Bone Saw came in low, axe trailing, red fire bright behind the skull mask, boots tearing furrows in the churned earth with every stride.
Malvick met him with the greatsword raised, studying the thing coming at him for the first time instead of just reacting. The armor wasn't uniform. It had layers, obsidian bone riveted over something darker, and the axe head carried a residue along its edge that shimmered faintly, an accumulated mana signature from kills Malvick didn't want to think too hard about.
"You've killed a lot of things with that," he said.
"HAHAHA. A few." The red fire flared a shade brighter, just for a second. "None of them mattered to me anywhere close to how much you're about to. Count, or fight?"
"Just an observation."
"Fair. Here's mine." The axe came up. "You talk during fights. Confidence or nerves. I've been waiting a long time to find out either way."
"Ask me again when you're on the ground."
"Oh, I will. I'm going to enjoy asking."
He closed the distance laughing.
The axe swung diagonal at Malvick's collarbone. He didn't try to stop it outright, catching it on the greatsword's flat at an angle, letting the blade slide the axe off-line rather than absorbing the full weight. Metal screamed. Even redirected, the force numbed both wrists for a half second.
He stepped inside the follow-through and drove a knee into Bone Saw's midsection, quick and probing rather than full-power.
Bone cracked, a hairline fracture along the lower plate.
Bone Saw rode the hit standing and answered with a headbutt Malvick barely leaned clear of.
"Careful," he said, cheerful. "That would've hurt you more than me."
"Everything hurts me more than you right now."
"Accurate."
They separated, circling. Two beings who could level a forest with a full swing didn't spend every exchange doing exactly that, not if either wanted the fight to last long enough to win it. Malvick's Battlefield Instinct fed him smaller data instead: weight distribution, grip angle, the half-second delay between Bone Saw spotting an opening and taking it. Almost nothing. But it was there, and in a fight like this, almost nothing was the only currency worth spending early.
Bone Saw came again, controlled this time, the axe reversing mid-swing into a testing backhand.
It still caught him across the ribs. Two cracked, the impact throwing him sideways into a fallen tree. He planted himself before the stagger became a fall.
More range in that backhand than the setup telegraphs. He reset his stance, feeling the bones knit under a fresh pulse of mana. Adjust.
He crossed the distance himself this time, forcing the exchange onto terms he'd chosen. The blade met the axe at an angle, sparks scattering across broken earth, and Malvick pressed the small advantage, walking Bone Saw two full steps backward through splintering trees.
"Ooh." The grin widened. "Wondered when you'd stop testing me."
"I wasn't finished."
"Could've fooled me."
Malvick pivoted, let the axe slide past, and drove the greatsword's pommel into Bone Saw's chest at close range. Precision over power. It still staggered him. Obsidian plate cracked in a spiderweb pattern across his torso.
"Now that's a demigod hit."
Real appreciation, the same delight he'd shown all fight. Underneath it, for just a beat, something colder that didn't belong to the enjoyment at all.
"I'd have respected you a lot more if you'd ever once looked like it cost you something."
Malvick said nothing.
Bone Saw moved instead, faster than the damage should have allowed. Malvick's Battlefield Instinct flagged the counter a half beat too late.
The free hand closed around his sword wrist before the greatsword could reset, pinning it wide. Malvick let go rather than fight the grip, sacrificing the weapon to twist partially clear. The axe still caught him a glancing blow across the chest, enough to lift him off his feet.
He came down nearly thirty meters out, cratering the earth, dust rising in a column around the site.
He lay there one full second, ribs grinding back into place, his War Deity Physique burning mana at a rate that genuinely concerned him.
If you'd ever once looked like it cost you something. The line produced nothing underneath it. No guilt waiting to surface. He'd ordered the retaliation because a subordinate's family had become leverage the moment loyalty stopped being reliable, and the order had achieved exactly what it was meant to achieve. He'd made the correct call. It had simply cost this soldier something he apparently intended to keep collecting on all night.
Strongest hit I've taken tonight. Not the strongest thing he has. Just the strongest I've let him land.
He pushed himself up and crossed to the greatsword, half-buried in torn earth ten meters off, giving his physique the extra seconds it needed to finish the worst of the repair.
Across the clearing, Bone Saw inspected the crack across his own chest plate with the mild curiosity of a man checking a scratch on furniture.
"Alright," he said. "Let's stop warming up."
He raised his free hand. The pressure in the clearing compounded into something denser, heavier.
"Blood Debt."
Malvick felt something invisible settle over him, linking directly to the blood he'd already spilled.
"What did you just do."
"You'll feel it if you try to put real distance between us." Pleasant, almost apologetic. "Every drop of yours I've collected tonight belongs to me now. Run far enough and your own blood starts working against you. Boils, more or less. Nothing personal."
Malvick's jaw tightened. A career built on studying enemy capabilities meant most things he faced fit somewhere in the frameworks he already carried.
This didn't.
Not a weapon. A domain mechanic. Legendary-adjacent at minimum, and I have no baseline for how it scales.
"You didn't mention you could do that."
"You didn't ask." He shrugged, cracking the plate further. "Most people don't think to ask what happens to the blood after it hits the ground."
He crossed the distance again, unhurried, and Malvick felt the tether pull faintly taut, a low heat building under his skin that had nothing to do with exertion. The greatsword came up to meet the axe, and this time Malvick angled for deflection rather than a clean stop, conserving the strength he could feel bleeding out of his stamina reserve with every passing second.
They traded blows at a pace neither pushed to full output, testing angles, conserving what both understood would matter more later. Trees fell in staggered rhythm. The ground took shallow cratering under near-misses rather than the deep scars a full trade would leave.
Malvick landed two deflections that turned into partial hits. Bone Saw landed one solid strike and absorbed the rest, obsidian plate flexing and resealing between contacts.
Neither was tiring in any way that showed.
He's not slowing down. The crack across the chest plate sealed itself faster than it had the first time. If anything, the healing's accelerating.
The Blood Debt. The healing rate climbing instead of holding steady. Those should be independent variables. They're not. Something's feeding one into the other.
Bone Saw caught his next strike on the axe's haft and held the lock, something sharper underneath the delight now.
"You fight better than most soldiers your age. Still fighting like every hit matters more than the last." He rolled his neck, red fire flickering. "I mean that as a compliment. Doesn't change anything else about tonight."
"I didn't think it would."
"Good. Would've hated to think you'd forgotten what this is about."
He shoved the lock apart and swung, and this time Malvick caught something new in the motion: a faint red shimmer running along Bone Saw's frame, gathering at every point where blood had touched obsidian tonight.
The shimmer pulsed once.
The next swing came in visibly faster, the axe trailing a thin line of crimson mist, and when it connected with his raised guard the impact nearly took the greatsword out of his hands entirely, his whole arm going briefly numb.
He staggered back three steps, boots dragging furrows through torn earth, a cold understanding settling into his chest that had nothing to do with the tether at all.
Every hit I land feeds him. Every hit he lands on me feeds him too. This isn't a fight I'm slowly winning through attrition. It gets harder the longer it runs, no matter who's landing the better blows.
Bone Saw rolled his neck, obsidian vertebrae grinding audibly, red fire burning brighter than at any point since the fight began.
"HAHAHA. Now we're actually fighting."
Malvick planted his feet, blood running down his face and chest, pooling at his boots, feeding a domain he was only now starting to understand the shape of.
This isn't going to be as easy as I thought.