Malik didn’t waste time.
He moved—no, he disappeared, the ground beneath him exploding in fire as he used Devil’s Footsteps to propel himself forward.
The Jinn saw it, expected it.
His hands shot up, summoning spires of ice in Malik’s direct path.
But Malik didn’t stop.
With a sharp twist of his body, he angled Spine Splitter in mid-air, slicing clean through the ice spires before they could fully form, shattering them into useless chunks.
The Jinn’s eyes narrowed as he jumped back—landing near a cluster of half-melted ice boulders—but that didn’t change anything.
Malik was already on him.
Clang!
Their weapons met, sparks and frost clashing.
The enemy Jinn had intercepted Malik’s downward slash with just enough angle to redirect it to the side.
A perfect deflection.
But Malik wasn’t a one-note fighter.
With a flicker, he was gone—no, not gone.
His afterimage remained in place, swinging again.
The Jinn’s instinct screamed at him.
He twisted to intercept the second strike—
Wrong decision.
Malik’s Mirage Strike ability had been triggered.
The image was a fake, a feint meant to confuse.
The real slash came from his left side, impossibly fast.
But this Jinn had experience.
A wall of ice exploded up between them at the last moment.
Malik’s sword sliced through it—but it bought the Jinn time.
He launched backward, twisting mid-air, landing in a crouch a good ten feet away. The attack’s shockwave still dug into his armor.
Malik skidded to a stop just outside striking range, flames bursting at his feet to halt his momentum.
He grinned.
“That was cute.”
The Jinn didn’t quip back.
He was already preparing his next move.
The air around them turned colder, biting.
His fingers twitched—and Malik noticed, too late, that the ground beneath him was freezing over.
A trap.
Before he could jump away, ice shackles shot up, grabbing his ankles.
“Shit.”
The Jinn lunged.
His blade, now curved like a scimitar, came down in an arc.
Malik’s blade met the attack, but the sheer force of it sent cracks spreading beneath his feet.
He was stuck.
The Jinn twisted his wrist, forcing Malik’s sword to the side, and with his free hand, summoned a cluster of ice spears above Malik’s head.
Malik’s breath left him.
He had seconds.
With an incredibly strong burst of heat, flames roared from beneath him, melting the shackles just enough.
He threw himself to the side, hitting the ground hard, rolling just as the spears impaled where he’d been standing.
Malik barely got to his feet before the Jinn was on him again.
He ducked under a horizontal slash, feeling the cold against his cheek.
In the next instant, he retaliated. Spine Splitter aimed low for the Jinn’s legs.
The Jinn jumped, flipping over Malik, his ice armor shifting like second skin.
He landed lightly, thrusting his palm out—
Whoosh!
A wave of frost expanded outward, a blast that turned the sand beneath them into solid ice.
Malik skidded back about ten feet and stabbed his sword forward, shooting out a whip of fire.
BOOM!
The elements met, causing an explosion of Aether and energy to burst in all directions.
Cursing under his breath, Malik just barely regained his footing and took a stance.
The enemy Jinn pressed on, striking fast—one, two, three, four rapid slashes, each one meant to bait Malik into committing to a block he couldn’t afford.
But Malik wasn’t stupid.
Instead of blocking, he twisted, pivoting his entire body as he dodged the flurry, heat radiating from his every step, melting the ice forming beneath his boots.
Just as the attack paused for a moment, Malik darted forward, a blur of fire.
The enemy Jinn was ready this time.
He raised one hand and slammed it into the ground.
Instantly, the terrain shifted.
Thin sheets of frost burst from the sand, boxing Malik in on both sides.
“Really?”
Malik didn’t even slow down.
He twisted his body once more, shoulder-first, and bounced between the walls like a human clacker, gaining speed with each ricochet.
Then, he used momentum to launch himself up, cutting diagonally through the air at an angle his opponent hadn’t planned for.
And indeed, that had caught him off guard.
Malik dropped in from above, Spine Splitter already pulled back.
Whoosh!
He swung—full force.
The Jinn, like always, didn’t block.
Instead, he pivoted back and reached up with his other hand, snapping his fingers.
Click.
A sudden frost explosion burst from behind Malik, launching a wall of ice that pushed him into his own damn swing.
Malik’s blade overshot, whiffed past empty air—
“Ah.”
—and he crashed down hard, landing rough on his side in a shallow trench carved out from the previous attacks.
The ground hit back just as much as the Jinn did.
“…That was clever.”
He rolled to regain footing.
The Jinn wasn’t done, however.
His sword was already arcing through the air.
Malik twisted just enough to parry—but no, wait.
That wasn’t the real attack.
The Jinn’s free hand had been weaving a spell the whole time, unnoticed, and the second Malik’s blade met his, the spell burst.
CRACK!
A geyser of ice erupted under Malik’s feet, trying to freeze him in place.
He saw it too late but felt the cold fast as a viper.
“Not this shit again!”
BOOM—flames blasted from his palms and his feet.
The heat scorched the air, and he spun out mid-parry, barely clearing the frost that tried to swallow him whole.
He hit the ground and rolled once, then again, until he landed in a crouch on the far end of the wrecked arena.
The Jinn turned to follow, but Malik curved around him.
And in the blink of an eye—
“Got you now.”
He was behind him.
Spine Splitter came in low, aiming for the back of the knees.
But the Jinn expected it.
Right before the blade hit, he dropped down with it, absorbing the edge across an angled plate of ice.
The armor cracked but didn’t break.
The momentum threw Malik off just enough for the Jinn to twist and slam into him—shoulder-first, a chunk of frozen mass bursting from his pauldron.
Malik took it full force.
His breath exploded out of him as he staggered back, boots scraping across the ice, nearly losing his grip on Spine Splitter.
He caught himself with a spin, bracing against one of the remaining standing ice walls, grit in his teeth—
“Rah!”
—and launched a fire kick straight at the Jinn’s head.
The Jinn ducked, but the sand behind him exploded into glass from the heat.
“Hah… Y’know…”
Malik huffed, both of them circling now, staying light on their feet.
“You’re really annoying.”
The enemy Jinn tilted his head slightly, white eyes glowing under that frosted helm.
“Says you.”
Their battle raged on.
Clash!
Clang!
Whoosh!
Fire and ice danced, two extremes refusing to back down.
The enemy Jinn was comparatively slow, but his strikes came surprisingly fast, forcing Malik to rely on sheer speed to keep up.
Every time he gained ground, the fucker laid another trap.
Every time the fucker cornered him, Malik slipped away with his footwork.
Seconds turned to minutes, and they never once relented, destroying all that was around them.
This… this was a battle of demons.
But even demons couldn’t attack indefinitely.
After an hour or so of blows and near misses, they both stepped back, breathing heavy.
They stared at each other.
Around them, the battlefield was a wreck of scorched sand and frozen pillars, neither side able to gain true ground.
They were back where they had started.
Back to square one.
Malik exhaled, gripping Spine Splitter tighter.
“I’m the Stranger… Malik.”
The Jinn adjusted his stance.
“…Zamharir. May you rest in frost, Stranger.”
Neither of them spoke after that.
The real fight had only just begun.
