The next morning, I woke to urgent knocking.
"Young Master!" Damian’s voice was stressed. "There’s soone here to see you."
I checked the ti. 6 AM. "Who cos calling at six in the morning?"
"Seraphina Valorheart."
I sat up imdiately.
What the...!!
"She says..." Damian paused. "She says she wants to challenge you to a duel."
Of course she did.
```
[QUEST ALERT: NEW ENCOUNTER]
[SERAPHINA VALORHEART: HONORABLE CHALLENGE]
[DIFFICULTY: A-RANK]
[REWARD: Respect, Potential Recruitnt, Reputation Boost]
[FAILURE: Humiliation, Injury, Reputation Damage]
[RECOMNDATION: ACCEPT]
[SHE’S GENUINELY CURIOUS ABOUT YOUR SKILLS]
[THIS IS A RECRUITNT OPPORTUNITY]
[LOSE WELL = GAIN RESPECT]
```
"Tell her I accept," I said, getting out of bed. "Give ten minutes to prepare."
"Young Master, she’s S-rank. Are you....."
"I’m not trying to win, Damian." I grabbed my sword. "There’s a difference."
Ten minutes later, I stood at the entrance to the underground headquarters. Seraphina Valorheart waited, looking every inch the legendary holy knight that was described in the book.
"Hadeon Ravana," she said formally. "I’ve watched you fight twice now against Adrian Celestius. I want to see your skills for myself."
"Good morning to you too." I checked my equipnt. "When and where?"
There was no ti for small talks.
"Now. Helena’s private training ground. No audience except seconds."
"You already arranged the venue?"
"I was confident you’d accept." Small smile. "Was I wrong?"
"No," I admitted. "You weren’t. Lead the way."
As we walked toward the training grounds, I felt the weight of what was coming.
S-rank duelist. Legendary holy knight that never lost a duel.
And I was going to fight her. In the book, she turned out to be one of the strongest.
☆☆▪︎▪︎☆☆
Helena’s private training ground was isolated, it is a deliberate choice for a woman who valued privacy and serious training over spectacle. The arena was fifty ters in diater, surrounded by high stone walls that blocked outside view. Various obstacles dotted the space from stone pillars to practice dummies and uneven terrain designed to simulate real combat conditions.
Perfect for what was about to happen.
Seraphina Valorheart stood at one end, checking her equipnt with the thodical precision of a veteran warrior. Platinum blonde hair cut short for combat. Golden eyes that seed to evaluate everything they saw.
Everything about her shouted warrior.
I activated Analytical Eye as I approached.
```
[ANALYTICAL EYE: SERAPHINA VALORHEART]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BASIC INFORMATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Age: 17
Rank: S-rank (Peak)
Class: Holy Knight / Duel Champion
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
COMBAT ASSESSNT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physical Combat: S-rank
Holy Magic: A-rank
Swordsmanship: S-rank
Tactics: A-rank
Experience: Extensive (100 duels, 0 losses)
THREAT LEVEL: EXTRE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Emotional State: Curious, Respectful, Evaluative
Motivation: Test worthy opponent, assess character
Honor Code: Absolute (will fight fair)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RELATIONSHIPS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Adrian Celestius: 50% (Ally but questioning)
Trust in Adrian: 60% (Lower than expected)
Interest in MC: 15% (Curious about skills)
Recruitnt Potential: 15%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RECOMNDATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SURVIVE. IMPRESS AND EARN RESPECT.
Victory chance: 2%
Survival chance: 91%
Earning respect chance: 73%
She’s not here to humiliate you. She’s here to understand you.
Show her what makes you dangerous despite the power gap.
```
Two percent victory chance. Honestly, I was surprised it was that high.
Damian stood beside as my second. Across the arena, Sir Cedric Valorheart, Seraphina’s cousin, served as hers. Helena stood in the center as referee, looking vaguely amused by the whole situation.
"You know she’s never lost a duel," Damian said quietly. "Ever."
"I’m aware."
"And you’re still doing this?"
"Would refusing make look strong or weak?"
He sighed. "Point taken."
"Besides," I checked my sword one final ti, "I don’t need to win. I just need to not embarrass myself."
"The bar for success keeps getting lower," Damian muttered.
Helena’s voice rang out across the arena. "Rules are simple. First blood, incapacitation, or surrender ends the match. No killing strikes. No outside interference. Both fighters understand?"
"Understood," Seraphina and I said simultaneously.
"Weapons ready." Helena raised her hand. "Begin!"
Seraphina didn’t charge imdiately. She drew her sword, a beautiful blade that practically humd with holy power, and settled into a combat stance to start evaluating .
I drew my family sword, shadow magic coiling around the steel like living darkness.
Light versus Shadow. How poetic.
"I’ve watched you fight Adrian twice now," Seraphina said, slowly circling. "Both tis you survived longer than you should have. I want to understand how."
"Maybe I’m just lucky."
"Luck doesn’t get a blade to an SSS-rank’s throat." She shifted her stance slightly. "Show your tactics, Hadeon Ravana. Fight like you fought him."
Then she moved.
Like the wind.
S-rank speed turned the distance between us into nothing. One mont she was ten ters away, the next her blade was coming at my head.
I Shadow Stepped left.
Her sword cut through empty air where I’d been standing a heartbeat before.
I counter-attacked imdiately, shadow blade aid at her exposed side.
She blocked without even looking, her blade intercepting mine with casual precision. The impact sent shockwaves through my arms.
Right. S-rank strength too.
"Good reflexes," she noted, pressing her advantage. "But defense won’t be enough."
She attacked again. Three strikes, four, five, each one faster and harder than the last.
I blocked what I could, dodged what I couldn’t, retreated to buy ti and space for myself, every blocked strike made my arms ache. Every miss reminded how outclassed I was.
This wasn’t like fighting Adrian, who played with his opponents. Seraphina was testing , yes, but seriously. Every strike was potentially lethal if it landed clean.
"You’re thinking too much," she observed, her blade work never slowing. "Stop analyzing and react!"
Easy for her to say. She had S-rank instincts. I had A-rank everything and a working brain.
But she had a point.
I stopped trying to predict her next move and focused on the mont. Shadow Step when she overextended. Block when necessary. Create distance when overwheld.
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t elegant.
But I was surviving.
Thirty seconds in, I was still standing, and that’s a small victory.
Then her blade found an opening to cut across my left shoulder in a shallow dip, but enough to draw blood.
First blood. By the rules, the match was over.
"That’s the match," Helena started to call out.
"No," Seraphina said, lowering her sword slightly. "First blood, but we will continue.....If he wants to."
I pressed my hand to the bleeding shoulder. The cut wasn’t deep, as she’d controlled it perfectly. I pulled a minor healing potion from my belt and drank it, and the bleeding slowed.
"Why continue?" I asked. "You won by the rules."
"Because I didn’t co here to win on a technicality." Those golden eyes studied intently. "I ca to see how you actually fight. Not just survive. Show your tactics."
Was this a test? Definitely.
Was I going to pass it? Let’s find out.
"You want tactics?" I asked. "Fine."
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