he was stirred awake, Jordan was able to focus enough to accurately gauge his surroundings and wheezed and immediate sigh of relief after catching sight of the Safe Zone's flood lights beckoning his eyes to the horizon ahead.

Feeling slightly less fatigued but no less bruised, Jordan allowed Gelos to carry him into the safe zone proper, where they were promptly ambushed by a team of medics and drones who wordlessly pulled Jordan from Gelos' arms to ferry him into a shuttle before putting him under anesthesia; auspiciously muting Jordan from Gelos' continued ranting over the comms with cheers and congratulations and details of the few times he was ambushed during his 'rescue.'