Araegon had been cycling through the exact same strategy for the past fifteen minutes—if you could even call it a strategy.
The crowd was thoroughly bored with the match. I was bored of it, too; I wanted Araegon to win, but who wants to watch a guy leap into the air and drop onto his opponent four times in a row?
The only thing the move had actually
accomplished was shifting Namor's position from the relative safety of the dungeon corner out toward the open center of the arena.
Every time Namor blocked or dodged the airborne assault, the sheer impact forced him to take a step backward.
This was the fifth time he pulled the stunt, and the audience's reactions said it all.
"Is he really doing that move again?"
"Why is he just wasting time? If you don't have anything better, just give up already!"
Even the highest Lord had drifted back to sleep—and honestly, I couldn't even blame him. It was genuinely tedious to watch.
Araegon launched himself into the air for the fifth time.
And then, right on cue, Lord Namor somehow... slipped? Wait a second. As I glued my eyes to him, I realized Namor had somehow completely lost his footing on the dirt.
Araegon, still suspended in midair, suddenly had the golden opportunity to end the match right then and there.
How had Namor lost his footing at such a catastrophic, crucial moment?
Araegon drove his heel downward through the air, aiming straight for Namor's body with the intent to crush him into the earth.
Everything happened in a blistering split second. Araegon's kick landed with devastating force, but not on Namor's flesh.
The surface he struck felt unnaturally cold, tough, and metallic.
Those seven separate chakras had frantically converged in a heartbeat, fusing back into a single, massive circular barrier to absorb and dissipate the kinetic energy of the fall.
Acting as an instantaneous cushion, the combined artifact completely negated the momentum of the kick, preventing any real damage from reaching Namor.
Recovering his balance instantly, Lord Namor scrambled backward, putting safe distance between himself and Araegon while the slave was trapped in the vulnerable post-landing lag.
But how did he slip? That was the question burning in my mind. One second he was standing like a jagged boulder deeply rooted in the stone, and the very next he was shifting like a wet leaf, losing his footing on dry mud at the absolute worst possible microsecond.
That single blunder could easily have cost him his life.
He was smart, though. Using the split-second re-fusion of his chakras as an emergency shield was a brilliant last-minute resort; otherwise, he would have been flatlined.