The duel started the same moment the two armies did, fifty Mythics against a hundred fifty-eight summons breaking into open war across the whole clearing behind them.

Uorop’s Prime Construct talent had grown since the last time anyone had gotten a real look at it. Fifteen separate Armament Data woven into the Talent by now, each one a different weapon or tool Uorop had fed into it over the course of the match, with five slots at a time to actually carry any of them into a fight.

Potion Brewer wasn’t much of a class in a straight fight, but it wasn’t nothing either. A flask hung at his hip, one of maybe a dozen he’d brewed himself between battles, each one holding something Logan had no way of identifying until it actually went off.

Uorop moved first, Twin Fangs already forming around both hands, twin curved blades of compressed energy sharp enough to argue with steel.

Twin Fangs!

He closed the distance fast, faster than his size should have allowed, and Logan barely got Grimlord’s Blade up in time to catch the first strike.

Steel met compressed energy in a shower of sparks, and Logan felt the impact all the way up through his shoulder. Whatever Uorop’s stats actually were, they weren’t soft.

He answered with a strike of his own, blade sweeping low, aimed to open a leg instead of a chest.

Uorop wasn’t there when it landed. One hand had already reformed into something else entirely.

Skypiercer Lance!

The blade collapsed into a long spear in the space of a single breath, and the thrust that followed came in low and fast, aimed straight for the gap Logan’s own swing had left open.

It caught him across the ribs before he could fully clear the line, a shallow cut that stung worse than it should have for something so shallow.

’Both trained.’ The thought crossed his mind almost calmly, even with blood already soaking into his shirt. ’This one’s not just riding on the Talent.’

Logan didn’t give him room to follow up. Reaper’s Stride carried him ten meters sideways in a blink, and he came back in from an angle Uorop hadn’t been watching.

Grimlord’s Blade!

The strike landed clean across Uorop’s shoulder, serrated edge tearing through whatever passed for skin on someone from another world entirely.

Blood Spores!

The wound didn’t close on its own, dark motes gathering around the cut and sinking in, lifesteal trickling back toward Logan with every second it stayed open.

Uorop staggered back a step, then reached for the flask at his hip without breaking eye contact.

He drank it in one motion, and the wound sealed itself shut in the space of a heartbeat, color returning to his face like the cut had never happened at all.

Logan reached into his own ring without missing a beat, an HP potion already in hand.

He drank it in one go, the sting in his ribs fading down to a dull ache almost immediately.

"Not bad yourself." He tossed the empty vial aside. "Guess we’re both stocked up."

Uorop’s grin flickered, just slightly, like he’d been expecting a different reaction. Both hands reformed again.

Stormshot Cannon!

A bolt of raw force tore across the distance between them, and Logan barely twisted clear of it, the edge of the blast still catching his shoulder hard enough to spin him half around.

They traded three more exchanges after that, neither one giving the other a clean opening, both of them bleeding from more places than either wanted to count.

Logan felt his own HP ticking down further than he liked, and somewhere in the back of his head, two unused skill choices sat waiting, still unopened since the day he’d hit level ten.

’Later, I said.’ He almost laughed. ’Guess later’s now.’

```

[ Select a new Class Skill ]

> Overgrim Slash

> Grimtide Wave

> Sovereign’s Bulwark

```

He didn’t hesitate.

’Overgrim Slash.’

```

[ Overgrim Slash learned ]

```

```

[ Overgrim Slash ]

Unleash a slash projectile with 90% Omni-Defense Penetration, dealing 500% damage. If the first obstacle facing the slash is not a living being, the slash passes through it without losing any power.

```

Uorop was already reforming Ironmaw Gauntlets to close the distance again, confident, still grinning through a face half-covered in his own blood.

Logan didn’t wait for him to arrive.

Overgrim Slash!

A single arc of dark light tore free of Grimlord’s Blade and crossed the distance in less time than it took to blink. Uorop threw up a wall of solidified Prime Construct energy on pure instinct, something thick and heavy meant to eat any attack thrown at it.

The slash didn’t slow down at all. It didn’t even seem to notice the wall was there, tearing straight through solid energy like it was nothing more than mist and continuing on exactly as fast as it had left.

It caught him across the chest a half second later, and Uorop’s whole body jolted backward through the air, HP draining in a straight vertical line down his status bar.

```

[ Uorop’s HP: 8% ]

```

Logan felt it before he even reached for that skill, a resonance settling into place the same way it had every time one of Uorop’s own summons dropped low enough for Grim Harvest to notice, out there in the chaos where fifty Mythics were still tearing through what was left of his army.

He activated it deliberately this time, slow, controlled. He could feel exactly what it was now, an edge with no shape and no metal to it, resting somewhere against the exact center of Uorop’s life, the handle sitting comfortable and familiar in his own open hand like it had always belonged there.

Uorop had been mid-motion, Ironmaw Gauntlets already closing the last few meters between them, when it hit.

He stopped completely, suspended in the air on whatever flight-armament was keeping him aloft, both fists still raised and utterly still.

Something crossed his face that had nothing to do with pain. He could feel it too.

"This is it." Logan smiled.

"Percentage-based execution, as a class skill." Uorop’s eyes held something between envy and longing, even hanging there at the edge of his own death. "I’ll get an effect like that in one of my armaments eventually. Refine them even further. Next time we fight, you lose."

Logan grinned. "Good luck with that. I’ll be working just as hard to make sure it doesn’t happen."

"Surrender." Uorop let out a slow breath, both fists finally unclenching.

The invisible blade lifted away, and the world pulled him out of the fight a half second later.

```

[ You have defeated Player Uorop. +80 Tower Points. ]

```

Behind Logan, the last of the hundred fifty-eight summons scattered into motes within the same minute, fifty Mythics standing in the wreckage without a single one of them missing.

Logan looked down at his own HP, lower than it had been in longer than he could remember, and let himself breathe for the first time since the duel started.

"That was fun."

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