"Are you entirely certain that your blade possesses the capability to end my life...?" he asked again, without yielding a single inch of ground.
Not a single soul within the cavernous room offered an answer, as the surrounding mercenaries struggled to determine whether the unranked youth lost his sanity.
An unrecognized novice issued an explicit, lethal challenge to one of the most terrifying continental champions in the kingdom, in broad daylight and with dozens of witnesses.
Under ordinary circumstances, experienced mercenaries would have mocked the comical disparity between an unranked newcomer and Senior Adjudicator Yenna.
Yet not a single warrior managed a chuckle, because the suffocating soul pressure radiating from his core flattened the surrounding atmosphere like a physical weight.
His missing identification medallion increasingly resembled an administrative oversight that the regional board would eventually have to apologize for in writing.
