The rain hissed faintly above the barrier of the third checkpoint. Falling in molten silver sheets across the forest. Albert had just mounted Ragnvlar again, wings spreading wide like shards of white glass, when a voice came from behind him
"Boo!"
Albert nearly swung his blade, half startled, half ready to cut. Piere stood right there leaning against the luminous trunk of the guardian tree, dripping wet but grinning as if he had just come from a tea party instead of hell.
"Surprise inspection." Piere said, brushing his sleeves. "Checking if our little dragon-tamer still has guts."
Albert exhaled, annoyed. "You call that an inspection? You nearly got sliced in half."
Piere only shrugged. "If I die, I die beautifully. Besides, I couldn't resist. You should've seen your face, Newton. It was like watching a calculator experience emotion for the first time."
Albert snorted, despite himself. "What? Then tell me, how the hell is that stupid hat still sitting on your head after all this acid, attacks.... and explosions?"
Piere blinked once, looked up at the white beret perched perfectly atop his bald, then gave an exaggerated bow. "My friend, this hat is divinely ordained. Saint Couture herself weaved it from the regrets of fallen angels." He paused, then whispered conspiratorially, "Or maybe it's just glued with your bald."
A laugh broke through the tension—short, realistic. For a moment, the two stood under the dripping glow of the checkpoint tree, adversaries sharing air before the next calamity.
Then Piere's expression shifted. The grin thinned into something razor-straight. "Enough of games," he murmured. "From here on, I'll be serious. I'm done jogging through the acid."
Albert's eyes narrowed. "Finally."
Piere flicked his wrist and a single card appeared between his fingers. It shimmered faint gold, then red, solidified into pure arcane light.
Albert felt the pressure of it a second before it happened. The card shot past him not at him, but at the dragon.
Ragnvlar roared once, sound shook the place. Its scales dulled, its wings stiffened mid-motion. Within a second, the mighty creature had turned to stone, a perfect statue.
Piere caught the drifting card. A King. He blew the dust off it casually and tucked it into his pocket. "His soul's safe." he said lightly. "Unless something happens to the card."
Albert's face hardened. "You bastard!"
"Bastard? No. Collector of taxes, maybe." Piere smiled faintly. "You can go ahead if you'd like. But something tells me you won't."
Albert stood silent for a moment, rain pattering softly against the edges of the barrier. Then he turned, facing Piere fully.
"I get it." he said quietly. "If I win, you bring him back."
Piere grinned, stepping forward. "Deal."
Acid rain hissed down the canopy's edge beyond the checkpoint barrier, shadows flickering green across their faces.
Both Albert and Piere stood in silence.
Each measuring, calculating, waiting for the other to twitch first.
Albert held the Kakin Kingdom's Yari low and backward, blade tilted slightly toward the ground, stance narrow and controlled.
His breath was slow and deep. The rhythm of reverse breathing still shaping his pulse.
Piere, on the other hand, had his poker cards floating loosely between his fingers. His grin was unexplainable, eyes half-lidded as if this were a rehearsal he had already perfected in his head.
Then he tilted his neck slightly, whispering to himself,
"So.… they'll never know."
His fingers trembled once, not from fear but from ignition. Invisible veins of light crept through his cards, golden filaments threading between his knuckles.
Each card began to hum with faint crimson aura, bending air subtly.
Piere's thoughts curled into mischief.
"When I faced those wolves.… I realized something. If I use my authority channeling in those cards, if I channel it right…. if I anchor my Authority in the smallest fragments.…"
He smirked.
"No one will ever know I'm breaking the rules."
A low sound boomed through the barrier. The vibration of Life itself shifting in the air. Leaves in the acid rain outside twisted upward, living things bending toward him like he was a magnetic force of existence.
Albert frowned, sensing the distortion. "What the hell are you doing, Lal?"
"Just warming up." Piere said, raising one card and spinning it like a coin. "Don't worry. It'll hurt but you'll survive—probably."
The first exchange happened before either blinked.
Albert lunged forward, Yari flashed like lightning, cutting through the green gloom with a sound sharper than breath.
Piere moved sideways, impossibly fast, dragging his fingers through the air as if sketching lines. Cards expanded mid-motion, forming circular barriers that shimmered faintly with biological patterns—blood vessels, nerves, neurons, brain.
Albert's spear sliced through one barrier. It should've destroyed it but the wound sealed itself. The barrier healed.
Piere laughed, a sound that barely hid the thrill beneath it. "You see? My cards.… they are living now."
Albert's eyes narrowed. "You've turned them into living things?"
"Not only living but" Piere said. "breathing, thinking, obeying."
He raised two fingers and the cards dove at Albert like beasts.
Albert struck back, twisting his Yari in an arc that shattered two midair. The blade hissed with an anti-life glow, erasing their pulse.
But before he could move again, one card wrapped around the spear's shaft and began to drain it turning the weapon heavier, slower.
"Tricky, aren't they?" Piere murmured. "Even your life-form negating spear's struggling to kill what I've given life."
Albert gritted his teeth, cutting through the air again. "You're insane. You are using your powers, aren't you!"
Piere grinned, tilting his head. "Only if someone notices."
The next second, both charged. Yari spinning, cards orbiting. Every clash spat light and shadow.
Albert fought with pure instinct and technique, each move honed by survival. Piere fought like a god playing cards with mortality recklessly, joyful, cruel.
"Playing modest now?" Albert said, circling with the Yari at his side.
Piere replied in a tone of mock reverence, "You're mistaken, Newton. I'm merely…. simplifying the art."
The two closed in steps ringing in sync on the wet earth, distance vanishing in a blink.
Albert feinted a forward thrust, then pivoted, dragging the Yari's butt across the ground to kick up mud into Piere's eyes.
Piere tilted his head aside calmly, his left card flashing once. The mud stopped midair, hanging suspended, then reversed, flinging itself back at Albert with equal speed.
Albert ducked under it and twisted. The Yari hummed, cutting through the distorted light around them.
Every time the spear moved, the mist parted. Every time Piere's cards whoosed, the world bent.
Piere tossed two cards into the air casually. "Oi Albert! Do you trust your senses?"
" Go and watch my first match's replay! "
The cards fell or so it seemed.
Albert lunged forward, reading an opening. The Yari's blade sliced through where Piere's chest should have been. But there was nothing just afterimage.
The real Piere stepped out of the illusion, behind him.
He whispered, "That card wasn't meant to shield me. It meant to steal your perception for half a second."
Albert turned but too late. Piere's palm slammed the back of his neck, a pulse of energy running through him.
Albert staggered, then smirked. "Nice trick."
He disappeared.
Piere blinked. His hand touched nothing.
A soft whistle came from his right. Albert had used the Yari's resonance to create a refraction layer. A wall of air vibration just enough to make his silhouette appear elsewhere. Piere laughed quietly, delighted. "You clever bastard."
They clashed again. This time close — fist against elbow, blade against card but made of steel balls.
Albert ducked under one of Piere's swings, hooked his leg and used the Yari's shaft to vault upward. Mid-spin, he snapped the weapon backward, slicing the strap of Piere's pouch open.
A rain of sharp poker cards fell out.
Most scattered harmlessly.
Albert, mid-air, stabbed one with the tip of the Yari pinning it to the ground. The air trembled as a large crater was made.
Piere froze, eyes narrowing. He hadn't expected Albert to notice which card had the sigil planted. Albert landed, breathing steadily. "You're keeping something alive in these, aren't you? Not just psychic constructs. Real things."
Piere's grin sharpened. "Cause I am. But do you know which one?"
He clicked his fingers. The impaled card dissolved into nothing — a bluff.
Albert's Yari suddenly vibrated violently. Piere's voice came close to his ear. "You stabbed the wrong card."
A strike came from nowhere. Albert twisted the spear in reflex, intercepting the blow. Sparks flew.
He smiled this time. "Or that is what I wanted you to plan."
The Yari's shaft splintered near its middle revealing a thin sliver of reflective wire inside, which Albert had wrapped earlier around one of Piere's cards.
Piere's expression froze for a while as the wire tightened. The card snapped and a surge of energy backfired through his hand.
Albert whispered, "You can cheat the system, Lal but not yourself."
Piere laughed through the pain, pulling his arm free as smoke rose from his sleeve.
"Good." he said, his grin wicked again. "You're worth playing for real."
The ground cracked beneath their feet.
Air detonated as both vanished from sight.
A single flash and the Yari sliced through vapor. Another flash, two streaks colliding midair, sparks and rain spinning sideways under the force.
The acid storm curved around them as if afraid to touch.
Tom's eyes were steel. The spear moved with no wasted motion, every motion of the wrist calculated to cut into Piere's rhythm.
Piere flicked his wrist, his cards circled like a cyclone around him, each one connected by threads of living energy. Same energy Tom had secretly wound through his Yari.
Every step was a risk of death. Every breath, a new equation.
They vanished again, nothing kept reappearing behind one another. Clashing in the same instant, too fast to see. The sound came later, the impact of collision trailed seconds behind.
Tom struck low. Piere countered high.
The Yari met a poker edge, the collision split the air into a diamond-shaped void. The ground beneath them split open like a scar.
Tom twisted his spear, catching the thread's glint in his peripheral. He smirked confidently.
He had already reversed the polarity of poker card "Two." Every thread Piere moved now folded back into itself. He wasn't using rotation, but the Yari's specialty.
The Yari glowed dark blue. Tom turned the spear downward and stabbed it into the soil.
The threads jerked. Piere's cards froze mid-spin, halted midair like marionettes with their strings cut.
Energy threads snapped at once tearing through the trees, carving bottomless furrows through the earth. Acid rain vaporized on contact with the shockwave. Even the barrier around the checkpoint flickered violently.
Piere's cloak flared outward, his boots digging trenches in the mud as he tried to resist the pull. Tom's muscles tensed, veins glowing faintly silver.
Piere moved again but Tom anticipated the path before he made it. He didn't chase him, he became the angle, the space, the countermeasure.
Piere threw a handful of cards into the mist froming illusions, decoys, misdirection.
Tom closed his eyes. His wrist spun on its own.
He'd calculated their paths by sound delay and particle refraction. The moment they moved, he already knew where they would land.
Piere reappeared behind him, ready to rip the Yari from his hands.
Before that, Tom let go of the weapon entirely by himself, stepping inside the attack. The Yari, freed, snapped upright on its own momentum and drove backward.
Piere barely caught the shaft between two fingers. He smiled, veins of light spreading up his arm. His energy threads reattached.
Tom had already set the trap. The Yari wasn't attacking. It was grounding the trap.
Every thread Piere had tried to control was now siphoning into the weapon itself, rerouted through the conductive mud beneath them. A single spark and the whole field erupted in white fire.
The explosion consumed the checkpoint's shadow barrier, energy storm twisted into a spiral that reached the clouds up high.
When the light dimmed and smoke faded, Piere was kneeling, one knee pressed into the ground, smoke rising from his glove. His cards fell around him like feathers.
Tom stood several meters away, chest heaving, the Yari half-buried beside him.
Piere looked at the burnt cards, then at Tom. A quiet grin touched his lips. "That's enough...." he muttered very inaudible.
He raised a single hand. The cards dissolved, turning to dust in the air.
System prompt glowed faintly in the void above them,
[ Piere Lal has quit the match ]
Tom blinked once, unsure.
Before the acid resumed falling, Piere spoke a whisper drowned by thunder,
"See you at a higher layer, bastard."
Then he passed out.