Jorfr took up Zelsys’ stance; left foot forward, right foot back. Pale-white ice enveloped his arm up to the shoulder as the Iceberg Breaker spun up and took physical form once more. A pivot on the heel, harnessing every last muscle in his body for this single strike. His replica of Runar’s hammer would be a falling star, his arm its flaming tail.

METEORITE SIGN

FALLING SKY, RISING GLACIER

SAGABORNE ARTS: FALLINGSTAR IMPACT

For the second time on that day, the arena’s circle was broken, huge chunks of ice erupting from the ground, one of them smashing into Svend on his way down. He didn’t so much bounce as he was launched twenty meters straight up, uncontrollably careening through the air.

What awaited him upon landing were two-dozen glacierglass spears. At the instant he was riddled with holes, Svend went completely limp.

After a short moment, the first gong rang out.

“ONE!”

Unlike the first, Jorfr had made these to last longer than a moment. He approached his motionless enemy, taking a close look to double-check that he hadn’t accidentally killed him.

“TWO!”

Jorfr let the Iceberg Smasher fade away, subduing his own aura to make it look as if he was also letting it go, just in case.

“THREE!”

“FOUR!”

The spears upon which Svend had been impaled crumbled away, sublimating in moments.

“FIVE!”

Jorfr even partially turned around, all in the effort to bait out any possible sneak attack Svend might attempt.

“SIX!”

He proved Jorfr’s suspicion right, springing up once more with a ragged inhalation.

Jorfr spun around on his heel and delivered a downward roundhouse targeted at the side of his head. Its impact dislocated Svend’s real left arm, which he had raised in attack, before sending him back to the ground once more. He struck his head against the rock-hard soil, only saved from cracking his skull open by his transformation.

Spitting blood and leaking it from a myriad holes all over his body, his two extra arms and tail both rotting away, Svend still struggled to his feet and came at Jorfr. There was mad determination in his eyes.

With a sigh, Jorfr ran at Svend as if to meet him in a direct clash, only to leap into a flying headscissor takedown; an uraganrána. He didn’t give him another chance to get back up, sitting on him and restraining his arms. When he attempted to use his still-transformed, powerful legs to break the pin, Jorfr speared them through, angling the spears to sever the tendons. His armor was crumbling from his skin and the Aegishjalmr burned in his skull, so he just let both of them go.

The whole time Svend screamed and thrashed about, still putting up a fight to the last, as if each strike of the stone gong and increment of the count towards his defeat was a hammer-blow upon his head. By the time it reached ten, his transformation was completely gone, leaving only desiccated shells of construct-flesh.

“TEN! JORFR HULSON STANDS VICTORIOUS AND VINDICATED BENEATH THE REVENANT KING’S GAZE!”

Svend went limp in Jorfr’s grasp as if his heart had just been ripped out.

Only when the Ginnungagap erupted with utter inhuman cacophony, only when the arena’s barrier came alive to dull that very noise, only when he felt the murderous gaze of Asgeir Ramdall… Only then did Jorfr finally feel respected by his own countrymen.

He got up and stepped away from his opponent just as the druids flooded in, surrounding the young man. They also gathered to him, one of them darting in and then away before returning with the bottle of Witch’s Vitae Elixir, from which he took a long swig. They checked him over with their unsettlingly calm gazes, one of them asking him what he thought was his state while the others debated on what steps to take to rectify the health consequences of the holmgang. Jorfr could swear he recognized a cousin of his among the druids.

With a hand-sign from one of the druids, once more the barrier became opaque.

Several minutes passed in silent wait - at least, silent compared to the total pandemonium which had consumed the spectators mere moments earlier. Feverish debate persisted, and much attention was directed towards the Hulson group.

When the ring could once more be seen, the ground was no longer frozen. Jorfr and Svend stood face to face, but three steps between them. To the latter’s credit, Svend stood unsupported and didn’t appear shaky, either… But something told Zelsys that he was holding himself up through sheer spiteful force of will, determined to retain at least a shred of dignity. The many holes he had been riddled with were now closed, their locations shown by swollen scar tissue. His metamorphosis was completely gone, ribs showing through his bloody and bruised skin.

The Ramdall Clan’s heir shuddered in place, fighting with himself.

He then dropped on his hands and knees before the black sheep of the Hulson Clan, slamming his head into the soil.

Again.

And again.

And again.

One could see the tears trailing from Svend’s eyes with the forceful, repetitive motion.

One could feel the mood in the Ginnungagap shift, the unspoken implications of what had transpired in the last few hours sinking in.

The Druids, mortal eyes to the Revenant King in his demesne, were in disarray.

It was not unheard of for a higher-ranking clan’s member to be defeated by a lower-ranker.

But for one of a Primary Clan’s strongest members to be made to grovel before an unranked clan’s black sheep - no such thing had occurred in the last millennium.

That it was the Ramdalls so thoroughly defeated by the Hulsons only added onto the dishonor, for the former were well known to state that the latter could not reclaim their rank through legitimate means even in five cycles. Ramdall Clan members did this as a retort whenever it was brought up that most of their arguments against the Hulsons had been dismissed, the Hulsons' dishonoring only carried through by sheer volume of accusations and seemingly airtight evidence.