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In that silence, a bright laughter suddenly rang, rolling over the vast courtyard. It was Morgan. She was laughing with a delighted expression on her face, her striking vermilion eyes full of mirth and amusement.

A few moments later, she looked down and asked, her raspy voice relaxed and steady:

"Oh, really? You want to fight me?"

Sunny stared at her from below, and nodded.

"Yes."

…But of course, he didn\'t. He might have been a little bit crazy, but not nearly crazy enough to wish to fight an Ascended serving one of the Sovereigns. Hell, that Morgan girl could have been Anvil\'s own daughter, for all Sunny knew.

However, the fact that he would rather avoid such a confrontation didn\'t mean that fighting Morgan would be of no benefit to him. In fact, Sunny felt that it could push him to finally mastering the second step of Shadow Dance. A member of a Great Clan had to have a lot to teach him.

\'Plus… who knows? If I win, she might give me the reward anyway. Anything else would just look petty…\'

So, even if Sunny was against the idea, it was the best bad idea he had managed to come up with.

As for how he was supposed to win against a Master… that depended on Morgan herself. If Sunny was right, she would not unleash her full power on him, be it out of pride, a sense of fairness, or simply to save face.

The young woman, meanwhile, was still looking at him from above. Her scarlet lips were curved into a slight smile.

"...Such an audacious wish."

She leaned back… and in the next moment, the crowd gasped.

Morgan of Valor easily jumped over the parapet and plunged down, soon landing on the floor of the arena dozens of meters below. A whirlwind of rose petals rose into the air from the force of the impact, but the young woman herself seemed unperturbed. She simply straightened and walked toward Sunny with the same easy smile.

He instantly tensed.

\'Curses… she actually accepted?\'

Until then, Sunny still had hope that Morgan would refuse his daring request.

But she seemed pleased by it, instead. Stopping opposite Sunny, the young woman studied him for a bit, and then glanced back at the tribune.

"Venerable Thane… if you would…"

The bewildered Saint remained silent for a few moments, and then cleared their throat.

"Uh, yes… of course…"

Almost immediately, the pleasant voice announced:

"Challenger Morgan has entered the arena."

"...Morgan has challenged Mongrel!"

She smiled, then turned back to Sunny.

"...That\'s better."

Morgan studied him for a moment, and then shook her head.

"No, that won\'t work. As an Ascended, I can\'t expect an Awakened — even one as skilled and distinguished as you — to really have a chance in a duel against me. Huh. What shall we do?"

She thought for a bit, and then smiled again.

"Ah! I have an idea!"

With that, her dark armor and vermilion cape suddenly disintegrated into a torrent of scarlet sparks. The young woman was left standing in a simple black tunic, her feet bare. She then proceeded to hide one hand behind her back, and summoned an unremarkable straight sword into the other.

"I will only use one hand and a dormant weapon. One minute… if you survive against me for one minute, the win will be yours. That should be fair."

Sunny scowled behind the mask.

\'Isn\'t she too full of herself?! What an arrogant… and pretty… wait, no! What an arrogant woman!"

No matter how he felt about it, Morgan\'s offer was exactly what Sunny had wanted. This way, he really stood a chance… even better, there was no need to augment himself with shadows and reveal more of his strength.

He just had to fight for sixty seconds and try to learn as much as he could in that short time. And if he happens to win, maybe the prize would still be his.

…Lowering the Soul Serpent, Sunny stared at his Ascended opponent and calmly asked:

"Shall we start?"

Her smile widened.

"You wish is my command, my lord Mongrel. Although… a piece of advice for the future… you should really be careful what you wish for…"

Just a moment later, Sunny realized that sixty seconds… were going to be an eternity!

\'What… what the hell?! Is she even huma… crap!\'

***

Sunny didn\'t have words to describe how monstrous Morgan was. It was obvious that she held back and did not use all of her strength, but even then, he was instantly overwhelmed.

The young woman in a simple black tunic was just too swift, nimble, and skilled. She read his movements as if he was an open book and easily demolished his defense, raining a barrage of strikes on the onyx surface of the Mantle of the Underworld.

Even though her sword was too weak to break the adamantine armor, each blow carried enough might behind it to make Sunny shudder and for flashes of sharp pain to radiate through his entire body. He was certain that his bones would have already cracked if it wasn\'t for the Bone Weave.

He tasted blood.

What\'s worse, Morgan of Valor had no blemishes on her mentality, as Dar of the Maharana clan or Queen Bee had. She was as vicious and ruthless as he himself was… maybe even more so.

A born killer.

And while Sunny barely had a couple of years of battle experience, she was an older and much more terrifying beast. She was tempered, her skill was forged and sharpened by thousands of bloody battles… that much was obvious.

Just a few seconds later, he was already barely staying alive.

\'Curse it! How I am supposed to survive that?!\'