Bee jumped down into the pit. It was about ten meters across and two meters deep, the ground covered in a layer of sand. Her opponent descended on the opposite side. Tryhard was an ordinary-looking man, shirtless and barefoot. The sapphire ring on his right index finger crackled with power.

Bee followed his example. She removed her shoes and shirt and handed them off to Will, who sat with Buck at the edge of the pit, just behind the wooden railing. She had wrapped up her chest and hands with bandages, but kept her left arm uncovered since the rules stipulated that the sheet had to be fully visible.

Freddie Glutton began introducing the two fighters to the growing crowd while he strutted about, his voice amplified by some means so that it carried like a megaphone. The man was impossible to miss with his shining golden visage.

There were maybe a hundred spectators there; some crowded around the pit, some sitting on raised bleachers, and some hanging off of scaffolding. Last-minute bets were still being made with a lot of shouting and insistent gesturing involved. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Tryhard was the favorite to win.

Bee stared down her opponent while Freddie finished his masturbatory who’s who speech. Tryhard met her gaze evenly. She didn’t read any clear malice on his face, but certainly a firm determination.

Buck called her attention from up on the edge. “You’ve got a decent advantage here, kid. We already know his game plan, but he doesn’t know anything about you. He won’t be able to guess that you’re a brute, so you should use that to your advantage.”

Bee nodded. “Got it.”

“You’re lucky I brought some potions of cold resistance, just in case,” Will said. “Just get through the first round without getting tagged and you’ll be all right.”

He had brought an extra satchel in addition to his usual one, and they were both chock full of potions. She felt like a lab rat.

“Tryhard’s ringman used Detect Magic a minute ago,” he continued, “so they probably know what potions we brought. Tryhard will be looking to end this in the first round so you don’t get to pop cold resistance, so be careful.”

“Will do.”

The little golden man finished up his preamble, twirling around atop the railing with a nimbleness belied by his cannonball-shaped physique. With a wave of his hand, an hourglass the size of a man’s torso drifted into the air and settled a few meters above the center of the pit.

“GENTLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN, ARE YOU READY?” he screeched, arms up in the air.

Tryhard approached the center of the ring, and Bee joined him there. He had a good, easy stance, favoring his left side to protect his more vital right.

“Let’s have a good match,” he said with a bow.

Bee touched her fist to his when he reached out, but did not reply. Her entire focus was trained on visualizing victory. They both backed away again to their respective corners.

“FIIIGHT!”

The hourglass flipped overhead with a hissing of displaced sand.

Here he comes.

Almost instantly, Tryhard dropped into a low crouch with one hand to the ground, then shot forward with dizzying speed. He threw up sand all around him, and the Night’s Eye left a blue streak across Bee’s vision.

Even though she’d been ready for it, she only barely managed to scramble out of the way, twisting her torso so that the ring-bearing fist slipped just past her.

Bee had fought Buck enough times at this point to know that the move she just avoided was a Dash. But Tryhard was a Jeweler, so he shouldn’t have had access to that skill, should he?

There was no time to think about it. He kept coming after her, advancing at a steady pace as she retreated, occasionally throwing a right jab. None of them connected, but having that ring shoved in her face over and over was taking a toll on her nerves.

They were about equal in reach and speed, so getting an opening on him without exposing herself would be difficult.

He came at her with a left, and she ducked out of his reach. While she was still off center, he raised his right hand and flicked the Night’s Eye with his thumb.

A cone of freezing mist shot out of the sapphire and billowed over Bee’s torso, forming a sheet of ice across the left half of her chest that extended up to her shoulder.

Rather than feeling cold, the ice burned like fire, and Bee gritted her teeth with a low grunt. The movement of her left shoulder was completely locked down.

Tryhard went after her with a follow-up, and Bee made a split second decision. Rather than back down, she charged forward. She collided into him with her frozen shoulder and stopped his advance dead, knocking him to the ground.

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While he was getting back to his feet, Bee gripped the edge of the ice sheet clinging to her and tore it off with one sharp pull, taking scraps of skin along with it and opening half a dozen bleeding wounds across her chest.

At this point, she had enough adrenaline pumping through her that the pain barely slowed her down.

Tryhard settled into a more measured offense, maneuvering and poking. He threw a shin kick that she had no chance to check while she was focused on his ring. It didn’t hurt much, but it was enough to disturb her balance in the soft sand.

He kept throwing shin kicks, alternating legs, and connected almost every time. The moment she took her attention off his right hand, he’d come at her with a jab, forcing her to scramble out of the way.

Individually, the kicks were fairly weak, but when he was hitting her in the same spot over and over, it started to add up.

Then he hit her with a kick that caused her foot to slip, and she fell down on one knee. It was the opening he’d been waiting for, and he immediately shot into a Dash, sliding across the sand. He hit her with an uppercut to the body that sent her flying from all the force behind it.

She collided with the wall and sank to the ground, ice spreading across her midsection with a sensation like someone was putting a blowtorch to her.

He came at her to finish the job, his face steely with focus. Her stomach was too stiff to get up quickly. He was going to catch her. There wasn’t much she could do about it.

“Strike!” she shouted as soon as he got close.

The bluff didn’t get him to stop, but the momentary hesitation was enough. She hit him with a sweeping kick that hooked the back of his ankle and tossed him onto his back. Tearing the ice off her stomach with a cry that turned into an agonized laugh, she flipped onto her stomach and crawled over for a mount.

He aimed his hand at her face and flicked the ring. She was forced to roll out of the way to dodge, sacrificing her opening.

A hollow metallic ringing—like that of a gong—echoed out over the pit. Glancing up, Bee found that the last of the sand had reached the bottom of the hourglass, and it was now pulsing red.

The first round had ended.

Bee got to her feet, sand clinging to her wounds and stinging something awful. She spat in the general direction of her opponent and trudged over towards her side of the ring, where Buck was waving her in from under the railing.

“Good job,” he said with an encouraging smile. “You took those hits like a champ. How you holding up?”

Bee checked herself over. None of the wounds were very serious. Her skin was still freezing cold where the Night’s Eye had hit her, the red going to a bruised purple in a few spots. It could have been worse, though.

“I’m good,” she replied, rolling her shoulder with a pained grimace. “I’ve still got full function.”

“Good,” Will said. Lying flat on his stomach, he handed a potion down to her. “It’s your fight now. The cold resistance has a duration of five minutes, so it’ll last you a whole round.” He looked over towards Tryhard’s side and gave a derisive snort. “His ringman’s giving him a healing potion. What an amateur.”

Bee knocked back the potion, which only had a mild taste of snowmelt, then handed back the empty bottle.

Once a full sixty seconds was up, it was time for the second round. Bee lined up against her opponent, staring him down. He looked less confident now, restlessly working his fists open and closed.

“FIIIGHT!” Freddie screamed in his projected booming echo of a voice, and the hourglass turned over once again.

Tryhard gambled on a Dash just like in the first round, crossing the distance between them in an instant. Bee didn’t try to dodge, absorbing the blow against her side. She staggered from the impact, but managed to keep herself upright. The ice that formed around her ribs almost immediately cracked and peeled off, and the cold was only a distant thing, like she was feeling it through three layers of clothing.

Bee recovered quickly and retaliated with a hook that caught Tryhard square on the chin. He wobbled back, legs like jelly underneath him. She almost caught him with the follow-up front kick, but he just barely managed to shift out of the way. Keeping up the pressure, Bee went after him with a combination of punches, but he had already regained his senses and was weaving around her attacks with unnatural efficiency.

This, too, reminded her of Buck, meaning that there was probably some kind of sensory ability at play. She didn’t bother trying to figure out which one. It didn’t matter if he could see her attacks coming once he got too tired to dodge them.

And he was tiring. With every punch and kick she threw, he became that much slower in dodging, and he was breathing heavily.

Then she caught him with a random shin kick, knocking his leg out from under him, and he went down on his ass. Bee caught him with a follow-up elbow over the head that folded his nose flat and drove him down to the ground.

She mounted him, clenching his midsection between her hips to keep him in place. He threw a desperate right, and she caught his arm under her left armpit, pinning down his limb and preventing him from pulling back. Then she hit his elbow with an open palm using all her strength, bending the joint the wrong way with a sharp snap.

Tryhard screamed with pain, eyes gone wide, and his cries quickly turned to sobs.

Bee was pulling back for a hammer punch when the gong went off. Looking up, she was confused to find that only half the hourglass had drained. Then she saw Tryhard’s ringman motioning to Freddie. He’d thrown in the towel for his corner.

Bee reluctantly let go of her opponent and stood away from him, looking down while he clutched pitifully at his mangled arm.

“Was that it?” she asked flatly.

There were more boos than cheers from the crowd as many of them had no doubt just lost a good bit of money. Looking up at them, though, Bee felt nothing but a vague disappointment.

Was that really it?

I didn’t even level up from that.

Freddie floated down like a fairy into the ring to congratulate her. He slapped her on the shoulder and raised her hand in the air and babbled on about what a show she’d put on.

“Can I fight someone else now?” Bee asked.

The ringmaster got caught out of what he was saying and looked over at her with a confused frown.

Then he cracked a golden grin.

“GENTLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN…”