As I dodged another fireball, I searched for a less lethal means of taking him down. Though he was still flying, he was coming lower as he headed for the far side of the arena. It seemed that Yo Hin was trying to land.
I sprinted toward him even as I tried to work out his plan. Why would he land when he could keep flying?
As I came close, and Yo Hin rose once more into the air, I saw the strain on his face, and the answer dawned on me. Yo Hin was using a huge amount of Vigor to stay up there. It had to be exhausting. If I could force him to stay up long enough, he would run out of energy and have to land, most of his resources spent.
While Yo Hin flew above the arena, I ran back and forth beneath him. Some of the spectators, disappointed by the lack of combat, started booing, but I ignored them. This was still a battle, one of wills and of endurance rather than simple arms. If the others couldn’t see the challenge, then that was their problem.
Yo Hin hurled a ball of fire to force me to back away, but I dodged it and kept moving. I answered with a blast of my own, but he twirled through the air, and my flaming orb shot past him. The fireball continued and sent a group diving out of the way as it slammed into the stands. They’d been the ones to boo, and I wondered whether I’d subconsciously intended the blast to land among them.
I smiled as Yo Hin started to drift lower and the flames surrounding him began to fade. His legs were limp beneath him, and, at last, he flew a little too low. I dashed toward him and jumped while I blasted the ground with a powerful Untamed Torch. The force of the flames sent me 10 feet into the air, and I reached for Yo Hin. My right hand grabbed hold of his ankle, and I ignored the pain of the flames swirling around him as I yanked him down. He hit the ground hard, and the flames vanished as he landed.
I didn’t even have to point my sword at him. Yo Hin just raised his hands in surrender, tears in his eyes.
“I knew I couldn’t do this,” he whimpered.
“Are you kidding?” I reached out to help him to his feet. “That was spectacular! You’ll have to teach me where you got the cores for that flying move.”
“I-I suppose I can do that.”
“One of these days, you’ll be the youngest master in this place.”
“Really?” He walked with me toward the stands with his staff trailing behind him.
“You see anyone else flying?” I asked. “Trust me, buddy; you’ve got this nailed.”
He smiled a wobbly smile and went to take a seat.
After that, I was able to rest for a while. With every initiate joining in the first round, there were a lot of fights to get through before we moved on. Sitting between Kegohr and Vesma, I watched the men and women we had trained with proving their worth, noted who had learned their lessons and who hadn’t been paying attention. In the ruthless arena, all our weaknesses were laid bare.
While I watched, I spent time tending to my burns and meditating to replenish my Vigor until my name was called again, My next two opponents both proved far easier to beat than Yo Hin, and I was sure he would have made it past either of them. Facing me first had been bad luck for Yo Hin. I hoped that the masters had noticed the imbalance and would take account of it when deciding who graduated from initiate to outer disciple.
The fourth round brought the quarter-finals. By now, we had been whittled down to just eight, all tough and skilled in our own ways. I fought one of Hamon’s buddies, a goon with all the grace and beauty of a horse’s ass but with the muscular physique of a bodybuilder. It was a tiring battle that left me sweat-soaked and aching, but I got him in the end by using Fire Empowerment to supercharge an Untamed Torch that knocked him back against the wall and gave me time to disarm him. I used my own torch to avoid the fate I didn’t want for Yo Hin, although I wouldn’t have minded burning the dickhead to a crisp. A win was a win in the end, and the enraged look on his face after the match made it all worth it.
Vesma also made it through the quarter-finals, to my delight, as did Hamon, to my satisfaction. But things didn’t go so well for Kegohr. He was finally knocked out, caught off guard by an axe strike around the edge of his Flame Shield.
“Could be worse,” he said as I helped bandage the wound. “Now, I can relax and enjoy the show.”
“You’re really all right with this?” Vesma asked, looking shocked.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got this far, didn’t I? That ain’t to be sneezed at.”
Xilarion stood at the edge of the arena, a black silk bag in his hand. One by one, he dropped clay tokens into it, each one marked with the name of one of the last four fighters. I wanted to win, but I also desperately wanted to pound Hamon into oblivion. Sending him down the path of defeat after giving him a few blistering wounds would have made this the best day since I came to the Seven Realms. Except there were two other opponents: the woman who took down Kegohr, and. . .
I glanced at Vesma and thought about a very different tussle between us. Best not to get distracted by that now, or about having to fight each other. The odds were against it, weren’t they?
“First contestant,” Xilarion said as he drew a name. “Ethan Murphy.”
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