The messenger seated himself next to the grand throne of the highest Lord.
This time he didn't stand up to make the announcement; instead, he slipped another scroll from under his sleeve and spoke right from his seat.
"Now introducing the first opponent the slave will be facing: the Thorn Prince of Asphalt, Sir Larry!"
The challenger's gate opened from the opposite side of the dungeon.
The Thorn Prince entered the arena with gracious, measured steps. He genuinely looked like a thorn—a rather thin man with razor-sharp features, wearing an impeccably crafted, handsome suit of armor like any high knight worth his salt.
Unlike the other knights of this era, his hair was cropped remarkably short.
His hand rested lightly on the hilt of the sword laced securely to his armor. With a few more strides, he stood face-to-face with Araegon.
It was quite a sight: on one side stood gleaming, pristine armor with silver-laced blades, and on the other stood Araegon, flashing a calm smile right back at the prince.
"You look like you could sway all the ladies of Ozymandia in one go, Prince," Araegon remarked casually.
Why on earth was this guy trying to strike up a friendly chat with someone who was actively here to kill him?
"You would do well to speak less, slave," the prince replied coldly. "The less you talk, the quicker your death will be."
"Oh, don't be like that! A man ought to at least be happy before his final moments."
As if to answer the slave's nonchalance, the Thorn Prince took a sharp step forward—only to immediately catch his boot on one of the stray chains littering the ground.
He quickly rebalanced himself without falling flat on his face.
"Who left these wretched chains here?" the prince snapped.
Araegon smiled down at the metal links. "This is a slave's dungeon, little prince. Where else would you expect to find chains?"
"Both fighters, return to your positions! The match is about to begin!"
Araegon retreated a few paces back toward his side of the arena, and the Thorn Prince did the same in the opposite direction.
The crowd was visibly confused by the setup.
"What is the slave even going to fight with?"
"Is he going in with his bare hands?"
I was just as puzzled. Was he a brawler who relied strictly on bare hands? I had never seen anyone try to take on a sword with empty fists before.
The blare of the trumpet snapped me back to reality.
"Begin the battle!"
The blade cleared the scabbard like a lightning bolt. The prince's opening swing struck the earth directly, carving a clean, sweeping arc into the stone and dirt.
Why would he do that?
Within seconds, several thousand blooming flowers erupted across the entire arena floor, tracing the exact shape of the arc.
"That's his Zenkaichi ability—The Flower Bed!"
Araegon, meanwhile, hadn't moved an inch. He simply knelt down on the newly sprouted, flower-choked arena floor, plucked a single blossom, and casually brought it to his nose to smell it.
The prince leaped forward with blistering speed, sword raised high to end it all in a single, devastating swing.
Araegon jumped back in response, effortlessly dodging the arc of the blade.
Instantly, the flora sprang to life. Thorny vines and aggressive roses slithered up Araegon's body like serpents, trying to trap him in place.
Targeting his lower half with calculated precision, the prince drove his silver thorn-blade toward Araegon's feet, cementing him firmly to the ground with a thick web of creeping roots.
Unfortunately for Sir Larry, Araegon responded with sheer, raw strength. He tore through the vines and roots with a violent wrench, and the next thing we knew, the prince's cold steel blade was colliding violently with Araegon's massive, muscular leg.
The air filled with a blizzard of scattered petals kicked up by the sheer wind pressure of their brawl.
It looked like we were witnessing spring and autumn colliding at the exact same moment.
Every time Araegon broke free from the floral bindings, even more flowers—bigger, more vibrant, and more numerous—crept up his frame.
His feet were constantly occupied fighting off the roots, while his hands scrambled to deflect a relentless barrage of sword swings.
He wasn't blocking the blade directly—doing so would have sliced his hands to ribbons—but was instead expertly redirecting the momentum of the strikes away from his vitals.
By this point, the crowd knew exactly how this was tracking: either Araegon would eventually exhaust himself and let the vines swallow him whole, or one of Sir Larry's strikes would finally find its mark.
It only takes one mistake to turn a winning battle into a fatal disaster. Sir Larry danced around the field with lightning footwork, circling and slashing at Araegon in relentless loops.
History loves to repeat itself. Distracted by the exact same layout, the prince misstepped, caught his boot on the floor chains once again, and slipped.
Araegon broke out of the remaining vines like an enraged bull, driving his fist straight into Sir Larry's chest with explosive force.
The impact sent the prince flying backward.
The heavy iron gates shattered into pieces where the prince finally crash-landed after the blow.
His enchanted armor had saved him from catastrophic damage; looking at the massive, caved-in dent on the chest plate, it was obvious he would have been dead instantly without it.
Sensing blood in the water, Araegon charged forward to press his advantage.
True to his brawler nature, his hand came crashing down in a heavy, hammer-like strike.
Instead of hitting flesh, his fist met a soft cushion of flowers that surged up from the ground to shield the fallen prince.
With a second powerful blow, Araegon shattered the floral cushion entirely.
Like a compressed spring snapping back once the pressure is lifted, the prince's blade suddenly thrust outward from deep inside the broken flower bed—striking from a complete blind spot.
It was too late for Araegon to leap backward, so he simply twisted his torso at the last possible microsecond to minimize the damage, leaving him with only a shallow, bleeding scratch.
Before the prince could withdraw his blade from the strike, the black-haired man wrapped his bare, bleeding hand tightly around the sharp edge of the sword.
The prince tried to overpower him with brute force, pulling and tugging, but there was simply no outmuscling this absolute freak of nature.
Araegon was bleeding heavily from his palm, yet he refused to let go of the blade.
I knew he was strong, but then he suddenly hoisted the entire Thorn Prince into the air by the sword itself and slammed him facedown into the stone floor.
The prince's armor fractured further under the brutal impact.
Araegon finally released the weapon.
Using his sword like a crutch, the bruised prince tried to stagger back to his feet to face the opponent who had just tossed his body around like a ragdoll.
Araegon didn't give him another second. He lunged forward and drove his fist squarely into the prince's face, knocking the helmet clean off his head.
"Prince... should I kill you, or will you do it yourself?"
The Thorn Prince knelt defenseless, his helmet lost, his sword cast aside, and his chest bleeding beneath cracked, ruined armor.
"I'll finish it myself, Slave."
A split second later, a thick, gnarled vine shot up from the soil, wrapping itself tightly around the prince's neck.
The vine constricted instantly, choking off Sir Larry's air. His face flushed bright red, shifting rapidly to a deep purple, and within mere seconds, the first duel was over.
The Thorn Prince had been defeated.