Sydney chuckled to herself before turning to her thralls.

“Holland. If you would…”

“Yes, milady.”

The blonde boy from before opened another rift with his wand before stepping off to the side. Sydney’s grin never wavered as she sauntered over to the spatial gateway. Kei, with his club in hand, kept his gaze fixed on the vampire girl. Her crimson eyes found her underclassmen again, and the air around them became still.  

“Follow me, my dear. I know a more appropriate spot for a duel.”

Kei started walking immediately, but a voice from behind called out to him. 

“Kei.”

He turned to see Felicity standing from her seat, her sitar in her hands. A determined expression flashed across her face.

“Thanks for standing up for me,” she added, giving him a warm smile. “Now please… allow me to support you.” 

Kei eyed her silently. This wasn’t an unfamiliar side of his new friend at all. Her determination reminded Kei of the girl he'd met that morning—the cheerful bard who seemed incapable of running out of energy. The smile was still there, but now it was sharpened by resolve.

“......”

“......”

Kei didn’t need to say anything more. With a nod, he turned and headed over to the portal, Felicity close behind. 

Passing through the cosmic fissure and emerging on the other side, the two freshmen were confronted with an unfamiliar setup. The air felt heavier than before. Every sound echoed strangely across the stone arena, as if the world itself were hollow. Kei glanced upward. The sky wasn't a sky at all—it was a sheet of swirling astral light.

“Where are we now?” Felicity wondered aloud, her head on a swivel as she took in their new surroundings. “Some kind of…arena?”

It most certainly looked that way. They were standing in a large dirt pitch; the stone cavea seats formed a large oval around the area. Looking over to the lower-level seats, there had to have been at least 30 different Basilisk students of various races sitting in attendance. All of them sporting the same crimson eyes as their liege lady. 

These are all of her thralls, no doubt, Kei thought to himself. 

“Welcome to my personal battleroom,” the vampire girl explained. “A privately owned spatial plane. Its landscape bends to the will of whoever holds its core.” 

She looked up at the glass ceiling, watching the swirling astral rings and a blue and purple light stretching and thinning perpetually. 

“The Board has rules against rankless students challenging an Ace right off the bat, you see. So I thought it best that we settle this away from prying eyes.”

Sydney stood opposite the freshmen, with Holland standing beside her. She snapped her slender fingers, and Holland waved his wand on command. A small spatial pocket opened beside the vampire girl, and she reached into it. Seconds later, she produced a smaller black parasol with red embroidery. The rift dissipated soon after. 

“Remember, Mister S’han, you need only land a single hit to win.” She took the handle of the parasol and pulled it from the main pole, revealing a thin rapier blade. The blade hummed as she gave it a few practice swings. 

Looking over to Holland, she gave him a silent nod as he raised his wand again. 

“Ottuso!”

This time, a white light was cast around the vampire girl’s blade. A dulling spell designed to reduce a weapon's lethality during sanctioned duels. Every accredited academy in Taqora required it before live combat between students.

Holland gave his lady a bow before taking his post in a referee box positioned in the center of the pitch. Felicity took this moment to step closer to Kei. 

Kei raised an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“You’re gonna need this if you plan on fighting a vampire,” she remarked. “Hold still for a sec. Let your mana resonate with the rhythm.”

Felicity’s statement gave Kei pause. He had felled a death worm back home nearly two months ago. Could a vampire really be that much more of a threat? Without another word, he obliged. 

With her sitar in hand, she began to play a tune:

♪ From the golden sands of Lai-Fatt

 A young warrior was born

Please grant him vast power

 To rout his new foe’s scorn. ♪

Kei closed his eyes and listened to the melody, allowing this new magical energy to flow within him and merge with his essence. 

“Huh?”

And then, he felt lighter. His mana pool felt…wider than before.

Felicity smiled. “That buff should help you keep up with her for about five minutes. Try to end the duel before then, okay?”

“Understood.” Kei returned the sentiment. “Thank you, Felicity.”

Five minutes. 

That would have to be enough. He turned to face Sydney, taking his combat stance. 

“I won’t fail you.” 

The girl nodded, then took a few steps back. Holland switched his attention between the young elf boy, the bard girl, and finally his liege lady. 

“Combatants, the conditions of this duel have been established. Are they still satisfactory to both parties?”

Kei and Sydney nodded in unison, not breaking their shared gaze. The time for talk was over. Holland saw this and continued.  

“Combatants, cast your barriers.”

Kei raised his club, and Sydney mirrored him with her rapier.

““Tutela!””

A cerulean light materialized around them, forming protective outlines that enveloped their bodies. Seconds later, the light faded. Holland then raised his right hand and dropped it between them in a chopping motion. 

“Begin!”

Kei took his club in both hands and spun it like a propeller, exactly as he had done with the deathworm back home, causing a wind vortex that emitted massive dust clouds over the battlefield.

Let’s put an end to this quickly!

He lunged into the dust clouds, utilizing his darkvision to follow Sydney through the maelstrom. He swung his club with full force, causing some of the dust to disperse as he emerged from the other side… hitting nothing but air. 

“Huh?”

He gazed up after feeling a massive influx of mana from above. She was gliding through the dust cloud, bat-like wings sprouting from her lower back. She shifted into an inside-right stance with her rapier. With a single flap of her wings, she flew down at the elf kid with incredible speed.

“Whoa!”

Kei didn’t have time to dodge. He raised his steel club and parried Sydney’s rapier, creating a resounding clash of clanging metal. The impact forced Kei back into the storm. With his weapon still at the ready, eyes scanning the air for another airborne strike, he took this time to evaluate. He was beginning to see why Felicity’s buff was necessary. 

This storm wasn’t enough. I should’ve figured her vision would be on par with mine, if not better…

Just then, he felt a presence creeping up from behind. Spinning on his heel, Kei swept his left leg, kicking up more dirt in Sydney’s line of sight. In that brief moment, Kei raised his club, placing his hand over the hollowed steel ball at the end of it. 

It’s now or nothing!

Channeling a sizable amount of mana, he generated some electricity, causing the ball to spin. Spinning past Sydney, he took his club, now enchanted with electro magic, and swung it near the vampire noble’s right wing.

Suddenly—something long wrapped around his club and pulled him in the opposite direction, taking him off his feet and swinging him outside of his dust cloud.

“Ahhh!”

Kei tumbled into the dirt pitch, stopping shy of the stone barricade leading up to the cavea, where Sydney’s thralls watched the battle in intrigued silence. 

“Kei!”

Felicity called out to him as he landed just a few yards away from her. Without looking directly at her, he gave a brief thumbs-up before returning to his feet. Just then, something was hurled at his head at near-blinding speed. Or at least it would have been for a human. Kei spotted it immediately and caught it with no issue. 

His club. He couldn’t help but smirk. 

Sydney chuckled eerily, emerging from the now-weakened dust clouds. Despite the lingering storm, she seemed to glow, leaving Kei momentarily stunned by the sight of her.

In her right hand, she still held her rapier, but in her left, a long red whip. 

“Yes… Not even a minute in and this bout is already exceeding my expectations.” Sydney grinned at him, cracking her red whip to the side as if inviting Kei to really give it a good look. 

Its texture was unlike any traditional whip Kei had ever seen. The thing looked… viscous, droplets falling to the ground with its wielder's slightest movement. 

It was as if it were made entirely out of…

Now that’s just disgusting. 

“Come. Surely you have more tricks up your sleeve, Mister S’han.”

The boy chuckled, returning to his combat stance.

“Oh, they aren’t mere tricks. That I can assure you.”

“Hm… I see.” Her smile grew wider. “My apologies then.”

Her wings gave two powerful flaps, propelling her forward. She swung her blood whip toward Kei's legs. With the help of his club, he quickly pushed against the ground, launching himself into the air in an attempt to land a kick to her head.

But Sydney evaded the attack, pirouetting in mid-air before casting her whip at his back leg, coiling around his ankle. 

Damn!

She yanked her prey over to her, using her wings to fly over to him simultaneously. Taking her rapier, she thrust the weapon toward his chest, successfully striking the barrier spell cast around him, which briefly flashed red, indicating the first amount of damage it took during this bout.

“Ugh!”

Despite the barrier protecting him from a lethal wound, the impact still surged through his frame, sending a sharp pain through his chest. The force knocked him back, leaving him sprawling against the pavement. The dust clouds surrounding the pitch from his vortex finally dissipated. 

“Strike one, for me,” Sydney declared, followed by a sudden, loud applause from her thralls in attendance. “Phew! For a moment there, I was almost worried you’d get your clean hit before I could even land one myself!” 

From the ground, Kei glared up at her as he struggled back to his feet. That attack had hurt a lot more than he accounted for. 

“Oh, come now,” he groaned. “Even you don’t believe that. Spare me your pity.”

“‘Pity’?” Sydney looked genuinely offended by his remark. “You don’t seem to be grasping just how bored I’ve truly been, Mister S’han. A mage as young as yourself with this much raw talent and innovation, with so much room to grow, is a rare and, frankly, welcome sight!”

Clutching his chest, he gripped his weapon tightly, racking his brain for another strategy. 

“The more I see from you, the stronger my desire to make you my thrall becomes. Why, with a promising mage like you by my side… ” Her smile faltered. “Perhaps I’ll no longer need...”

“Kei, look up!”

Felicity’s words directed his attention to the large shadow cast over him and his opponent. His breath caught in his throat and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. A large, deep crimson sphere hovered over them. It was nearly as big as a fully-grown simurgh, taking up a third of the arena floor if it were on ground level. 

What on Terra is…? The Yolk? 

No. It couldn’t be. Not even a vampiric mage of Sydney’s caliber should have access to a warp zone. He then noticed the all-too-familiar texture of the sphere. 

You’ve got to be joking!

“Ah, so you’ve finally noticed.” Sydney sighed as she raised her head to the sphere. “No matter.” 

Kei then noticed something even more unsettling. Every thrall in the cavea had their arms outstretched toward the sphere. Something red seeped from their arms and swirled up into the sphere. 

He looked closer. Deep gash marks. Fresh ones.

Blood. And they’re feeding it… No…not it…

His eyes shifted down to Sydney, forming a stony glare. 

“And this is what you’ll have Felicity and me doing as well?”

“Not as often as you might think,” she remarked. “I call this technique Bloodfallen. As its name suggests, I can store the blood of fallen foes, be it mabeasts or those under my Blood Dominion spell, and use it to perform my blood magic.”

She held up her blood whip as a visual aid. 

So it’s a reservoir…

As disgusted as he was by this, he was still partially impressed by her resourcefulness. The realization alone made his skin crawl.

“Felicity! How much longer?”

“Two minutes!”

Alright. I just need to get rid of that thing… take away her supply, increase my chances of victory.