The flow she tried to copy stopped, her vision blurry, and it seemed as if the world itself was shaking violently to all sides at once. Her whole body felt numb, but she was able to lift her hand, feeling as if thousands of ants were walking inside it. She slowly came to her senses, realizing her current situation.
“Damn it! I took my time finding a new gate for nothing! If only I were able to open it… I could get power that would help me fight Godan. Even the odds or give me an advantage… I couldn’t figure it out! Everything I tried didn’t work!” Navia blamed herself inside her own thoughts, remembering the gate with many hands. She tried repeating the gestures, finding a code through them, even grabbing the stone hands, but it did nothing.
Godan moved his body with his every breath, blood running through his veins faster than any human’s body could withstand. Each one of the veins visible through his skin. His body pushed past its normal limits.
“How can I win against such a monster…” Navia let her desperation be audible to everyone present in the arena. “But I just had to prove myself… The voice didn’t mention anything about winning… I just have to stand my ground against him.” Navia tried to find a light in her poor situation, reading between the lines of the woman she spoke with last night.
As she stood up, the bits of blood that were on her body turned into a knife and a dagger. The remaining drops of blood only hardened around her forearms, not enough to turn them into full armor.
Before she could even fully think of moving forward to attack, Godan saw the signs of her being ready to fight in her eyes. Without giving her any time, he dashed forward with his longsword in full swing from the first step. Navia could only lower her head in time to avoid the attack. The metal bars she hit while flying were cut clean.
Using the force of her sudden movement, Navia rolled away from the spot where she had previously stood. Before she could even attempt to stand back up, Godan swung his blade at her once again. While attempting to block the blade, she tried to jump away. The knife she held in her left hand broke into pieces. She quickly shook off her surprise and took action, turning the shards of the broken blood knife into needles. As Godan took a step forward, all the needles went through his foot. It took all of her focus to barely make a step away from another swing of the longsword and turn the shape of the needles in a way that they would stay stuck inside his foot. Godan barely acknowledged the wounded foot as he pressed forward.
With another attack that Navia had to block, her dagger was next to shatter into pieces. Not sparing another second, Navia turned the shards into larger needles and, with an open hand, she hit them. They bounced off her hand toward Godan, he could only block a few of them with the side of his sword, blocking any potential lethal wounds, while four of them were able to pierce his skin around his chest.
“Not deep enough… But he is blinded. He no longer focuses on strategy. He just runs toward me. I’ll wear him out with little attacks and give myself an upper hand. I might win…” Navia kept her distance, trying to take two steps back against Godan, one step forward.
Reaching the iron railings, Navia jumped on them and repelled herself forward at Godan. He was in the middle of taking a step forward, but even that didn’t stop him from changing his posture for a way to attack. Before he could fully raise his longsword, he was only able to scratch Navia’s leg, drawing a bit of blood. She was able to tap his shoulder where the bits of her hardened blood lingered on his skin. Taking them back, they slowly changed shape into two daggers. The blood armor turned into a liquid and moved up her body toward the two daggers, making them longer and adding handguards.
Now with two short swords, she dashed forward, both blades right behind her. Godan was swinging his sword, which Navia could easily predict even before she began running toward him. She raised one of the short swords to block the attack, pushing against it until the sword broke. The broken bits of the blade turned into needles. Godan instinctively raised his longsword back up to block many needles that would fly at him. Except they didn’t move toward him, all of them fell to the ground.
Before he could even move a muscle, Navia was already at his side, the other blade moving against his skin, piercing it and drawing a fine black line into his flesh. Navia kneeled down with the bleeding leg extended to the side, with a spin, she turned around, and from her wound, many black balls flew toward Godan. They didn’t do any damage to him, but it wasn’t the goal. Some of them bounced off the man, and some hit the needles behind him, sending them up in the air, stabbing Godan in the back. More than twenty needles were inside his body, his own blood slowly painting the sand black.
“Don’t lose the pace… Don’t lose the focus…” Navia repeated, trying not to focus on the pain on her back. Still feeling the same pain when she hit the iron bars.
Godan didn’t even acknowledge the wounds he got from Navia. Completely ignoring them, he moved forward, not losing the speed that surprised Navia. Even with so many small wounds and needles inside his body, he moved as if there was nothing wrong with him.
“He doesn’t get any weaker… And can he even bleed out?” Navia’s chain of thought was broken as she saw the blade right in front of her eye. The long sword scraped her knee, piercing the skin and scratching the bone beneath it. Navia let out an uncomfortable groan as it wasn’t as painful as she thought, but it was a different kind of pain, like an unwanted itch.
Navia landed on her hand and made a back flip before landing on her two feet. As expected, Godan dashed forward, and that was proof of Navia’s plan not working as she intended. “I need to finish him with a strong attack… But I don’t have a weapon strong enough… Wait. If he can’t bleed out… Does that mean…”
What Navia did made Godan stop, and the whole crowd let out a surprised gasp as they couldn’t believe their eyes. “Did she… Killed herself?” That was what the whole crowd thought. From her sliced throat, a lot of blood was pouring down to the ground. More blood was added to the pool from her coughs. Even with a wound like that, she had a determined look. Once the pool was big enough, she hardened the blood around her throat, sealing the wound.
Stepping on the pool of dark blood, the liquid began moving up Navia’s body, wrapping all around her, but it didn’t harden. She turned around and ran toward the edge of the arena. Using the cut rail that was leaning toward the inside of the arena, she jumped up toward the stone wall and used it to bounce off toward Godan. The blood moved up to her arms and slowly extended forward, forming the shape of a giant axe made of liquid.
“Harden! HARDEN!” Navia chanted in her mind as the form slowly hardened from her hand toward the tip of the axe.
Godan woke up from his flow as he watched Navia in the sky with awe, admiring her soul of a warrior. “Bring it on!” He shouted as he placed the longsword behind his back, ready for a wide swing that would meet Navia’s giant axe. Both of them shouted as their weapons were about to collide, bracing themselves for the impact.
The sound of splashing blood bounced off the walls in the pit, the tension in the arena was at the top, but it was quickly broken by a shout, “That’s all?!” from Godan, a loud voice of disappointment. His whole body was covered in black blood, yet there was no scratch on him except the needles.
Navia kneeled in front of him with a black stick in hand that barely reached Godan’s feet. “I couldn’t harden it any further… That’s the current limit…” Navia anxiously observed the tip of the stick that was supposed to turn into a weapon that would kill or at least damage Godan.
“You took your damn time to appear in the pit and you didn’t refine your gate?! Or unlock a new one?! Did you sleep the whole night? What a disappointment!” Shouted Godan, kicking the ground as if he were an angered child.
“I am not done yet…” Whispered Navia, standing back up and turning the stick into a dagger, she was ready to continue the fight and prove herself.
“But I am.” Stated Godan as he turned around, slowly walking toward the exit from the arena. Hearing the footsteps, he took a half step to the side and blocked Navia’s dagger. “Didn’t you hear?!” Shouted, annoyed Godan, his admiration for Navia disappearing in seconds as if she didn’t matter. Becoming less important than the sand he was standing on.
“I am still standing-” Navia tried to argue back, but she suddenly fell to her knees, both of her ankles and the muscles around them cut, next were her wrists, and shoulders. With a couple of swift moves, Godan made Navia immobile by cutting her muscles.
“You’re worthless.” Godan grunted as he left Navia in the arena. The crowd was left confused as they didn’t completely understand their conversation, and seeing Godan like that for the first time. Every time he was disappointed, he would behead his opponent.
“I am not worthless. I have definitely proven myself. The Voice will help me. He has raw strength while I have a lot of potential to grow…” Thought Navia as the exhaustion slowly took her over. Her mind was getting tired, and her body was forcing itself to sleep and rest. Her body went completely numb, and she fell to the ground.