All the people have assembled. Kasanova is watching from the outside circle of spectators on a

small ridge. Most of their entourage are with him.

Kassandra has gotten a special permission to stay together with Kasim at the ringside. She

functions as his adviser and attendant for medical and mental problems.

Kasim and Imogyeran are standing on the platform, where they are supposed to do battle

against each other.

<>

Kasim proactively asks this question, a slight anger visible on his face though it would also be

appropriate to call this expression a confused or frightened one.

The only one in range to listen to their conversation is Kassandra, Kasanova can only guess at

what is going on.

Imogyeran simply laughs while slightly swaying from side to side.

<>

He continues laughing innocently while making erratic movements to warm himself up before

the bout.

At this sight, the complicated emotions inside Kasim slightly disentangle themselves. He

simply cannot stay mad at this young child. It is not to the point of lowering his guard but

Kasim sees Imogyeran as a nice person. That’s why he responds with the same sincerity and

energy.

<>

He decides to compromise his feelings with a hearty laugh, imitating Imogyeran in the process.

Imog on the other hand stops his laugh in slight amazement. He starts shuffling around in a

shy manner before putting up a smile again and asking his opponent.

<>

The child tries to hide his embarrassed by avoiding eye contact but this does not escape the

older and more mature Kasim’s gaze.

<>

He remains relatively relaxed and tries to put on a dependable face with a tough act while

Kassandra cringes at his display.

<>

Imogyeran is shifting his gaze away to the ground while twiddling his thumbs.

Kasim meanwhile is a bit surprised by the request before letting out a loud laugh.

The young and shy boy misinterprets this reaction as rejection and looks down dejectedly,

tears forming inside his eyes. His head is however brought back up again by the following

words

<

like that! Hahaha! Never did I expect this!>>

His loud proclamation made it sound like a public disgracing of Imog, which caused some of

the public - including the Rojora-members - to clap their hands in applause at this display of

animosity against this person they harbor a dislike towards.

A decently sized chunk of the people in the open venue share the same opinions and

sentiments that Kasanova holds towards Imog.

Combine that with the low volume of most of the discussion and only the loudest contents

being heard by the outer ring.

Add on top the fact that Imogyeran right now is in lumps of clothing; he seems to be the

symbol of poverty in a place that should normally already exclude the poor from entering due

to the entrance and attendance fees.

What you get is discrimination, nothing more and nothing less.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Kassandra realizes the situation from her point of position and silently sheds a tear in the

shadow of the ring.

Kasim and Imog do not realize the origin of the applause. They are too concentrated on the

fight and therefore this 12-men-wide circular ring.

<>

After calming down a bit, Kasim utters these words in a vigorous albeit less loud voice to the

person now looking up at him. He holds down a fist in front of him while declaring this.

<

While the audience is interpreting this gesture as a fighting declaration and applauds in

grooves, Imogyeran is wiping the tears out of his eyes and making a really bright smile. It feels

abnormally warm to see this child smile.

<>

His answer and appearance however are lost to the public as everyone’s eyes are on Kasim.

Kassandra in the corner is wiping away her tears from this sight. This time it is not tears of

sorrow but ones of joy.

All the words needed have been exchanged between the two. No more words follow and they

just start the battle immediately:

Both players take one step forward and start by circling to their left side while observing the other party.

The opening is slow and they do not deviate from this movement pattern for a solid minute.

The spectators are already surprised by that since they expected Imogyeran to act out like he did in the first battle. Kasanova’s opinion of the guy is alleviated a little by that display of caution from the young boy.

The boys accelerate and decelerate in alternating intervals to measure their opponent’s reflexes and physical abilities.

Imog starts to change his circling posture: He sharply increases his speed for a single instance and then rotates his body to be facing in the opposite direction of his circling pattern. He is almost walking backwards while raising his arms to about the height of the boy’s armpits.

Kasim turns only half the angle that Imog turned and instead positions his upper body perpendicular to his own stride while sidestepping by crossing his feet in a strong-footed stride.

His speed falls sharply while Imog decelerates as well to keep their distance balanced.

While lowering his speed, Imog steps deeper into the middle of the ring. He is now 5 men’s worth of distance away from the ring’s center and slightly hidden behind the middle bulge.

Kasim keeps his calm and tries to make out Imog’s position by listening to his footsteps and concentrating his senses to perceive the spirits floating around Imog and locate him that way.

He has tried doing the latter since the beginning of the fight due to advice from his father but only now succeeds in sensing them.

The spectators have gone a bit more silent to enjoy this display of discipline and training, while there are some, who decide to resort to cheering them on.

Kasanova is keeping silent but inwardly he is pleasantly surprised by his son’s use of technique despite his previously aggressive(?) attitude.

Kasim decides to stop and bends his knees while waiting for his line of sight to capture Imog.

Once he sees him, the trained warrior immediately dashes forward while keeping his right hand on the handle of his sword.

Imog reacts a bit late and the distance between the two narrows a bit too close for comfort.

Kasim brandishes his sword by using the friction between blade and sheath to accelerate the act of drawing the sword:

He swings in a mix of a stab and an upwards swing, the tip’s direction pointed at Imog’s heart without the slightest shake.

Imog just continues to do his dance and slightly widens the distance between himself and the center before changing the center of his circle to being Kasim instead of the middle of the ring.

The distance that had been narrowing down to 3 men worth of length has been widened again to three men and a grown child while the distance between Imog and Kasim has widened again to about one man worth of distance before being increased to about one man and a grown child.

During his movements, Imog’s hands tend to show movements of traveling against his body’s natural vector of destination.

In other words, when Imog moves away quickly, his hands float forward gently; when Imog starts a straight dash, his hands stay in the same relative horizontal position to himself while moving apart vertically and rotating.

Speaking of a dash, in response to Kasim’s next lunge, Imog lowers his own posture and dashes forward as well.

Kasim uses his already brandished sword and holds it over his own head, while Imog simultaneously dashes forward and forms a circle with his two arms and fists.

Just at the moment his right and left hand are perfectly vertical to the ground, the sword drawn by Kasim comes falling down aiming slightly below Imog’s Adam’s apple.

Imog raises his right hand, that is covered by a slim silvery frosting, and touches the blade of Kasim’s sword with it. During the sword’s motion the ice from Imog’s hand proliferates and repels it to the left leaving Kasim’s body unguarded for a moment.

Imog attempts to hit his stomach-area while preparing another layer of ice forming on top of his hand, the layer slowly crawling upwards his arm.

Kasim does not back away but instead lowers his posture even more, both of his knees bent in a right angle, his feet firmly on the ground and his head just barely not touching the cold area around the arm. A few spirits cling to his body and the tips of his hair start turning white with snow but nothing serious happens.

Instead, Kasim barely manages to convert the downwards-aiming motion of the sword into a rotational force and turns the sword around to pierce Imog’s side with it.

The entire motion happens at a speed slightly surpassing the human body’s natural reflexes.

<>

A growling sound is heard and on top of Imog’s back, that has been bent while attacking previously, a creature appears and ‘clenches’ the sword inside its mouth and growls at Kasim’s face with an angry expression.

Kasim is bewildered by the little monster’s cute expression and momentarily lets down his guard, leaving enough time for Imog and ‘Donmir’ to widen their distance again.

Since ‘Donmir’ does not possess a physical body, the act of ‘clenching’ something inside his mouth is an inaccurate description of what happened.

‘Donmir’ shrouded his insides with water and ice, creating enough resistance for the sword to stop by compressing the water to high degrees. At the same time, he also lowered the sword’s temperature and thus the hand holding it experienced a slight sense of discomfort resulting in less force being put into the action of pressing on with the attack. Upon retreating ‘Donmir’ lowered the density of water inside him and separated cleanly from it while covering the blade with a frosty layer in the process.

Kasim himself is not surprised by the creature appearing but rather how cute he looks. He is still a young boy after all. This hesitation only lasted a moment however, due to the high discipline he has trained to achieve in his young years of life.

After widening the distance again Imog now firmly plants his feet on the ground and ‘holds’ ‘Donmir’ closely around his neck.

<>, Kasim shouts from his point, a slight smile on his lips.

<>, Imog laughs while proclaiming and ‘hugging’ the bluish ball of water with one hand and using the other to stabilize himself.

<>

Imogyeran’s shout is more clearly pronounced and conveyed to the now silent audience as well as Kasim himself. The former are a bit surprised by the boy’s declaration while Kasim is also slightly curious about what is going to transpire next.

Kasanova however recognizes the symptoms of the current situation and urgently shouts with a loud voice

<>

Kasim clearly hears his father’s warning and tries to lunge forward again but he falls down to the ground. After coming level with it, he can see a bunch of tiny protrusions varying in size and jutting out between Imog and himself. He realizes it now.

Imogyeran has planned for this situation from the beginning.

<>