Fortune had carried me this far, and it had done right by me.

Resolve was a maybe, but if I was being honest, I would rather step aside and lose the duel than have to be horribly mutilated in order to win, and that was true overall. I’d push myself. I enjoyed pushing myself. But I hadn’t enjoyed this week of pain training. And I didn’t think I could turn it into my life.

Destiny… Maybe I had some, maybe not. There was a small sliver there, after all. But it was thin and weak, and I didn’t think that reinforcing it would do much for me in the short term. Maybe not in the long term either.

So, I reached out to the connections that lie between the stars, the formation of the constellations. The song of the void and the song of the lone star faded away, until only the song of harmony remained.

Information bloomed inside me. I wasn’t sure how to express it, not exactly, but I knew that there was a shower of falling stars coming in Final-Ice, in the southern moorlands, and that I could – and should – be there. I should bring Kene too, and possibly my brother and Liz. Maybe some others too, if I wanted.

The vision faded away as the Depths of Starry Night churned throughout my mana with a depth that the first layer hadn’t. It started interconnecting with the first gate’s own rotation and altering the tempo and movements, turning into a piece of something greater.

My eyes opened, and I glanced around the table at my friends, who all simply nodded.

The following day, we flew to the duel, arriving fifteen minutes early, as the paper had requested, where we were met by a woman in a large, rumpled suit.

“The area’s being checked,” she informed us in a nasally voice before shoving a clipboard at us. “Please sign here, and have your witnesses sign here too.”

Ed, Liz, and Meadow all signed, and Dusk did as well, though the official gave her a somewhat dubious look. Still, the suited woman didn’t protest.

Mallory arrived a while later, alongside someone who I assumed to be her brother. He looked a lot like her, but taller, a bit broader, and about five years older. Liz and Ed both eyed him, and I smacked both of them in the back of their head for that.

Something in my mana sense felt strange about him, and I took a closer look. I got a feeling of creation mana for a second before he veiled himself off and probed my own spirit.

I pushed back with my mana, but my veiling skills were definitely subpar. The river dragon who worked at the library had insisted on giving me a basic instructional guide about it, but I’d just never gotten around to actually practicing. I’d had so many other things that needed work, and it had just stayed at the bottom of my to-do list.

Oops. I resolved to bump it up to a higher priority.

Luckily, he was interrupted by having to sign off as a witness, and then we were led into the room.

It was a fairly large, open space. The floors and walls were covered in about an inch of springy foam, which didn’t look fun to fall on, but would certainly be better than concrete.

“Now, please register what magic item you’re using, and remove all others,” the proctor said, smoothing one of the many wrinkles on her suit. It did not help, as the motion seemed to produce more wrinkles, not less.

Mallory removed her earrings, as well as a bracelet, and I slipped off the cavern dragon density ring, and we both registered a defensively enchanted tenebrous silk suit as our item, though Mallory checked the box stating hers was a growth item.

That made me even more suspicious that Orykson had some sort of hand in engineering the situation, if I was honest with myself.

“Now we just wait until the doctor arrives, and we can begin,” the proctor said, seemingly quite annoyed as she checked the crystalline wristwatch she wore.

After a few minutes of long, silent awkwardness, the doctor entered. He was in his late middle age, and he wore the traditional robes of a doctor, with a modern lab coat on top.

“I’m here, Veronica,” he said, glancing at the proctor, who sniffed and then waved her hand. There was a spike of physical mana, and a spell anchor attached to me and Mallory. I could have fought against it, but I didn’t.

Even if the Cromwell family had paid her off to let me get more banged up than I should be allowed to, she’d probably pull me out before I suffered any sort of permanent injury.

At the very least, I hoped she would. And if not, then hopefully Meadow, Ed, or Liz would. I knew Dusk would, but she’d only just advanced to second gate, so I didn’t know how much she’d be able to do for me.

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A force cube spread over all of them, and they rose into the air.

“Begin,” the proctor said.

Wait, what?

Frantically, I pulled my staff from my spirit. Luckily, Mallory seemed to be caught just as off-guard as I was, and squinted hard for a moment, tapping her nascent truth before thrusting her hand out.

One of her shadow wolves materialized and leapt at me, but I met it in midair with a scattered shot of four shards of bone. It tumbled to the ground, then raced forwards again.

I had to be careful to preserve mana, but I flexed Briarthreads around me and split the shot of Pinpoint Boneshard. Two moved towards the wolf, and two more moved towards Mallory.

The wolf stopped, but Mallory hadn’t been idle. While I’d been dealing with the wolf, she’d been layering her spells.

Wolfen Aspect, Bones of the Wolf, Shadow Claws, and a spell that I didn’t recognize – probably the spell that she hadn’t mastered when we’d examined each other’s mana-gardens – all wrapped around her. A flowing black aura lit up around her and she exploded forwards.

At the same moment, the wolf, who was able to act somewhat autonomously, slid in, teeth gnashing as it went for my legs.

Mallory was burning mana like it was worthless, probably hoping to take me out before I could even react.

Unfortunately for her, I’d been practicing against Ikki, who frequently used the same strategy, and I’d developed countermeasures.

Three layers of Fungal Lock exploded over her, and four bones drove into the wolf as I pivoted to the side.

Three layers of Fungal Lock that were underwhelming in power. Mallory’s absurdly enhanced physique tore through them without effort and she was in front of me.

Just in time for me to call Blademoss from Dusk’s realm, which she ran headfirst into. Her suit shed a fair bit of the damage, but small cuts did start to open up on her face and hands.

The black aura began to intensify, growing stronger with every slice that struck her, and I teleported so that I was standing a few steps behind her, dodging her wolf’s attack in the process.

A green glow flowed out along her hands and face, her regeneration spell slowly healing the cuts into scabs. It wasn’t enough to heal them over completely, but it was enough to stop the judge from calling the round in my favor.

I wasn’t able to think too much on the consequences of the black aura spell she was using, though, because I had to deal with something else. The wolf had turned and leapt at my face.

I drew a Spirit Gourd out from Dusk’s realm, then flowed a mixture of life and death mana into it, channeling the power through the natural magical arrays within the gourd. Some extra power flowed from my body, mixing in and holding the spell.

Mallory’s conjured wolf wasn’t exactly a spiritual entity in the same way that a ghost, shade, or asomatous was, but it operated on similar principles.

Mallory was moving again, forcing my attention. I sent the bones at Mallory, who caught them along the lines of her suit, while I turned back to the gourd.

The shadow wolf vanished, sucked into the gourd, and I tossed it to the side. It took some of my mana to keep it trapped there, but that was a mana tax on Mallory too. She’d doubtless drop the spell when she realized it was useless.

She was in my space again, though, so I called Briarthreads again.

Under the influence of the powerful black aura, though, her claws shredded through them, though they dug into her hands as she did.

I was forced to teleport behind her again to avoid getting hit.

She’d expected it, though, and was already turning and leaping back at me.

I slammed my staff into the ground and hit her with a triple-layer of Fungal Lock, except this time, I didn’t limit the power or the mana that I had going into the spell.

She slowed as the mycelial network flowed over her form, and in the half a second of breath, I realized that Mallory’s mana wasn’t draining nearly as fast as it should be.

Was she cheating? Had she smuggled in some sort of artifact that restored her mana? Or was it an effect of some sort of harvesting spell?

Speaking of…

I harvested the power out of the tiny bit of Blademoss that hadn’t dissolved back into component energy, restoring a bit of mana, while bringing the five bones to orbit me and setting more Briarthreads up.

Mallory broke through my locking spell then and I had to teleport out of the way of her slash, though it still clipped me.

As the bones and briars struck her, the black aura intensified again, and my eyes widened.

I quickly empowered my Analyze Life and Vampiric Senses, and…

No…

She was leaping towards me again. I crossed my arms into an x-shape, as if I was blocking with everything I had.

Then I teleported away, but before I did, I connected a Lesser Image Recall to the Capture Moment set inside of me. I’d been hoping to keep exactly how much ability I had with temporal spells under wraps for the first round, but I needed to check my theory more than I did keep one card in my pocket.

Mallory crashed through the illusion of me, hitting the floor hard. I sent my bones out in a spiraling attack pattern, followed by my Briarthread spell.

They lashed into her, and her mana flared bright green as she healed some damage from each strike.

With my empowered senses, I could see what she was doing, and I wanted to protest that she was cheating.

She wasn’t. But that black aura spell almost felt like it was.

It was somewhat reminiscent of a harvesting spell, like I’d suspected, though parts of it reminded me of Burn Future, and still other parts were completely new to me.

Whatever the exact nature, its effect was clear. It drew from every injury that she accumulated, turning the injury into power, both magically and physically.

As my latest volley of spells struck her, her mana was now regenerating faster than she was burning it.

Well… No wonder she wasn’t dismissing the summoned wolf. It cost more for me to keep it in there than it did for her, relatively speaking.

I ran through my options to win this round. She was already faster than I was, stronger than I was, and recovering mana faster than I could. I could try to overwhelm her with damage, but I didn’t have any larger strikes in my arsenal.

I had a few cards left, but nothing that I wanted to play on my first round. I knew for a fact Mallory was holding some things back too – her Cloak of Shadows, Ice Dagger, and Binding Ice spell, and maybe one or two other spells if she’d had the time to master them.

No, my mana was running dry, and hers was recovering. If this went on for too long, she’d actually end the round with full mana.

I needed to end this round now. And I couldn’t win, so I ended it the one way I could.

“I lose this round,” I said.