The stone beneath his boots burst apart as his flames detonated downward, propelling him forward with the sudden, violent acceleration of a ballista bolt. His entire body cut across the room in less than two seconds, the air warping visibly around him from the compressed heat and velocity.
The broken axe head came down toward the masked man's neck in a savage arc, swung with the kind of force that didn't care about consequences. Deacon was pouring so much mana and raw power into his arm that it didn't matter if the bones cracked or the muscles tore — he just needed the strike to hit and get back the memento of his father.
The masked man blocked, axe meeting axe with a metallic clang that rang through Deacon's bones. But instead of disengaging from the bind, Deacon threw both of his legs forward, Flame Steps detonating again from the soles of his boots in a geyser-like burst, the pressure and heat blasting directly into the masked man's torso at full force.
The masked man was launched backward, his heels grinding against the stone, dragging a deep, scored line through the floor even as he braced to minimize the distance lost.
Deacon did not let him.
As the masked man went sliding back, Deacon's body contorted midair; spine curving, hips rolling back, and then another mana platform flickered beneath his boots for less than a quarter-second, a foothold made entirely of will and violent intent. He kicked off it, flames bursting again from his boots, and his acceleration doubled in the span of a blink.
He was already on the masked man before momentum could settle.
His knee drove straight into the center of the porcelain mask with a shattering crack that thundered against the walls, followed by a violent burst of flame from the underside of his leg that forced all of that momentum into the masked man's skull. The shock sent the masked man's head snapping back, and his body jerked backwards – seemingly staggered for the first time since the fight began.
That was all Deacon needed.
He didn't stop — didn't give room for the masked man to reorient, didn't let his mind think, didn't let the masked man settle, because the second thought would kill the first opening he had ever gotten.
Flame Steps cut out abruptly as Deacon's arms wrapped around the masked man's neck, his weight shifting up and over the man's shoulders, rolling across the man's upper back. His forearm slid beneath the jawline and locked in tight as Deacon hooked his bicep around the masked man's throat and pulled his own wrist to his opposite shoulder, cinching the choke as tight as his body could make it. His legs clamped down along the masked man's torso, his core flexing to tighten the hold and prevent the masked man from ripping him out of his rear choke.
The masked man's hand immediately came up to pry at the lock, fingers digging against Deacon's forearm like steel hooks, and Deacon felt the raw power in the man's attempt to break free; this was far more strength than the amount he used to punch him across the room.
So, Deacon didn't give him any leverage.
He squeezed harder. Every muscle in his torso and back constricted in a brutal effort to strangle the man and take back his pendant from him, his teeth baring as he dragged the masked man backward with him in a half-tug to keep the man from dropping his weight and breaking the choke.
He could feel the man's pulse hammering against his forearm. Feel the muscles shifting, trying to change footing and slip free. Feel the heat building in his gloves from the strain of the masked man's grip. And over all of it, he could hear his own blood pounding loud in his own heart and moving throughout his body.
The masked man shifted his weight back, following Deacon's lead; though not to fall, but to use the full mass of his body as a weapon – he drove them both into the wall. The impact hit hard, stone cracking as Deacon's spine took the brunt of it.
Deacon's vision flared white, his skull ringing from the shock, but he did not loosen his hold; his forearm only tightened further on the mask man's throat, jaw clenched, flames still flickering off his boots in instinctive bursts.
The masked man tore himself out of the imprint of his body he'd carved out of the rock and slammed his back against it again.
And again.
And again.
Deacon's back and the back of his skull collided with the wall repeatedly, each strike carving larger fractures across the stone, dust and chips of rock shaking loose and falling around them like grit in a windstorm.
His breath stuttered from the impacts, rattling in his ribs as the wall dented and cratered with every slam. He could feel warm blood creeping down the back of his head, down his neck, and seeping down the back of his torn armor.
Despite this, Deacon did not let go.
His fingers only dug deeper, his bicep tightening until his muscles trembled from the strain.
The twelfth slam made his vision blur.
The thirteenth made his ears ring so hard it felt like the world had gone underwater.
The fourteenth came with noticeably more strength behind it, as if the masked man had finally decided to stop humoring Deacon's attempt at choking him and pushed his strength even further beyond the limits he'd set for himself.
By the fourteenth slam, the walls were spiderwebbed with cracks, and Deacon's grip finally started to slip. His body just couldn't keep taking the hits from what was obviously a Tier 2 being with physical stats far higher than his own, not with his skull being smashed against stone over and over, not with the amount of blood that he was losing and running down the side of his face.
And that little slip in Deacon's grip was all the masked man needed.
His right hand snapped down to break the lock under Deacon's elbow, while the other snaked under his forearm to wrench his grip open. Before Deacon could realize his mistake and re-clamp his grip, he was already airborne as the masked man flung him off his back and across the hall.
Deacon skidded across the floor, his body bouncing once before he slammed into the weapon rack to the right of the Sovereign Blades' trial doors. As he crashed into the weapon rack and hit the ground, a chorus of clattering steel echoed throughout the trial room as daggers and straight swords that had been launched into the air, ringing out as they struck the floor.
By the time Deacon's mind began to come to, he could already feel new bruises blooming beneath his skin, and feel his blood drip from the back of his head and pool around his face, which lay on the ground.
… Get up…
Silence settled in the trial room once the last of the metal stilled — an oppressive, heavy quiet, broken only by Deacon's own ragged breathing.
His hands pressed to the floor, fingers scrabbling for purchase that wasn't really there, muscles firing in uncoordinated spasms as he tried to force his body to obey. His lungs dragged air in uneven fits, each breath burning like it was being pulled through torn flesh.
… you…
He dragged his gaze up.
The masked man stood exactly where he had before, with a smear of soot darkening his previously all white mask and burnt orange tracksuit's shoulders. However, beyond the superficial damage, Deacon could see a dark purple bruise going around the masked man's neck that now looked like a squeezed juice box.
And somehow, without even reacting to his obviously broken neck, the masked man simply tucked the Serpent Pendant into the pocket of his training pants.
… stupid bastard, Deacon finished as a low, raw sound crawled out of his throat before he even knew he was making it, sitting somewhere between a growl and a snarl.
His fingers moved on instinct, closing around whatever weapon had fallen nearest to him; a dirk found his left hand, a baselard his right.
He shakily pushed himself up to his feet and got into an offensive stance, sinking and hanging his upper body low, despite every muscle in his body screaming from strain, yet holding all the same.
His breathing was harsh, ragged, dragged in through clenched teeth, but his eyes had narrowed to a red-orange slit as he stared at the masked man.
The masked man didn't move from where he tossed Deacon, simply watching as Deacon gathered the energy to push himself off the ground and continue to bare his fangs at him.
Seeing the defiance in Deacon's eyes, the bo staff vanished from his right hand, and in its place were twin daggers.
The masked man shifted smoothly into a mirrored stance, daggers reversed, elbows in tight. Deacon closed the distance first, stepping in low and leading with the baselard.
The masked man caught the angle immediately, blades meeting at the midpoint; the metal didn't clash so much as grind, both of them pressing for leverage over the other's wrists. Deacon rolled his shoulder to redirect the bind, bringing the dirk upward in a quick inside line toward the masked man's throat.
The masked man dipped his chin and slid to the left, his offhand dagger sweeping in toward Deacon's ribs. Deacon blocked with the spine of the baselard, the blades scraping as he shoved the masked man's arm outward and drove forward, trying to collapse the distance entirely.
Their forearms locked, the two of them close enough to feel the shift of breath and weight. The masked man's knee came up, aiming to break Deacon's stance; Deacon turned his hip just enough to blunt the strike and answered by pushing his full bodyweight forward, forcing the masked man to step back while he pushed forward.
The masked man adjusted seamlessly, stepping into the backward movement to keep balance, daggers flicking in tight, angled cuts. Deacon met each one not with wide parries but with clipped, precise turns of his wrists to counter, his weapons never leaving the inside of the masked man's guard. Their attacks, despite their increasing speed, the distance between their blades compressed to inches with every attack being countered and parried the same second they were just about to land – except for one minor crack, one that Deacon bit down on.
Ignis Sanguinis: BloodFlame Armament, Deacon cast wordlessly as flames ignited across the blades in his hands.
Where their blades met, the masked man's grip faltered from the sudden loss of friction and the shock of heat traveling along the steel, and the tip of the dirk in Deacon's hands shattered the heated metal of the right twin dagger in the masked man's hands.
Deacon wrenched his baselard outward, catching the masked man's right wrist just long enough to pull it open. The masked man tried to close the distance again and reset, but Deacon was already under his guard.
His elbow pressed forward to lock the masked man's shoulder for a fraction of a second.
The baselard cut clean through the masked man's right arm just below the elbow – the heat from BloodFlame sparsely cauterized the wound, nigh instantly.
The arm hit the floor.
The masked man attempted to adjust, backstepping to regain stance with only one blade now, but Deacon didn't give him space.
His weight shifted low, left foot driving forward, and he cut upward at the hip, BloodFlame tracking the arc. The masked man tried to pivot out and get Deacon out of his guard, but once Deacon had a hold on an opening, he didn't release — not then, not ever. At the academy, they'd called him a mad dog for that exact reason: once his teeth were in, he only bit down harder.
The blade sheared through.
The masked man's right leg separated at the hip, body folding as gravity claimed it. The remaining dagger dropped a heartbeat later, clattering across the stone.
The masked man's body hit the floor in two separate thuds, blood already crawling across the stone in a slow, widening pool. The room held nothing but Deacon's ragged breathing, scraping its way out of his chest as he knelt beside the severed leg and dug into the pocket with shaking, blood-slick fingers, dropping the dirk in his left hand in order to do so.
Pulling his hand out of the severed leg's pocket, Deacon's fingers clenched tighter around the Serpent Pendant, the metal digging into his palm hard enough to draw more blood, though he could barely feel it through the trembling in his arms.
For a heavy period, Deacon stared at the Serpent Pendant.
Then a mechanical click echoed from somewhere overhead.
Deacon tensed, but there was no time to track its source before the ceiling erupted; paper, glitter, colored strips of fabric blasting outward in a dense torrent. Confetti flooded the air, drifting and swirling over the blood-slick floor with an almost mocking delicacy.
Deacon stared up at it with a flat, exhausted expression, his mind too battered to process what he was seeing.
"…what the fu—"
A pair of enormous hands seized his shoulders and hauled him into the air as though he weighed nothing, and with a voice that shook the room, shouted, "THAT'S MY GODSON!"
Deacon blinked, dazed, blood still dripping into his eye, and stared into the face of—
"Uncle… Bjorn?"