She didn't know about Nihil. The sword's energy was suppressed during the walk to the arena — Nihil could reduce his signature to near-zero when stealth was required. To Vesper's perception, I was a Valdrake heir with an unusual practice sword and an Acolyte-adjacent energy output.
An easy fight.
"Begin," the referee called.
Vesper moved first. Shadow constructs materialized from the arena floor — three tendrils of solid darkness, each one two meters long, striking toward me from different angles. Fast. The shadow element's natural speed exceeded most physical energy types because shadow didn't have mass — it was the absence of light given direction, moving at the speed of darkness rather than the speed of matter.
I drew Nihil.
The sword came free with the particular sound that Void made when it entered a space — not a ring, not a hiss, but an absence of sound. A silence that cut through the arena's ambient noise the way the blade cut through energy.
