Chapter 95: Ch95 – Dawn

“BEGIN!”

Ryan’s body propelled forward.

His boots stamped into the mud.

Before he got far, a gauntlet grabbed his pauldron and yanked him back.

“Wait,” Jared hissed.

Ryan stopped. His heart hammered in his ear. “What?”

“Listen first, then we react. Remember?” Jared said quietly. “We find out what they are doing before we act.”

Ryan, red-faced beneath his helmet , stepped back into their formation.

They stood in silence, eyes and ears fixed on the dense fog ahead.

“Tap, Tap, Tap—Tap.” The rain drummed against the top of Ryan’s helmet.

The arena stayed in silence.

Then—

“Squelch.”

Footsteps.

They were faint. Distant.

Multiple sets of boots squelching through mud, all advancing together.

They’re coming.

“Hear that?” James whispered beside him.

“Yeah,” Ryan breathed.

The footsteps grew louder. But their pace remained the same.

They weren’t rushing. They moved at a steady speed.

“They’re coming,” Jeremy’s voice came from the right. “Should we—”

“We will hold our position,” Marcus ordered. “Let them come to us.”

Ryan’s grip tightened on his sword. Every muscle tensed up.

The footsteps were louder now. Thirty paces away. Maybe twenty.

It was hard to tell in the suffocating fog.

“Spread out slightly,” James said. “Give yourselves room to fight.”

Ryan took a step to the left. Jared shifted back out of sight again. Their line widened.

The footsteps grew clearer. More distinct. Ryan could even hear the faint clink of armour with each step.

Ten paces.

Ryan could see shapes now. Vague silhouettes moving through the mist. Red armour catching the firelight.

His breath came quick and shallow inside his suffocating helmet.

Five paces.

The shapes resolved into figures.

Where are the rest of them?

Ryan could only see three of them.

They must be spread in a line as loose as ours.

Two of the three opponents had shields raised, the middle one, opposite to Ryan, had a sword.

One was Navius, directly infront of James. The other two were most of the anonymous fighters.

Ryan’s gauntlet tightened around his sword.

“Steady,” Marcus breathed.

Four paces.

The two lines faced each other through the rain and mist. Neither side moved. Just watching.

Then one of Navius’s fighters—a red armour—broke into a run. It was the one opposite Ryan.

He charged straight at Ryan, sword raised high.

Everything happened at once.

The other fighters surged forward too. The formation immediately shattered into chaos.

Ryan barely had time to raise his sword before the red-armoured fighter was on him.

A light green sword clashed with a light red sword.

The impact jarred Ryan’s arms. His boots slid in the mud.

The fighter pressed forward immediately, not giving Ryan a moment to recover. A second strike came—a horizontal slash aimed at Ryan’s ribs.

Ryan parried it desperately.

The third strike came faster than he could react.

Ryan tried to block, but his sword was knocked aside—the blade spun out of his grip and disappeared into the mud below.

Shit!

The fighter thrusted at him.

Ryan’s hand went to his belt, searching his mace. He ripped it free just as the fighter’s stabbed at him.

Ryan barely managed to swing his mace down, deflecting the thrust, but in the process he lost his footing.

The fighter shoved forward, Ryan stumbled back.

Around them, the mist hid violence.

Constant shouts, grunts of effort. The scraping of weapons meeting armour.

Someone screamed—cut off abruptly.

Ryan couldn’t see any of it. Just the red-armoured fighter in front of him, pressing their attack relentlessly.

The mace felt heavy in his hand.

Ryan swung.

The fighter held his sword up, but wasn’t prepared for the strength behind the strike.

The fighter retreated back a step.

Ryan swung again—but low this time, aiming for his front knee.

The fighter stepped his front leg back, his steel boots splashed in a puddle.

Ryan paused his assault to catch his breath. They began to circle each other.

For what felt like minutes, the two knights circled each another.

Until Ryan’s opponent became impatient.

The red armoured grunt attacked again.

Their sword came down in a telegraphed arc.

Ryan swung the mace up to meet it.

They met with a resounding clang that echoed across the arena. The impact sent a shockwave up Ryan’s arm, rattling his teeth inside his helmet.

The fighter pulled back and slashed horizontally at Ryan’s neck.

Ryan ducked. The blade whistled over his head, close enough that he felt the air move.

While the fighter was extended, Ryan surged forward and drove the mace toward the man’s ribs.

The strike connected. A solid hit against the red plate armour.

The fighter grunted but pivoted away, absorbing the blow without breaking stride.

That definitely isn’t—A fucking student. Ryan complained.

The man recovered quickly and thrust his sword at Ryan’s chest.

Ryan twisted aside. The point scraped across his breastplate with a horrible metallic screech but found no purchase in the steel.

Ryan swung his heavy mace in return, aiming for the fighter’s sword arm.

The man yanked his weapon back and retreated two steps through the mud.

They circled each other again. Rain hammered down between them, obscuring vision even at this close distance.

Somewhere to Ryan’s left came a voice—James maybe—shouting something unintelligible. Then a wet thud and a curse.

The red-armoured fighter lunged in without warning, taking advantage of Ryan’s momentary loss of concentration.

Ryan brought his mace across to block, but the angle was wrong.

The sword slipped past his guard and slammed into his left pauldron.

The steel plate blocked most of the blow, but not all of it. Pain exploded across Ryan’s shoulder.

He staggered sideways, boots sliding in the slick mud.

The fighter pressed forward. Another slash. Another.

Ryan blocked the first with his mace—but couldn’t stop the second.

The blade caught him across the forearm. Chainmail links burst apart. The tip bit into the padded gambeson beneath but didn’t reach skin.

“Bastard!” Ryan screamed as he pushed the knight back.

Ryan swung wildly, forcing the fighter to retreat a step.

Ryan’s shoulder throbbed. His forearm ached where the chainmail had torn.

The fighter came at him again.

Ryan met the attack head-on. Mace against sword. Trading blows in the pouring rain.

Ryan was barely surviving on instinct.

Block. Dodge. Swing. Miss. Block again.

His arms burned. His legs trembled. The helmet pressed against his skull like a vice. His vision, limited to the narrow slit, barely managed to keep up with the red armour.

The fighter feinted his sword low and then reversed his sword grip.

Ryan fell for the feint and blocked air.

The sword pommel crashed into the side of his helmet.

For a second, everything went black.

Then Ryan’s vision came back—blurred. His ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out the rain, the shouting, everything.

He stumbled backward, trying to keep his feet.

Where—where is he—

The ringing in his ears was too loud. He couldn’t hear footsteps. Couldn’t hear anything.

The mist swirled thick around him. Shapes moved within it, but Ryan couldn’t tell which was his opponent and which were other fighters.

He’s going to—

Movement. To his right.

Ryan spun around and swung his mace, but there was nothing there.

His head pounded. Vision still swimming. The narrow eye slit in his helmet made everything worse—just fragments of grey mist and darker shadows.

He’s circling around me.

Ryan’s heart hammered against his ribs.

Can’t see him. Can’t hear him.

Need to—

Ryan’s feet planted in the mud, he looked up into the sky and screamed.

“PULSUS RADIANTIS!”

A wave of pure light erupted from his body.

It exploded outward in a perfect sphere—at least twenty meters in every direction. The mist lit up like midday sun, every water droplet glowed a brilliant white.

And for three seconds, Ryan could see everything near him.

Jeremy’s spear thrusting through the mist, catching an opponent in a gap between his breastplate and pauldron.

The mystery knight—shield shattered, mace dripping red—standing over a prone figure in black armour.

Ryan saw it all in perfect clarity.

He also saw his opponent. Five paces away. Sword raised. Mid-step toward Ryan’s unguarded side.

Then the light faded.

The figures vanished behind the mist.

But Ryan had seen enough.

Ryan sidestepped at the last moment.

The fighter’s sword plunged through empty air where Ryan had been standing.

Ryan brought his mace down on the man’s exposed back.

The iron head crashed into the red plate armour between the shoulder blades.

The fighter went down hard, face-first into the mud.

Ryan raised the mace for another strike.

But the fighter rolled out of harms way.

Within a second, his sword came up in a desperate slash.

Ryan jumped back, but his boot caught on something—a rock, a piece of broken shield, he didn’t know.

He fell.

The mace flew from his grip and vanished into the mud.

Both of them were on the ground now. Both disarmed—Ryan’s mace lost, the fighter’s sword just out of reach.

The fighter scrambled to his feet.

Ryan stood up and lunged, throwing his entire weight on his opponent.

They came crashing down, and immediately began to grapple in the mud. Each one vied for control of the other.

The fighter was stronger. He twisted, breaking Ryan’s grip, and then drove an elbow into Ryan’s helmet.

Ryan’s head snapped back.

Metal fingers grasped at the mud. The fighter was crawling away for his sword.

But Ryan came back to focus quickly.

He threw himself on top of the fighter, his knees pinning the fighter’s arms.

The man thrashed, trying to throw him off, but Ryan barely managed to stay ontop.

Ryan brought his own gauntlet to his face.

His teeth ripped off the leather strap, and he threw the gauntlet to the floor.

His bare hand pressed against the fighter’s cold helmet, covering the man’s eye slit.

“LUX!”

Brilliant white light exploded from Ryan’s palm.

It poured through the eye slit in the fighter’s visor like liquid fire.

The man screamed. His hands shot up to his face, trying to cover his eyes, but the light had already done its work.

Ryan rolled off him and scrambled away, gasping for breath.

The fighter writhed on the ground, hands clutching his helmet, moaning.

Ryan grabbed his discarded gauntlet and pulled it back on with shaking hands.

The rain was coming down even harder now.

Ryan retrieved his half-buried mace and stood up.

A trickle of blood spilled from Ryan’s mouth.

He walked to the downed knight, ready to give a final blow.

“I Yield—I Yield!” The fighter screamed.

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