The Archaic System

The crowd was silent. No one had expected a young fighter like myself to get an edge over Sauer. Even Alexander Morrow was leaning forward in his seat. After all this was a fight concerning his right hand man and the Captain of his mercenary force. Their is no way he would allow something to happen to him in a fight in the arena.

Sauer was standing there panting a little and a small look of fear crept into his features. No doubt the ferocity of my previous attacks had made him more wary of me. Although my previous fierce assault had allowed me to gain an advantage by injuring him, it also consumed a large amount of stamina and I had also been lightly injured in the process. Still, my injury wouldn't impede me as much as his would.

For a moment we both stood there staring at each other. Then Sauer said, "There is no need for us to go all out against each other. Lord Morrow already has the intention of giving you a position within our troops. At that time you could stand proudly above many others."

I continued staring at him not giving him any response and revealing no emotion in my face. All I wanted was a little time to catch my breath so I could kill him. After a few moments passed he began to look irritated and was clearly getting angry, but before he could say anything else I began to attack him again.

Even though we were both slightly slower than before we continued clashing repeating the same scenario, with Sauer defending as I attacked with higher speed. This time however, I had a clear mind and could analyze his movements to see flaws in his attacks.

As he went to deliver a blow overhead I subtly sidestepped and used shifting sands to move in on his right side. Unfortunately, Sauer was no fool and the same trick wouldn't work on him twice. Before I could get close his other club came swinging in my direction forcing me to retreat. After a moment we resumed our clash weapons colliding in a fierce manner.

Then something unexpected happened, as Sauer defended one of my strikes with his club a loud snap was heard and the dagger in my right hand was snapped in half. If I had been able to use my Twisted Serpent daggers this wouldn't have happened, however, arena rules don't let you use personal weapons. Even if they did I still wouldn't have used them, they just stand out too much. Even Silent Killer and Sauer were using weapons provided by the arena. I couldn't help but be distracted for moment as I hadn't expected something like this to occur.

In my moment of hesitation Sauer swung his club attempting to bash it into my side. Unfortunately for Sauer his swing seemed to cause his wound to flare up which gave me just the slightest moment to catch my bearing.

Realizing the danger I was in and without the time to dodge or block I activated my Snake King Aura.

An intense look of fear overwhelmed Sauer's features as the Snake King Aura exploded out of my body and overwhelmed his senses. Clearly, he hadn't invested many stat points into willpower. With the time given to me with Snake King Aura I swung my dagger towards Sauer's throat wanting to end it right then. To my dismay just before the strike landed Sauer recovered and shifted his body to the side in the nick of time. My dagger landed on the armor covering his shoulder and was deflected.

Sauer sudden dodge cause him to lose his balance and stumble backwards, but he didn't fall. Seeing this, I quickly followed up with another strike aiming for his throat. One of my daggers is broke so I have to press my advantage now or I might end up losing. As Sauer began to regain his balance he saw me coming in with my strike and quickly raised his clubs blocking me from aiming at his face.

I couldn't help but smile, that was an amateur move and under normal circumstances there is no way Sauer would make a mistake like that. It had to have been due to a combination of my earlier viscous assault and an aftereffect of the Snake King Aura making fear cloud his judgement. He blocked his own line of sight.

I immediately lowered my body and buried my blade into a gap in his armor behind his right knee. I could feel the severing of his tendons as Sauer let out a blood curling screech. There are few things more painful than having your tendon severed. When the all the tension on a tendon is suddenly released the tendon snaps back towards the closest connected joint. In Sauer's case that would be his hip.

As Sauer screamed he fell down to his knees dropping both his clubs out of his hands. I quickly circled around behind him and was prepared to slice open his throat. Just before I could strike a loud voice boomed from the audience, "STOP."

The entire arena went silent as I stopped my strike mid swing. In that moment you could hear the wind whistle as it passed over the arena. The entire crowd was completely still as if time had stopped.

I looked up and Alexander Morrow who was staring out viciously towards me.

"Yes?" I calmly replied.

"You are the victor! There is no need to kill him. You will be announced the champion of today's tournaments and receive many rewards."

"Lord Morrow do you know my real name?"

He looked at me as if I had smashed a pie into my face.

"What does that have to do with anything," he asked confused.

"Everything," I replied.

I then slid my dagger across Sauer's throat. Hot red blood splashed out coating the front of his armor. His eyes widened with shock and dismay as his hands feebly tried to stop the outpouring of his own blood. In the pavilion Alexander Morrow stared on in utter disbelief.

"My name is Troy Hargrave."