Metra rammed Rex Magnar into the ground. The small spike at the bottom end of the shaft sunk into distorted stone tile like a toothpick into cheese. Upright, the weapon remained, while its owner rolled her neck, shoulders, and rexed her fingers. All the while, Arkeidos was beholding the space around them.

  Although it had been a while since Metra had st seen this environment for herself, it was the same old mess that she expected. The environment was beholden to constant, inexplicable transformation. Stone boiled without apparent reason or heat; cliffs curved in often nonsensical ways; the dunes of the artificial desert bloated and then popped like balloons the size of houses, creating cascades of sand in the process. Among all of this chaos, a few spots of normalcy drifted around. Among the otherwise distorted world, those pockets of order were the oddity.

  Metra’s rage simmered down to a constant, reliable anger. The kind that put a swing in her step, when she moved towards Arkeidos with aggressive intent. Armed with nothing but her bare fists, she approached the earth simucrum of the tyrant. As the distance between them diminished, so did their size difference. Whether she grew rger or he smaller was impossible to tell, all points of reference were in constant flux.

  Dropping into a battle stance, the cwed, possessed armour swung at her the moment she got in range. Ready for the blow, the First of Wrath raised her arm. One of her feet was pushed back, letting her take the impact of the attack properly, stopping it shortly after where the two limbs cshed.

  Metra immediately retaliated with a punch to the shoulder of the other arm. The attack was enough to turn the Emperor’s body and visibly disturb the wholeness of the limb. Grounded by his wide feet, he immediately swung back. Metra anticipated the attack, and threw both of her arms up in a guard. After warding off the attack, she delivered a straight kick to the tyrant’s chest.

  It barely pushed him back at all, yet caused another visible shockwave throughout the magical bindings of the segmented armour. “Yet another peculiar ability,” the Emperor remarked and threw an attack at her. It was telegraphed quite well, so Metra had no issue side-stepping it. When she went in for another jab, Arkeidos aptly blocked it with his forearm. “We are equally matched.”

  “Kudos to you for figuring it out that fucking fast.” Metra’s tail wagged with berserking glee, her wolvish maw closed and resembling something like a grin. “This is the Entropy Arena. As long as it’s just me and one opponent in here, our powers, defences, and speed are all the same.” Raising her leg, she kicked through a gap in his defences. “No magic, no bullshit power ups, just you, me, and whoever is better at RAW FUCKING VIOLENCE!”

  The shout was accompanied by the first in a flurry of blows. Metra’s fists hammered into Arkeidos, while she remained on a constant move around his bulky form. All of a sudden, she was the favourite in this fight. His cws had more range than her arms, but that was the only advantage the Emperor had. His broad body was not built for close combat and, more importantly, he moved like a middle-ranking martial artist.

  ‘That’s what a thousand years without equals does to you,’ Metra thought, amusedly. Who could the tyrant have trained with that ever posed a challenge? To allow him to go further or even retain what he had learned on his path to power? Like all Babel Phrases, so too was the Entropy Arena limited in its time. Metra was not worried about it.

  Arkeidos switched to a defensive strategy, observing Metra closely. She went for a straight right and he blocked it like a boxer would, his bulky forearms serving as his shield. Realizing that he was trying to adapt her fighting style to stall this engagement, the First of Wrath cackled. She had learned every fighting style in every country she had served in for four millennia. It was impossible to pick up her manoeuvres this quickly.

  Repeated strikes hit his exposed arms. Best for defence as they may have been, there was still visible disruption to the limbs each time she struck. Left, right, left, left, right, then she ducked off to the side as he went for a jab. She came back up, both hands raised, and pried open his guard. Her head smmed into his, just below the base of his horn.

  Arkeidos tilted backwards, but his weight and the broadness of his feet kept him standing. He brought his hands down and managed to grab her by the shoulder. Swiftly, he pulled her down into his raising knee.

  Even through the Astrotium, the impact was hard. It knocked the proverbial air out of the living weapon’s lungs, only to be repced by a cackle. Arkeidos went in for a second attack in the same style. With a punch to his forearm, Metra loosened the grip enough to twist out of the grapple.

  Metra and Arkeidos simultaneously gnced to the side. A movement in their periphery warned them of the wave of rock that was rolling in their direction. Raising both of his hands, Arkeidos attempted to control the earth. There was no reaction and he immediately started to retreat. Metra mirrored the motion, letting the chaotic roiling pass by between them.

  “I told you: no magic!” the First of Wrath shouted over the distorted crunches of stone and sand grinding against themselves. The restriction went for him as well as herself. Rather than portals or gripping across dimensions, she could only run to bridge the gap.

  Arkeidos looked around the environment for anything that could be of advantage. A mistake, one typical of over-preparation types like him and her own king candidate. The tyrant turned and ran towards the mountainous area of the battlefield. A valley had been pulled together into a much tighter space by the chaotic powers influencing the arena.

  Fundamentally, when fighting a more experienced opponent, limiting the numbers of actions they could take to a set easily countered even by a novice was not a bad call. By the time Arkeidos reached the valley, it had bent into a much rger C shape, completely eliminating the possibility of him finding any footing in there.

  In the Entropy Arena, only immediate strategies mattered.

  Arkeidos turned around and readied himself for Metra’s assault. That they had run at the exact same speed meant that she had only slowly caught up with him. She kept on charging straight at him.

  One arm extended, the tyrant of the Iron Domain met her aggressive speed with a sudden acceleration. At the very st moment, Metra bent backwards under the thick arm. It passed by over her, but not before she secured a grip with both hands. Their combined momentum let her athletically wind around the limb. Almost, she managed to nd on his shoulder.

  Dodging out of the way, Arkeidos thrust his horn at her. Sparks flew as Astrotium teeth caught the bde. Quicker, she reacted, smming her fists into his chest and then securing a grip on the separating pieces. “RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” she screamed, releasing her jaw as she lifted the equally sized opponent up above her. Her artificial muscles protested, the strain almost more than they were capable of delivering. Through sheer will, the First of Wrath forced her body to obey.

  Arkeidos tried his best to escape, but could not connect any attack that would have cut through the armour. The struggle itself was enough to threaten Metra to topple over. This was at the very brink of what she was currently capable of. Although exhaustion was not a problem for her kind, bance and load still were.

  To keep her bance, she had to take a step, then a second one. Confident and desperate at the same time, the third step was rger. Screaming again, she brought her arms down as her heel smashed into the bdes of metal grass. Arkeidos smmed into the ground, face first. All of his armour lost some of its adhesiveness on impact, letting a billowing cloud of brackish brown, bck mist escape.

  “Alright, let’s end this,” Metra announced. With a single, excited note, Rex Magnar announced its presence. The tides of chaos had brought the weapon nearby. Singing was its only enchantment active in this space. While Arkeidos got up, Metra strolled over and ripped her halberd out of the ground.

  When she turned to face the tyrant again, he was three heads taller than her. “A thorough humiliation,” Arkeidos admitted and looked down at his taxed form. “I deeply apologize for my initial underestimation. You truly would have been a fine servant.”

  “In another world, you may not have been that awful of a king,” Metra admitted, then clutched her weapon with both hands.

  The world around them twisted, a tornado of solid cliffs whirling around them as Arkeidos made the first move. His digging cws cut through the stone, physically unching a cascade of rocks at Metra. Sideways, she dodged, then swung the silent Rex Magnar in a wide arc. The Emperor blocked the attack with his right arm. Several of the outer pte segments of the limb burst off, the damage overcoming the adhesive enchantments.

  Metra locked in on that limb. Ducking under the retaliating strike, she bought some distance, then charged straight in. Thrusting the halberd like a spear, she missed his right shoulder. Turning his left towards her, the bulky simucrum went for a diagonal sweep.

  Positioned badly, Metra had to take the attack. It sent her flying into the air. The increased size and strength her opponent had been granted to compensate for her wielding Rex Magnar were made manifest in a high arch. Arkeidos charged after her and would have caught her with a kick shortly before impact, had it not been for that weapon.

  Using it like a hook, Metra rammed the thorn at the side into the twisted cliff and ended her momentum two metres up. Suddenly the entirety of the environment around her reverted to normal. The two of them were pulled several dozen metres apart, ground between them unfolding back into existence. Pushing herself off the cliffside before the distance could become too rge, she descended on Arkeidos with an overhead strike.

  Again, he dodged. Predicting his counterattack, Metra jumped forwards, underneath the massive arm. Whirling around, she hammered against the back of his right arm. More fragments bsted off, revealing the outlines of a human limb underneath. Hastily, Arkeidos turned towards her. Metra pulled back and thrust Rex Magnar. This time the top of the spear connected at the shoulder.

  An aggressive chain reaction sent most of the limb flying out as bits of scrap metal. From the socket down to the cws, the remaining pieces vibrated, then fell to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut. All that was left behind was a ghostly, brown limb, muscur in appearance yet ephemeral.

  Arkeidos tried to go on a desperate offensive, like a cornered animal. There was no finesse, just a wild flurry of blows, attempting (and succeeding) to keep the First of Wrath from exploiting the now dismembered side.

  Metra kept dodging backwards, wary of his powerful swipes. Step for step, she retreated. Then she hit a sharp incline. Jumping back as best she could, she pulled her arms back for an overhead swing aimed right at the Emperor’s colr. Her footing was subpar, but the elevated position allowed her to build up enough force regardless.

  The axe bde of her weapon smmed into the cw that had been trained at her own torso. The left arm spewed out a cloud of earthen energy, barely remaining intact. Both of them drew back their attacks and immediately went in for the next.

  Without the counterforce, Metra slid down the incline. One step brought her right in front of Arkeidos’ chest. Too close to mount a proper offensive at his core, but a good position to bring her arm back at the limb that had narrowly missed her. It connected, turning the second limb into another burst of metal pieces.

  Fighting to the st, Arkeidos raised his head and brought his horn down on her. Smashing into her head, the impact sent Metra to the floor. Rapidly she rolled aside, narrowly escaping a stomp of the broad foot.

  Rapidly, she recovered from being prone. Arkeidos used the opportunity to attack. This time, his headbutt collided with the tip of Rex Magnar. His horn lodged between the spear tip and the axe bde. The two were locked in another contest of strength. Green spheres flickered in both of their eye sockets, powers focused.

  Arkeidos loosened the pressure to pull back for his next attack. With perfect timing, Metra went for a powerful shove. The Emperor was forced to stumble a single step backwards. That was all the space the First of Wrath needed to raise Rex Magnar one more time and hammer down on his chest.

  The severely weakened armour nearly broke under the initial impact. Shouting, Arkeidos pnted one foot firmly back and pushed against the attack. With all of his might, he tried to turn so the bde would slide off to the side. A fruitless endeavour, the bde had gotten stuck between one of the many fragments. Each passing moment was weakening the enchantments a little bit more.

  The shout came to a sudden end. One unheard breath ter, the tyrant’s calm, collected, satisfied voice decred, “May it be that we fight again, Metra, Breaker of Armies.”

  One st time, the green glow flickered in the visor of his helmet. Then, the chest piece scattered. Individual fragments were incapable of holding against the force of Metra’s attack, parting underneath while Rex Magnar shattered the crystals that had lined the inside. From shoulder to hip, Metra cleaved through the manifested soul of the lich’s simucrum, dealing irreparable damage.

  The ghostly outline of a muscur human body dissipated. Helmet and legs fell, as brown-tinted quartz shards rained down on the floor, all animating power lost. With one hand, Metra managed to catch the head of the simucrum.

  “Good fight,” she said to a will no longer present. Respectfully, she pced the helmet on the ground.

  A feeling of extreme fatigue set in moments ter. The chaos all around her dissipated. A spell as powerful as the Entropy Arena took a toll and Metra would have fallen over had she not been able to lean onto Rex Magnar for support. She shook her head, struggling to stay conscious.

  ‘Save your king, then you can rest,’ she told herself.