Round... who even knows anymore.
It wasn’t the first time they’d clashed — not since the second lesson on combat — but this was different. More refined. More real. No warm-ups. No holding back.
The air buzzed with tension, thick with the echoes of fist meeting blade.
Dirga blocked Sasa’s slash with the gauntlet strapped to his arm, the impact sending a shiver down his bones. Sparks flew. His knuckles ached from the vibration.
He launched a counterstrike — a heavy punch aimed at Sasa’s ribs.
Sasa twisted like smoke, letting the fist graze his jacket, and retaliated with a slash aimed for Dirga’s exposed shoulder.
Steel kissed air. Just missed.
Four hours of sweat, strain, and relentless motion.
Dirga’s breath came heavy. His chest heaved. Sweat ran down his temples, dripping from his chin to the cracked floor of the training ground.
Dirga’s head snapped to the side. Just before the damn thing could touch skin, he struck it midair with a quick telekinetic burst. It popped like a spark.
He muttered under his breath, "Thirty minutes since the last...?"
But it was pointless.
He’d logged every appearance — 32 minutes, 1 hour 12, 48 minutes, then again at 1 hour 28.
They came when they wanted. And they hurt.
He gave up trying to time it. Better to just sense it.
Dirga threw another punch. Sasa parried effortlessly, spinning and landing a kick against Dirga’s side. It wasn’t hard — not meant to break ribs — but it was enough to shove him off balance.
Dirga stumbled, caught himself.
His movements slowed.
Not from fatigue — not completely — but from doubt.
His arm felt heavy. Not because of exhaustion, but because of the gauntlet.
He clenched his fists and jumped back.
"I don’t think this is for me," Dirga said, voice low, wiping sweat from his brow.
Sasa cocked a brow mid-swing, pausing with his blade just inches from Dirga’s neck. "Oh?"
Dirga looked at the gauntlet on his arm. It shimmered faintly under the light of Sasa’s realm, still vibrating from the last clash.
"I don’t feel the flow. I mean, it works — it defends. It amplifies. But it restricts too. My movements, my instincts. I’m not a brawler, not really."
He looked up, meeting Sasa’s gaze.
"My real strength... it’s in the air. The space between. Like when I fought Lucian. My telekinesis, it became part of me. Passive. Natural."
Sasa didn’t reply at first. He lowered his blade, the grin on his lips turning thoughtful.
"You want to fight with the invisible," Sasa said finally. "You don’t want a weapon in your hand. You want the whole battlefield to be your weapon."
The gauntlet slid from his arm with a solid clatter, hitting the floor like a verdict passed.
Too heavy. Too loud. Too... not him.
Sasa tilted his head, watching it roll to a stop before nodding with a grin.
"Then let’s find you something else," he said, spinning lazily in the air like a floating jester. "The weapons in this armory? Infinite, maybe. Honestly, even I lost count centuries ago. Might be a few cursed ones lying around too — so don’t pick anything that screams at you."
He gave Dirga a wink.
"Take a walk. See if anything calls you. Your weapon is here. It’s just waiting for you to hear it."
Dirga exhaled and stepped forward.
A circular vault door materialized, forming not in front of him but around him — like reality decided to swallow him whole
A space between spaces —
A cathedral of weapons.
The moment Dirga stepped in, it overwhelmed him.
Towering halls stretched in every direction, grand and decaying. Vaulted ceilings arched like cathedral bones, illuminated by a shifting, colorless light that didn’t seem to come from anywhere — or obey physics at all. Walls rose endlessly, lined with blades and spears, bows and chains, tomes bound in skin and staffs humming with forgotten spells.
Some weapons floated in midair, suspended by nothing. Others burned quietly, their flames a sickly green or a hungry crimson. A few whispered. Begged. Laughed.
It was like walking into a vault where gods dumped their leftovers.
A graveyard of glory.
A hoarder’s haven of annihilation.
Dirga glanced around.
It felt like a castle — though none of the architecture made sense. A door halfway up the ceiling. A staircase that twisted into fog.
"Is this part of the arena?" he muttered. "Or a dimension of its own?"
Some weapons were carefully encased in glass displays like museum relics — labeled in languages he couldn’t read. Others were simply dumped on the floor, half-buried in dust or bloodstained cloth. The smell of rust, ozone, and something ancient clung to the air.
Some blades screamed.
Pick me. Kill for me. I thirst. I want to kill.
Their voices weren’t loud — they were felt, like itching beneath the skin.
If a regular human walked in here, they’d go mad. Or worse.
Because many of these weapons were alive.
This wasn’t just an armory.
This was a dumping ground for cursed history — and Sasa, the damn devil, treated it like a glorified storage closet.
Dirga walked past what looked like a dining hall.
Except the table was split in half by a greatsword the size of a car.
Chairs were skewered with daggers.
A chandelier of hanging crossbows creaked overhead.
The only space untouched was a single narrow path — as if the realm had agreed, fine, at least let them walk.
Some weapons tried to tempt him.
A silver katana pulsed in its sheath, whispering riddles in broken tongues.
A whip made of linked bone snapped on its own, reacting to his movement.
A strange sword with a chain-wrapped hilt caught his eye — when he touched it, the chain unraveled, splitting the blade into several segments, each hovering like a floating fang.
That would work well with his telekinesis.
It still wasn’t right.
Too linear. Too expected. Too bound.
Dirga needed something freer. Something more abstract.
A weapon that didn’t care what shape it was supposed to be.
Something that could shift, reform, and adapt with the raw violence of his will.
A weapon not forged in a furnace.
But one forged in concept.
He moved deeper into the armory.
His steps slower. His mind sharper.
Letting his gravity stretch outward like invisible fingers — letting his telekinesis reach, listen, test the air.