I must admit that I am feeling quite numb at the moment. The thing is I have been in many competitions in my life but none has ever ended in me having to fight to my death in a sledder. Heck I did not know they existed until a while ago and I have just used and practiced with them for less than a couple of weeks. Even if they are similar to airships that is no time to master anything.

As for why I am suddenly calling it a duel to the death, well after my chat with the elder of the blood tribe it is easy to see the way in which things are going.

It is conjecture at the moment but I don't think that the duel right now will be as peaceful as cloak likes to speak of it. I mean I could take the man's warning, but there is also the possibility that the man is trying to sow discord too. Still a warning is a warning.

I am sure I am supposed to be feeling quite nervous at the moment, but the only thing that I can feel is a numbness. That is a good thing because I will need every iota of my focus at hand in this so called "fair duel".

Well, I guess that I should properly explain what exactly are the rules to this winter loop before I start the damn thing.

Well, simply put the winter loop is a race between two participants through a storm of the truelands. We will be provided with sledders by the council and then we will have to race through a storm and the person that is the first to leave it will be the victor.

Quite a simple set of rules. One that doesn't need to end in the death of the participants.

The council has been quite busy in the last couple of weeks, as they prepare for the winter loop. This punishment is particularly resource intensive for these people as they have to firstly provide two sledders which mostly won't be making it through the storm intact. It is not a surprise if they are destroyed in the process as well.

To these people that can only make use of sledders to travel the truelands this must be a pretty heavy expense.

Also they have to locate a storm through which the two participants will be able to spend a satisfactory amount of time in after all. Storms in these lands are quite common but most would be either too long or too short for the winter loop. They take quite the while to locate the storm with the ideal length of time. That is usually about five minutes to one hour depending on the strength of the people involved. For us it will be at the lower end, about five minutes.

This is another fascinating thing that I have found out about the snow tribe. It is their knowledge of the weather of the truelands.

To any person that has worked with only a single type of mana (which is not your vital mana.) you would know just how crazy it is to try and predict its motion.

Anyway, neither side will be having any method of attacks, other than a reinforced bow which can be used like a battering ram. That means the goal of this fight is essentially what boarding ships attempt to do in the air. To collide with the other sides ship in a controlled and safe manner. (as safe as a airship colliding into a airship can be.) In the air boarding would be much simpler, though inside a Storm there is no way of predicting what can happen. There the winds will be able to rip us apart in a few moments.

"Prepare for the storm", a voice screams into my ears directly.

As I link myself to the formations, I can see the storm approaching us. It is not actually physically visible but to those with a mana sense it would look like a massive wall of ice mana charging at us. It is no wall though as the ice mana in that "wall" is flowing even faster and deadlier than a whirlpool. Beyond the wall you shall find the storm though the storm wall itself is the first threat in this duel. I need to breach the wall, which is built of ice mana so packed that from a distance it appears solid.

I shall speak on this later as the storm arrives in front of us. I can literally feel the chill as the wall passes into both of our ships. I can sense the other ship somewhere to my right though telling the precise location is impossible.

I even lose that a couple of moments later as the world begins to lose all direction. I can feel the sledder groaning as ice mana laden winds buffet it from all the directions. If I keep allowing the ship to move headerless like this, soon enough it will split into many pieces.

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This is something that one needs to be wary of with a airship too. The trick to survive such a thing is to go with the flow. Moving the device in whichever direction it is supposed to be going and not against the wind. The only problem is that the wind is constantly changing in this case. Only a skilled pilot will then be able to go with the flow.

I can finally understand why cloak has been saying to me that I could be able to do this. All I really need is a really sensitive mana sense and a passable skill at driving a sledder to attempt such a thing. Still, I focus as I link up with the sensory formations.

I can feel the wind buffet the ship in all directions. The winds are coming at me randomly, pushing the ship in all directions that I can still not tell my location exactly. I begin to move the sledder, which really feels like travelling on a ship in this chaotic storm. Before the ground had a level of stability that made it easy to orient myself. Now the ground itself is like water in a storm, moving about like waves that threaten to capsize me.

I begin to move the ship, first left then immediately to the right then suddenly slope it downwards as I try to go with the flow. Now the battle between me and the giant is one of speed. Right now, both of us are like leaves in a storm. Whoever stabilizes first and breaches the wall will get the opportunity for the first hit.

So I get busy, try to move the ship with the flow of the storm. Here I clearly feel the limitation of being stuck to the ground. in an airship, you can simply go up whenever there is an updraft. With the sledder whenever there is a updraft, I have to angle the ship upwards and hope that I won't end up flying into the ground. Cloak has warned me against doing that, as it can damage whatever it is that is pushing the ship forward.

After all the two stumps at the bottom are playing a pretty important role in the sledder. Any damage to them will drastically reduce my speed. Still, the process of adapting is taking longer than expected. The other side might have already done it too and is waiting to steer the ship towards my direction. He will ambush me the moment that I breach the wall.

(A couple minutes later)

I finally break through the wall into the storm beyond it. Here the winds are still very strong, enough to overturn the ship but at least the wind here is not strong enough that I will capsize the moment I go against the wind. There is a decent chance of the ship being overturned though if the wind is moving to the side of my ship.

I am lost in my thoughts as the other side finally appears to my side. His bow is perpendicular to the side of my ship and it can cause quite the significant bit of damage. It is almost on instinct that I try to move the ship upwards. That costs me a few precious seconds as I reverse the ship. The other side still hits but it is the front of the ship, which is armored. There is damage but nothing that can get me killed in the short term. Thankfully this is not the ocean or we would be sinking already. Still, this ship won't be holding for long.

Turning the ship I move to the left, which would be away from the opposing ship. Sadly the wind is in the direction opposite to me slowing me down quite significantly. The other side also retreats, unless he wants to press his attack in which both of us would fall as one ship would become stuck in the other. I can't maintain this for long though. The enemy will begin to follow me soon enough and he will catch up to me in this storm quite quickly.

For a few seconds I do not know what to do as the opposing ship begins to chase after me, after which I get a idea. It is quite risky but there is little that I can do anyways. To start my plan I quickly reverse the ship (another nice thing about the sledder they do not have a front or back, so they can move forward or backwards at equal speeds.). Thankfully even the wind is supportive of that and It is quite stable too. Well. If it suddenly come from the right or left, well I would wish luck to both of us. You can tell the ship is being boosted by the outside winds just from how the ship is being cradled like a babies crib. It feels like the ship will be carried away by the wind at any second. Now I am scared that this thought will become the truth.

That means that I have given the opposite side the time to catch up to me though. It will be worth it. The other side moves to my right as I hoped he would though not by much due to the wind. He must be expecting a charge much like what he had done. Such a charge would lead to head on collision and then it is a matter of luck of which ship would survive. That won't happen now anyways.

I turn the ship at its maximum speed, directly perpendicular to the wind. I can feel the ship being pulled by the wind as it is in the verge of of overturning. I do not have much time, before the winds will overturn my ship. I use this moment of time to strike my target which is moving away from me.

He is not perfectly perpendicular to me but he is within the range of me striking. I push the ship to its maximum speed, even as the ship sways to the left and right. Just as it feels like the ship is about to fall my bow finds its target. I can feel the opposing ship crunch as my ship pierces into it. I can still feel the ship wanting to turnover and fall, but the opposing ships acts as an anchor albeit not a perfect one.

Before either of us can do anything though the world around me beings to spin, as if we both were standing on a spinning top. I begin to lose all sense of direction again though it is nice to see that I am still stuck in the other ships side as the force of the spinning drives me deeper into the ship.

That is all the information I am able to get as the world finally becomes a black void as I lose consciousness. The spinning of our ships literally caused me to fly away and hit the wall.