Deacon moved before the gesture had even fully finished, weight shifting through the hips as he launched forward in a straight line. His right hand dipped smoothly into his Spatial Sling Bag and closed around the familiar hilt of Echoform Reliquary's broadsword form, drawing it in a fluid arc that carried all of his forward momentum into the opening clash.
Broadsword met longsword with a sharp, metallic clang that resonated through the chamber like the strike of a bell, and the impact sent a faint vibration up his forearms as both weapons locked against each other in a contest of pure leverage and will.
Immediately, he could feel the difference in raw power.
The masked man's strength wasn't simply greater; it was effortlessly stronger than his – his mind comparing it to him trying to push a mountain.
Deacon had to brace, muscles in his shoulders, back, and core tightening to keep his blade from being pushed aside, and even then, it was clear that the masked man was holding back, testing, observing rather than committing.
Deacon's boots skidded slightly against the stone, but he dug into the stance and forced the deadlock to hold, even as his bones vibrated under the pressure.
Knowing that trying to overpower someone like this was pointless, despite his recent power gain from the Apple of Iðunn, Deacon's left leg shot forward in a sharp, snapping kick meant to break stance and force the masked man to adjust — except the masked man had already moved before Deacon's knee had fully extended.
The longsword disengaged in a smooth slide, and the masked man shifted off-center, one hand releasing the hilt to catch Deacon's ankle mid-motion. His grip cinched around the lower end of Deacon's shin, holding it up as easily as if it were the hilt of a sword and not a living limb.
If he threw him now, the momentum and angle would slam him face-first into the floor.
But the masked man did not get the chance.
Just before his leg could be yanked into a throw, flame erupted along Deacon's foot — so sudden and close that the masked man's grip loosened on instinct, the concentrated heat of the spell catching him off guard.
Deacon twisted mid-release, letting gravity pull him down cleanly so that he dropped out of range rather than flailing, and he landed on the ground in a clean, low stance with both feet sliding across the stone to absorb the impact.
His breathing steadied, his eyes stayed locked on the masked man, and his mind worked through the exchange with rapid clarity. He directly tanks my hits like they're nothing, reacts faster than my eyes can track, and can intercept my attacks before I finish committing to them.
His strength, speed, reflexes, and awareness all massively outweigh mine. Deacon's brows furrowed as he stared at the masked man. I need more information. I need to learn his patterns, what could cause a lapse in his reactions, favored hand dominance, footwork... In order to beat him, I need to learn his flaws and use them to my advantage.
His stance shifted lower, shoulders turning as both hands gripped the Echoform Reliquary. He shifted it into its dual short-sword form, granting him far more flexibility, and then surged forward with a burst of speed, a short sword now in each hand.
Deacon pressed forward with both short swords, shoulders angled and weight settled low, each blade coming in quick, chained arcs that left almost no pause between one strike and the next, trying to find a flaw in the masked man's defense.
A smirk grew behind the masked man's mask as each time Deacon stepped in and a short sword came close enough to reach his clothes or skin, the longer blade would tilt or twist just slightly and parry Deacon's blade away.
Deacon shifted angles, high to low, inside to out, trying to slip past that defense by changing the tempo. One blade stabbed in toward the ribs while the other swept toward the head a heartbeat later. It should have forced a mistake.
But the longsword adjusted with the smallest movements of wrist and elbow, intercepting the first blade just off-line, redirecting it past the torso, then sliding up the length of Deacon's second sword to kill its momentum before it could bite.
Fuck, Deacon thought to himself with a chuckle as he began to transition his strikes to begin to incorporate thrusts, slashes, feints, and every other technique he knew while constantly adjusting his footwork to push the masked man a back step. I need to switch up my rhythm to get him second-guessing.
Even though he still hadn't landed a single clean hit, Deacon realized he was actually enjoying himself. The masked man's stance never opened up or overextended; his longsword always managed to deflect and parry Deacon's dual blades with ease.
So he changed rhythm, mid-motion, drawing Echoform Reliquary back into broadsword form at the exact moment his blade would connect again. The metal shifted mid-swing, widening the striking surface and altering the weapon's weight distribution enough to disrupt the masked man's defensive timing. The longsword was caught half a second late — and for the first time, Deacon's strike broke through centerline and deflected the masked man's guard aside.
Deacon's pupils glinted as a bloodthirsty grin overtook his face. This was the opening he was waiting for!
His body moved like a ravenous wolf latching onto the scent of wounded prey, blade rotating in his grip to thrust straight for the masked man's sternum with the momentum of his entire torso behind it.
But the strike never landed.
A steel pole, long, plain, unremarkable at first glance, appeared in the masked man's hands and intercepted the broadsword's tip with a single, perfectly angled block that halted his attack a second before his broadsword would have plunged into the man's sternum.
For the briefest instant, Deacon's eyes widened. The longsword the man had been holding was gone, replaced mid-motion by the bo staff without any visible sheathing or discarding, which meant the masked man was shifting weapons with no downtime and that there was no need for him to adjust his stance to deflect any of his attacks.
A shove from the bo staff's midpoint hit hard enough to send Deacon skidding back across the stone. His boots scraped, catching just enough friction to keep him upright – managing to remain upright, Deacon's teeth clenched.
He was far stronger than he thought.
And with that thought, Echoform Reliquary shifted in his hand without hesitation; the broadsword form collapsed inward, metal reconfiguring and compressing to its crowbar form, because it was the closest thing he had to a staff form that retained durability and leverage.
The masked man came in with a thrust; a straight snapping jab with the end of the bo staff aimed directly at Deacon's forehead, but Deacon rotated his wrist outward and caught the side of the incoming strike with the hooked end of the crowbar, the metal scraping sharply against the pole and diverting its motion just enough to allow it to pass alongside his head rather than through it.
His right arm dropped immediately afterward to drag the crowbar downward, hooking the staff and forcing its lower half toward the floor, and in the split second of reduced resistance, he stepped in close and drove a straight left into the masked man's knee, aiming for the joint to compromise stability.
The masked man let out a short, appreciative whistle, and then he shifted his weight with the same effortless smoothness as before and snapped his opposite leg upward in a clean roundhouse aimed directly at Deacon's jaw, a strike that would have broken his teeth and possibly his neck if it connected.
But Deacon's upper torso bent backward under the strike, spine bowing just enough that the man's shin sliced through empty air in front of his face, and when he came back up, there was no ounce of caution in his body – just pure excitement.
This was just like his uncle had told him back at the academy.
His lips pulled back into a sharp, feral grin that had nothing to do with arrogance and everything to do with sheer, burning exhilaration at finally having the skills he'd been honing all his life being pushed to their limits – showing him that there was still a horizon that he had yet to reach with them.
And instead of disengaging for range or caution, Deacon drove forward off the heel of his rear foot and snapped his upper body back into alignment in one brutal forward surge, smashing his forehead directly into the porcelain mask with the kind of reckless violence that proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that he would take damage if it meant closing distance and forcing the opponent to respond.
The impact cracked across the room in a dull, bone-deep thud, and the masked man skidded backward along the stone while Deacon stumbled two steps back from the recoil, his right shoulder jolting painfully as the strain from the earlier staff lock flared — and without ceremony he punched his arm outward, forcing the dislocated joint back into place with an audible pop that should have drawn a hiss of pain but only deepened the wild focus in his eyes.
The masked man simply scratched the side of his head with the end of the bo staff, as if trying to work out whether Deacon was insane or simply had nerves wound tighter than steel wire, before letting out a faint exhale that could have been either annoyance or approval, and then the bo staff vanished as suddenly as the sword had before it and was replaced with a single-edged heavy axe.
Ah fuck, Deacon remarked inwardly at the sight of an axe in the masked man's hands, because Echoform Reliquary did not have an axe form for him to swap to. He'd been meaning to add it along with a slew of other weapons, but he'd always managed to forget to do so.
Moving his gaze from the man, Deacon's eyes cut across the training chamber where he found the closest axe nearby, a two-handed battle axe that had been knocked from its rack just minutes ago.
However, that very axe would be difficult to acquire as it lay on the ground behind the masked man.
"System fucking damn it," he muttered under his breath, breath already shifting, legs already coiling beneath him, body committing to movement before the thought even finished forming, because hesitation here would mean the axe would reach him first and he doubted that his Enchanted Leather Bracers would be able to withstand such an attack and let him end up with only a severed arm or two.
Exploding in motion, Echoform Reliquary disappearing back into the Spatial Sling Bag in one smooth motion, as Flame Steps flared to life beneath his feet, the masked man responded to Deacon's charge instantly, swinging the axe in a wide horizontal arc straight at his head. The blade dragged a harsh vacuum behind it, the air splitting with a sound so sharp it sounded as though flesh was being torn from bone.
Leaping into the air while tucking in his chin and contracting his core, Deacon flipped forward over the path of the strike, passing so close that the incoming blade kissed the bottom strands of his hair and peeled them upward.
In that brief inverted moment as he flipped in the air, where his head was parallel to the masked man's head, he caught a reflection of himself in the porcelain mask at point-blank distance and just something about that mask felt off, but there was no time to process that thought as he already went over the masked man's head and was now descending.
He hit the ground in a low roll, body curving along the floor in a fluid redirection of the momentum, only for the masked man's follow-up slam to hit where he had just been, the heavy axe head burying itself into the stone and splitting the floor in a web of deep fractures.
Deacon pushed up from the roll and lunged, his right arm shooting out to seize the handle of the two-handed battle axe, but in doing so his back turned to the masked man for less than a second, and the moment his fingers brushed the weapon's grip he felt an eruption of killing intent so dense it was like the oxygen in the room had evaporated.
The hairs along his arms rose instantly; every combat instinct he possessed shouted at him to move. Reacting quickly, his entire body twisted sharply as he yanked the weapon free and brought it up in a guard, one hand braced near the head of the axe and the other gripping the end of the handle, attempting to create as much defense as he could within the little time frame that he had.
And just as his arms raised the axe in a defensive stance, the masked man was already there.
Deacon saw nothing but metal as the descending axe consumed his entire field of view, and for a moment, his pupils widened as the blade of the masked man's axe covered his entire vision.
The incoming strike hit the haft of the two-handed axe with a deep, brutal crack, splitting the weapon's handle cleanly in two as though it were nothing more than rotted wood. The impact didn't stop there — the descending blade sheared straight down the center of Deacon's Barbarian Chestpiece, splitting leather and steel plating apart like paper, exposing the bruised muscle of his torso beneath.
For a heartbeat, the masked man stood close enough that Deacon could hear his steady breathing.
Then the man's free hand shot forward and wrapped around Deacon's Serpent Pendant, and snapped it free from his neck with a single sharp jerk of his wrist.
He leapt backward before Deacon could react, feet sliding across the stone without leaving so much as a scuff mark.
As though his brain had suddenly begun fuzzing with static, Deacon's world tuned out as his left hand let go of its hold on the severed axe haft and reached for his sternum. His fingers spread across his now-bare sternum, confirming that the Serpent Pendant he'd received from his father was no longer being worn by him.
And that his eyes were not lying to him, and that it was now in the masked man's left hand.
"…Oi."
The word scraped out of Deacon's throat as he began to shakily push himself upright while still holding onto the head of the severed two-handed axe. He didn't notice his pupils narrowing into slits, didn't notice the heat beginning to roll off him, nor the nascent pressure of bloodlust exuding from his body — just the absence in his chest and the bastard holding it.
Flame Steps ignited, and Undying Flame roared to life in the same breath, heat flaring around him in an eruption that scorched the air and charred the stone beneath his boots, and Deacon launched forward with the severed upper half of the two-handed axe clutched in his hand like a butcher's blade, as a guttural roar erupted from his throat. "Give that fucking back!"