Valdan winced visibly when Aiden slapped Belle.

The action had surprisingly been like watching an adult slap a child. He’d just stood there, waited, then slapped her at just the right moment. In the eyes of some people, it would probably have been disrespectful.

But what worried Valdan was the emptiness in Aiden’s eyes. He looked down at Belle with eyes that didn’t even seem to see her. He was not lecturing her. He was not punishing her. Punishment, after all, was given so that the punished would know not to commit the crime again.

This was not a fight.

“He did say he keeps his hubris for combat.”

Valdan turned and found an old man seated next to him. He had in his hand a glass of water where everyone satisfied themselves with some glass of wine or the other.

“He sounded convincing,” the old man continued, staring at the duel within the golden dome. “But I’d thought he meant combat against his mates or monsters.”

Valdan still didn’t know how to feel about what was going on. What would he do when Belle died?

“But this isn’t hubris,” the old man said. “This is a man stepping on an ant. It’s not even cruelty. It’s just…” the man shook his head. “And this is how she is going to die?”

Valdan really hoped it wasn’t. He really hoped that she would not die.

Belle staggered, knees quaking beneath her. She could barely hold her axe up, but she refused to fall. She stared up at Aiden with defiant eyes, unrelenting.

Anyone with any combat experience knew the slap had stunned her. Valdan had been stunned by enough blows to the head to know that it was a terrible feeling. To know that your opponent was strong enough to stun you with a single blow.

I can only imagine how bad it is to be stunned with a slap.

Aiden had promised her no honor beyond her standing in front of him with her axe, and he was keeping to his word.

Beside him, the old man continued to shake his head. “And he has so much potential to be good,” he said. “Another child, drawn to the darkness because the world wouldn’t let him be. Such a pity.”

“Sometimes,” Valdan found himself saying while Aiden waited for the woman in the duel, “we can do nothing but watch.”

The old man gave him a sad smile and held his hand out for a handshake. “Chibor,” he said. “Tailor Chibor.”

Valdan shook the man’s hand hesitantly. “Valdan. Sir Valdan.”

“Oh,” the man’s eyes widened in surprise. “I never thought I’d run into a knight tonight.”

Valdan was slightly stuck on what kind of title ‘Tailor’ was. He’d never heard of a tailor referring to themselves with the occupation or class as a title.

A bit of his confusion must’ve on his face because Chibor smiled slightly.

“I was given the title recently,” he said.

Valdan’s eyes widened. He’d never heard of a person gaining such a title before.

“Not system sanctioned,” the old man hurried to add. “Just some young lord that came into my shop. No idea why, but he just decided to start adding tailor to my name. I figured it was because he didn’t like how formal it was for me to call him young lord while he had to call me Chibor so informally. He tried to play it off as some kind of game, but I know he was just uncomfortable about it. Good home training, I’ll say. Very rare among the young lords these days.”

“It is,” Valdan agreed.

Chibor sighed. “Who would’ve thought I’d see the young lord in such a state.”

Within the duel, Belle was finally getting her bearings back. The moment her grip tightened on her axe, she swung again. Unlike before when she’d attacked with precision, her face carried anger now.

Aiden stepped to the side so that she missed and slapped her once more. The sound echoed through the room again, silencing the entire ball.

Valdan doubted anyone present had ever seen a duel so… heartless before. The nobles present would’ve seen duels of cruelty and showmanship. They would’ve seen duels of disrespect. But he doubted they would’ve ever seen something like this.

Aiden waited again.

“He’s not moved from that position since this started,” Chibor pointed out. “He moved the one leg to avoid the skill, but that’s all his done.”

Valdan had noticed it. That a tailor was the one pointing it out, however, was intriguing.

Belle staggered again. She stared at the air and her anger deepened, darkened. It took her a moment, but even hunched over, she held onto her axe with a powerful grip.

“You bastard!” she spat at him. “Fight me like a ma—”

Aiden cut her off with another slap.

This one dropped her to her knee and her axe clattered to the ground.

“You do not get to make demands, child,” Aiden said to her, voice calm, contained. He was like a man simply going through the motions. “You requested for this. You challenged me, and I accepted. This is the outcome.”

The man in the dome with them, with his bright white hair and regal demeanor simply looked at him. Whatever feelings he had on the matter as the regulator were hidden behind a placid face.

Belle reached for her axe and struggled to pick it up.

If the third slap had also stunned her, from Valdan’s experience, a fourth would give her a concussion. To be informed by the system that you have been concussed by a slap would be a terrible blow to anyone’s morale.

At this point, Valdan didn’t know if letting the girl live would even be a mercy. If she survived this fight, she would be so terribly affected by it that he doubted she would ever grow.

This duel would haunt her for the rest of her life.

“Stand, child,” Aiden said. “The duel ends when you’re dead. Until then, you’ve got more of this in store. Stand it like the challenger that you are and try and give some back.”

He didn’t even have to mercy to call her by her name. Not anymore.

It hurt Valdan to watch.

From the way the tailor next to him sighed, it seemed like it hurt the tailor to watch as well. And with the silence of the entire ball, Valdan wondered just what was going through everyone’s mind now.

Dismay at having a grown woman challenge a child would’ve turned into something else. In the beginning they would’ve looked at Belle of Sinora, a soldier of the house challenging a child, as a terrible person. They would’ve written her off as a woman with no honor even though she’d called the duel an honorable one.

But what about now?

Valdan wondered what they were seeing now. They would’ve seen the first slap as some kind of poetic justice. The second slap could have been seen as a proper punishment. But how would they interpret the third? How would they interpret what was to come?

Belle’s hand settled on her axe and both edges shone brightly. Each blade extended beyond their physical reach in bright brown lights the color of mud.

Belle pulled herself to her feet and hopped back, creating distance between her and Aiden. The lights of the axe shone brightly, as brightly as the color of mud could shine. Each blade was now extended as long as a foot, maybe longer.

The woman had a feral scowl on her face that made her bare her teeth. Aiden brought his hand casually from his back and clapped once. It was a soundless clap, all Valdan saw was his hands meeting.

The regulator of the duel looked at him, brows furrowing. Valdan wondered how many people had been paying attention to Aiden. It was the thing about Aiden’s skill. First, even if you could see what he was doing, you wouldn’t be able to tell what exactly the hand signs were supposed to do. And if you weren’t watching him specifically, you would likely not even see the hand signs.

Aiden returned to his initial stance casually. An arm behind his back, a palm open at his side.

It seemed to enrage Belle all the more.

In her rage, she swung her axe. One of the blades of light shot from the axe. It split the distance to meet Aiden. Aiden’s response was as simple as it was casual. He raised the single hand and slapped it aside.

It connected with the back of his hand only to be sent aside to shatter against the dome that protected them.

“Such precision,” Chibor marveled.

Valdan understood what had the man in marvel. Aiden had timed the moment of his action so that he slapped the blade of light not at its edge but by the flat of it. It was the only way he had come out unharmed.

Those who did not see it, who were not watching so keenly, would believe that it had been nothing but a display of strength. They would believe Aiden to be stronger than he was.

Belle charged the second blade, and the blade of light grew longer, clearly more powerful. Aiden stood in place, undeterred.

She sent this one flying with another swing, but her demeanor had changed. Aiden’s actions were breaking her mind as easily as his slaps were breaking her swollen face.

“Fight me! You bastard!” she screamed as she sent the second blade flying.

Aiden simply stared ahead as if he hadn’t heard her. Then he broke her mind more with his next action.

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He raised the one hand he had been using since the beginning of the fight and held it out in front of him as if seeking to grab the air. The blade of mana flew straight into the hand and shattered on impact in an explosion of mana.

When the explosion cleared, Aiden was still standing, hand still held out. He pulled the hand back to himself and looked at his hand.

He raised his eyes from his hand to look at her.

“All that,” he said with a touch of disappointment, “just for a drop of blood.”

Belle’s reaction was a single step back.

Valdan could almost hear the woman’s brain convincing itself that it was taken in only retreat. But there was no one present that didn’t know that to be untrue. The step had been taken in fear.

For the first time in a long while, Valdan pitied a person.

He pitied Belle of Sinora.

Aiden Lacheart was right. When stories are told of tonight’s duel, the person that died would’ve died like a dog.

It saddened Valdan. It saddened him for Aiden.

…

Aiden had used a weave of strength when he’d seen Belle charging her axe skill. He hadn’t wanted to use any, but he wasn’t so stupid as to think he could defeat her when he was just at his current level.

It wasn’t that she was strong, it was that he didn’t know her level. And when you didn’t know your opponent’s level or have an inkling of what it might be, it was always reasonable to err on the side of caution.

So, he’d erred on the side of caution.

But that wasn’t all there was to it. What he had done to the blades of mana was a calculated action. It was also entirely Belle’s fault.

If she hadn’t been showing off the skill so much during her trainings, he wouldn’t have been able to do what he had just done. It looked different but ultimately, it was the same skill she’d always used in training.

Aiden wondered for a moment why it was a mud brown now. He remembered it being blue. It didn’t matter, though. Seeing it used so many times had taught him a lot. With the eyes of an instructor from his time in the Order, he had noted its weaknesses. How it moved. How it affected its targets.

Belle might’ve been using the skill so many times to intimidate him, but all she’d been doing was showing him how to survive it.

And now here they were.

Aiden looked at the cut it had made in his palm. He had actually intended on just shattering the mana blade by catching it, but his timing had been off. On the training ground he’d noted that the mana that formed it wasn’t so strong. It was brittle, like rusted iron. And while it was strong on impact, Aiden hadn’t truly been able to categorize it as powerful.

Someone weaker than Belle would definitely struggle with being hit by it. For him, however, it would merely shave some points off his health percentage.

It’s probably stronger due to the change in color, he thought. Or maybe your calculations were off and you just made a mistake.

There was also that possibility, but it was not important. What was important was the scared woman in front of him.

In the end, this was a miscalculation. A comment on his ability and not hers. It was an error that would not happen again.

Moving his attention from his hand, he looked at her. He held a slight disappointment in himself for his miscalculation, but he tried not to let it bother him.

“All that,” he said sadly, “just for a drop of blood.”

Belle took a step back. Her face was swollen badly, her cheeks pushing up so that it looked as if it was trying to close her eyes. He had bruised her terribly, inflicted pain to her body and mind.

Do what is right, Valdan’s words crawled into his mind.

Aiden shook the words free. Sometimes what was right was not what was good. It was a mistake people made often. Right and good were not necessarily synonyms. People just always used them interchangeably.

What was right was to put down rebellions. What was right was to make sure that for every enemy you met, you had one less enemy plotting against you. What was right was to set an example so that people learnt.

“If you will not come to me,” he said to Belle simply. “Then I will come to you.”

Then he moved. [Dash] carried him forward in a blur of motion.

Aiden cut through the distance between him and Belle in the blink of an eye only to stop short.

He came to a halt over a measured distance, just in time for Belle to swing her axe and miss his neck by a hair’s breadth. He stepped into her space and struck her in the side. He would’ve liked to go for another slap, but slaps would only drag out the duel for too long.

Besides, the [Saint] had given him a look earlier when he’d used [Enchanted Weave] and he didn’t want the man watching the fight any longer than he had to. It did not mean that Belle would not have what he promised her.

Belle gasped when he struck her and staggered to the side. She moved as if the weight of her axe pulled her. Then she bent herself oddly and was suddenly swinging again.

Fear and pain had dulled her. She had lost her precision in just a short span of time. A few slaps and a punch to the side in public had turned her from a soldier in training into a desperate mess.

She had seen him bleed and it reminded her that he was not invincible. But that was hope. It was all that it was. All that it would ever be.

As beautiful as hope was, it was a terrible companion when it ended up turning into nothing.

Belle’s swing cut through the air, easily missing Aiden. It was wide and designed to bear the effects of brute force. From her angle, it lacked technique and left her wide open for an attack.

Her eyes were feral as she struck. Aiden saw the fear tearing at her anger, reducing her to nothing. Replacing it with desperation. But sometimes, desperate people tended to forget that they were afraid. They acted and did all in the name of survival.

Aiden needed her to forget her desperation and anger. He needed her to remember her fear. He needed everyone to see what she could be reduced to.

So he slapped her again.

Again, it sent her staggering. This time her feet guided her backwards and Aiden followed with casual steps, a single hand held out at his side. In her pain, he watched her eyes dart to the hand. She was adapting to her situation, her brain rewiring itself, training her to understand the threat.

It was a sad thing how the human brain could lead a person astray.

When Aiden’s hand twitched, her eyes twitched with it even as she tried to regain herself. He kicked her in the shin to correct her brain and she almost fell over herself. As much of a threat as his hand was, she couldn’t let herself be bullied by her own brain. She needed to remember that the hand was attached to a complete person.

Even now, he thought to himself, you continue to teach.

Aiden didn’t argue with his own thoughts. He kept his eyes on Belle and a small portion of his attention on the [Saint]. The man didn’t seem to have any plans of interfering with the fight. It seemed like he had every intention of observing until the very end.

“Why?”

The words spilled out of Belle, sounding very much as any word would when spoken from a mouth with a significantly swollen cheek. On second observation, Aiden realized that her cheeks weren’t just swollen, he’d actually broken the skin. She bled from a terrible bruise and had a nosebleed. She’d also cut her lip.

Aiden gave her a questioning look. That was a stupid question.

“Why won’t you fight me?” she asked, her voice muffled with pain and slightly slurred.

Aiden’s brows furrowed. Was she having a concussion?

Does it matter?

“Why won’t I fight you?” Aiden almost got angry at the absurdity of the question. “I told you what would happen when we got here.”

“I… I didn’t know.” Her voice was weak, broken. “I… didn’t…”

“And that makes it better?” Aiden asked, voice empty, devoid of emotion.

Belle looked down and away. At least she tried to, but her eyes kept flickering back to his open hand.

“I’m… sor…” her words died on her lips as if someone had snuffed it out.

What she was trying to say seemed too heavy for her to say.

Aiden shook his head at her. “Don’t go regretting your choices now, child.”

“I’m… not a child,” Belle protested. “You are the child.”

Aiden sighed. “And yet your honor brought you here.”

Her resolve tightened again, flared up by her sudden anger, and she struck once more. She dived forward, axe swung with one arm.

So much for honor, Aiden thought, already moving.

He was faster than her by a significant margin and was in her space before the swing was halfway done. Grabbing her hand, he turned and swung her into a shoulder throw. Her back hit the ground so hard that he might as well have flogged the ground with her.

She bounced once, gasping as the air left her lungs. Her eyes bulged, widening in the pain of the impact and her axe clattered to the ground.

Aiden released his hold on her hand and took a single step to the side. The [Saint] remained motionless. He was not going to interrupt. He was not going to intrude.

Do you want him to?

The words echoed in Aiden’s head, surprising him. Of course he didn’t want the man to. And he didn’t expect him to. This was a duel to the death. Aiden knew how they worked. Both parties fought until someone died.

Then why do you keep checking if he will?

Aiden gritted his teeth. Did he want the [Saint] to step in? Why?

Do the right thing?

A scowl touched his lips. He was doing the right thing. This was the right thing. Put your enemy down so that they never got to get back up. When you hit your enemy, they were meant to stay down and never get back up.

That was how the world worked. That was how the world would always work.

He placed his foot on Belle’s shoulder and pushed her gently, guiding her onto her side. Silence reigned beyond the dome of light, whispering the nonexistence of sound amongst the audience as Belle pushed herself to her feet.

Aiden took three steps away from her, allowed her pull herself together.

When she finally got back to her feet, she took her axe with her. Now she had her focus—what little there was—on Aiden as a whole. The shoulder throw seemed to have reset her brain. Then his hand twitched to the side and her instincts flared in its direction.

This fight is over, Aiden told himself. You’ve made your point.

Still, he had given her an assurance in the room. There was that.

He walked up to her. The moment he took the first step, however, she flinched away from him. There was no one watching that didn’t see it.

He could see it in her eyes now. He had broken her.

“So…sor…ry.”

Aiden closed his heart to her words. There was a place for mercy just as there was a place for wrath. Mercy’s place had been on a training ground a few days ago, existing within a ring drawn in the sand.

Despite her reaction to his very presence now, Aiden walked up to her. She swung out of nothing but instinctive fear. Aiden didn’t give the action much thought. He moved the hand he’d kept behind him, slammed the back of his hand into her wrist at a specific angle. When the axe fell from her hand, it was because he’d broken her wrist. Then he drove a fist into her chest.

He felt her ribs give way under the weight of the blow and she coughed up blood.

Aiden didn’t know how exactly they’d gotten to this point of the dome, but in his periphery, just within the crowd, he saw Valdan wince and look away.

This is cruelty.

Aiden withdrew his hand and Belle staggered away from him. She coughed once more into a raised hand and stared down at her own blood. Her fear drained from her eyes and in its place was despair. Then terror.

She looked up at Aiden and a single word left her lips.

“Plea…se.”

She fell back and hit the ground with a thud.

Silence met her fall. It was like a dirge to her end. It was, in its greatest crescendo, a symphony of silence.

Aiden ignored his audience, did his best not to look in Valdan’s direction, as he walked over to the woman’s axe.

He bent slowly and picked it up by the handle. It wasn’t as heavy as he’d expected it to be. But he couldn’t really say that it was light.

With her axe in one hand, he walked over to her. His steps were slow, solemn. He did not hurry. He did not delay. He walked as quickly as a man on a leisurely stroll on a nice evening until he was standing over her.

Belle’s lips were stained with blood. One side of her face was severely swollen, and she stared at him as if she was a Christian sent to hell, staring at the devil.

This was too much, he thought.

But he’d been angry at her. She’d taken the word honor and perverted it so terribly. She had challenged him in the name of honor as the kingdom had condemned him for being the brother to the [Demon king] once upon a time. Condemned him and forced him into a terrible life on the run…

All in the name of honor.

People used honor where honor had no stake—where there was no honor.

You are angry at a life that hasn’t been, Aiden, he told himself. Let it go.

Aiden’s lips tightened at the thought. It might not be anymore, but I still lived it.

His hold on the axe tightened, his anger rising.

I STILL LIVED IT! RUNNING AND FIGHTING AND HIDING AND KILLING! I DID NOTHING WRONG!

He raised the axe high over his head. In his past life, he’d been hunted in the name of honor until he’d joined the Order. He’d been hunted for the greater good. He’d held a grudge until he’d forgotten his grudge.

Then Belle had to challenge a boy of nineteen in the name of honor. She had brought back memories he had left in the recesses of his mind. The pain. The hurt. He might not have been a child when it had happened, but he had still been young. Hiding in the woods, looking over your shoulders and wondering if today was the day someone from the same world as you would forget a sword in your back in some foreign world and be done with it.

“Plea…se,” Belle pleaded in a weak voice, choking on her own blood.

Aiden raised her axe higher only to realize that he couldn’t raise it any higher.

The tension in the room was tight, wound up like a rope woven too tightly. The slightest thing would make it snap. Even within the confines of the dome the [Saint] had erected, Aiden could sense it, feel it. More than half the people in the room had held their breaths.

He had their emotions, and worries, and anticipation held above them. They danced in the air, waiting like a thousand men on the words of their commander.

Belle suffered on the ground beneath him, but Aiden’s eyes were on Valdan. The knight stared at him, and Aiden knew that the man would not judge his decision. He would not understand it. He would not agree with it.

But he will not judge me by it.

For some reason, it was all he needed to know.

Aiden looked down at Belle’s broken face.

“The Bards will tell of what happens tonight,” he told her solemnly. “And each time they do, I will remember you.”

Then he released the tension in the room.

Aiden swung.