Silas ground his back teeth, a grating sound audible even to himself.
He felt like a performing beast in some barbaric coliseum, a sensation far more repulsive, more deeply violating, than the mere sting of the Purity Army's blades.
The iron wall of black-armored warriors surrounding them glinted cold and menacing under the flickering torchlight. He could almost feel the weight of their unseen gazes, the collective anticipation for a bloody spectacle, emanating from behind those impassive, identical visors.
"I'm not *with* the Purity Army!" Silas roared, a desperate, furious denial. "I infiltrated their ranks to take them down, just like you!" But his words were swallowed by the charged air, seemingly unheard, or perhaps, simply unheeded.
"ROAR—!" The giant's bellow was a physical shockwave, thunder exploding in the enclosed space. His two-and-a-half-meter frame launched forward with astonishing, brutal speed, the massive axe blade shrieking as it tore through the air. Silas's pupils contracted to pinpricks; the velocity of this attack was orders of magnitude greater than their previous exchange. He could feel the raw, murderous rage radiating from the armored behemoth.
Sheer muscle memory, honed by countless life-or-death encounters, took precedence over conscious thought. Silas's body dropped into a low crouch an instant before the axe blade, a lethal silver blur, whistled past, grazing the very tip of his nose. The displaced air alone seared his cheek with a burning pain. A few severed strands of his dark hair drifted slowly, lazily, to the ground.
"Good," Silas snarled, "but still not fast enough." His own sword, a streak of retaliatory light, swept upwards from below, a familiar killing stroke aimed directly at his opponent's exposed throat. But this time, the anticipated result failed to materialize.
The giant, with a surprising, almost delicate precision, interposed the haft of his axe, deflecting the blade. Then, with a sudden, explosive surge of power, his entire armored form creaking and groaning under the strain, he charged, a living battering ram of iron and fury.
That colossal, armored body slammed into Silas like a siege engine. The wickedly sharp spikes adorning his breastplate glinted a ghostly, malevolent blue in the moonlight. Silas, barely managing to twist aside at the last moment, still took a glancing, brutal blow to his ribs from the giant's shoulder pauldron. Agony, white-hot and searing, shot up his spine. The coppery tang of blood filled his mouth.
He spat a small spray of crimson, the droplets splattering against his opponent's visor, then trickling, like grotesque tears, down the carved, demonic contours of its surface. The giant's breath, filtered through the metal mesh of his helm, was a harsh, inhuman, sibilant hiss.
Silas was sent flying sideways, his back crashing with brutal force against the breastplate of some unfortunate, unsuspecting black-armored soldier in the surrounding ring. The sickening *creak* of deforming metal and the sharp, distinct *crack* of breaking ribs sounded as one. The two of them tumbled to the ground in a tangled heap. A wave of uproarious, jeering laughter erupted from the encircling warriors; someone even let out a shrill, appreciative whistle.
Then, two heavily gauntleted hands seized Silas's collar, one from either side, hauling him roughly to his feet, then shoving him, with contemptuous force, back into the center of the makeshift arena. Mud, mingled with fresh blood, squelched, thick and cloying, beneath his boots.
Silas dropped to one knee, steadying himself, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The giant's strength was undeniable, immense. Yet, Silas knew, it still fell short of the monstrous power wielded by the late Cardinal of Sin. And he, Silas, was a far more formidable opponent now than he had been three long years ago. He spat out a thick clot of bloody phlegm. *Thwack!* The dark red gobbet struck the hard-packed granite, actually gouging out a shallow, bowl-sized depression.
The surrounding laughter died abruptly. Muffled, uneasy murmurs rippled through the ranks of the black-armored soldiers.
The giant, however, did not press his advantage. Instead, he raised his axe, then, with a guttural roar, slammed its heavy haft against his own breastplate. *CLANG! CLANG!* The reverberations, deep and sonorous, startled the unseen night owls in the surrounding forest into startled, flapping flight. Another roar of triumph, of savage satisfaction with the round's outcome, boomed from beneath his visor.
"Had your fun yet?" Silas snarled, wiping a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth. Tidal Force, a simmering, potent energy, began to boil through his meridians. A faint, intricate, web-like tracery of blue light shimmered into existence on the surface of his skin. With a sudden, explosive burst of speed, he launched himself forward, his sword a blur, carving a chilling, incandescent arc through the night air.
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
A shower of sparks, bright as falling stars, erupted with each metallic collision. The disparity in size and weight between the giant's massive battle-axe and Silas's slender longsword was enormous, yet each perfectly timed parry, each precisely aimed counter-stroke, forced the lumbering giant back half a step. The earlier injury to his arm, Silas noted with grim satisfaction, was beginning to tell. The giant's movements grew perceptibly slower, more sluggish, his swings less controlled. Silas, in contrast, seemed to fight with an increasing, almost preternatural celerity, his sword strikes a viper's dance, darting, weaving, seeking out, with unerring accuracy, the vulnerable joints and seams in the giant's formidable armor.
*"Screeech—!"*
Ducking beneath a wide, telegraphed horizontal sweep, Silas lunged, his sword a silver dart aimed at the giant's exposed calf. This time, the blow struck true. The blade tore through the thick leather lining of the giant's left greave; blood, dark and instant, soaked through the iron plates of his boot. A collective, sharp intake of breath hissed from the onlookers. One younger soldier even let out a small, startled cry, only to receive a sharp, admonishing clout to the back of the head from a disgusted comrade.
Silas disengaged, retreating three swift paces, the tip of his sword now angled towards the ground. This wasn't a display of chivalry, no magnanimous pause. He merely needed a moment, a breath, to assess if the giant's newly acquired limp would significantly…
A sudden, hearty bellow of laughter erupted from beneath the giant's heavy helmet, a sound of genuine, almost self-deprecating amusement, as if mocking his own prior carelessness. He glanced down at his bleeding leg, then, with a thoughtful, almost dismissive air, weighed the massive battle-axe in his gauntleted hands. Then, with a grunt, he tossed the formidable weapon aside.
The heavy axe thudded into the soft earth with a dull, final *thump*. He then, with a slow, deliberate movement, drew the longsword that hung at his waist. Its polished blade, in the ethereal moonlight, glinted with a sinuous, water-like pattern. Silas narrowed his eyes. Time to re-evaluate. This opponent, he sensed, was now a different, calmer, perhaps even more dangerous, beast. The giant axe's inherent slowness had granted Silas an initial advantage. Now… now, the terms of engagement had shifted.
The white-armored knight's adjutant—Silas now saw it was a woman—was anxiously tugging at her lord's armguard, her expression urgent, clearly imploring him to intervene, to halt the brutal spectacle. But the knight merely patted her shoulder, a gesture of calm reassurance, his gaze still fixed, with an unnerving, almost proprietorial confidence, upon his laboring subordinate.
"Come then, you little Purity Army flea!" the giant roared, dragging his injured leg as he lumbered into a renewed charge. His voice, though strained, still boomed with a deep, resonant power, and his swordplay, Silas instantly realized with a jolt of alarm, was far more agile, far more *lethal*, than his clumsy axe-work had been.
"Damn your eyes, I *told* you I'm not one of them! If you're deaf, go get it seen to!" Silas yelled back, a fresh wave of exasperation washing over him as he moved to defend.
The instant their blades met, Silas knew. The steel sword, his only weapon, already stressed and micro-fractured from the earlier, brutal exchanges with the axe, protested with a high-pitched, metallic shriek, then, with a sharp, clean *zing!*, it snapped. The weapon's end. The giant's own sword tip, unimpeded, pressed downwards, a hair's breadth from piercing Silas's exposed collarbone…
*Now!*
Silas abruptly released the hilt of his shattered sword, his body arching backward with a contortionist's flexibility, as if his spine itself had snapped. His right hand, a blur of motion, shot towards the quiver at his back. The act of drawing an arrow, nocking it, and releasing it flowed into a single, perfectly synchronized, impossibly swift arc with his evasive maneuver. *"Pfft!"* The arrow, true and unerring, struck the narrow, vulnerable gap in the giant's wrist armor. The distinct, tactile sensation of the broadhead piercing tendon, grating against bone, traveled up the arrow shaft to Silas's fingertips. The sharp sword, its wielder's grip suddenly, involuntarily, spasming, clattered harmlessly to the ground.
In that same instant, the broken hilt of Silas's sword, still lying on the earth, suddenly blazed with an incandescent, dazzling blue light. Silas poured the majority of his remaining Tidal Force into it. He knew this couldn't last. Even if he somehow defeated this giant, could he truly escape this arena, these watchers? No. Far better to…
*"Whoosh—!"*
The levitating, empowered sword-hilt, now a deadly projectile, a streak of pure, vengeful light, shot towards the white-armored knight's exposed face. The speed of this improvised flying sword was beyond the limits of normal human reaction. The knight's adjutant screamed—a woman's voice, sharp with terror—and lunged forward, a desperate, futile attempt to intercept the lethal missile. But her lord's reflexes, his raw power, were of a different order entirely. With a contemptuous, almost casual flick of his wrist, he swatted his adjutant aside, a blue flare of his own Tidal Force erupting from his palm as he slapped the flat of the incoming, broken blade.
Its trajectory instantly, violently, deviated. It grazed the knight's ornate, dragon-crested helmet with a high-pitched shriek of tortured metal, then vanished into the dark forest beyond. The sound of several thick tree trunks, cleanly pierced, then crashing to the ground in a domino-like succession, echoed back.
Silas was momentarily stunned by the knight's reaction speed, his sheer power. The desperate gambit had cost him dearly; his reserves of Tidal Force were perilously low. Cold sweat, like a miniature stream, trickled down his neck. But he had committed. He had chosen his target. Now, he had to see it through. To the bitter end.
Without pausing even to draw breath, Silas snatched up the giant's fallen sword from the ground and, with a raw, guttural cry, launched himself forward. The giant, still reeling from the arrow wound to his wrist, tried to intercept, but his savaged leg, the earlier injury, betrayed him. He couldn't match Silas's desperate, focused speed.
"You enjoy the show, do you? Then I'll give you a damn front-row seat!"
The adjutant, scrambling to her feet, began to rush towards her embattled lord, a sharp, furious female voice piercing the din: "You! You shameless cur! You fight only with sneak attacks and treachery!"
Silas bit back a retort. *You were the ones who set this bloody stage, who tried to kill me first!* But he held his tongue. His focus, his entire being, was narrowed to a single point: the primary threat, the master of this deadly game, the white-armored knight before him.