“What?”

Viktor gestured around. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see you and momma fight. I would have thought that much was obvious.”

He sighed. “I mean, I can’t stop you. Just wish I would have known you were coming along. Although, where’s everyone else?”

Misra waved her hand dismissively. “They’re back home. Momma didn’t want them here for this.”

He nodded. “That makes sense… It’d probably be best if they didn’t see this.”

“Oh, and mom had a message for you.” Viktor motioned for her to go on. She took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes. “You two are idiots.”

Viktor sighed. “Yeah, that sounds about right…”

With that out of the way, the three of us continued on. It was around twenty minutes until we finally found it. Luckily, it was pretty obvious the second we even got close that this was exactly the place we were looking for.

Laid out in front of us was a massive arena built entirely from wood. It was nowhere near as big or as impressive as Gigrias’s arena, but that was a high bar to meet. The arena was a massive circle like a severed tree stump for the base. It was probably around four hundred feet in diameter. There were walls circling the main circle completely and four towers equal distances apart along the walls. Altogether, it was fairly simple, but the construction of it was absolutely spectacular.

Meditating in the direct center of the arena was Dameria, the rings of the tree seemingly radiating from her. Viktor made his way in to the arena while Misra and I walked up the stairs to get to the top of the walls where we could watch. Misra grew a tree chair directly out of the wall and took a seat. I created a simple cloud and hopped on to it, sitting cross-legged and watching as Viktor approached Dameria.

Before he even got to her, she opened her eyes and hopped to her feet. Viktor nodded at her before taking a bow. She returned it and they began to walk away from each other until they were around fifty feet apart. They turned back to each other and Viktor dropped his box to the ground, flipping open the lid.

“What have you got in there?” Dameria called to him.

“It’s a golem.”

She raised an eyebrow at that. “I see. You’re a golemsmith? That’s quite an interesting development. I never would have guessed that was where your magic style would go. I’m interested to see what you’ve made.”

Viktor formed a seal on his palm and raised it up, the pieces of the golem beginning to move from the box. They floated in to the air and began to arrange themselves in the correct places, a trail of life energy flowing between the joints which was quickly surrounded by stone and then by wood. The wood looked a little strange. Despite the flexibility it was displaying, it seemed to be extremely tough. Once the golem was built, the armor flew out of the box and in to place around the golem.

It straightened its stance and it showed just how large it was. It was around fifteen feet all and built like a mountain. Life energy poured through the holes in its face and quickly faded in to the wind.

“Quite impressive looking, but we’ll see how it fairs,” Dameria mused, getting in to a battle stance. “Ready when you are.”

Without another word, the golem rushed forward. Usually, when Viktor fought with his golem, he would stay behind and make sure to maintain its structure, but this time, I could see Viktor flanking while the golem headed straight for Dameria.

The three of them collided at the same time. The golem’s fist impacted with a tough wooden brace Dameria had made around her right arm while she blocked Viktor’s daggers with a brace on her left arm. As expected, the brace began to singe before catching on fire. Dameria rolled backwards, dodging another punch from the golem while also extinguishing the flame on her brace. She then formed a crystal around her right fist. While dodging another rush of daggers, she leapt in to the air and struck down in the golem’s head. There was a bit of damage, but Viktor quickly repaired it.

She rolled down the golem’s back, falling back in to the arena and placing her hand on the ground, a seal erupting underneath here as the wood shot up, spikes piercing the golem. She took this opportunity to once again strike the golem, but stronger this time.

The impact was blocked by the golem as it rotated the top half of its body around. It then grasped Dameria and thrust her across the arena. She rolled a few times before landing. There were a few scrapes on her legs, but nothing too serious.

The golem rushed her again and I caught a brief glimpse of Viktor’s expression. It was vicious, like nothing I’d ever seen before. He was more like an angry wolf than anything close to the person I knew he was. When the golem got close, Dameria once again blasted it with spikes from the ground, but she wasn’t allowed the opportunity to strike as Viktor once again threw his daggers at her from behind the golem. When the daggers went around the one side, Viktor sprinted around the other, his speed augmented by his eye.

The second Viktor’s foot collided with the brace on Dameria’s arm, it splintered in to pieces. Viktor kicked straight through the brace in to her arm and sent her flying backwards in to the arena wall.

Something didn’t seem right. Not only was Viktor being extremely aggressive, Dameria was being very defensive. Given the power she possessed, she should have been able to fight far more aggressively. Plus, at the speed Viktor had been moving, the kick shouldn’t have splintered any wood the way it did. Something wasn’t adding up and I had a bad feeling about what might happen.

Viktor had been so calm in the forest when we had first met her, but now, he was hurtling towards her with his golem in toe ready to strike her. He formed a set of vine bindings to keep her in place. She managed to break them just quick enough to hold up her arms to block the attack. However, it must have hit harder than she’d expected because the instant the braces broke, she howled in pain, collapsing to the ground.

Viktor didn’t take that as a sign to stop though. The golem raised its massive fist, life energy swirling all around it, almost like it couldn’t contain it. I had to do something, but I couldn’t think what. Before I had time to think though, I had Aetheris in my hand and I was flying across the arena with immense speed. I watched as the fist slowly flew towards Dameria. I rushed in front of it, drawing Dextrus and using the two swords to block the golem’s fist.

Viktor stared at me, bewildered. “What are you doing?!”

I strained against the golem’s fist, my knees forcefully bending under the force. “You can’t do this! It’s not going to solve anything for anyone!”

“She wanted this! She knew what might happen and now it’s happening!”

I continued to strain against the golem’s fist. “She hasn’t even been fighting you though! She’s letting you do this!”

Viktor looked confused, the pressure from the golem decreasing to a slightly more bearable level. “What are you talking about?”

I looked up at the golem and then back at Viktor. “Could you please stop the golem first?”

Without a word, the golem pulled its fist back and stood at attention. I stood back up and walked over to where Dameria was laying, the shattered braces around her. I picked up one of the larger chunks, finding exactly what I had expected. I held it up to show Viktor. “This would might look normal, but it’s actually got pockets of air all throughout it to make it easier to break.”

Viktor eyed the chip of wood before turning his attention to Dameria. “Why would you use such weak braces? You can’t have not known that I would be able to break these extremely easily.”

Dameria sat up slightly. “When I saw you in the forest, I won’t lie, I was ready to fight you at my very strongest, but… after I talked with Amelia… she helped me realize I was angry for all the wrong reasons and that there was only one thing I should do.”

Viktor frowned. “What’s that?”

“Apologize.”