Tales of the Endless Empire
Chapter 217: A Dangerous Duel

Both fighters lunged at each other in a blur of motion, the ground beneath them cracking under the force of their charge. Josh wasted no time, instantly shifting into his insect form, his exoskeleton glistening like polished obsidian under the dim, distorted light of the arena.

A moment later, both opponents unleashed their auras — two clashing storms of raw presence. Each tried to overwhelm the other, to force a mistake, a hesitation. The elf's aura hit first, sharp and suffocating, like an ice-cold blade pressing against bare skin. It was stronger than Josh’s, no doubt about it — a force that could freeze lesser fighters in place. But Josh didn’t flinch. He had felt stronger, darker presences before. Power alone wasn’t enough to rattle him.

The elf moved with otherworldly grace, every step smooth and effortless, almost floating across the battlefield. His speed was unreal, and for a split second, it seemed the two would collide head-on. But just before impact, Josh twisted his body and dashed to the side, his claws cutting through the air in a vicious arc aimed straight for the elf’s exposed flank.

“OH, PERFECT MOVE BY JOSH! YEAH, EAT THAT SPELL, POINTY EARS!” Jack's voice roared across the walls, dripping with excitement. A chorus of cheers erupted from the onlookers as the crowd began chanting Josh’s name, voices blending into a single wall of sound.

But the elf wasn’t fazed in the slightest. With a fluid motion, he spun midair, his blade already glowing with a pale, cutting light. In one swift stroke, the elf unleashed a wind slash so fast the air itself seemed to tear apart. Josh had no time to evade — he raised his claw, channeling power into it at the last second. The two forces collided with a sharp, thunderous explosion, the shockwave rattling the earth beneath their feet.

“YEAH, SHOW HIM HIS PLACE! OH — WATCH OUT, BEHIND YOU! GOOD, DUCK UNDER IT! COUNTER, JOSH, COUNTER! I SWEAR, STOP DANCING AROUND AND PUNCH THAT ELF RIGHT IN HIS UGLY FACE!” Jack's voice grew more animated with every exchange, his frustration boiling over as he watched Josh stay on the defensive.

The elf pressed the assault, faster than ever, his sword a blur of steel and wind magic. He zipped across the battlefield, weaving around Josh’s defenses like water slipping through cracks. His style wasn’t brute force — it was precision, honed by years of experience. Compared to the raw, evolving instincts of Josh, the elf was a seasoned predator.

Josh felt it too. Fear crept into his thoughts, hesitation trailing every move. He kept his distance, wary that a single mistake could leave him open for the elf to finish the fight in one clean strike. His mind raced, calculating, searching for a way to break the pattern. He poured more energy into his chitin armor, forcing his body beyond its limits, sharpening his reflexes and hardening his defenses. He wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks.

But Jack, perched on the walls, didn’t see it that way.

“JOSH, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? I’VE BEEN REAL NICE SO FAR, BUT IF YOU DON’T GET OFF YOUR ASS AND HIT THAT DAMN ELF…” Jack’s voice boomed, shaking with raw impatience as he watched his friend remain on the back foot.

Josh tuned him out. He didn’t care how it looked. He only cared about winning and staying alive.

The elf, sensing his advantage, eased his attacks and stepped back, his lips curling into a mocking smile.

“Please. Feel free to strike. This is getting rather dull.”

Before Josh could react, Jack's voice cut through the arena once again, louder than ever.

“HEY, POINTY EARS! YOU LOST YOUR MIND? THERE’S ONLY ONE PERSON ALLOWED TO YELL AT JOSH, AND THAT’S ME! STOP POSING AND FIGHT, DAMMIT. I WANNA SEE BLOOD!”

Laughter exploded from the human spectators, the sound echoing through the open stone chamber. The elves, by contrast, grew visibly more annoyed, their proud expressions tightening with every passing second.

Josh used the brief pause to steady his breath, his thoughts clearing. He activated his boosting skill — but this wasn’t the usual type. The moment the energy surged through his veins, his body expanded, muscles stretching, limbs thickening. He grew nearly half a meter taller, his exoskeleton gleaming with fresh cracks of glowing power. His claws lengthened, razor-sharp and pulsing with raw force.

The elf barely had time to adjust. The ground beneath Josh shattered as he launched forward, a living projectile of muscle and rage.

“THERE YOU GO, JOSH! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! RIGHT HOOK, RIGHT HOOK! NOW GO FOR HIS FEET! NO ARMOR THERE! FEET, JOSH, FEET!” Jack bellowed, his voice so loud it sent some of the elven spectators wincing and covering their ears — much to the delight of the human crowd, who roared even louder in support.

Josh felt the shift in momentum. Fear no longer held him back. His empowered claws no longer feared the elf’s enchanted blade. Each clash sent out a new shockwave, the air vibrating with every collision.

He pressed the assault harder, weaving in his movement skill, forcing the elf to shift and dodge, constantly driving him backward. The once graceful swordsman now struggled to keep up, wind magic the only thing keeping him from being overwhelmed.

But the elf was no amateur. Experience whispered in his every step, and though his speed was slipping, his blade always found its mark — just barely — managing to deflect the worst of each attack. His body, however, began to betray him. His sword arm trembled under the strain, his teeth clenched tight, jaw locked in defiance.

“JOSH, JOSH, JOSH!” Jack’s voice rang out from the wall, fusing with the roaring crowd, their chants shaking the air. The rising energy seemed to finally push the elf into making his next move.

Until now, his style had revolved around precision swordplay, enhanced with subtle bursts of wind magic. But that approach shifted in an instant. Power surged through the elf’s body as he activated his boosting skill, and a swirling dome of razor-sharp wind materialized around him, cutting into the earth and shredding the air itself.

Josh wasn’t fazed. His chitin armor, reinforced and pulsing with strength, endured the slicing winds with ease. He had no domain of his own, but he didn’t need one. His combat style relied on space manipulation and gravitational distortions. Wind alone couldn’t easily disrupt his skills, at least not at the level either of them had reached.

Josh pressed forward, undeterred, occasionally shifting his attack pattern by using his elbow blades — a signature technique. Against most opponents, it was a brutal surprise: deflect the enemy's weapon with a claw swipe, pivot in close, and finish them with an empowered elbow strike sharp enough to tear through steel. But the elf wasn’t most opponents. He read the move every time, slipping just out of range with his inhuman grace.

With his boosting skill active, the elf’s speed once again eclipsed Josh’s. Tiny shallow cuts began to appear across Josh’s arms and chest, each one delivered with surgical precision. None were deep enough to slow him, but the elf’s growing confidence was undeniable.

Frustration prickled at the back of Josh’s mind. He realized clean hits were nearly impossible against such speed, so he pushed his body harder, even at the cost of efficiency. His stamina and mana had fallen to roughly two-thirds, but he ignored the warning signs. His slashes grew more violent, reckless even, each one a desperate attempt to disrupt the elf’s rhythm.

Their dance of blades finally yielded blood. Josh felt the bite of the elf’s sword on his shoulder and chest — shallow wounds — but in return, his claws found their mark. A deep gash opened across the elf’s right thigh, blood spraying like crimson mist into the air.

“THERE YOU GO! TOLD YOU TO AIM FOR THE LEGS!” Jack howled, voice raw with excitement, pounding his fist against the wall.

The base erupted with cheers. Few of the spectators even knew why the fight had started, but that didn’t matter. Whether Josh won or lost, none of them truly believed Thalion would surrender his position. Everyone agreed: no elf could challenge Thalion and walk away victorious.

The elf’s smile had vanished, replaced by a grimace of pain and sharpened focus. When Josh’s claws slashed toward his head, the elf unleashed the full extent of his power.

His sword slipped from his hand, falling silently to the ground as his entire body morphed into an ethereal storm. Where once stood a swordsman, now hovered a towering elemental form, nearly three meters tall — a swirling mass of dull gray wind, with piercing white eyes staring out from its hazy, shapeless face.

Josh reacted instantly, slashing through the airy figure, but his claws passed through harmlessly. A moment later, the creature’s windy arms wrapped around his shoulder and, with one brutal twist, hurled him across the battlefield.

Josh spun through the air like a cat, regaining control mid-flight and landing hard but balanced on his feet. His eyes snapped back to the elf, just in time to see the elemental form collapse back into flesh and steel. The elf raised his sword once more and sent a powerful wind slash screaming toward Josh.

Josh blinked to the side, barely evading, and countered with a charge, his claws ready to strike — but the elf had already shifted back into his elemental form. A pulse of pure wind burst outward, shaking the earth and battering Josh’s armor.

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Josh snarled, sinking his claws deep into the cracked ground, anchoring himself against the shockwave’s force. The moment the wind subsided, the elf reappeared right behind him, blade gleaming, striking at his exposed back.

Josh ripped his claws from the ground, twisting to roll away, but he was too slow. Pain tore through him as the sword carved a deep gash along his spine, the sound of his armor shattering filling the air. His voice cracked with agony, but even through the pain, his instincts kicked in — unleashing a defensive shockwave that forced the elf to retreat.

But the elf wasn’t finished. The moment the shockwave hit, he shifted back into his windform, punching straight into the energy wall. His right arm morphed into a long, curved blade aimed directly for Josh’s skull.

Josh threw himself sideways at the last second, feeling the blade whistle past — so close it skimmed the air above his ear. He rolled back onto his feet, ready to counterattack, but the elf’s blade-arm exploded mid-strike, the shockwave sending Josh tumbling across the dirt.

Before he could recover, the elf appeared at his side once more, sword raised high. The blade came crashing down, but Josh’s claw was there to meet it, the sharp screech of metal against hardened carapace echoing through the arena. He braced, muscles flaring, and slowly began to push back, overpowering the elf in brute strength.

But the elf shifted tactics — a sharp kick landed in Josh’s ribs, sending him sprawling sideways, breath torn from his lungs.

“UP, JOSH! YOU CAN’T LOSE! WE ARE WINNERS — AND WINNERS DON’T LOSE!” Jack’s voice cracked through his enchanted microphone, desperate to reignite the fire in Josh’s heart.

The crowd’s chants had started to fade. The elf had begun tapping deeper and deeper into his power, and the battle no longer looked like the easy victory the humans had hoped for.

But what none of them could see — what none of them knew — was that Josh wasn’t nearly as close to defeat as it seemed.

His passive skills were quietly at work: with every wound and every drop in his stamina, his regeneration and recovery accelerated. His armor, reinforced and empowered, had absorbed the worst of the blows, and save for the deep cut along his back, the elf hadn’t managed to inflict any true damage.

More importantly, the elf had already revealed most of his tricks, while Josh had been holding back. His form wasn’t just a cosmetic evolution — it was the product of a species engineered by queens to hunt and kill the most powerful of enemies.

Until now, Josh had relied purely on his raw speed, brute strength, and hardened resilience. The gravitational aspect of his power had only subtly shown itself during his movement skills — never directly in his attacks. But gravity, when used offensively, was a cruel and invisible weapon: it allowed him to pull enemies toward him or hurl them away with a mere thought, making it nearly impossible to block.

Josh could even alter the gravity pressing on his own body — increasing it to anchor himself deep into the earth or lessening it so drastically that he could almost drift like a feather. In theory, it was the perfect weapon: lighten yourself for speed, then, at the moment of impact, increase the force and let gravity multiply the devastation.

But Josh was no master of the technique — at least not yet. His transitions between light and heavy were too slow for true mastery. Still, with the elf now moving faster than ever, he knew one thing: speed was his only way forward.

With barely a thought, Josh lightened his body until the pull of the ground felt like a distant memory. When he leaped forward, he barely touched the earth, gliding across the battlefield so swiftly it seemed as if he were walking on air. The elf’s eyes widened as Josh closed the distance in an instant, his form blurring with every step.

And for a moment, it really did look like Josh was walking on air. His armor’s embedded runes allowed him to do just that — though he hadn’t even activated them yet. His raw gravitational control alone made him appear untouchable.

Now it was the elf who stumbled backward, struggling to parry the relentless swarm of attacks. Josh's claws lashed out in feints and sudden pivots, striking from unexpected angles. It was a dance of calculated chaos — a style he’d once learned from an information crystal designed for Grasshopper combatants: confuse, bait, and strike.

Had he chosen to make himself heavy, his approach would’ve been the opposite — battering through every defense with unstoppable force. But with the elf’s blade spinning and his windform phasing in and out of existence, brute strength alone wouldn’t cut it.

The elf couldn’t keep pace. Two clean cuts tore across his right arm and shoulder, blood spraying in thin crimson arcs. The injury on his leg had already vanished — likely healed long before — but Josh had no time to wonder when. The flow of battle left no room for stray thoughts.

Josh baited the elf with a sharp feint, tricking him into slashing at empty air. His counterattack came swift — claws aimed straight for the elf’s midsection. But just before his strike could land, the elf vanished, melting into a gust of wind.

A moment later, Josh felt the force of a massive, unseen fist — pure wind, compressed and weaponized — slam into his chest, launching him through the air like a ragdoll. The blow didn’t hurt — his weight was too light to absorb the full force — but the impact carried him twenty meters back and left him spinning through the air.

Twisting mid-flight, Josh used the air itself as a foothold, launching straight back at his opponent, undeterred. The elf, still in his towering windform, barely had time to react.

"THAT’S MY BUDDY! LOOK AT HIM GO! JOSH, YOU’RE A SKYWALKER!" Jack bellowed from the fortress wall, his voice crackling with pride.

The human side of the battlefield roared back to life, hope surging through the crowd, while the elves began to exchange glances, their expressions souring into doubt.

But the celebration didn’t last. One sharp-eyed scout narrowed his gaze, his voice cutting through the noise.

"Wait... why does he have a blade in this form?"

The towering windform — now stretching over five meters tall — raised one massive arm, and from its swirling grasp, an enormous sword began to materialize. The blade was crude, forged entirely from condensed wind, but the pressure it radiated was suffocating even before the weapon swung.

Josh adjusted immediately, circling at a wide distance, never staying still for more than a second. He kept his movements sharp and unpredictable, always out of reach from the blade’s devastating arc.

His claws sliced through the air, sending ranged slashes toward the windform — but the attacks passed harmlessly through its swirling body, as if it were a mirage.

Then the elf lifted his hand in a slow, deliberate motion. The air around the battlefield stirred, at first just a breeze, then a roaring crescendo. Within moments, a tornado surged to life, swallowing the entire field and shattering Josh’s strategy.

Forced to abandon the air, Josh landed hard, digging his claws into the earth to avoid being tossed around like a leaf in the storm.

The next thing he saw was the windform standing right before him. The wind sword swung downward, a killing blow.

Instinct kicked in. Josh raised his claws, locking them against the blade's edge, and instantly made himself as heavy as possible. Lightness wouldn’t save him here. The sword pressed down, the ground beneath him cracking under the combined weight of steel, gravity, and raw force.

He tried pushing the wind away, straining to repel it — but the invisible storm would not yield.

Then the world went white.

A deafening explosion ripped through the battlefield, powerful enough to scatter the tornado itself. Dirt and debris rained down like shrapnel, blanketing the field in silence.

As the dust settled, the onlookers on the wall finally saw the aftermath. A monstrous knight of wind stood tall, blade raised in triumph. Beneath it, Josh lay broken — nearly bisected from shoulder to thigh. Blood gushed from the wound in violent spurts, soaking the ruined earth beneath him.

The windform dissolved, revealing the elf, his arrogant smile returning as he strode toward Josh’s motionless body. With the casual cruelty of a man swatting aside trash, he kicked Josh away, turning his back without a second glance.

"This was your strongest warrior?" the elf mocked, voice soaked in disdain. "I’m always amazed at how pathetically weak you humans are."

His entourage erupted in laughter, the sound sharp and cruel.

"Now open the gate," the elf hissed, his voice cutting through the air like a blade. "Or must I tear it down myself?"

The elves began advancing, weapons drawn, their boots crunching against the bloodstained dirt.

But before they could take another step, a voice drifted from the fortress walls. A voice so cold, so saturated with killing intent, that the elves froze in place.

"What... is this?" the voice whispered.

The elf slowly turned, his confidence faltering. The first thing he saw was a pair of crimson-red, burning eyes, staring back at him with quiet, merciless fury.