Seated in the lotus position, Cyril opened his eyes and looked upward. Dozens of shadowy figures descended upon him from all angles. A widespread burst of Gravity qi erupted out from him, catching Soren’s clones. They scattered and burst apart from the impact, though Cyril immediately saw through the deception--his makeshift repulsion hadn’t been that powerful.

  Oversized arms wrought from darkness burst from the ground around him. Cyril surged to his feet and leapt thirty feet into the air, clearing the canopy of grasping limbs. The courtyard below trembled from the force of his jump.

  Purple qi coalesced around the mental channels in his forehead, flowing in a complex rhythm. Gravity within the immediate area more than quadrupled as Cyril invoked his domain. The Shadow Hands slowed, as if moving underwater, though the effect wasn’t enough to please Cyril. After seeing true domains from entities like Clear-Surface, he knew that his technique barely qualified.

  Cyril corkscrewed through the air, his spiritual senses expanding outward. The barest tremor of seismic activity alerted him to the true Soren manifesting on the ground below, crouched within a cloak of darkness that mimicked one of the Shadow Hands. With less than a second to respond to the incoming threat, Cyril summoned a darksteel spear from his spatial ring and flung it downward.

  Soren leapt upward, while the weapon spiraled down to meet him, containing a rotational force that deceptively amplified its power. The drow slapped it aside with a dismissive wave of his hand. Then the momentum of the weapon transferred into Soren, catching him off guard and twisting him sideways a few degrees.

  It was enough for Cyril to fire off a Pressure to the left, sending hm outside of Soren’s trajectory. He fell back to the ground in a series of spiraling flips--more of a theatrical flourish than anything. Scattered applause from the crowd demonstrated their approval.

  Before Cyril could gracefully land, a discordant string of notes filled the air. The song disrupted his focus, turning his elegant descent into an awkward slip at the last moment. Cyril managed to catch himself on all fours like a cat.

  Cursing, he let himself get distracted once again by sending a nasty look in Loras’ direction. Loras shrugged, the flute remaining at his lips.

  The sparring match between Cyril and Soren was supposed to be restricted to solely Space-adjacent techniques--though, if anyone asked him, he thought it rather unfair that manifesting shadows somehow counted, but Earth and Mass didn’t. And, most importantly, it was supposed to be a sparring match between Cyril and Soren.

  Cyril glanced around, caught sight of his darksteel spear lodged into the ground some thirty paces away. Their arena was a flat expanse behind the palace, cleared of rubble so that it could serve as a training ground. Loras had paused his afternoon training session as soon as Cyril had declared it would be the site of their bout, and no less than a hundred cultivators had gathered on the outskirts to spectate.

  Despite a relatively even initial exchange between the combatants, fewer and fewer people seemed to be betting on Cyril now. As an avid participant in such gambling, he very well knew the hand gestures that signaled offered odds to anyone brave enough to accept. And they weren’t in his favor, especially with Loras engaging in a bit of targeted mischief.

  It only made Cyril want to embarrass them more.

  He pivoted and waited. Soren had once more disappeared from view. Likely hiding within one of the wisps of lingering shadow that had dispersed throughout the area.

  Ignoring all outside distractions, Cyril directed his focus inward, toward his core. Since his advancement to Peak Foundation Stage, he had begun to shape it according to his path. Now, it resembled a crude fist, with only the tip of the little finger sculpted in intricate detail. With his core superficially more aligned with the nature of his soul, the output and regeneration had improved by a step or two.

  Qi flooded outward, suffusing his entire body.

  “Oh pathetic masters, slaves to envy,” he intoned, as if voicing some grave mantra. “Witness your own unmaking. Manifest: Fist.”

  In truth, he didn’t expect much of a reaction from a veteran like Soren. To his glee, he caught a glimpse of the faintest ripple in space off to the side. He redirected all of his circulating qi into the rhythm for Pressure, and a dense column of Gravity crashed down upon the ripple. Cobblestones cracked. Soren appeared, his cloak of concealing shadows blown away.

  The direct hit barely made the drow bend his knees, but it didn’t matter. It was a sparring match, not a duel to the death.

  “Point, me.” Cyril sneered. “How did you fall for such an obvious trick?”

  Soren shrugged. “You seem like enough of a lunatic that it was worth considering. By the way, this isn’t the real me. No point.”

  The figure broke apart into wisps of darkness. Cyril blinked. Very tricky. All of Soren’s former clones had been dull and monochromatic, while this one had been identical to the real thing.

  Suppressing a twinge of panic, Cyril summoned his darksteel spear back to him. Pulling objects to him with Gravity had proven to be more difficult than simply reversing a Pressure, so he had to push the weapon back to him with a burst of force. It awkwardly careened in his direction, and Cyril charged forward to snatch it out of the air.

  A moment later, Soren appeared behind him, shadow dagger in hand. Cyril managed to whip the spear around in time to deflect the blow. For a few moments they danced in a synchronized kata, brawling with pure martial skill: rapid, darting strikes like a snake from the dagger meeting a wall of whirling darksteel. Despite being on the defensive, Cyril felt as if Soren was the one following his lead--a martial art that adapted to the opponent’s style and level of skill.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Frustrated, Cyril snapped a kick at Soren’s thigh, an explosive burst of Gravity qi scything out at the end. Soren slipped away, re-engaged. Caught off guard, Cyril could only watch as space distorted around the drow’s blade. For an instant, hand and dagger disconnected from the rest of the limb, warping through the space covered by the spear. His defenses bypassed, the shadow blade grazed along Cyril’s cheek.

  Only a single drop of blood slid down before his constitution sealed the wound with mineral clay.

  “Point, me,” Soren gloated in response. He backed off a few steps, flicking his wrist as if bothered by the limb after the space-distortion it had undergone. Probably another feint. “Match point, Lord Behemoth.”

  Cyril frowned and touched his cheek. Smooth flesh had already replaced the scar of mineral clay. “One-one? How?”

  “I was lying about not being hit, of course.” Soren grinned with his tombstone teeth, Dark hair whipping around his shoulders. “Just throwing you off balance. You did hit me, though I allowed the opening to see if you could notice it and take advantage. Well done.”

  In a flash of shadow, the drow disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the arena.

  “Right,” Cyril called out, pacing back and forth a few steps, his spear tucked back behind his shoulder. “Same here, old man.”

  Laughs, boos, and cheers rang out from the crowd. A quick glance revealed the odds had normalized back to even. No doubt Soren was playing the fool, but Cyril wasn’t so sure that his loss was inevitable. The drow had him outclassed on all fronts, save for perhaps the most important of all: Cyril was the Vessel of the Earth Titan, surrounded by his own natural element.

  Soren raised a brow. “Draw?”

  Cyril grinned. “Scared you’re going to lose? That personal library of yours is as good as mine!”

  Soren swiped one of his boots across the ground, as if marking the space between them. “You’re going to be producing darksteel for me for the next week straight, boy!”

  Cyril glanced up at the distant ceiling of the cavern, where the celestial dragon, Ragnus, dangled like an artificial sun. He frowned, returned his focus to Soren in time to see a series of broad ripples emanating from the drow. They were faint, like distant mirages, but Cyril could tell that his perception of them was rapidly improving. Being able to perceive the nebulous outlines of Space qi to a greater extent didn’t mean that he was anywhere near integrating the affinity into himself, but it was a good start.

  Whatever technique Soren was preparing, Cyril didn’t like the look of it. Most of his techniques had been subtle and underhanded, but this had the look of a powerful technique. Possibly even an ultimate one.

  The drow really didn’t want to lose.

  Cyril shrugged and flicked one of his alloy fingers in the direction of the ceiling. A concentrated burst of Gravity fired through the air like an arrow, and flew with perfect precision toward the celestial dragon. It connected with Ragnus' head with all the annoying force of a child poking their parent.

  Soren glanced up and, realizing another trick was coming, surged forward. More and more ripples emanated from his body, and a sea of shadow flooded across the courtyard. Fortunately for Cyril, the dragon was quicker, swooping down with a mighty roar.

  As it approached, its radiant qi flared, blinding most of the onlookers without sufficient protection against Sun qi. Even Cyril was forced to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment. Shadow qi dissolved away in the face of its natural adversary. While shadows were born from a mixture of light and darkness, too much of either threatened to erase it from existence.

  Without the Shadow qi, all that was left of Soren’s technique was a skeleton of spatial energy. Cyril snapped his fingers, and spiraling threads of Gravity qi tore into the weaknesses within the technique’s structure. Like Lady Firouza’s ultimate technique, it began to collapse from having its foundations erode away.

  Despite the failure of his technique, Soren charged forward, a sort of wild joy sparkling in his eyes as he closed the distance. The dragon’s radiance washed away the rest of the world, leaving only that singular dark figure within Cyril’s vision.

  Cyril flung his spear. Soren ducked beneath it, vague shimmers of spatial energy countering the rotational force within the weapon and canceling its momentum. Grinning, Cyril punched with all of his might, throwing the full weight of his core into one final Pressure. A tidal wave of Gravity emanated outward.

  Arms crossed in front of him, Soren charged through the Pressure, his Dark hair whipping about in defiance of the surrounding solar energy. Cyril stood his ground, his fist still outstretched. Soren broke through the edge of the technique, a foot away from his opponent, his rigid hand held out in the shape of a blade.

  Then, Soren came to a stop. Shook his head. Laughed. Cyril was close enough he could smell the mushrooms on the drow’s breath. “I guess that technically counts as a direct hit, per the rules of the match. Congratulations, Lord Behemoth. You win.”

  Cyril held back his smile and turned to face the celestial dragon looming above them, keeping itself aloft with thunderous flaps of its wings.

  “For what reason have you summoned me, kin of my kin?” Ragnus rumbled.

  Cyril cleared his throat and produced a Spiritual Fruit from his spatial ring. Bowing his head in deference, he flung it upward. Ragnus caught it in its massive maw and chewed thoughtfully, as if savoring it.

  “I merely wished to share my appreciation for all you do for us, noble spirit,” said Cyril.

  The dragon flapped its wings, considering. “The honor is mine. Your offering is much appreciated.”

  Then, in a gust of wind, Ragnus flew back toward the ceiling. As it grew more distant, the radiance faded, and the world returned to normal.

  “Guess I win.” Cyril sneered at Soren.

  The drow shrugged. “A mere training session. Next time, if you really want to work on detecting Space qi, do it with your eyes closed.”

  Ignoring Soren’s pitiful attempt to save face, Cyril turned and watched as Loras approached. He prepared himself for some praise and, of course, some harsh criticism. Instead, Loras walked next to Soren and nodded at him.

  “As you requested, I bet everything against you.” Loras extended a metallic arm, and the drow reached out and clasped him by the forearm. They shook on it with the easy camaraderie of old partners in crime. “Our men have learned a lesson on gambling, and we are even more filthy rich.”

  They walked away together, chuckling merrily.

  Hands on his hips, a strange expression on his face, Cyril watched them go. Members of the crowd glanced at one another, realizing the duplicitous nature of their overseers.

  “Make all the excuses you want!” Cyril called out, feeling a bit petulant. “A win’s a win!”