All the necessary preparations for the match between Armad and prince Niyashi had already been completed.

The audience was excited to see which of them would reach the semi-finals and who would fall. Almost all the over one hundred thousand people had set their eyes on them as the commentator ordered the start.

Armad was on the right side, holding his sword, and Niyashi was on the left, his spear hanging on his back and stuck in something like a pocket specially designed for storing the spear.

The whistle was blown, and they were allowed to start fighting, but for thirty seconds nobody moved, and nobody said a word.

Niyashi sympathetically looked at Armad. "You are one of the few who didn't kill anyone in the first round, so I will give you one chance to get out of the ring. Only then can you save your life. You have five seconds."

He silently waited for Armad. After a few seconds, his face turned into confusion as to why Armad wouldn't take advantage of this opportunity to step out of the ring. Armad would never be able to withstand even the slightest bit of his pol.

But Armad had no intention of leaving the ring. "I don't like arrogant people," Armad said. "If you keep behaving like that then you should blame yourself for whatever happens."

Niyashi clenched his teeth. He was being nice but Armad took it for weakness. "Cyanosis," he intoned. Even as the incantation left his mouth, he clenched his fist and punched the air in front of him. A fiery wind generated by his fist blew all over the ring. The wind forced Armad back on his feet and he had to raise his hand to protect his face.

And then suddenly Armad felt so dizzy that he couldn't even stand and had to support himself with his sword. He saw his skin getting darker. He could barely hear Niyashi speaking in a proud and self-respecting manner. "As I said, this Bend is called Cyanosis and belongs to my tribe. We use a martial art called Lion's Claw to change the air in a particular area. We get rid of the oxygen that the body needs and leaves carbon dioxide. So even if you inhale the air, it will no longer be useful to your body.

"Your skin will turn bluish or dark, depending on whether you are white or black, then later you start to feel dizzy, and you will faint." He turned around to walk away, saying, "I don't know how long you can endure before you fall. But this fight is already over, so just go ahead and die."

Between each person's essence board and djinn, there was a gap of no more than three feet. This little space between the djinn and essence board was the first thing a Bender saw even before enslaving their djinn. If a djinn was strong, you could see its essence in this space. That was to say, if the djinn controlled fire, you would be able to see the fire. It was commonly seen from the age of five and above. Then, when a man activated their pol, they would use the same space to enslave their djinn.

Armad had seen the space from the age of eight. It had always burned brightly with lightning as if it were a thunderstorm. By the age of nine, his grandfather proposed a contract to his djinn. Fortunately, the demon agreed, and Armad enslaved it. From that day on, Armad controlled thunder and lightning as if it were him. The enslavement and control of djinns frightened normal people. But it amused Armad. All he needed to do was look at the space in his core, burned some pol, and pulled lightning out. It had always been this easy. He used lightning to enhance his speed and senses, or directly as an attack.

As Armad listened to everything his opponent said, and indeed all the information wasn't new to him, he remembered a book titled Body and pol by Hawas Jack. Jack wrote everything concerning the topic that Niyashi was talking about, and even more. He couldn't remember everything from the book but at least he was able to think of something that could save him from the situation.

He looked into the space between his djinn and essence board and channeled both lightning and pol together, using the energy to suppress every cell in his body. He slowly opened his eyes and returned to his feet. He looked at Niyashi - who turned quickly to look at him with narrowed eyes - and smirked.

"Eh?" was the only thing that came out of Niyashi's mouth, and he stared at Armad in disbelief.

A few seconds later he gave a wicked smile, saying, "of course, you are good. So you use your pol to reduce the amount of air your body needs. Though you don't breathe exactly the amount of air your body requires, you can endure it for a while. It's one way to delay my Cyanosis." He sighed softly. "I never thought you would have such knowledge. Even in my tribe, it is something that only a few know about. Yet, this is only a delay, but the lack of air will catch up to you and you won't be able to endure it in the next few hours." He shook his head and reached out to his spear. "Unfortunately, I don't have that time. So, I'll just finish you off myself."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He changed to a battle stance.

Armad, who had already returned to normal, changed his stance as well.

On the other hand, the commentator had been watching closely.

"It seems they are getting serious now," the commentator said. "Let's see who will win between the prince from Infiria and the dark horse from Mikironomada."

Niyashi lunged forward without drawing his spear. A strange light appeared on his right hand and circled the hand.

Arriving in front of Armad, who still hadn't moved from where he was, he swiped at Armad from above.

"Claw hand deformity!" He enchanted.

Armad raised his hand, and a light appeared around it. The light turned to lightning, and the lightning turned into three-dimensional spheres of energy.

Armad fired one of these three enhanced lightning bolts, smashing it against the black light on Niyashi's hand. A loud bang rang. The audience covered their ears.

The force exerted by the lightning struck Niyashi hard. It threw him back a couple of meters and he'd to use his spear to stop himself from going out of the ring.

Niyashi made a gesture in a practiced manner and then attacked again, pointing his spear forward like the warrior he was. He looked serious all of a sudden. And it seemed the battle was about to begin.

On the other hand, Armad had his sword drawn in his left hand. And in his right hand, he held a lightning bolt that kept releasing flashes of electricity.

Armad roared like a monster. "I don't have time to play with you here. So I'll advise you one last time to get yourself out of this tournament."

In response to that, Niyashi stopped in his track. Surely no one had ever spoken to him in that manner. As a prince, he'd always been respected and he'd always won. Worse, the person telling him this rubbish was not more than fifty years, while he'd a hundred years and more Bends than he could count.

"I will make you realize your mistake." This was what came out of the prince's mouth as his eyes fluttered and reddened. He wouldn't be able to rest until he put Armad down.

He roared and clapped his hands in a gesture. A red ribbon, embroidered with silver ornaments appeared on top of his head, floating in the air. The ribbon bent into a ring with fifty segments and circled his head. Each segment bore one year of pol. That was to say, in a nutshell, the ring had fifty years of energy in it.

Prince Niyashi clapped his hands again, causing the red-silver ring to disband into fifty segments, each turning into a spear. He clapped his hands for the third time, enchanting, "Spears of Death!"

Five of the spears orbiting his head flew toward Armad with the collective power of five years. The air boomed and burned around them.

In response, Armad looked at the little space between his essence board and his djinn, and quickly drew five bolts of lightning. The bolts revolved around his body shining brightly before they merged into a single, massive lightning bolt.

Armad called his incantation to send the lightning bolt toward the five spears. They clashed at the center releasing a deafening sound and blinding light. Flashes of light and fire spread around the ring and the nearby audience edged away. The commentator bent down to avoid the stray flames.

After about ten seconds the earthquake-like tremors subsided. But instead of Armad and Niyashi resting and regaining their energy, they continued to attack each other. Armad tried to destroy the prince with his lightning bolt, and the prince tried to stab him with his spears. The same earthquake-like tremors and blinding flashes kept interrupting the commentator, but he was still able to count over 10 exchanges.

However, it was at this point that reality hit Armad. The law of the seven worlds dictated that if you had fifty years of pol then you could only summon eighteen to twenty lightning bolts of eighteen years equivalent. Also if you had a hundred years then you could only use fifty to sixty spears or their equivalents of lightning bolts. Once you exhausted your pol, you had to wait to regain it or risk collapsing your core, which wouldn't be possible during a fight. That was to say, at least, in this case, the amount of lightning that Armad could use was limited. Niyashi, on the other hand, was at his peak and had many spears left to use.

At that moment, Armad reached out to untie his headband, but then he remembered what happened to him on the desolate island. He often forgot about missing the miyura, after all, it had been with him ever since he was born. He'd calculated that he could take the prince on in a face-to-face confrontation since he could use the miyura to increase his strength. But now that he was reminded of the bitter truth, he must find a way to gradually become accustomed to the lack of it.

He jumped back with a frown, wondering how he could defeat Niyashi who currently had over forty spears to spare.

Niyashi realized his opponent had run out and he laughed wickedly. "I told you I will make you realize your mistake."

He roared and sent all the remaining spears circling over his head to Armad. He wanted to finish Armad off all at once without giving him any chance to regenerate his pol. Only that way would he find peace.

Seeing the spears attacked, the audience and the commentator gave up on Armad. Armad's name wasn't among the six names that were considered before the tournament. The six names had the highest pol and were automatically thought to be the winners. Niyashi was among them so the audience already considered him the winner. However, some of the audience had begun to favor Armad after his performance in the battle royal. Especially the way they saw him playing with lightning with ease. But by now, even they had given up on him.

Even Armad himself was in doubt as to whether he would survive the spears. About ten spears were already a meter away from his face.

A