Two hours before the duel, and the betting was reaching a fever pitch. Thousands of bets were being placed by the minute—whether shouted out to busy bookies at the stalls, or beamed in by scrying glass from across the universe.

… So far, it was not looking good for Zane.

“Clear the way!” shouted a bookie, shoving his way through the crowd. He hammered on the new line, written in giant block letters, over the betting booths.

The odds were now 5-to-1 against Zane Walker.

It was only getting worse as the day went on. It was being discussed the stadium over.

In the upper booths—

“He’s in over his head,” said Elder Varax, a squat half-dragon with a white beard that went down to his waist. He snorted a plume of fire. “That’s what happens when you’re raised to believe you’re the best on your little no-name planet! Big fishes in small ponds… we’ve seen it a thousand times over.”

“Oh, yes. He’s about to get a reality check—and in brutal fashion, for all to see,” agreed the wizened Elder Coral, right next to him. She snickered. “I, for one, will enjoy every minute of it.”

The Elders beside them all chuckled.

The dragon-folk had taken his challenge to Kakorax as an insult, just as Kakorax did. Kakorax was their guy.

That Zane would be crushed seemed to be the common opinion. The main disagreement was how many he could take down before he failed.

A few stands below, in the upper section—

“He’s a tough one, that Zane,” said Toli, a bald monk on the Path of the Meteor. Toli stroked his chin. “If he picked his fights well, he truly might’ve done the ten-man challenge… It’s a shame.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” snorted Monk Wali right beside him. “Forget Kakorax and Throck. That brat really had to go and challenge the Kane brothers—they’re all peak Ascendants! Does he think he’ll just run them over?”

“The Redtalon twins are no slouch either,” said Toli, frowning. “Each a true-blooded Bloodborne Phoenix—both of them could go toe to toe with a God Golem…”

“That God Golem didn’t beat the lesson into him badly enough, it seems like…” said Monk Rini. “Well, he’ll soon learn.”

Monks Rini and Wali had been ranked above Zane for all of about three days before he shot right by them. They still weren’t quite over it.

The tone in the stands below were a little different, though…

“Can you believe he came from a frontier planet?” whispered Willow, a girl with a little red-feathered headdress. She was a a chosen from the the Heart tribe, an Azure Flame sub-Faction that sat on the Azure Flame frontier. She stared up at Zane’s blinking face, up on the big projection in the center of the arena. “Now he’s here toe-to-toe with all the big-shots!”

“I bet he’ll show them a thing or two,” said her brother Lake. He patted her on the shoulder. “I’ve seen that man fight. If they look down on him like they do the rest of us, he’ll make them pay,” he said fiercely.

Then there came a kerfuffle at the bottom—right at the betting booths.

“Someone’s just bet 5000 peak sky stones on Zane!”

“What?! Who?!—”

“It’s beamed in by scrying glass! From… ‘Avery Lively,’ of the Thousand Seas Tribe…”

***

Avery didn't actually have 5000 Peak Sky Stones.

She had 3000. This was after using her entire signing bonus from her integration, and also pawning a lot of stuff—almost everything she could pawn. The rest she got from borrowing as quickly as she could.

She was currently trying to squeeze out as many stones as she possibly could to stack more on that ever-increasing betting line. There were still two hours to go, after all.

“Refrigerator!” she cried. “Refrigerator.”

She waved the refrigerator overhead in a way that would hopefully make it seem appealing.

The burly merchant looked dubious. “And what does this… ‘refrigerator’… do?”

“It keeps stuff cold! And it just needs a little electricity. It’s 50% cheaper than using essence stones and a freezing array! Very useful.” She nodded wisely.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Hmm,” said the shopkeeper.

He ended up giving her another 50 more Sky stones, which she tossed right on top of her bet.

Her ice creams would melt after this—but she was hoping she could buy a lot after.

“Go Zane!” said Avery.

***

Evan put away a sword that was almost twice as wide as he was.

“As you requested, then—you’re dismissed early today,” said the Constellation King, sheathing his own saber. He looked amused—though it was hard to tell his expression sometimes with that blindfold he always had on.

Evan happily scampered off to go see Zane.

Across the galaxy, alone in her bedroom, Reina was also watching over scrying glass, hugging a pillow quite tightly.

***

Zane, for his part, hadn’t realized there would be such a kerfuffle.

He just showed up to the dueling platform when the time came—and found the most packed stadium he’d ever seen. The crowd was a boiling sea of bright colors; there were even fireworks pitter-pattering over some of the stands.

Zane stood in a little circle of blue light, right in the arena. His starting area. The wards would drop once the duel started.

He took a look across the arena—a stretch of flat sand the length of a few football fields. His opponents were lined up, one by one, each in their own little blue circles.

There were three blue-skinned bald Monks, each wielding a staff. As they warmed up they slammed them into the floors and the walls, moving like falling meteors—setting off thundering explosions.

They were all in the Level 480s.

Then there was a giant man whose upper body was twice the size of his lower body. He had an impressive set of sideburns, a flat face, and beady eyes. He bared tombstone teeth at Zane and grinned, smashing massive fists together.

Throck

Essence Level 499

This was the guy with the Lava Ape Bloodline who challenged Zane to a wrestling match, if he remembered right.

This was quite intriguing.

Then there was the dragon-man in the middle. Well-built, with sharp features and obsidian scales running all the way up his bare chest like a suit of armor. Dragon horns rose like a crown from his head. He bared his teeth at Zane, snarling.

Kakorax

Essence Level 500

His aura—even suppressed—weighed far more heavily on reality than even Throck’s.

There were three who looked somewhat like him just next to him—just with less pronounced dragon-features. But they shared the same Bloodline. They looked to be his goons. All over Level 480 too.

Beside them stood two girls in red dresses with flames trickling out of their black hair. They dual-wielded daggers, and glared daggers at Zane too.

Lyr Redtalon

Essence Level 489

Nya Redtalon

Essence Level 493

Birds.

Hmm.

And lastly—

Yarrow of Elistria

Essence Level 438

It was the first guy who had challenged Zane. He was a good-looking fellow—his appearance was quite pristine, hair brushed, skin pampered, like he was about to step onto a movie set. He looked a little queasy standing next to all those powerhouses.

As he waited, Zane took a gander at some of the upper levels too. They were really filling up. Every so often he'd see a beam of light shoot into one of the uppermost boxes. Some of those beams trailed voids as they flew… they had to be even stronger than Minor God.

It seemed like this whole 10-Man Challenge was a bigger deal than he’d thought.

***

It took a while for things to simmer down. But at last everyone took their seats and the bets were all recorded.

There was one last safety check. A curly-haired technician boy named Wim with a magical screwdriver tool came to check the golden wristband on Zane. They’d had him clamp it on before they put him in this circle. Across the field, other aides were doing the same checks with the other fighters.

It was akin to those dueling arenas way back at the Ventor Global Initiative. Once the fighters took an attack that would put them at 0% health or lower, these things would freeze them, instantly teleport them out, and fully heal them. This way the fighters could go all-out.

Though incredible amounts of power were often exchanged in these arenas, they could support even duels between True Gods. So Wim explained to Zane as he did some tap-tapping with his screwdriver.

Wim looked surprised. He blinked at it a bit more, did another check.

“What’s up,” said Zane.

“Eh? Oh—It’s just your heart rate, sir! It hasn’t changed at all—it’s really calm… I was just wondering if something was broken…”

Zane wasn’t sure why this was confusing.

“The fighting hasn’t started yet,” he informed the guy. Usually he only got heated after he took at least one good hit to the face. Sometimes it was like a wake-up for him. Quite useful.

“I just mean—I guess—you're not nervous, sir?” said Wim. Wim himself looked a bit nervous.

Their little bubble-circle muffled the crowd’s noise some. But even dampened, you could hear the thundering stomping of thousands of feet, the shouts, fireworks popping overhead as kingdoms’ worth of folk looked on…

Zane shrugged.

He didn’t get nervous much in general. But here, specifically—

“There’s no reason to be nervous,” he told the fellow quite matter-of-factly. “I am not going to lose.”

Something in his voice seemed to get through to the boy. “Ah…” he said. He bowed and went off, a bit dazed.

Wim would think about this moment quite a lot later on. Many, many years down the line, as an old man sitting around hearths, he would brag to his grandkids that he got to meet Zane right before the Seventh Ten-Man Challenge—the one that would go down in legend.

“People say it’s the size of his soul. Or the strength of his body,” Wim would say, and chuckle. “But let me tell you—I met that man right before the Ten-Man Challenge—and he was cold as ice! The kind of confidence he’s got…It was like in his mind, there wasn’t even a possibility he would lose.”

He shook his head. “That mind… that’s what separates Zane from ordinary geniuses.”

***

Zane, meanwhile, forgot about this sentence about ten seconds after he said it. He was busy thinking about the fight.

He was curious about what he could do. He wanted to be pushed—that was the only way to bring out his full strength. He wasn't sure how strong a Minor God was, but he figured it would be enough to give him a good fight.

At that, his heart rate ticked up a bit.

He was quite looking forward to it.

He looked up.

All over the arena, the lights were dimming…

Someone was floating over them all, right to the center of the arena. A plump man in a sequined red and white suit with an impressive handlebar mustache.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” roared the plump man. “This is the moment you've all been waiting for!”

The crowd erupted.