‘Just how lucky do you have to be to end up with both a composite affinity and the right blessing for it?!’

In theory, it was possible to acquire both with the right treasures and a matching Ring of Sacrilege, but Laathsalath’s background was already known. It was clear he’d been born like this, having inherited everything from his mother who was a goddess. Of course, Percy had expected to meet prodigies of this calibre in the finals, so this didn’t surprise him that much.

All things considered, he wasn’t as worried about the fight, since he knew his magiscript was potent enough to get him and Kassorith through the fifth round. It was something else that gnawed at him.

‘I hope your mommy isn’t watching us right now,’ he thought with a sigh, grabbing a fragment of Kassorith’s longswords flying toward him. The shard clanged against his palm with a faint vibration, the lingering heat from the collision still permeating the broken weapon.

It was about a quarter of the construct’s blade – taken from the lower mid-section, closer to the base than the tip. Percy held it horizontally with both hands, shaping his domain into a rune. If he helped his host fight back against their opponent’s domain, he could probably slow down their mana consumption, but not enough to outlast Laathsalath. Percy was confident that enchanting the weapons was the best use of his willpower.

Ignoring Kassorith – who was still spewing liquid metal from his pores and fighting desperately to hold back the throwing axes – Percy used his Instantaneous Imprint spell to stamp the first enchantment into the shard. He didn’t stop after one, soon adding a second, and a third. Eight runes in total for each of the simplified unit cells. And half a dozen unit cells on the fragment – three on either side of the blade.

The pseudo-enchantments were twice the size of his fingernails, but contained less than half the runes he was using on Remior. It was a necessary compromise – if he wanted to apply the enchantments fast enough to matter. He left wide gaps between them too, spacing them precisely to allow for four times as many unit cells later. Not easy for an amateur – but Percy was no longer one. He’d already drawn millions of runes in his life before this trip to Thess’kala, so he knew what he was doing.

Once finished, he pulled a sliver of metal mana from his host’s core, pouring it into the self-repair enchantments. At the same time, he willed the fragment to snap into four pieces, making sure each contained at least one functional unit cell. Regenerating the fragments into copies of the original, he lined them up and fused them, melting the steel at their edges. A hiss of vapor escaped as the molten seams cooled against the arena’s chill air.The sections near the tip were supposed to be narrower, so he reshaped the weapon slightly, taking extra care not to distort the enchantments or the spacing.

Flicking the self-repairs off and on again, he had them memorize the new template, before passing it to Kassorith. He didn’t even bother to add a hilt to the weapon – it wasn’t necessary.

‘All done. Use this to make more,’

he said, getting a nod back.

Unlike the improvised tactics they’d employed to get through some of the previous matches, this was something they’d practiced extensively before the tournament.

Smashing the sword into pieces, Kassorith funnelled mana into the runes, producing multiple copies of the enchanted longsword. The air shimmered faintly around the forming weapons, the heated metal warping the view of the battlefield beyond. The process slowed his output slightly, giving Laathsalath even more ground. By now, the blessed Thess’kalan controlled over three-quarters of the battlefield and still had over half of his mana reserves left, while Kassorith was down to a third.

Still, Percy didn’t panic, knowing that conceding another step now would be worth it later.

Soon, Kassorith had a stockpile of new weapons to throw into the fray. They cut through the air like crossbow bolts, colliding with the spinning axes in an instant. Unlike before, most of the swords survived the first impact, allowing Kassorith to reuse them. The sharp metallic crashes echoed across the arena, each hit sending sparks scattering into the dust-filled air.

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Laathsalath still advanced, but did so much more slowly. Kassorith’s mana drain eased too.

‘It’s working! Do it again!’ the Blue exclaimed, his heart skipping a beat.

Percy didn’t need to be told twice – or even once for that matter. Before handing over the first longsword, he’d kept an extra fragment for himself. While Kassorith fought, Percy had been busy adding more runes to it.

‘There. Switch to this one,’ he said a few seconds later, passing Kassorith a longsword with twice as many runes as before, starting work on the next one.

Worried as he was about someone recognizing the Vault’s enchantments, Percy would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited about this battle. Without the blessing, Laathsalath was probably still stronger than Kassorith, but not by much. This was the perfect opportunity for him to test how his magiscript stacked up against an actual blessing – with everything else being about equal, more or less.

Once Kassorith replaced his constructs again, he saw another significant improvement. For the first time since the start of the battle, his swords began winning against the throwing axes, surviving more clashes and pushing their counterparts back. Progress was modest at first, but the tide was turning.

Laathsalath seemed to notice that too.

Whether or not he saw the intricate unit cells empowering the longswords, he clearly realized that Kassorith was up to something. Not willing to give him another chance to upgrade his attacks, he added more pressure into his own. Like Kassorith, Laathsalath could split lightning mana from his core to superheat his constructs. The arcs of electricity snapped like whip cracks, briefly illuminating the steel storm between them.

It generally wasn’t a good idea to do that unless one wanted to end the fight quickly. While it added to the weapons’ offensive power, the charged blades were less mana efficient than regular steel. Still, the blessed disciple probably understood that he had to forsake some of his mana advantage to stop Kassorith before he grew even stronger.

Percy’s host responded in kind, infusing his longswords with lightning too. In theory, both sides burned their reserves at the same rate now. If anything, Kassorith was slightly ahead. Had this been the start of the battle, this would have been a great place to be. Only, it looked like Kassorith’s core would still dry up first, thanks to the existing gap between them. Should that happen, the battle would be over.

Gritting his gums, Percy was forced to interrupt his enchanting session halfway through, giving Kassorith a half-baked construct. It was better than his current swords, but he hadn’t managed to add as many unit cells as he would have liked.

Acting fast, Kassorith spent some time to replace his weapons again, easing up on the lightning infusion. This lowered his mana consumption to a more bearable level, at the cost of yielding more ground to Laathsalath. Still, everyone involved understood that was only a temporary setback.

As soon as the third wave of constructs was ready, Kassorith pressed forward again. His opponent was forced to spend even more mana just to keep up. Eventually, he realized it wasn’t sustainable, giving up a lot of territory to preserve his mana.

Unfortunately for him, Percy had already resumed working on the enchantments. The fourth round took a bit longer, as he also had to fit the unit cells he’d been missing from before into the longsword. Still, Laathsalath could do nothing but watch as Percy perfected the construct, passing Kassorith a weapon densely covered in runes. Even holding it felt different this time – the steel faintly humming with layered enchantments as flashes of mana coursed through the intricate grid of unit cells, further amplifying their effects.

‘There you go. Just put that bastard out of our misery,’ he said.

Their opponent’s attacks grew even more erratic. Likely realizing that he no longer had any hopes of winning a frontal contest, Laathsalath spread out his axes in search of an opening. Kassorith wasn’t an idiot, however, adjusting the formation of his own constructs to intercept them.

The battle was already over.

A new flock of decorated longswords smashed through the spinning axes with ease, advancing through the aerial battlefield. Shards of steel and sparks rained down, tinkling against the floor in a steady metallic drizzle. To his credit, Laathsalath fought until his last drop of mana, until the final steel fragment under his control got violently knocked down to the ground, and until his domain got whittled down to nothing.

Was it stubbornness, or persistence driving him? Or simply the pride of a spoiled son not accustomed to losing?

Percy didn’t know which one it was, nor did he care. With his runecrafting task now over, he was free to pile his domain onto Kassorith’s, seeking to end the fight a moment sooner. There was no point dragging it out – everyone had already seen everything he and his host could do. The stadium’s enchantments flared, halting the swords before they skewered Laathsalath. The sudden stillness felt almost unnatural after the relentless clash of metal, like the air itself was holding its breath.

The fifth round was over – Percy and Kassorith would advance to the quarterfinals. Even better, Percy’s enchantments had proven themselves – against both a blessing, and an opponent of arguably superior skill. Neither he nor his host felt much joy in their victory, however, for a very simple reason…

‘That was the last of our trump cards.’