Hector stepped forward into the open space, his voice low and burning with anger.
"Then get over here."
Knox only smiled and walked out to meet him.
By now, enough students had noticed the situation that a clear patch of space naturally began to open up around them. Conversations lowered. Practice slowed. More than a few first-years stopped what they were doing altogether and turned to watch.
An assistant professor arrived before the duel could begin.
It was not the same one Simon had terrified earlier.
This one came over with a measured calm, took one look at the atmosphere, then another at the protective vests both of them were already wearing.
"If this is going to happen," she said, her tone clipped but not unfriendly, "then it will happen properly."
That alone made several nearby students straighten.
She stepped into the middle of the space and glanced from Hector to Knox.
"This will be a mock duel. No intentional lethal attacks. No attacks after the duel is called. The barrier magic embedded in your protective vests will absorb incoming damage. Your barrier gauges will be monitored. If either gauge reaches zero, the duel ends immediately. If I judge that one side can no longer continue safely, I will stop the match myself. Understood?"
"Understood," Knox answered lightly.
Hector gave a sharp nod.
The assistant professor moved aside, and near the edge of the practice area, a display screen shimmered to life. Two barrier gauges appeared at once, one assigned to Knox and the other to Hector.
Cindy blinked. "Oh, they're actually doing this properly."
Merida, as usual, sounded far less impressed. "Would've been troublesome otherwise."
Claudia said nothing, but her fingers tightened slightly at her sides.
Meilyn had her arms folded tightly now, though whether she was irritated at Hector, Knox, or both of them was becoming increasingly difficult to tell.
The assistant professor raised one hand.
"Begin."
Hector moved first.
Darkness surged over his arm in an instant as he lunged forward, aggression overtaking any patience he might have had left. His opening strike came hard and direct, the sort of blow meant to overwhelm through sheer force alone.
Knox avoided it by the smallest possible margin.
He simply shifted, letting the attack pass by him as though he had stepped out of the path of something obvious.
Then he was already inside Hector's range.
His fist drove into Hector's midsection with a short, brutal impact that bent the larger boy's posture for a fraction of a second. Before Hector could reset, Knox's body turned and another strike slammed into his side, followed immediately by a palm thrust to the chest that forced him backward.
The screen flickered.
Hector's barrier gauge dropped.
While Knox remained relaxed, shoulders loose, expression untroubled.
Hector's expression darkened further.
He came in again with heavier force this time, darkness wrapping more thickly around his arm and shoulder as he tried to crush through Knox's guard with raw pressure. His blows were powerful, and in a straight exchange, most first-years would have been forced onto the defensive almost immediately.
But Knox did not meet that force head-on. He slid around it.
He moved just outside the line of impact, then back in before Hector could recover, his fists landing in compact bursts that never wasted motion. A blow to the ribs. A sharp hit to the shoulder line. A short strike to the solar plexus that stole a breath. Another to the flank before the first discomfort had even fully registered.
He didn't stop. The hits kept coming, one after another, steady and controlled. It didn't look messy at all, and that somehow made it harder to watch.
Hector tried to widen the distance with a sweeping strike.
Knox ducked under it, pivoted on his lead foot, and drove a heavy body blow into Hector's exposed side. The barrier gauge dipped again, and this time several students audibly reacted.
Cindy sucked in a breath. "Ohhh, that one looked bad."
"Ouch," Merida replied.
Hector ground his teeth and forced himself back into position.
For all his anger, he was not weak. The strength behind his attacks was real, and when he finally managed to catch Knox's arm with a grazing hit, the the impact rang sharply enough to draw everyone's eyes to the screen.
That only made Hector grin.
For one brief moment, Hector's expression twisted into anticipation.
But Knox's barrier gauge did not move at all.
Not even slightly.
That only made Hector freeze for half a beat before his face darkened even further.
"There," he snarled, refusing to let the moment go. "Not so untouchable after all."
Knox glanced briefly toward the screen.
Then he smiled. "Mm. Good job~"
That casual praise landed like an insult. Hector's grin vanished instantly.
He charged again, this time abandoning restraint almost completely. Darkness churned more violently around him, and the pressure around his body thickened in a way that made several nearby students shift uneasily.
Knox watched him come. For a moment, he did nothing at all.
Then, right before the collision, he stepped forward instead of back.
The sudden change in timing threw Hector's next strike slightly off-line, and that tiny error was all Knox needed. He slipped in close, struck once to the chest, once to the side of the guard, then drove a third hit up through the center with enough force to snap Hector's upper body back.
Before Hector could re-anchor himself, Knox's hand caught his wrist, redirected the arm, and used the opening to crash another fist into his stomach.
Then another.
Then another.
The pattern changed.
Until then, Knox had been measured.
Now his tempo climbed.
His movements remained controlled, but the frequency of his attacks began to rise, each strike chaining more tightly into the next. He advanced relentlessly through Hector's attempts to answer, cutting off every reset before it could become real.
A short hook into the ribs. A palm strike to the sternum. A driving punch to the abdomen. Another sharp hit to the shoulder that collapsed Hector's guard inward. A second later, Knox's knee stepped through the space and his fist hammered into Hector's side hard enough to force a stagger.
Hector swung back with brute strength.
Knox slipped outside it and punished the opening immediately.
The barrier gauge on the screen began to fall faster. Hector's was dropping in chunks.
Around the practice area, the mood shifted.
The laughter from earlier was gone now, replaced by a sharper kind of attention. Even students who had first come over expecting a loud exchange were beginning to realize they were watching a very one-sided dismantling.
Claudia's eyes widened a little. "Knox is getting faster…"
Cindy, who had been enjoying it from the start, now looked almost fascinated.
"Hector can't even move."
Meilyn said nothing, but her brows had drawn together.
Simon watched in silence.
Meanwhile, Hector's breathing was turning rough. His footing no longer settled properly between exchanges, and that only made the next wave worse.
Knox stepped in again, calm as ever, a faint smile still at the corner of his lips as he drove a clean strike into Hector's chest and broke his line. Then another hit landed before Hector had recovered from the first. Then another. The blows came from shifting angles now, straight and curved, high and low, each one placed not merely to hurt but to keep Hector from ever regaining control of the duel.
Hector growled and forced Darkness through his limbs more aggressively, and for a moment the skin along his neck and forearm seemed to change. A rough pattern spread over it like scales pushing faintly to the surface, dark and unnatural beneath the training hall lights.
Knox noticed at once. His smile deepened a little.
"Oh?" he said as he slipped another strike and answered with a crushing blow to Hector's ribs. "So the lizard part is coming out now?"
Hector's eyes flared.
"You—!"
The response never fully came.
Knox's fist buried itself in Hector's stomach and folded the word in half.
A few students actually winced at the sound Hector made.
The assistant professor overseeing the duel had become visibly more alert now, her eyes flicking once toward the barrier gauges and then back to Hector himself.
Still, she did not intervene.
Not yet.
Hector staggered back and tried to force his body upright again, rage and humiliation burning through his expression in equal measure. The dark, scale-like pattern on him had not fully vanished, but it had done nothing to turn the momentum.
Knox rolled one shoulder lightly.
Then, with infuriating ease, he asked, "What happened? I thought this was round three~"
That nearly did it. Hector roared and threw himself forward again.
This time, Knox met him with even less mercy.
He entered Hector's range before the larger boy's power could fully unfold, then launched a dense, punishing barrage that drove straight through every opening in his posture. One strike to the body. Another to the chest. A short impact to the shoulder hinge. A snapping blow across the guard. A fist into the ribs. A palm heel to the sternum. Then another body shot that bent Hector lower than before.
The tempo kept rising.
Now it really did look like a pummeling.
The barrier gauge plummeted.
Each strike made the display flicker lower and lower while Hector's body was forced backward step by step, his attempts to fight back reduced to broken motions that never connected cleanly. Knox stayed on him with suffocating precision, never overextending, never losing shape, his calm expression somehow making the beating look even more unfair.
Cindy was openly staring now.
"Wow... he's really turning Hector into a sandbag."
"Talking sandbag," Merida corrected.
Rick made a strained noise that sounded halfway between fear and admiration.
Even some of Hector's faction no longer looked confident. One of them had taken an unconscious step backward.
Knox drove another hit into Hector's side, then another into the centerline, then a compact strike that shattered the balance of his stance entirely. Hector tried to force himself upright through raw stubbornness alone, but his body no longer obeyed properly.
His barrier gauge hit zero.
The display flashed.
The assistant professor's voice rang out at once.
"Enough!"
But by then, the conclusion had already arrived.
Hector's legs gave way beneath him.
He dropped to one knee first, swaying, then tried to push himself back up out of pure pride.
He made it halfway.
Then Knox shifted his stance and stepped in, his front foot turning first as his body followed right after. His shoulders rotated, hips turning with it, the movement smooth and controlled.
For a split second, he glanced back over his shoulder, just enough to line up the distance.
Then his back leg drove straight out. The kick landed deep into Hector's midection, solid and direct, the kind of hit that didn't make a loud impact but pushed all the force straight through him.
Hector's body folded slightly from the hit, his breath catching as his footing gave out before he could steady himself. He stumbled forward and dropped to the floor, one arm shaking as he tried to push himself up, but couldn't.
He could not stand anymore.
The assistant professor stepped in immediately, placing herself between them.
"The duel is over."
Knox stopped at once.
His breathing was steady. His vest gauge remained comfortably, while Hector's had already emptied out completely.
For a moment, all that could be heard was Hector's rough breathing against the floor and the stunned silence of everyone watching.
Then Knox tilted his head slightly and looked down at him.
"Hmm, this is it?" he said, almost thoughtfully. "So much for all that talk. Boring."
Then Knox smiled. "Well, at least for a talking sandbag, you did a good job~"
That broke the silence in the worst possible way for Hector.
Cindy burst out laughing first. This time she was not alone.
Even students who had been trying to hold themselves back let out sharp, helpless reactions, and somewhere behind them, one of the assistant professors made a sound suspiciously close to choking on their own laugh.
Meilyn dragged a hand over her face.
"...Unbelievable."
Claudia looked worried for all of two seconds before that faded into visible relief.
Merida stared down at Hector's collapsed figure, then said in her usual flat voice, "The lizard got pummeled."
Knox glanced back at her.
"That was a very objective summary."
"It was."
The assistant professor turned her head toward Knox.
"You. Enough commentary."
Knox smiled at once. "Yes~"
Then she looked down at Hector, her expression flattening.
"As for you, if you can still hear me, let this serve as a reminder that entering a mock duel while emotionally compromised is stupid."
A few students had to look away.
That one hit almost as hard as the spar itself.
Hector, still down on the floor and visibly trembling from pain, humiliation, and sheer overexertion, said nothing.
There was nothing to say. Not after picking the fight. Not after getting exactly what he had asked for.
And certainly not after losing so badly that even standing back up had become impossible