The suns of Aetheleon reached their zenith, casting a relentless, dual-colored glare over the High Palace's central courtyard. The heat was no longer just atmospheric; it was a physical weight, thick with the scent of ozone, iron-rich blood, and the raw, unrefined essence of two awakening gods.
The "Circle of Sovereignty"—a ten-foot ring etched into the diamond-dusted marble—had become the most important piece of ground in the Human Kingdom. Surrounding it, the atmosphere was a pressurized chamber of tension. Winston, the Dwarf King for Linston Town, stood at the edge of the circle, his hands resting on the hilt of his great-axe, his eyes narrowed as he looked between the two young men. Behind him, the "Company of Heroes"—James, Brokk,Zayn and the bruised Maksood—watched with a silence that was almost painful. They were no longer just watching a spar; they were witnessing a prophecy in the making.
Even the palace guards, men who had seen a thousand skirmishes, had abandoned their posts to line the balconies. Word had spread like wildfire: the Earth-man, the one they called the "Cold King," was not just a merchant of money, but a merchant of death. And he was facing Jai, the Golden Scourge, the undisputed prodigy of their generation.
High above, on the royal balcony, the two mothers watched. Mable, Jai's mother, leaned against the gilded railing, her knuckles white, a proud but anxious smile playing on her lips. Beside her, Rena stood with a terrifyingly calm poise. Her eyes, which had spent twenty years feigning weakness, were now sharp, reflecting the sunlight like polished obsidian.
"Are you both ready?" Winston's voice boomed, echoing off the palace walls.
Rayn and Jai did not move. They stood three feet apart, the space between them vibrating with a silent, electromagnetic hum. Jai's blue eyes, usually bright with mischief, had settled into a deep, oceanic calm—the "Peace of the Predator." Rayn's red eyes were the opposite: a swirling abyss of chaos and calculation.
Suddenly, a small smile curled on Jai's lips. Rayn mirrored it. It was a moment of mutual recognition, two apex predators acknowledging that they were the only ones in the room truly alive. Then, as if a thread had snapped, the smiles vanished.
"Ready... set... FIGHT!"
The crowd expected a roar. Instead, there was a vacuum of sound as both men launched themselves into the air simultaneously.
They met in the center of the circle with a bone-jarring impact. There was no magic yet, no elemental fire or void-darkness—only the raw physics of muscle against muscle. They locked arms in a classic grappling stance, their feet grinding into the marble tiles with such force that the stone began to spider-web.
Jai's strength was a divine gift, a constant pressure like an oncoming tide. He suddenly shifted his weight, disengaging his right hand and delivering a short-range, explosive punch directly into Rayn's defensive block.
The force was staggering. Rayn was knocked back three steps, his boots screaming across the marble. He looked down at his left forearm. A deep purple bruise was already forming, the skin pulsing with the heat of the impact. It was a testament to Jai's "Aetheleon Flow"—a style that focused on the internal acceleration of force.
"You have quite the fandom," Rayn remarked, his voice steady despite the thrumming pain in his arm. He looked up at the cheering soldiers and the screaming nobility who were chanting Jai's name.
Jai paused, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What is a 'fandom'?"
Rayn let out a short, dry laugh. "In my world, it's a group of people who worship an idol. But idols are made of clay, Jai. And clay breaks."
Rayn didn't wait for a reply. He launched himself forward, his body coiling like a spring. Jai moved to dodge, his instincts telling him to sidestep, but he had miscalculated Rayn's reach. Rayn had planted his left leg firmly, using it as a pivot point. While his body seemed to be moving one way, his right leg whipped around in a devastating high-arc kick.
Jai leaned back, the heel of Rayn's boot missing his nose by a fraction of an inch, but Rayn didn't stop. He used the momentum of the miss to drop his weight and drive his heel downward toward Jai's skull.
Jai managed to roll his shoulder into the path of the kick. The sound of the impact was like a mallet hitting a side of beef. Blood sprayed across the white tiles as the skin of Jai's shoulder tore open. The force was so immense that Jai's entire left side went numb, the humerus bone groaning under the pressure.
The crowd went silent. The cheers for the Golden Scourge died in their throats.
"See?" Rayn said, his red eyes glowing. "I like it when people love my enemy. Because silencing them is one of my favorite things to do."
The battle resumed with a renewed ferocity. They were no longer testing each other; they were trying to break each other.
Jai's blue eyes were cold as the arctic sea, embodying the "Oceanic Peace" of Dominatrix, while Rayn's red eyes burned with the "Chaos of Hell." They exchanged a series of rapid-fire strikes—Jai's fists moving in the rhythmic "Twelve-Point Strike" of the Aetheleon Elite, and Rayn countering with the jagged, hyper-efficient movements of Earth's forbidden martial arts.
They both landed a simultaneous cross-counter punch to each other's faces. The sound was a sickening thud. Both men were knocked back, their knees hitting the ground. For a second, it looked like they would both stay down. But pride is a stronger fuel than Qi. They forced themselves up, their breaths coming in ragged gasps.
"Hey, Rayn," Jai said, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the marble. He fell back into a defensive stance. "I have to ask... how did a 'businessman' from a world without essence learn to fight like a demon?"
Rayn wiped his mouth, his gaze never leaving Jai's throat. "I never told you I was just a man with money, Jai. On Earth, money makes you a target. If you can't defend what you own, you don't own it for long."
Rayn stepped forward, his movements fluid and predatory. "My mother on Earth—the woman who raised me—was a champion of the hidden rings. She forced me and my brother into the most brutal martial arts schools from the time we could walk. She didn't want 'sons'; she wanted 'survivors.' By the time I was twenty, I had won every underground competition in the Eastern Hemisphere. Once, in a warehouse in Shanghai, I took down thirty-five armed gangsters by myself. I didn't have magic then. I just had the science of where to hit a man so he doesn't get back up."
Jai's eyes widened. "If you told me that an hour ago, I'd have called you a liar. But after that kick... I believe you."
Jai shifted into an offensive stance, his muscles coiling. "Then why stay here? If you were a king of wealth and power there, why not go back? Why risk your life in this dying world?"
Rayn's expression softened for a fraction of a second as he glanced toward the balcony where Rena stood. "I'm here for her. My mother in this world was treated like a broken doll by your people. I'm going to take her back to my world. I'm going to show her a place where she can breathe without permission. But to do that... I have to conquer this place first."
The conversation ended as Jai launched a desperate, high-speed assault. He knew his left shoulder was failing, so he put everything into his right side. He targeted Rayn's legs, trying to sweep him out of the circle.
Rayn saw the move coming. He faked a retreat, drawing Jai further into his orbit. As Jai swung for a decisive leg-sweep, Rayn performed a "switch-kick." He sacrificed his balance, jumping into the air and driving his knee directly into Jai's injured right knee.
Jai collapsed, his leg buckling under the localized force. But as Rayn moved in for the finishing blow, Jai's "Lion's Will" flared. From a kneeling position, Jai launched a hidden "Shadow Strike"—a punch that Rayn didn't see until it was an inch from his nose.
The punch landed square. Rayn's vision blurred into a sea of white. He hit the ground hard, his head bouncing off the marble. The crowd erupted, a deafening roar of "JAI! JAI! JAI!"
But the cheers were premature.
Rayn's hand twitched. Then his arm. Using his "Cold King" willpower, he forced his nervous system to reboot. He stood up, his face a mask of blood and dirt, his eyes glowing with an abyssal violet light that made the air around him freeze.
Jai was also reaching his limit. He could barely stand, his breath coming in wheezing gasps. He looked at Rayn and saw the inevitable.
"One last move?" Jai whispered, a bloody grin on his face.
"One last move," Rayn agreed.
They both gathered the remaining fragments of their physical strength. Jai poured every ounce of his strength into his right fist. Rayn focused the entire weight of his body architecture into his own.
They charged.
They didn't dodge. They didn't parry. They both threw a full-force punch at the other's jaw.
The collision was not silent. When their fists met their targets, the combined kinetic energy reached a critical threshold. A massive air-shockwave erupted from the center of the circle, a visible ring of distorted air that shattered the nearby stone pillars and sent the front-row soldiers flying backward.
The force of the mutual impact sent both Rayn and Jai flying in opposite directions. They crossed the boundaries of the circle simultaneously, their bodies hitting the ground like fallen statues.
Silence descended over the High Palace.
Winston stepped forward, his face pale as he checked their pulses. For two minutes, neither man moved. The heartbeat of the kingdom seemed to stop. Finally, Winston stood up and raised both hands.
"Neither man remains in the circle!" Winston shouted. "Neither man is conscious! By the laws of the Friendly Fight Spar... I declare this fight a TIE!"
Mable turned away from the balcony, her face flushed with a mixture of shame and relief. Her son, the golden boy of Aetheleon, had been pushed to a draw by a "Normal" from Earth.
But Rena did not move. She watched as the healers rushed to pick up the two boys. A soft, melodic laugh escaped her lips—a sound that was both beautiful and terrifying. She looked at Rayn's unconscious form, a look of deep, ancient pride in her eyes.
"Four of the kingdom's greatest warriors... and he didn't lose once," Rena whispered to the wind. She reached out a hand, as if to touch the distant sun. "He has the cold mind of the Void and the heavy hands of the Rebellion."
Her eyes darkened, the facade of the "weak mother" finally crumbling away in the privacy of her own thoughts.
"He is just like his father," she murmured.