The Crown's Entrapment

At Cordon Arena

It was yet another morning day with the sky overcast with clouds and chilling winds blowing through the open arena. The temperature was getting lower because of the winter season, but instead of shivering due to the cold, the Cordonians burned with the heat of anticipation. The arena space slowly got filled with attendees, and electricity was in the air as they all waited for the next round of the tournament.

This time, it was something special because it was the first time the king would appear to watch the battles happening in the arena. It also brought a lot of speculation amongst the citizens of Cordon since today was the day that Commander Clara would fight for her right to move on to the finals.

Up till now, there was still no vision appearing through the runes of every shrine regarding Princess Xenia's progress. The lack of information ended up causing rumors to start circulating throughout the Kingdom of Cordon regarding the Princess's safety. Doubts on whether or not she would ever even come back began flying about, the people wondering if she would even survive to leave the forest or not.

Back to the tournament, Gilas, who was currently managing the tournament, immediately started the event with the King's order. With that, the battles scheduled for the day all simultaneously started on the makeshift stage.

Looking down, he carefully watched Clara with a deep sigh, feeling more relieved knowing that she would be having a fair fight. He had meticulously chosen every single contender Clara would have to fight, and he was pretty sure that he had managed to steer her clear from every suspicious individual that might've gotten this far in the tournament.

He subtly manipulated the arrangement of the contenders that would face each other, making sure that Clara wouldn't come to fight any of his father's pawns. It was rather easy to do as well, seeing as all of his father's pawns had the same technique and fighting style that made it easy for him to distinguish them apart from the other contenders.

Seeing Clara step up to her side of the arena, another sigh came out of Gilas's mouth. It was a selfish move on his part, but he didn't care as long as he could ensure Clara's safety.

****

"Introducing, Lady Clara!"

Clara stepped up to the arena as the referee announced her name. Taking a deep breath, Clara prepared herself for yet another fight with some random representative from whatever pack it was that they came from. She knew she should take this all seriously, and she did, but after fighting a string of amateurs one after the other, she was getting rather tired of destroying her opponents in both strength and skill.

As much as she tried to deny it, she was craving a bit of challenge for today.

"Introducing, Lady Deni!"

Immediately, Clara found herself sizing up her opponent. Lady Deni, as she recalled, came from the Comet Pack, a rather small pack located at the southeast portion of Cordon. Based on what she could remember from watching a few matches last time, the woman was rather slow but made up for it with her strength in browbeating her opponents.

"Ready?" the official called out.

"Ready!" Clara announced.

"Ready," her opponent nodded.

Another deep breath escaped Clara's lips as she felt her body tense up. Strength was something that she was used to dealing with. If anything, this was her fight to win just by using her speed and skill to subdue the woman before she even knew what hit her.

At the end of the day, she expected this fight to end in the exact same way her previous bouts did, with her being the victor.

"Begin!"

At the official's signal, both women dashed forward. Using her arms, Clara clashed with her opponent, catching the flat of the woman's blade with her right forearm before deflecting the attack to the side.

With her opening now made, Clara began to assault the woman with a flurry of punches. Giving out a one-two combo, she worked the woman's midsection, her intensity surely making it impossible for her opponent to even recover.

Then, with one last kick to the stomach, Clara made her opponent fly to the opposite end of the fighting area. Letting out a scoff, she knew that the match was over.

"Guess that's that," she shrugged.

Confident in her victory, Clara turned to the official, expectantly waiting for the man to declare her the victor. However…

*THUD!*

"What the-NGGH!"

Clara's eyes widened as her opponent suddenly lunged at her. Raising her arms up once more, she tried repeating the same technique she used earlier, only for it to fail as the woman suddenly twisted her body in a way that would let her bypass her defenses.

"You're open," her opponent taunted.

Defenseless, Clara had no choice but to take the attack as she did her best to minimize the damage she was about to take.

"Khh…"

She hissed through her teeth as she felt the taste of steel rip through her sides. Jumping back, she held onto her new injury, blood seeping through her fingers as she clicked her tongue. Thankfully, it wasn't that deep, but it was going to limit her ability to move as she looked at her opponent in a different light.

"You weren't that fast earlier," Clara pointed out.

Her opponent kept her silence, only raising her sword at the ready for yet another exchange of blows.

Taking a deep breath, Clara did her best to ignore the pain shooting through her sides as she raised her arms. Her bow wouldn't do her good if she couldn't keep her distance, and if her opponent's newfound speed was anything to go by, she probably wouldn't be able to draw her weapon anyway.

'Me and my big mouth…' she inwardly sighed.

To think that she wished for an opponent to give her a challenge…. Well, now she got it, and she had to pay for it by trying to keep up with the woman.