Verin looked down at Siguror, who was standing before a group of thirty knights. He and his axe were covered in the blood and gore of five others, who laid slain in the snow beneath him, and Verin immersed himself into Siguror's body.

Despite the numbers and equipment disparity, Siguror was the one to advance, heedless of the murder in the knight’s eyes.

They doubtlessly intended to fight as a group, but one of them took a step forward before the others, and Siguror lunged. His axe parted metal, and the man’s head was separated from his body in an instant.

And then, the group was upon him. Siguror was not strong or skilled enough to fend off twenty-nine different weapons coming from twenty-nine different people, but he still stopped as many blows as he could, and dealt as much damage as he could in turn. His flesh was rended in two, and his bones shattered, but they regrew in seconds. His axe lashed out, burdened by the weight of an entire knight that laid on it, but still claimed the lives of one.

One by one, seven knights were killed, until Siguror slipped up. His axe, constantly impeded in its goal to claim the lives of his enemies, missed the glowing blade of a sword by a fraction of a second, and it pierced his chest, breaking through the chestplate he wore and puncturing his lungs.

Siguror spewed blood like a dragon did fire, and it only went downhill from there. More and more blows swept past his shield and axe, and fewer and fewer knights were felled.

But he could not give up. Siguror was not ready to meet the gods; not until he had claimed a level of honor that even they could not surpass.

With no other way to survive as he was, Siguror sought to improve.

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Not even a second had passed outside of his mind. Leo was still staring at the screen he had been when the vision of Verin came to him.

Liam White: 19 wins, 4 losses.

Leon Horner: 0 wins, 2 losses. Set for punishment.

Leo could see a clear connection between his situation and the vision, but at the same time, the stakes were incomparably different. Leo’s only punishment for failure was to run until he couldn’t anymore and likely end up missing the rest of his classes as a result, whereas Siguror’s was death.

Leo still set out to do as the vision had proposed, and improve through adversity.

Liam White reached down and helped Leo up, patting him on the shoulder.

“Sorry for hitting you so much, but it wasn’t like I could just lose, and you wouldn’t surrender.” Liam told him, before turning away and returning to his square. Leo didn’t respond.

Leo had lost by a landslide both times, completely unable to truly retaliate. Liam had simply been way older and taller, while also using a spear, meaning that Leo hadn’t even been able to come within a foot of the boy.

The only positive thing that came from this was that he wasn’t even slightly tired. Leo took note of the fact that a few people were switching squares, and also that the people surrounding him were either in fights of their own or had already fought him, meaning that Leo had some time to himself.

The first thing he did upon realizing this was begin practicing with the sword he’d only just picked up. It was a bit longer and heavier than his old one, and its balance was ever-so-slightly higher on the blade.

Leo tested each of the basic cuts contained in the Kolnir Fachtbuch as quickly and as many times as possible before his time was up, and after a minute or so, he felt like he had a better grasp over his weapon… also after a minute or so, his third match begun, and this time, against someone that wasn’t significantly larger and stronger than himself.

His opponent was someone that was either really short or someone that had also received an exception to the rule of not allowing ten year olds or younger to attend; a girl, only an inch taller than Leo that wielded a zweihander that seemed to be scaled down for her, but still looked to be way too large- as in, it looked like it was meant for someone Liam White’s age and size. He knew that that was just how the weapon looked, though; when scaled properly with its wielder, it would always look huge.

The moment that the battle began, the girl rushed at him, and Leo was only mildly surprised to find that she was able to carry it with only slight difficulties. After all, what sort of moron would pick a weapon they couldn’t use?

Leo finally felt like he was fighting against somebody he had a chance against, and that made it significantly easier for him to improve; after all, there was little to be gained from losing in seconds without any chance of retaliation.

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The girl arrived before him in only a second, and Leo saw her overhead blow coming from a mile away; he sidestepped, not even having to parry the blade, and despite her neck being wide open, Leo swung at her arm. He wanted to drag the fight out for as long as he could, so that he could hopefully improve as much as possible.

He was surprised to find that she managed to block it with relative ease; rather than try to pick it up off the ground fast enough to dodge, she simply hid behind its handle, using the large weapon like a wall that just barely stopped his blow.

Leo wasn’t stupid, and he knew that his opponent wasn’t, either. She had picked a weapon several times too large for her because she had plans, just like him, and it was apparent what they were. In her first attack, she had used her own momentum, weight, strength and the weapons weight to deliver an absolutely devastating but slow blow. If Leo had tried to block, his arm would have snapped without a doubt.

And she clearly had experience working around the cons of such a strategy, judging by how she so quickly and easily used the weapon like a wall.

Leo gave her a second to let her lift the weapon off the ground again, before going on the offensive this time. He started as he was meant to; with a wechselhaw, cutting from below to above. She was unable to twist the blade quickly enough to block, but she did manage to leap backwards, just barely dodging it but putting herself off-balance.

The wechselhaw was practically made for the situation. The cut ended in almost the perfect position to begin the Mittelhaw, and with her balance off, the blade slammed into her abdomen.

Or would have, if Leo had not stopped at the last moment; he intended to improve as much as he could in this fight, and so far, he had seen almost none.

The girl didn’t seem to take kindly to the fact that Leo seemed to be looking down on her, and Leo was a bit surprised at the speed that her retaliation came. She used a mixture of strength, leverage and her own bodyweight to hurl the sword at him with extreme power.

Leo wasn’t able to parry the weapon, because it was coming at him with way too much force to deflect. He couldn’t block it, either- not without breaking his arms, and he also couldn’t sidestep or leap backwards, because the weapon was pretty long for a pair of very small children.

There was no way to avoid damage, and so Leo made the split-second decision to block it rather than lose outright.

The girl’s attack had been coming from his left, and so his left arm took the brunt of the force. As he had expected, all of that force transferring directly to his limb caused the suit to harden around it, telling him that, if not for it, it would have been shattered.

‘Shouldn’t have underestimated,’ Leo thought regretfully. He shouldn’t have gone through with the attack at all if he didn’t intend to actually hit her; all it did was put her in the perfect position to counter-attack.

A moment later, though… Leo realized that his mistake was actually exactly what he was looking for. He judged that, with a broken arm, the girl had a slight advantage over him.

Leo had accidentally created the perfect environment to grow through adversity.

Using his sword with only one arm was something he had practiced, although he was still not as proficient with it. There was good reason; when he used only one arm, because he could stand sideways to strike, he had a longer reach.

Leo felt the pressure as the girl went on an all-out offensive. Each swing felt powerful beyond belief; the larger sword and her skill at using her own bodyweight as leverage made it so that any mistakes were unacceptable. Moreover, she was incredibly good at working around the limitations of the weapon that was significantly larger than herself; when she missed, it was nigh impossible to bring the weapon back fast enough to block or deflect with it, and so she lunged behind the blade rather than bring it back to her.

Leo was only barely hanging on as of now, constantly trying to deflect and dodge, but it was because he had never trained in anything other than the four basic cuts; he was significantly stronger when on the offensive than the defensive, but he was also happy that he was forced to be on the defensive.

It wasn’t nearly as difficult to improve the way he blocked, parried and deflected as it was to improve what he’d learned from the Kolnir Fachtbuch.

The fight went on, and soon, a minute had passed. The girl’s infrequent swings meant that he still hadn’t improved much in terms of deflecting, parrying and blocking, but he had accidentally improved rather significantly in his positioning.

It made sense, considering how the girl fought.

The fight went on, and on. Three minutes had passed, and Leo was sweating hard now; the girl even harder. Leo still wasn’t exhausted, but it was getting harder to be precise. Leo knew from Erich that one of the best ways to improve was to force himself to be quick and precise even when exhausted, so this was good for him.

It was impossible to miss that the girl was improving throughout the fight, too. Leo’s improvements in positioning, deflection and dodging forced her to get better at predicting his movements and restricting him so that he couldn’t dodge her weapon.

The fight went on, and on, and on. Six minutes had passed, and Leo’s arms felt like lead. He could only imagine what the girls’ arms felt like. She was still fighting furiously, but he could tell that she could only barely wield her weapon by now. Leo’s weapon was lighter, and his method of fighting was significantly less taxing, and so he wasn’t as tired.

Emphasis on as tired; deflecting and dodging such a large weapon with only one arm was still hard work.

By this point, Leo was more than ready to end the battle. He’d tried, multiple times, but had backed down every time because, while the chances seemed in his favor, Leo didn’t want to take any risks. After breaking his arm, she had held the momentum throughout the entire fight, and it wasn’t easy to break it.

After a few more brutal exchanges, Leo finally saw his opportunity. As she always did, she leveraged her entire body to swing- but, not as she always did, there was a mistake made by exhaustion.

It felt weaker than usual, and it was because her legs had been planted incorrectly, causing her to twist her ankle as she swung.

Leo deflected the weaker-than-usual blow with relative ease, directing it into the ground far enough away that she couldn’t hope to lunge behind it.

His sword descended on her neck, and the suit covering it stiffened. The arena flashed red and buzzed, and a holographic screen popped up in the middle.

Leon Horner: 1 wins, 2 losses. Set for punishment.

Reya Villhager: 12 wins, 7 losses.