Under the eyes of the spectators, both contestants started working their way through the dry lakebed. Seeing them move, many couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, as the opening moments of this match were much more normal than the previous one…

  Doron had broken into a light jog the moment the match had begun, heading straight towards the center of the basin. On Tirr’s insistence, he was out of his usual armor and instead only wore a light pair of trousers with a simple tunic, the sword Dun lent him bouncing gently at his side. His body was obviously that of an experienced fighter, but the watching crowd couldn’t find anything unusual or special about the middle-aged man, especially compared to the weird performance just before.

  On the other side of the lakebed, the Jacta warrior was also moving at a steady pace, though nothing as showy as Mali. The truly experienced fighters among the audience could feel the nervousness in each step the warrior took. His body moved stiffly, almost mechanically, and his eyes darted this way and that as he forced himself to move through the brush.

  Which each side moving at a good pace the audience knew it wouldn’t be long until they met. Luckily the contestants didn't disappoint them… Only a few minutes after the start of the match, Doron crested a hill and came almost face to face with the Jacta warrior who was climbing its other side.

  Finding his opponent so close so suddenly, the Jacta warrior panicked… Stones rose out of the earth around him and flew forward carelessly as he tried to back away. The attack was too uncoordinated though as Doron's body bent forward swiftly, avoiding the incoming projectiles and speeding up as he closed in.

  Finding there was no chance to escape the Jacta warrior drew his axe and prepared for the clash. The Shard on his back pulsing as more earth compressed itself before launching at the charging soldier.

  Doron had pulled his sword free and slashed outward, knocking the stones away in one motion. In a second he had reached the warrior, stabbing forward viciously. The warrior held him off and soon the two were stuck in a close-quarters melee.

  Having closed in, Doron had no intention of letting the other get away, pressing forward each time the warrior tried to retreat. From what they had learned from Dun, Jacta and Krawl’s attitudes had influenced the way they used the shard. Warriors from both clans preferred to attack from a range only closing in when they had the element of surprise.

  With Doron keeping a tight leash, the warrior found it awkward to use the power of the shard. In the whirling fight, he worried he might even strike himself if he wasn’t careful. Yet as the fight went on, confidence returned to his eyes as he held Doron off, blocking each strike easily and quickly starting to return some of his own...

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  For those of Clan Krawl and its allies, it was a welcome sight. They started to cheer, spurring the competing warrior on as they stomped and whistled. The fight stretched on like that for another few minutes, each fighter pressing forward and back in a violent dance.

  On Tirr’s side of the basin, Dun looked towards the young god with worried eyes… From what he understood, this should be Tirr’s second strongest fighter right? Being stuck in a deadlock like this, though the Jacta warrior was no slouch, it wasn’t exactly promising…

  He thought Tirr would be looking worried or frustrated, but instead, he found the boy was merely bored. The god sat, resting his head in his hands as he stared down into the basin towards where Doron fought.

  He thought about asking Maria, just to try and get a sense of their thoughts, but found the girl wasn’t even watching and was instead playing with the wolf club along with the other young woman that served as Tirr’s maid. He couldn’t help but shake his head and look down into the lakebed again, but this time his eyes sharpened as he looked at the whirling figures.

  The rest of the audience seemed to have noticed something as well, slowly falling silent. Though the fight had continued for over 10 minutes now, neither side had made any real progress or even landed even a blow. As the fight went on, the Jacta warrior found his stamina slowly starting to fade, his body slowing the longer the fight lasted. Meanwhile Doron looked the same as ever, not even a drop of sweat could be seen as he breathed steadily.

  And that was what scared the warrior… Even though the other side didn’t appear tired at all, the fight was still at a standstill. No matter how weak he attacked, Doron would “just barely” hold it off. No matter how ineffective he blocked, it would keep the old soldier's strikes at bay. The warrior was quickly realizing he was nothing more than an actor in a play…

  Feeling panic set in once more, the warrior decided to abandon the straight fight once more, the shard at his back pulsing as he tried to back away…

  Doron frowned as he followed him, but as he stepped forward, he felt his foot sink… The once firm ground below him had shifted and loosened, and Doron found his foot temporarily trapped, setting him off balance just as the warrior sprung forward again.

  The warrior felt a surge of excitement, using some of his remaining strength to chop at his stuck opponent’s head. Yet the warrior didn’t expect Doron to simply raise his arm, blocking the axe from his body even as it dug in greedily.

  The warrior quickly backed away again as Doron freed himself. Though it hadn’t been a deciding blow, at the very least the old soldier wouldn't be able to use that arm anymore... Or at least that’s what the Jacta warrior thought… But before his eye and the eyes of all the crowd, Doron simply shook the arm as if annoyed. The once brutally wounded arm moved and worked like normal, the wound gone, as if it never existed…

  Doron let out a sigh as he glanced at the frozen warrior in front of him, he took the chance to look behind him towards Tirr’s bright expression. Tirr raised a thumb encouragingly causing the older man to roll his eyes as he turned back to the still stunned warrior… “Alright,” Doron muttered, “Now that the boss is happy, time to go at it for real…”