Blake leaned to the side. Heron’s sword swished past his nose and smashed into the arena platform, its blade glistening with silver light. It was some kind of moonlight technique, which glittered on the Green Bear sigil on his shield.

  The man swung his arm out to the side, catching Blake in the chest with the shield and flinging him across the platform with a pulse of raw, unfocused mana.

  Heron began his Augmentation technique. Strands of silver silk wove down from the sky, wrapping his limbs and encasing his body. He streaked forward, his enhanced body pushing to its limits.

  Even to Blake’s enhanced eyesight, he moved forward with a flash.

  As far as Blake knew, Foundation and Core Formation didn’t improve your raw strength, but it did improve your mana strength and purity of aspect, making your techniques function better.

  And in turn, making Heron’s Augmentation infinitely stronger.

  Blake rolled to the side. The tip of Heron’s sword sliced past Blake’s shoulder, leaving a thin gash. He knew that, despite Heron’s strength, the man still couldn’t easily cut through his bones.

  Heron swung his shield out again, and a wall of silver light pulsed toward Blake. Striking it with a Black Palm, he parted the wall of mana. A bolt of dark void snakes surged up into the sky with a crackle.

  Heron leapt through the mana sparks, driving his sword down toward Blake, its tip aiming right for his chest. He twirled his staff up, parrying, then struck Heron on the shoulder to match the shallow cut he’d given Blake earlier.

  It wasn’t the most damage Blake could muster, but it was enough to send Heron staggering. Frost patterns formed on his chainmail, and black snakes crackled around his arm, temporarily disrupting his Augmentation technique.

  Gasps rang out from the crowd, and Blake’s worth surged. He flooded it into his enhanced body, then used it to activate Serpent’s Cloak and coat himself in black lightning. That only earned more shock from the crowd.

  Technically, there was nothing that indicated he was using Honour. It could have been a type of dark mana. And truly, he didn’t know how it linked to the Dark Surge or whatever these people were scared of. But he couldn’t restrict himself when fighting Heron, and he would’ve had to reveal his aspect at some point, no matter what.

  Besides, the Path Paladins had seen him fighting the Monarch, and they hadn’t flinched. They, at least, planned on studying him more before making a judgement.

  He sprang off with the Serpent’s Cloak, splintering the wood of the sparring platform. He timed his transitions between light and heavy, giving himself the maximum distance in each step, then began a flurry of blows Wind-Eyes had taught him. Heron blocked them all, weathering the Black Palm aftershocks with his shield. The boards cracked, and some of the paint stripped off, but Heron himself was unharmed.

  He knew roughly how Heron would defend himself. True to her word, Mingel had mimicked his movements as best she could.

  But Heron was just faster. Even though Blake knew what he would do, every time he tried to capitalize on a gap in the man’s defenses, his weapon was there to intercept Blake’s staff. And he hadn’t even conjured his clone yet. Had she just made that up to scare Blake?

  Heron darted to the side, trying to get around Blake with his immense speed. Blake whirled around to face the threat, then blocked an upward swipe with the haft of his staff. The cutting edge of Heron’s sword glistened with moonlight and shimmered, like someone had struck a gong with it. It had a perfect resonance, perfect for cutting through his staff.

  Although it didn’t shatter like his old staff, the blade bit into the wood. It sank a centimeter in, chewing through the mana-soaked wood slowly. If Blake didn’t do anything, Heron would have his way.

  Blake surged a Black Palm through the staff, then rotated around, twisting Heron’s sword and moving the staff so he was under the blade. Heron cried out as his wrist bent at an awkward angle, forcing him to loosen his grip and let the sword twist.

  Then Blake struck the blade with a bolt of black lightning.

  He hoped to destroy the sword right there, but it wasn’t strong enough. It knocked the blade out of Heron’s grasp and sent it tumbling across the platform, black lightning sparking around it.

  Eyes sparking with rage, Heron drove a fist into Blake’s gut. Though it was just a fist, it knocked the wind out of Blake’s lungs—long enough for Heron to bash Blake down into the ground with his shield. The boards splintered beneath Blake, and he fell, tumbling through the lattice beneath the raised sparring platform.

  His forehead bashed off a beam, then his back, and he tumbled to the ground. It looked worse than it was, especially with his enhanced body. As soon as he landed, he stood up again and took a fighting stance.

  Heron held his arms out to the side, hovering above the platform, and used a shaping technique. An orb of moonlight appeared behind him, casting a pale glow around the plaza and washing out everyone’s features. His eyes shifted from a glowing turquoise to silver, and his crown sprang up above his head.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Then, in the moonlight, a twin of him appeared. It was made entirely of white light, and it mimicked his movements.

  Mingel hadn’t been lying.

  “I didn’t want to do this!” Heron shouted. He jumped up, then stomped down at a slight angle, crashing through what remained of the combat platform. His clone mimicked him, douling the damage. With a groan, the platform tumbled to the side, beams creaking. The crowd scattered, allowing the debris to fall without harming anyone beneath it.

  “I mean, you didn’t have to do that,” Blake said when Heron landed in front of him. The clone landed behind him.

  “You’re making me work. For that, you’ll suffer.”

  Blake shrugged. “What, first time you’ve actually had a fair fight? And it’s with someone an entire set of stages below you? What does that say about your—”

  “Silence.”

  “Yeah, no.” Blake shrugged. “I mean, we all know how you ‘earned’ your fiancé. You fought her in another perfectly fair duel, didn’t you? She was just slightly stronger than a mortal.” At Blake’s words, Heron flinched. Blake narrowed his eyes and said, “Oooh, do you enjoy that kind of thing? It should probably stay in the bedroom…”

  The crowd was deathly silent. Either Blake wasn’t as funny as he wanted, or they were just afraid.

  Heron charged forward. Now, his entire sword shone white. It had never done that before.

  Blake targeted the flat of Heron’s blade, deflecting it instead of blocking it, then rushed to the side to avoid the clone’s jab that raced in from the opposite direction. Char was beginning to build in his channels, but he held off on using River’s echo ability. This fight wasn’t going to last longer than ten minutes, and he might need it later.

  He tried to turn the fight, to go on the offensive, but Heron kept up the attack, chasing him through the ruins of the collapsed platform, always swinging with his sword. His clone closed any gaps he couldn’t and attacked from different directions, forcing Blake to work twice as hard to protect himself. When he gave a pulse of his shield, he forced Blake to counter with a black palm, splitting it apart into motes of mana before it could hit him. He couldn’t block the wave any other way.

  “Why won’t you just run out of mana!” Heron yelled. “Die!”

  Blake wasn’t going to run out of Honour, not when he was in a crowd like this. Not when he faced an opponent many times stronger than him, harvesting bravery, and certainly not when he fought for the others below him, like those in the crowd, or with Mingel watching. Loyalty was almost just as strong.

  But that wouldn’t mean anything when Heron was just faster.

  He pushed Blake to the edge of the debris field, parried Blake’s attempted counter-attack, then aimed a stab at Blake’s chest. His bones couldn’t block that. With his left hand, he aimed for the fuller, trying to knock the blade away, but he only pushed it down. It pierced straight into his gut and emerged from the other side, coated in sickly dark red blood.

  Blake coughed and sputtered, and he choked out a mouthful of blood. At first, there was only pressure, then a sense of a gaping hole in him.

  Then there was the pain.

  He was expecting something worse. But after he’d reforged his body, this didn’t feel quite as bad. Not compared to what he’d felt before.

  No, what was worse was the terror. The knowledge that he was losing. That he wasn’t good enough, that he hadn’t enhanced himself quite enough to win. He replayed the last few months in his mind, searching for anything, a moment where he could have done better.

  Heron shook him out of his stupor when he used his clone to bash Blake in the face with its shield, ripping Blake off his sword and sending him tumbling along the ground. Blake lay face-down on the plaza’s paving stones, his nose mushing into the ground, blood pouring out.

  River was out there somewhere in the wreckage, hiding in the bag. He could use her ability. But would it matter?

  His gaze drifted off into the distance, eyes twisting to the side, peering between the legs of the crowd and off toward the edge of Mergewatch. A few of them were already shaking their heads, accepting the loss already with some kind of dull apathy.

  But there were a few at the forefront. He didn’t know them. They stood at the edge of the crowd, fists tight, eyes pleading. Begging him to get up.

  The most loyalty and worth streamed over from them.

  Blake gazed into the distance, through the thin gaps in the palisade wall around the city, off over the mists, and back to the city he came from. To the manaship.

  He couldn’t free his home. It wasn’t ready for that. Most of them accepted the cultivators.

  Not Blake. He accepted none of it. They wanted him to play their games, obey their rules, and he’d do what he had to to get above them.

  But once he did, he was going to walk away. Inner peace meant accepting the world as it was, but enlightenment was growing beyond it. Burning it down wouldn’t do any good.

  And he wasn’t going to walk away alone. There were still some people here who wanted change. There were some who would agree with him, no matter how few.

  There had to be a place in the galaxy for them. Some place else, far away from here, where they could make a home free from the cultivators, free from every horror their lifestyle could throw at him.

  That place probably didn’t exist yet. He could build it. He had to build it.

  He couldn’t free everyone. But he could free himself and allow others to make the same choice. It wouldn’t be here. He had to travel far away, some place the cultivators hadn’t touched yet. But he’d build it.

  Heron marched toward him, sword held high, a splinter of light in his hands, ready to cleave Blake’s head from his shoulders. The clone closed in from the other side, ready to finish what Heron couldn’t.

  Blake looked up at the man with a scowl. “No,” he said. Willpower coursed through his body. He directed it to his echo, hardening it, creating a protective shell around it. Where before, his willpower flowed in a tight stream, now it flattened his entire echo, smoothing it into a perfect statue of his own body—just with no colour, made entirely of black lightning.

  A swell of pressure radiated away from him, and his rank seal shifted—Foundation two. He’d found his true willpower. His reason to cultivate.

  It wasn’t to burn. It was to build.

  “No,” Blake said once again, slightly more assertively. He triggered River’s echo ability. Heron didn’t pick up on it.

  “What was that?” Heron grinned. “Now you’d like to beg for your life?”

  “No,” Blake said. “I think it’s about time you beg for yours.”