A tense silence gripped the arena as Duke Lance stepped onto the sand. Gone was the nervous bureaucrat. In his place stood a man cornered, his eyes sharp with a desperate cunning.
From a long, velvet-lined case, his assistant presented his sword.
It was a blade of impossible elegance. Specura, the heralds called it. The steel was not silver, but a pale, liquid mercury that seemed to capture and hold the very sunlight, making it painful to look upon directly.
The crossguard was fashioned into twin, staring eyes of polished moonstone, and the pommel was a perfect, shimmering pearl. It was the sword of a man who won not by brute force, but by turning an opponent's strength into their own fatal flaw.
"I see... He forged the Mantle of the Mimic King into a sword."
Across from him, Alexander drew the sword Nikolai had given him, now transformed into a matte, darkness-drinking black by Crimson's touch.
The contrast was stark: one blade a legendary masterpiece of light, the other an unnamed shard of void.
The herald's voice boomed. "Let the challenge for the Dukedom of the Southern Reach... begin!"
Lance did not wait. He knew his only chance was a swift, overwhelming victory before Alexander could reveal his secret. Specura flashed, moving with a speed that belied Lance's slight frame.
The artifacts woven into his soul were already humming, analyzing, preparing.
Alexander met the charge, his body flowing into the combat trance he had forged in the instance. He saw the openings, predicted the strikes.
For a few seconds, it was a masterful display. He deflected, parried, and countered with the sharp, efficient movements that had defeated Lyra.
But then Lance's artifacts fully awakened.
A shimmering, hexagonal field of golden energy flickered around the Duke, and Alexander felt a sickening lurch—as if a hook had been set deep in his own spirit, ready to pull his own strength out of him.
The next time Alexander lunged, Specura was not just there to block; it was there to meet him with twice the force. It was as if his own muscles had betrayed him.
CLANG!
The impact was monstrous, jarring Alexander's arms to the bone. He staggered back, his own power amplified and thrown back at him.
His mind reeled. What is this?
"The mirror is active," Crimson observed, his tone one of dark fascination. "He is not strong. He is a conduit. Your strength is being used as the weapon against you. It's parasite."
Lance pressed his advantage, his face a mask of grim determination. Alexander's enhanced speed was mirrored, his precise footwork matched. Every time he tried to leverage his newfound strength, a greater force slammed back into him.
It was a feedback loop of his own power, and he was losing.
"Stop trying to overpower the mirror. You are feeding it. You must be nothing. Be the void it cannot reflect."
A slash he barely dodged ripped through Alexander's leathers, drawing a line of fire across his ribs.
A kick meant to unbalance Lance was met with a kick of twice the force, buckling his leg and sending him to one knee.
The crowd, which had been silent, now erupted. They saw not a coward, but a prince being brutally belittled. "LANCE! LANCE! LANCE!" they chanted.
"Give it up, boy!" a noble shouted from the front row.
Nikolai's laughter rang out, clear and bright from the royal box.
Alexander tried to rise, but Specura pommel slammed into his jaw. Stars exploded behind his eyes. He tasted blood. Another blow to his back sent him sprawling face-first into the sand.
He pushed himself up, his body screaming in protest. He met Lance's eyes and saw not malice, but a desperate plea for him to stay down.
He refused.
With a roar, he poured everything he had into one final, desperate lunge, his black sword aimed for Lance's heart.
It was the mistake Lance had been waiting for.
Lance moved in a blinding arc. He didn't parry. His blade met the Alexander's at its weakest point. The sound was not of clashing metal, but of shattering crystal.
Alexander's sword exploded into a dozen shards of obsidian-like shrapnel.
The force of the broken feedback threw Alexander backward. He landed hard, skidding through the sand, coming to a stop at the edge of the arena wall.
He did not move. He couldn't.
The herald stepped forward, voice triumphant. "The winner, and still Duke of—"
A low, guttural laugh cut him off.
It was a sound that had no place in the light of day, a sound of crumbling mountains and dying stars. It froze the herald's words in his throat.
Every eye snapped back to Alexander.
His body was pushing itself to its feet. But the grace was gone, replaced by a jerky, unnatural motion. His head lolled on a limp neck, then snapped upright with an audible crack.
His left eye snapped open, burning with a slit-pupiled, malevolent crimson light.
A cruel, alien smile stretched his lips.
The crowd's cheers died, replaced by a terrified hush.
"My turn," the thing wearing Alexander's skin said, its voice a dual-layered horror.
Lance stared, his confidence shattering into pure dread. He raised Specura, the golden shield flaring around him once more. "Stay down, Sire."
Crimson laughed, the sound scraping against the soul. He began to walk forward, each step a deliberate, terrifying crunch of sand.
Lance, driven by primal fear, lunged. His blade, empowered to mirror Alexander's might, moved faster than ever before—a blur of lethal, reflected power.
Crimson didn't dodge. He didn't block.
His bare hand snapped out and caught Lance's sword by the blade.
A collective, suffocating gasp filled the arena. The legendary sword, capable of turning any force against its wielder, was held fast.
"The Oculus of the Fallen Seer... I watched its weaver die screaming. His greatest creation, now a crutch for a mortal. An insult I shall correct."
The golden shield around Lance flickered, pulsed violently, and then shattered like glass, the artifacts overloading, unable to process the infinite, alien abyss of Crimson's power.
With a flick of his wrist, Crimson twisted the sword. The sound of breaking bones was a sickening crunch. Lance screamed as his wrist and forearm snapped. Specura clattered to the sand, its light extinguished.
The fight was over. The punishment had just begun.
"Wait!" Lance cradled his arm, scrambling backward.
Crimson stalked him, a predator with no mercy. A kick, too fast to see, shattered Lance's kneecap. He collapsed with a shriek. A stomp broke the other leg.
Lance tried to retaliate but a precise, open-handed strike caved in his ribs.
It was a systematic, brutal dismantling. Not a fight, but an execution in slow motion.
"ENOUGH!"
A massive figure landed in the sand. Executioner Ree, his face a granite mask of duty, hefted his great axe. "The fight is won! Stand down, Your Highness, or I will put you down!"
Crimson finally turned his head. The crimson eye regarded the Executioner with utter boredom.
Ree charged, his axe a whirlwind of deadly force.
Crimson didn't move. As the axe descended, he simply flicked his fingers.
A concussive wave of pure force, visible only as a heat-haze distortion, hit Ree square in the chest. It lifted the giant man off his feet and hurled him across the arena. He slammed into the stone wall with a sickening thud and slid down, unconscious.
The message was absolute. The power in the arena was beyond their laws, beyond their comprehension.
Armed guards surrounded him, too terrified to even attack.
Crimson turned back to the sobbing, broken heap that was Duke Lance. He raised a hand, fingers curled like a claw, aiming for the final, killing blow.
Inside his mind, Alexander screamed. He saw the abyss yawn open. This was damnation. This was the point of no return.
"NO!" He poured every ounce of his will, his pride, his fear into a single, shoving command. "Give me back control!"
The crimson light in his eye flickered wildly. The cruel smile twisted into a grimace of agony. His body trembled, a battlefield of two souls.
"MY... BODY!" The raw, torn scream was 100% Alexander's voice.
Crimson feeling a thunderous pressure is his head, clasped them tightly. He's screamed, trying to subdue Alexander.
But he couldn't. In a flash, the demonic presence was violently suppressed. The crimson light vanished.
The backlash was instantaneous. His nerves were on fire, his muscles turned to water. He vomited, then his body convulsed once before he collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, face-down in the sand.
The cost was immediate and total. It wasn't just exhaustion; it was a systemic collapse. His nerves shrieked as if they'd been dipped in acid, and his muscles turned to water, refusing any command.
He had not been tired; he had been unmade for a moment, and his body revolted at the reassembly.
Silence.
Then, chaos erupted. Medics rushed to Lance, to Ree, and finally, hesitantly, to the prince.
In the royal box, King Theron was on his feet. He was not looking at the broken duke or the fallen executioner. His gaze was locked on his son's unconscious form. His face was not one of anger, or even disappointment.
It was pale. It was the face of a king who had just seen a new, unstoppable, and utterly unpredictable weapon unveiled. He looked at Alexander and saw no son.
He saw a dormant volcano, and he knew, with chilling certainty, that the first eruption was only a precursor.