Xander’s heart hammered against his ribs as he stood in the center of the massive oval arena.
The dirt beneath his boots still trembled from Jarnell’s last earth-shaking stomp.
Twenty feet of heavy Devil’s Iron chain lay coiled in his left hand like a sleeping serpent, the weighted ball at its end crackling with latent lightning runes.
The crowd’s roar pressed down on him like physical weight.
Jarnell the Giant grinned, showing teeth the size of thumbnails.
The man had to be close to seven feet tall, his claymore looking more like a sharpened steel beam than a sword.
“Cute toy,” he rumbled.
“Let’s see how long you last, little man.”
The gong rang.
Xander didn’t hesitate.
His right arm whipped forward in a perfect circle.
Weapons of War activated instantly, feeding him the exact trajectory.
The chain ball shot out like a meteor, aimed straight at Jarnell’s armored gut.
The giant didn’t even try to dodge.
He took the hit square on, laughing—until the lightning runes discharged.
Electricity exploded across Jarnell’s body.
His massive muscles seized violently.
The laughter cut off into a strangled grunt as his knees buckled for half a second.
The crowd gasped.
But Xander was already moving.
He yanked the chain back hard, using Ficinis to accelerate the return.
The ball whipped toward him faster than physics should allow.
At the same time, he triggered the momentum-enhancement arrays he’d carved into every link.
The weighted end came screaming back like a thunderbolt.
Jarnell recovered faster than expected.
With a roar, he slammed his foot down again.
The earth rippled outward in a visible wave.
Spikes of stone erupted beneath Xander’s position, forcing him to leap sideways.
His boots sank several inches into suddenly soft soil before he ripped free with raw strength.
No time to throw again.
Jarnell was charging, claymore raised high.
Xander gripped the chain near the ball, turning the weapon into a brutal flail.
Three extra rune-powered arms unfolded from the backpack on his back with mechanical precision.
The first one, bearing a reinforced tower shield, shot forward and intercepted the descending claymore with a deafening clang.
Sparks flew.
The impact numbed Xander’s shoulder even through the dampening runes, but the deflection bought him the opening he needed.
He swung the flail with everything he had.
The electrified ball smashed into Jarnell’s shoulder.
Lightning arced again.
The giant’s left arm locked up completely.
Xander didn’t stop.
He stepped in close, left fist—wrapped in lengths of chain—driving upward into the giant’s stomach.
He held back just enough not to rupture organs, but the lightning made Jarnell’s entire torso spasm.
The big man’s next swing went wild.
Now came the real trick.
Xander fed more mana into Ficinis and began whipping the excess chain around Jarnell’s legs and torso in rapid loops.
Each new contact point delivered another jolt.
Within seconds the giant was wrapped like a fly in a spider’s web, every muscle fighting against itself.
The crowd lost their minds.
Xander stepped back, breathing hard inside his helmet.
He gave one final tug.
Jarnell crashed to the dirt like a felled tree, twitching uncontrollably.
The gong rang three times in quick succession.
Healers sprinted onto the field, their magic already glowing.
Xander carefully unwrapped his chain, making sure not to prolong the electrocution.
Jarnell lay there groaning, eyes wide with disbelief.
As Xander jogged toward the victor’s waiting area, the announcer’s voice boomed across the stadium: “Winner of Match Seven… Xander Jones!”
The roar that followed was deafening.
His teammates were on their feet in the stands—Graphis pumping a fist, Atrax nodding approvingly, FR waving Freya’s little arms like the tiny dragon was cheering too.
Gabell, stationed with the healers, shot him a proud thumbs-up.
Xander allowed himself a small smile beneath the helmet.
One down.
He barely had time to catch his breath before the next fighters were called.
The day blurred into a series of brutal, fascinating matches.
A dual-wielding rogue was taken down by a female spear user who could extend her weapon’s reach with wind magic.
A robed mage nearly ended his bout in ten seconds by summoning a swarm of stone golems, only to be countered by an archer whose arrows carried anti-magic dispels.
By the time the sun reached its zenith, eight contestants remained in the winner’s bracket.
Xander’s second fight came faster than expected.
His opponent was a lithe woman named Sira Vale, dual curved blades glowing with frost runes.
She moved like liquid shadow.
This time the crowd chanted Xander’s name from the start.
Sira didn’t give him room to spin the chain freely.
She closed distance instantly, blades flashing in a deadly dance.
Xander was forced into defensive flail work, his extra arms working overtime to parry strikes that came from impossible angles.
Frost crept along his chain with every block, threatening to make the links brittle.
He adapted.
Instead of trying to keep range, he shortened the chain dramatically and went aggressive, using Ficinis to make the weapon behave like it had a mind of its own—lashing out at ankles, wrapping wrists, delivering micro-shocks that disrupted Sira’s rhythm.
When she tried to leap over him for a killing blow from above, Xander triggered every momentum rune at once and whipped the ball upward in a rising strike that caught her mid-air.
The lightning flash lit up the entire arena.
Sira hit the ground hard, blades flying from numb fingers.
The gong sounded.
Two wins.
The third fight was against a shield specialist who mirrored Xander’s own extra-arm strategy.
The man had four spectral arms summoned by some ancient warrior spirit.
Their clash became a storm of steel and magic that lasted nearly fifteen minutes.
Xander eventually won by sacrificing one of his own rune arms to create an opening, then wrapping the man’s real arms so tightly the spectral ones dissolved from mana feedback.
By late afternoon, only four fighters remained.
The semi-final opponent was unexpected: Hilden Breen, the same scale-armored flail-and-shield warrior who had dominated the very first match of the day.
She recognized him immediately.
“You’re the chain guy,” she said with a respectful nod.
“Let’s give them a show.”
They did.
Hilden was a master of controlling space.
Her flail created deadly arcs while her shield absorbed everything Xander threw at it.
Several times she managed to close in and hammer him with shield bashes that left dents in his armor.
But Xander had learned from every previous fight.
He used the full length of the arena, laying down chain traps, feinting with extra arms, and finally executing a combination that saw him bind both her flail and shield arm while delivering a sustained lightning current that dropped her to one knee.
The crowd was on its feet for a full minute after that victory.
One fight left.
The final opponent was announced as Kael Thorn, a swordsman whose blade sang with cutting wind that could slice stone at range.
Tall, scarred, and moving with the deadly calm of someone who had already won this tournament twice before.
The stands fell into a hushed anticipation as the two finalists faced each other.
Kael smiled thinly.
“Impressive toy.
But toys break.”
Xander spun his chain once, letting the lightning crackle loudly enough for the front rows to hear.
“Then come break it.”
The final gong rang.
Kael moved like the wind itself.
Blades of compressed air shot forward in crescent waves.
Xander dodged and deflected with extra arms, but one slash still carved a shallow groove across his pauldron.
He countered with a long-range chain throw, but Kael simply spun inside the arc, closing distance impossibly fast.
They traded blows in a whirlwind of steel and lightning.
Xander’s extra arms were destroyed one by one as Kael’s wind blades proved devastatingly precise.
His chain grew heavier as frost from an earlier fight mixed with new cuts.
Blood trickled down his side from a wound he hadn’t even felt.
But Xander refused to fall back.
He shortened the chain completely, turning the fight into brutal close-quarters flail work mixed with raw punches from his rune-enhanced skeleton.
Every time Kael tried to create distance for a big wind strike, Xander used Ficinis to yank him back in.
The climax came when Xander deliberately let Kael land a powerful overhead strike.
At the last moment he raised both a shield arm and the chain-wrapped fist.
The impact rang like a cathedral bell.
While Kael was recovering from the clash, Xander unleashed everything—every remaining rune, every ounce of mana—into one final overhead whip.
The electrified ball came down like divine judgment.
Kael’s wind barrier shattered.
The chain wrapped his torso completely.
Lightning erupted in a brilliant white-blue explosion that lit the entire arena.
When the light faded, Kael Thorn was on his back, unconscious, sword buried point-first in the dirt ten feet away.
The gong rang.
Silence fell for half a heartbeat.
Then the stadium erupted.
“Xander Jones!
Champion of the Rocks Bay Tournament!”
His teammates stormed the field despite the attendants’ protests.
Gabell healed his wounds with practiced efficiency while FR hugged his armored leg.
Graphis slapped his back so hard the armor rang.
Atrax simply offered a rare, genuine smile.
Later that evening, as the group sat around a table piled with victory food and ale, Xander weighed the heavy purse of 500 gold coins in his hand.
Gabell grinned.
“Told you it’d be worth it.”
Xander looked at his friends—his family, really—and felt something settle deep in his chest.
The bounty on his head hadn’t disappeared.
Stronger enemies still waited in the shadows.
But tonight, he was the champion.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow he’d start preparing for whatever came next.
Because the chain was only getting started.
