Things proceeded quickly. For better or worse, once Graighast got over his obvious shock, his only answer was a quiet “I accept.”

With that done, the two troops broke apart, and the demons erupted into hushed whispers. They didn’t even care that the mortals among them were blatantly listening in on their tense discussions.

I was thankful for that, since it let me pick up on the context of what was happening.

Proving Grounds were an established way for two legions to settle their differences. A venue would be chosen, and a soldier from each side would step up and fight to ‘claim’ the ring. Once a champion faltered, one of their allies would replace them. Essentially, it was a ‘king of the hill’ style tournament, with the final remaining soldier being declared a victor on behalf of their legion.

We had no venue. We were two measly groups under mere sergeants instead of two grand legions. Worse still, we were nominal allies. All things considered, the declaration of ‘Proving Grounds’ was a contentious move.

Glaustro did not care. His only concern was getting his demons organized enough to keep the best fighters from getting swamped under a tide of bodies and taken out at the very start. He also declared there would be rewards for the most successful champions, which got the demonic soldiers into the spirit of things fast. The order of challengers was decided, the right to decline fighting in the ring was offered, and plans were finalized.

No one so much as glanced in the direction of the mortal soldiers.

Finally, Glaustro sent a messenger to ask if his brother was ready to begin. Graighast was. Each troop was then ordered to move out and form one half of a large circle, denoting the ring for the fighters.

It was apparently understood that if a fighter ventured too close to the enemy’s side of the circle, they could fully expect cheap shots from spectators. I knew that because one of Glaustro’s demons explained to us mere mortals that if we failed to contribute in this simplest of ways, we’d be punished afterwards.

“May we begin, brother?” Graighast’s voice was calm and collected as he seated himself in a relatively ornate chair someone had dragged out from somewhere after all the marching.

“Since you were the challenged party, you have the right to pick your combatant first.” Glaustro eyed his brother’s chair enviously. His was much less grand, though no less surprising in its sudden appearance.

Apparently, commanders got slightly better equipment than the foldable stuff.

“Very well.” For the first time, Graighast smiled, even if it was a tight, almost unhappy expression. He then addressed his troops. “You may proceed as planned.”

I could see my side’s chosen demon, a yellow-skinned creature, gearing up to step into the ring. He gripped a wicked-looking axe, his face full of eagerness. That eagerness evaporated when a human woman entered the ring from Graighast’s side.

“What is this?” Glaustro demanded immediately, eyes flicking between his brother and the human champion. “Is this an insult?”

“What reason do I have to insult you, brother? I’ve chosen my champion. Now choose your own.” Graighast genuinely didn’t seem to be mocking his sibling. If anything, he sounded resigned.

My commander was caught between a rock and a hard place. His plans did not include mortal involvement at all. He hadn’t even bothered to acquaint himself with the quality of mortals under his command.

He couldn’t just order his planned champion into the ring though. It was Proving Grounds tradition to start with weaker combatants. But to send a demon into the ring against a lowly mortal? Glaustro’s yellow-skinned champion would fly into a rage over the insult and the other demons under his command would also look down on their new commander.

In the end, Glaustro swept his eyes over the crowd forming his half of the circle, then picked out a human at random. “You. Get out there.”

The mortal, a plain human, turned so pale I thought he might faint. Nonetheless, he unsheathed his sword and stepped into the ring. I admired his nerve.

But I wasn’t particularly hopeful for his chances of victory.

He wore oversized, ratty leather armor that impeded more than it helped. His sword had actual, visible notches in the blade. I recognized it as one of the army-issued weapons, so it wasn’t of horrible quality originally, but all the combat and lack of serious maintenance had done it no favors.

A single glance told me the man was one of the worst soldiers in our army. As such, he was a perfectly reasonable choice for first champion, according to tradition.

The problem was that even a cursory inspection of his opponent made it clear that she was leagues above him.

The woman wielded a long, bladed staff with confidence and familiarity. Her armor was simple, mostly studded leather with plate covering her chest and back, but it was all perfectly fitted and well-maintained. And she wasn’t an exception. Every single mortal in Graighast’s troop was similarly equipped. Whatever Graighast thought of his mortal soldiers, I had a strong feeling he had invested his personal resources into getting them up to par.

Ergo, I was fully expecting our guy to get steamrolled.

I wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t an instant defeat. Our troop may have been lacking in discipline and equipment, but by this point, the fully incompetent had been well and truly rooted out with the intense schedule and infighting. The man fought with skill and precision. Still, there was only so much he could do when his enemy was decently trained and had actual equipment to fall back on.

In the end, our brave representative got brained, thankfully by the non-bladed portion of his opponent’s staff. As a couple of soldiers dragged him back, the expression on Glaustro’s face made me fear for our future. He was visibly fuming.

It took two more fights for the woman to go down.

First, she was up against a knife-wielder from our side. He almost managed to shank her before she twisted so that the attack met metal plate instead of vulnerable flesh. Still, by the time her opponent was in the dirt, she was breathing heavily. Her next opponent, a woman with a maul, was able to capitalize on that and take her out.

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Unfortunately, our maul-user was then… well, mauled by a cat-like man from the enemy side. Glaustro pointed at another human from our troop, and the battle continued.

I watched each fight quietly, assessing, gauging my chances, and waiting for my commander’s frustration to build. Eventually, he growled out an order for us to pick the next fighter amongst ourselves, especially because there were only human mortals left. Then he fell silent, watching with a mulish expression.

That was when I made my move. I pushed aside my comrades who were hesitating and stepped into the ring.

So far, sixteen mortals on our side had met their defeat. On the enemy side, only three fighters had faltered.

My enemy, a bird-like woman with wings that she used both for movement and to bash opponents around, immediately tensed at the sight of me. It may have been simple arrogance, but I thought she had good reason for that reaction. My equipment alone set me apart from the other mortals in my troop.

I didn’t say anything as I drew my sword and dagger. Neither did she. We simply exchanged a single nod, then launched into combat.

The bird-woman’s weapon of choice was a rapier. Considering her advantages, a bow would have made more sense to me, but I was grateful for her odd choice. Parrying the thin blade aside with my shorter dagger blade was simplicity itself. When I launched into a counter with far more speed than she expected, my Legacy blade easily kissed her side.

I didn’t press too far, choosing to deal a shallow wound. Thankfully, my opponent recognized that. She scrunched up her face, hopping away like an injured owl. Then, reluctantly, she inclined her head and sank back into the crowd.

Her replacement was a muscular human whose armor strained to contain him. His chosen weapon was a great sword so large it was almost comical. Or it would have been, if the man weren’t capable of swinging it single-handedly.

The fight that followed was much tougher than my first.

Each of his blows left deep gouges in the ground, and somehow, that didn’t slow him down. Extracting his weapon from the dirt should have been a chore, yet he ripped it out easily and kept it moving every time. I had to dodge and weave between his strikes, tapping into my body strengthening technique when my mana accumulation boost proved insufficient.

In the end, though, his wild use of strength was his undoing. All I had to do was wait for him to over-extend once, and then my sword dug up through his armpit, piercing his shoulder.

It was a lethal move, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to be picky. I had leaned fully into my magically inherited skill with the blades. When I managed to nudge his sword out of the way just a tad with my dagger, my body was moving mostly on instinct rather than intention.

Thankfully for my opponent, healing potions were a thing, and there was a demon dispensing them to every defeated combatant on the enemy side. He would live.

Not for the first time, I cursed my luck. No one who fought for Glaustro had received any treatment besides a rough drag back to our camp. I had begged the universe not to put me with Graighast. It would be just like the universe to actually give me what I asked for.

Because, apparently, the universe had a sick sense of humor.

My next few opponents were progressively more challenging. Two humans, both men, and then what I guessed to be a dwarf, stepped up and were defeated. They were good, but honestly, the recruit from my first day who tried to stab me in the back got closer to killing me than they did. For each one, all I needed was a touch of mana to get ahead and stay ahead.

I guessed this had more to do with my current accomplishments than their lack of skill. How many recruits could boast of killing a mage? I doubted I was the only one, but there couldn’t be many more who had pulled off the same feat. My status as a mage apprentice, in addition to my body strengthening technique and dual sword style, put me well ahead of the average mortal.

Graighast acknowledged that, if the steadily climbing skill level of my enemies was any indication.

The first one to really press me was an elf, yet still a mortal. The woman had an eerie, inhuman kind of beauty, all sharp angles and elongated features. She was also a wraith-like dual wielder who almost skewered me with her own dagger and rapier combo.

For her, I finally had to push my body strengthening to the limits of what it could offer. Even then, I was only a step faster than the elf. She moved with a smooth grace and dexterity that I could only envy. It enabled her to keep up with me for a while, even if she was outmatched.

I had to play dirty there. Instead of aiming for a battle-ending blow, I focused on her limbs, slicing at her arms and legs whenever possible. It was blood loss that got her in the end. She glared poisonously at me as she was pulled off the field, and I knew that I would need to look out for daggers in the dark as long as she was around.

The next combatant was one of the most exotic-looking mortals I’d encountered. The man, or at least what I assumed was a man, was fully see-through in the spots not covered by armor. His hair was a mass of wriggling, translucent tentacles. I did my best to conceal how the sight of all his organs put me on edge.

His body was more elastic than it should have been, limbs bending and weaving in unnatural ways that let him score a collection of shallow cuts on my upper arms before I finally got one good stab in right through his thigh.

He really shouldn’t have felt confident enough in his weird physiology to let me get that close.

Interestingly, he bled gray. What’s more, I must have hit a major artery because my fancy new armor was covered in gray blood within seconds. His comrades fetched him with far more urgency than the rest of my opponents so far.

Then there was a brief lull. Three potential combatants from Graighast’s side were eying each other: a human, a green-skinned humanoid I didn’t want to just assume was an orc, and an eerily expressionless albino. I’d thought the latter was a human at first, but his unnatural stillness made me wonder.

Finally, the green-skinned mountain of muscles stepped into the ring with a loud snort.

“You fight well,” the challenger rumbled in an oddly feminine voice.

“I still don’t know how well you fight, so I’ll return the compliment a bit later,” I quipped, earning myself a wide grin. And were those…tusks? Yep, tusks. Short, and not quite poking out of her mouth, but they were there.

Orc for sure.

We launched into combat immediately, me using my trusty dual style, and her wielding an absolutely massive shield and mace.

I’d like to say the battle was effortless and cool on my part, but while I did win, I was seriously scraping for it by the end.

She managed to shove her shield into my chest and actually lift me up on it. After that, all that saved me was my mana-sharpened wits. When she lifted her mace for a crushing blow to my head, my magically enhanced presence of mind kept me focused in that moment of danger, allowing me to dig my sword into the crook of her elbow.

Not only did this remove her ability to use her right arm with the mace, but it also put her on a timer. If she didn’t manage to get me quickly, she’d bleed out. That made her reckless. She lunged at me wildly, again and again, putting herself in easy reach of my two blades. Even with her shield in the way, I managed to carve her up enough that she finally collapsed to her knees.

She refused to go down fully though.

Instead, she glared up at me, taking giant, ragged breaths that turned the air around her face to mist. I had won, but she looked way more intimidating than I felt. Her comrades had to drag her away.

Another lull ensued. The other two mortals seemed unwilling to step up. Mentally, I patted myself on the back.

I was hiding my exhaustion well. My conscious application of the mana accumulation technique kept a constant stream of mana flowing through my body, easing the burden of the fights. My muscles were aching, but the body strengthening technique allowed me to push through. I wasn’t even breathing that hard.

At long last, and with incredible reluctance, a demon peeled away from the opposing crowd.

“Well fought, human.” He actually spoke first.

The shock of receiving a compliment from a demon briefly stunned me into silence. I scrambled for an appropriate response.

“Thank y—”

That was as far as I got before he blurred, and then he was right in front of me.

The last thing I saw was his fist slamming into my face.