Before Commissioner Arrietti arrived at his place, he received a message that jolted him awake. In spite of himself, his heart began to rapidly beat.

Klein, would you like to meet me tonight?

Arrietti was gobsmacked to see that the sender was Helen. He straightened his spine and lifted his chin, but then realized that she couldn’t see him. His posture didn’t matter Coughing awkwardly, he glanced around to make sure no one else had seen this embarrassing behavior and then flexed his fingers in preparation to reply. On such short notice? Well, I suppose. Where should we meet?

Everything began to click together. After training for so long within the Dungeon, Helen had been exposed to his manly determination to the point that she found it irresistible. Arrietti’s face broke into a wide smile. He was a seaman on a small fishing dingy who, after an extremely long storm, looked up and saw a wide blue sky.

The training area. Helen’s answer immediately crushed any whimsical delusions that had so briefly been allowed to flourish in Arrieti’s mind. The reason the area above him seemed blue was because he was staring at the surface of the water from below. His boat had already crashed upon dangerous shoals and sunk to th bottom of the sea. You haven’t tested the limits of your Class, right? Let’s do it.

Arrietti wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. He walked woodenly like a puppet. His soul disintegrated to nothing, leaving him in a state of emotional nirvana.

Desire is the root of all evil...

*****

“Are both sides ready?” The referee asked. The crowd howled its approval as Paolo and Kayle faced off against Tykes and Dinesh. The air between them was thick with tension. Randidly hid a smile behind his hand. For all that people had been complaining about the bracket, they were certainly excited by the prospect of the two semifinals matches. Everyone believed the teams were pretty evenly matched.

But as Randidly carefully spread his modest success with Nether weaving through the arena, his eyes were on the two teams. Both regarded each other with the utmost sincerity; the two were old rivals from Donnyton. They were familiar with each other’s capabilities. But below the surface… Nether was already beginning to shift. There was weight to what would happen today.

Randidly grinned, his eyes two luminous emerald lanterns that released enough lumens to be visible even during the daylight hours. He was looking forward to this fight just as much as the crowd was. The referee raised his hand. “Then let the first semi-final match of the duos tournament… begin!”

“Labyrinth of Mirrors!” Dinesh instantly slapped his hands together and began to churn out shimmering panes of energy in the surrounding area. The air around him rippled and spun. Paolo cackled and dashed forward, with Tykes grinning just as widely as he rushed forward to intercept him.

But Kayle just shook his head and chopped with his hand toward Dinesh. “Sever.”

Clink!

Dinesh had produced almost two dozen mirrors in that brief moment, but almost all of them were marred with a deep crack by Kayle’s strike. Those that had taken the attack more directly began to steadily disintegrate into nothing from the damage. Glittering motes of shattered images fell on the ground.

Meanwhile, Paolo bounded forward and threw a punch at Tykes while coincidentally holding a knife in his hand. Tykes didn’t back down at all, the veins on his arm throbbing as he lifted the heavy metal and launched it with all the force of a cannon at Paolo.

“Haymaker!” Paolo bellowed, twisting his body midair and bringing his fist down to meet the huge iron ball. The collision shook the ground and left Paolo and the ball almost suspended in the air. Rather than any concussive detonation, the two forces resonated with each other. Images flared into towering pillars as the competition intensified.

Paolo was indomitable. Tykes had overwhelming strength.

The two images were like two rutting rams who encountered each other in the wild. They rushed immediately forward and locked horns, the struggles between them so violent and all-consuming that all other activities were gradually shut down in order to free up more resources for the current struggle.

Randidly’s eyebrows slowly rose as the second stretched without a definitive conclusion. Even he hadn’t suspected that they were this even-

BOOOOOOOOM!

Paolo’s pillar ended up being just a little higher. The muscles of his shoulder bulged and the flung the heavy iron ball back at Tykes. A few drops of blood spurted from his knuckles, indicating that the victory hadn’t been a clean one.

But the heavy iron ball smashed again into the marble floor of the arena and simply skidded back to its owner. Tykes didn’t seem bothered by the loss. Instead, he hopped up, casually seized the wildly whirling metal ball, then rushed forward again with his weapon held above his head. As the two neared for their second clash, both of their images intensified.

While Dinesh continued to furiously try and achieve dominance over the surrounding space with his Domain, Kayle took a step that cut through the surrounding distance and practically appeared behind Dinesh. He immediately slashed his hand at Dinesh’s neck.

Sensing the strike, Dinesh rolled forward and slapped his palms against the ground. Kayle released a brutal palm as he hounded Dinesh, aiming for the moment that he bounced back up to his feet, but his palm only hit air. Rather than throwing himself up into the air, his palms hitting the ground had him sticking there. Then, before Kayle could respond, the ground rippled like the surface of a pond and Dinesh sunk into it.

Mirrors exploded outward from that rippling ground as Dinesh used the opportunity to spread his Domain’s influence. The tumbled weightlessly through the air, flying past Kayle.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

For his part, Kayle just chuckled. “Quick Slash.”

The Skill was a common one used by most blade-wielding Classers, but it Kayle’s hands, it became something else entirely. Everything else seemed frozen as Kayle slashed. The peerless deadliness of his image lifted the basic Skill into a much higher Rarity. Randidly wondered what his Skill Level with Quick Slash was.

After Kayle’s fingers whipped sideways, a third of the newly produced mirrors were bisected and began to crumble. Dinesh appeared from a shattered mirror and zipped silently forward at his foe’s back. At the last moment, Kayle spun around and chopped sharply upward. Dinesh ducked under the attack and whipped his right leg toward Kayle’s knee.

Rather than retreating, Kayle stepped forward with fingers practically glittering with his image of severe sharpness.

Across the arena, the ground shook continually as Tykes and Paolo smashed against each other. It wasn’t as though there was no finesse in their fighting style; from watching them, it was obvious that they both had enough Stats in Control to manage their prodigious physical Skills. But ultimately, neither wished for a victory that had been seized through trickery.

So as they smashed and bludgeoned each other, their moved gradually lost their subtlety. The minute adjustments for a small advantage fell away and simply left two men taking huge swings at each other. Tykes especially had his chest heaving like he was an ancient hot air balloon, preparing for its first ascension into the sky. Somehow, he seemed larger than life. With just his physical strikes and that enormous iron ball, he was capable of destabilizing the surrounding space.

It was entirely different from the fight of feints and near misses happening on the other side fo the arena between Kayle and Dinesh. Plus, their images didn’t clash nearly as directly; Kayle was just using his image to suppress the spread of Dinesh’s Domain. If too many mirrors managed to avoid his attacks, Kayle slashed outward and shattered most of them before continuing with the fight.

Randidly sensed the sourness from Tykes before the split happened. After unleashing two domineering blows that staggered even the unflappable Paolo, Tykes leapt backward at the same time as Dinesh. The two landed next to each other, both staring at their opponents.

Kayle and Paolo glanced at each other. Paolo made a face like he had eaten a bug. “Do we need to? Really?”

Tykes and Dinesh didn’t bother to answer. Kayle laughed mockingly. “It truly is a duos tournament. Or had you forgotten?”

“How can we compete if all your victories are only because of my assistance?” Paolo complained. But he rolled his shoulders and settled into a low stance while bouncing on the balls of his feet. Kayle cracked his neck and strolled forward.

“I hope you don’t regret this,” Kayle said simply to his opponents. Then he vanished, once more utilizing the Skill that allowed him to cut through space. Rather than his physical body appearing when he arrived, there was just the impending sense of a keen cutting edge that ripped toward Tykes. Tykes narrowed his eyes and raised his metal ball to defend himself.

But of course, Paolo arrived first, exploding forward like an avalanche. With the amplification of his image, the cheers of the crowd became deafening. Which of course only urged the crowd to even greater intensities of volume. With a triumphant smile on his face, Paolo proudly announced his next haymaker and threw a punch that hummed through the air.

Right as Paolo and Tykes were about to clash, Dinesh activated his Domain; Dinesh and Tykes shattered and dispersed. In the empty spot where they had just been standing, Kayle’s slashes ripped large chunks up out of the marble ground and crisscrossed off the side of the raised arena. That attack continued forward until Helen snorted and a massive fish swam over the stands and cast a long shadow. In an instant, Kayle’s attack was weakened enough that it dispersed naturally.

Meanwhile, Paolo skidded across the ground as he tried to disperse his momentum. When he stopped, he twisted around and cracked his spine. Then he flexed his hand and grinned at Kayle. “You missed.”

“As did you,” Kayle responded. Then Kayle vanished again, becoming those brutally sharp, near-invisible blades that rushed across the arena. Wordlessly, Dinesh and Tykes shifted into position.

Paolo accelerated rapidly, his thighs pumping to propel him forward. “Heh, how many times can you keep this up for, Dinesh? How’s your Mana pool doing?”

Tykes produced a chain and hooked it to the end of the metal ball. Then he lightly tossed the ball, which probably had the mass of a compacted sedan, and slapped his palm against it. It shot forward to intercept Paolo.

“HAYMAKER!” Paolo howled as he pulled his arm back. And swept away by the influence of his image, the whole crowd joined in the yell.

“HAAAAAYYYYYYYMMMMAAAAAAAKKKKKEEEEERRR!”

BOOOOM!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Fist and ball smashed against each other and Randidly narrowed his eyes. Strangely, Paolo had lost. The man had been throwing his right fist forward but did so while planting his right foot and stepping forward with this left. But the first impact was his fist hitting the ball before his left foot hit the ground. Without the step, his power was almost cut in half. The bones of his right hand popped and shattered.

But then, while he was being pushed back by the ball, Paolo slammed his left foot downward. The reverberation was filled with a destructive image that triggered Dinesh’s Domain. Tykes and Dinesh cracked again and appeared ten meters away.

Kayle was standing between them when they materialized, his arms spread wide. “Gotcha.”

Tykes yanked on the chain and spun around but Kayle already slipped under his guard. His hand cut sideways, inflicting a shallow gash on Tykes’ arm that spurted a crimson arc of blood up into the air. On its own, the gash was practically meaningless; it was a flashy flesh wound that would heal in a second.

But that spray of blood obstructed Tykes’ vision for a second. So while Tykes was shifting to defend Dinesh, he didn’t see Paolo aiming for him.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Paolo didn’t need to strike at Dinesh directly. He simply smashed into Tykes with such force that Tykes became his weapon, crashing into Dinesh and sending them both bouncing across the arena floor. They careened off the edge, hitting the dirt ground and quickly scraping up a large pile of debris behind them.

Randidly raised a finger and allowed the referee to feel the presence of the Grim Chimera. The man had been about to declare the Donnyton duo the winner. But their tournament didn’t have a rule against being pushed out of the ring, it was just typically only the loser would be forced out.

But as a new image spread across the arena, it was clear that Tykes and Dinesh weren’t done quite yet.

Even to Randidly’s eyes, the surroundings blurred. The arena disappeared. Kayle and Paolo both marshaled their image to stop it, but Dinesh was clever: likely he had been allowing his mirrors to shatter for most of the match so he could embed small pieces of his image in the surroundings. Now, without time, neither Paolo nor Kayle could stop him.

Suddenly, Paolo and Kayle were standing on the completely flat surface of a pool of water. Below them was the perfect reflection of themselves. The light of the sky warped until everything was illuminated in a golden sheen. As they shifted their weight, ripples spread outward from their feet.

They glanced at each other, then forward. The noise of the audience had been completely cut off. They stood in an isolated world that was an endless, reflective lake.

Across from them, Tykes stood, hefting his metal ball. The air around him crackled and shivered as the sheer weight of his image destabilized the surrounding space. Beneath him, the image of Dinesh was reflected as the man perfectly mimicked and empowered Tykes’s image.

“They merged images,” Paolo whistled.

“A good opponent,” Kayle replied with a grin.