The spell leeched away the stuff of Entropy and filled me with a lingering warmth. It was not the euphoric drug that was the energy of a living being, but it was a welcome nonetheless.

A chill as cold as the deepest of winters came, summoned by the change of energy states. Frost formed, becoming ice as the grass underfoot turned into countless brittle blades.

Unperturbed Fen gave me a questioning look. “You are a man of many talents to command also the element of the old North. I thought such magic was the purview of their Windspeakers. Did you learn that on your own or was that another gift of those who would call themselves gods? No matter… your end will be the same,” she said with an infuriating and exaggerated sigh.

Fen struck again, a half-hearted swing that nonetheless sang a note of death. It took all that I had to barely intercept it, catching it between the axehead and spear of my halberd. Worryingly, I noticed that the mithril blade had cut into hardened steel.

In a silver-slick motion, Fen disengaged her weapon and closed the distance between us, the tip of her weapon seeking the slits of my visor. Again, I used Dash to create distance between even as I gave a weak slashing counterattack of my own.

Fen laughed as she casually parried the blow as if it were a child’s.

Her eyes were alight with battle fire. “So much for your claims of greatness. You will have to do better than that my dear student!” she mocked with disdain, all pretense at being an honorable teacher now dust in the wind.

Though she put on an act, I knew her well enough to know that an edge of caution had entered into her. Her attacks this time were more guarded, designed to bait an opening rather than to create one. And, if I judged correctly, her movements were a fraction slower than they usually were.

If I were to have a chance of victory, I needed to turn this fight into a battle of attrition. As ungraceful as that was. And if possible, when she had weakened, launch a single and decisive blow.

“Is the great Fen Vaigorus, the legendary Weaponmaster, having trouble ending the life of her newest student? You are a woman unworthy of a title that men far greater than you deserve. Fen, you are nothing more than a bully,” I barked in defiance. “A bully and a cheat…”

Anger. True anger, blossomed in her eyes. I had perhaps touched a sore spot. Strong women since time immemorial have always been burdened by comparisons to accomplished men.

“Do you think that is the first time I have heard such bigoted words? You speak from a position of ignorance. To come here, your purpose must have been to lay low the masters of this world. To stain your sword with the blood of the gods. If you can not defeat me, what hope have you against them? At the very least when I defeat you, humanity will have regained one of its greatest warriors and teachers,” she spat back.

I laughed in her face, a crazy outburst of a mad and desperate man.

“It is time that I teach you the difference between us,” the self-proclaimed Weaponmaster stated with an overly proud smile.

She flowed into the forms of Horse Cutter, to Dragonfly Dances, and finally to Summer’s Squall. To me, they were simply an overhead chop, an upward slash, and a thrust combination that attacked the center line.

Drilled into me, they were predictable, and I had no problem evading their lines of attack. Yet even knowing the conclusion to each set of movements, and despite the greater reach of my weapon, I could find no room to counter.

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“Do you see now the depths of your mediocrity?” she jeered in a tone most unbecoming.

It was my turn to laugh. “Now, that is truly rich. If you truly believed so, how about we swap weapons for a turn,” I suggested snidely, as I was finally able to sneak in a thrust.

“Preposterous! You are unworthy of such a storied blade,” she snorted, deflecting my thrust and cutting into the wood and steel of my weapon.

“Oh, I see. Excuses are ever the refuge of liars, cheaters, the womanly, and the weak,” I countered through gritted teeth.

My halberd was made of hardened steel and strong wood, with riveted bands of metal running halfway down its length. But against the cutting edge of mithril, it was slowly being chipped away.

The strategy of winning by slow attrition was being eroded with every exchange of blows by Fen’s greater skill. In my heart of hearts, I knew that the woman was not even really trying. She was toying with me for the insults I had given her.

Hopelessness once again raised its pitiful and ugly head.

The woman was a monster… an unrelenting whirlwind of skilled savagery. She moved from sword form to sword form in a storm of silver. Despite my best efforts, an endless rain of blows came crashing down upon me, chipping away at the steel of my armor. Tearing away at chain links and digging into metal plate whenever I was a fraction too slow in my defense.

“Is this truly all you have learned from me? Can you not see that it will take more than rote moves to defeat me? Are you truly so dispossessed of originality?” the middle-aged woman chided, causing me to snarl.

I redoubled my efforts, and we danced the dance of flashing, stinging steel. A circle of icy white winter in the midst of the dream’s verdant spring.

Another chance came to me, or at least I thought it did. The Weaponmaster had come close with my invitation. She pushed my elbow away which opened me up to an attack. Thinking to absorb the blow with my armor, I tried to grapple her down to the ground.

Infuriatingly, she slipped out of my limited vision. Something sharp pierced the mail at the back of my leg armor, causing me to go down on one knee. A moment later, I felt a hard rap against my helmet that almost stunned me. Were it not for my high Constitution I would have lost there and then, such was the force of the blow.

She continued to yap on, but I could not hear her, the ringing in my ears all but drowning out her words. However, her soliloquy afforded me the time to recover a little of my Health. Enough at least to stand on defiant, if shaky, feet.

The woman began her attack anew. My armor, rent in places from a succession of blows was providing less and less protection from Fen’s unceasing assault. Now, I was truly suffering as I was slowly being taken apart. Blow after blow caused sparks of white-hot pain that overwhelmed my Pain Nullification skill and took solid chunks off of my Health.

Then finally the moment I had been waiting for arrived.

Thinking me defeated, Fen raised her elegant and murderous sword to deliver a coup de grace. It was a killing stroke that I knew was infused with Kai, or whatever she called it, that lent it devastating power.

Her blade began its descent with the force of hammer lightning, its intent to cleave me in twain.

I raised my forearm in an appearing last-ditch effort to save myself and the mithril sword came down with all the fury of the heavens.

But it was stopped, for I was not fighting alone. The Mimic that lived inside of me was one of the aces I had never shown to Fen. It had formed a thick wooden shield that protected me from the blow.

It screamed in pain, a cry that rang in my mind. An animal cry that echoed with my own agony. The blade was beyond razor-sharp, but even here in this place set apart from reality, it seemed that the rules that Fen imposed upon this place worked against her.

No matter how sharp a blade, it still had to abide by the laws of physics. In this case, namely friction.

Her sword had cut deep, too deep in fact, and was now lodged firmly into the Mimic’s faux wood. Stuck.

With a cry born of primal desperation, I wrenched the hateful Godmetal sword out of Fen’s grip with such force that it flew from her.

Shocked and disarmed, Fen tried to dash toward the mithril sword. I dismissed my Mimic Shield and swung my halberd with all the speed I could muster, forcing her to dance away instead.

Now, the tables had finally turned.