Chapter 364: Friendly Duel [I]

The acceptance settled like a held breath.For a heartbeat, the hall remained frozen in place, conversations strangled mid-thought, bodies half-turned, eyes fixed on the space between the two heirs. Anticipation rippled outward, quiet but unmistakable.

Then Armand stepped forward.

The effect was immediate.

He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t need to. His presence alone carried enough weight to bend the room around him. Former patriarch. The man whose word had once defined House Morgain. Even now, second only to Valttair in authority, and in some ways more absolute for it. No one spoke. No one questioned him.

"Make space," Armand said, tone measured and final. "Move the tables. We’ll do this here."

Servants and maids reacted at once, chairs scraping softly against stone as the central tables were shifted aside with practiced efficiency. The room transformed quickly, clearing into a wide circular arena beneath the vaulted ceiling. No ceremony. No embellishment. Just stone, light, and distance.

"The rules are simple," Armand continued, eyes moving between Darion and Trafalgar. "If one of you yields, or is no longer able to continue, the duel ends. There will be no killing."

No objections came.

Around the newly cleared space, the family gathered instinctively. Heirs took the front positions. Wives and branch members filled in behind them. Even the servants found places along the walls, peering between shoulders, eager not to miss a single moment.

More than a hundred pairs of eyes settled in.

This wasn’t just a duel between siblings.

It was a verdict waiting to be delivered.

For the first time, House Morgain would see Trafalgar du Morgain fight with their own eyes. Not as rumor. Not as speculation. Not as whispered exaggeration carried back from distant battlefields.

They would judge him here.

And Trafalgar knew it.

Ysolde was already at Darion’s side. he leaned in just enough for her words to reach only him, lips close to his ear, posture immaculate as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

"Do not embarrass me," she murmured. "If you fall to the bastard in front of everyone, you will become a joke. You’ve seen what happens when the house decides someone is an inconvenience." Her tone sharpened, the mask thinning. "The First Wife learned that lesson. So will you, if you disappoint me."

She straightened immediately after, expression serene once more, as though she hadn’t just tightened a noose around her own son’s throat.

Darion swallowed.

His shoulders stiffened, jaw setting as the weight of it settled in. For him, this duel offered no upside. Victory would be expected, dismissed as natural. Defeat would follow him for the rest of his life. Every glance in the room carried the same verdict: fall here, and you fall everywhere.

Across the cleared space, Trafalgar felt none of that pressure.

His reputation had already been dragged through the mud years ago. Bastard. Late awakening. Worthless. Whatever they had once thought of him couldn’t sink any lower. What existed now were rumors—unfinished, half-believed stories of a Leviathan slain, missions survived, a talent revealed too late to be dismissed.

For Darion, this fight could only take something away.

For Trafalgar, it could only add.

Trafalgar stepped into position without ceremony.

The cleared space felt wider from where he stood, the circle of onlookers pressing in at the edges, all of them watching for the smallest sign of hesitation. He didn’t give them one. Mana stirred at his side and Maledicta took shape in his hand as naturally as a breath, the blade forming cleanly, without flare or display.

He reached up and shrugged out of his noble coat, setting it aside with care. The fabric was expensive, tailored, symbolic. None of that mattered here. He loosened the clasps, leaving himself in a simple shirt, dark trousers, and boots meant for movement rather than ceremony. Nothing to restrict him. Nothing he cared about damaging.

Across from him, Darion mirrored the motion.

His sword appeared in his grasp, plain and well-maintained, its design conservative and familiar. He remained perfectly composed, posture straight, shoulders squared, every inch the image of what an heir of House Morgain was supposed to look like. Clean. Disciplined. Correct.

The contrast was unmistakable.

Darion stood like a figure carved to fit expectation. Trafalgar stood relaxed, weight settled naturally, presence contained rather than restrained. One looked ready to prove something. The other looked ready to fight.

Darion lifted his blade slightly, eyes narrowing as he studied him. "Ready?" he asked.

Trafalgar met his gaze and gave a single nod.

Armand stepped forward into the edge of the circle, his presence alone enough to anchor the space. The low murmur of the hall faded without him needing to demand it. He looked from one heir to the other, gaze sharp, assessing, as if weighing more than just the outcome of a duel.

"You know the rules," he said at last, voice even, carrying without effort. "This is a sanctioned duel under my authority. I will intervene if necessary, and I will decide when it ends. Yield, or be rendered unable to continue, and the match is over." His eyes hardened slightly. "There will be no killing."

Neither Darion nor Trafalgar responded.

Armand took a single step back, positioning himself where he could see everything. For a heartbeat, the room seemed to hold its breath. Then he raised his arm, making certain every eye was on him.

A pause.

The arm came down.

"Begin."

Darion moved first. He advanced with measured steps, blade angled forward, testing distance the way he had been taught since childhood. His opening cut was clean and orthodox, a diagonal sweep meant to claim space rather than draw blood.

Trafalgar watched it come.

Sword Insight didn’t stir. He noticed immediately.

’So that’s it,’ he thought, a flicker of quiet satisfaction settling in his chest. ’Your fundamentals are like shit to me.’

He shifted his weight half a step to the side. Not a dodge that wasted motion, not a retreat. Just enough for the blade to pass where he had been a moment before. The edge cut air, nothing more.

Darion pressed in, following with a thrust meant to punish the opening. Trafalgar let the point approach, then turned his wrist and knocked the blade aside with a short, economical motion. Steel rang once, sharp and brief.

Still no technique.

Darion increased the tempo, chaining attacks together. A horizontal slash, then another, feet moving, shoulders tight. To an untrained eye, it looked like pressure. Like initiative.

Trafalgar stepped inside the arc of the second swing.

His free hand snapped out and struck Darion’s shoulder, open palm slamming into muscle and bone. The impact wasn’t flashy, but it was placed perfectly. Darion staggered back a step, balance broken just long enough to matter.

Trafalgar didn’t chase. He let Darion reset.

Again, Darion attacked. A feint this time, followed by a quick cut aimed low. Trafalgar lifted his leg just enough to clear it, pivoted on the ball of his foot, and drove his elbow into Darion’s forearm. The sword dipped. Trafalgar’s knuckles followed, striking Darion square in the chest and sending him skidding backward across the stone.

Murmurs rippled through the circle.

Darion came back in harder, frustration creeping into his movements. His swings grew wider, his steps heavier. He was trying to force something to connect.

Nothing did.

Every exchange ended the same way. Trafalgar slipped past the edge of each attack by the smallest margin, always close enough to respond. A short punch to the ribs. A shove to the hip that sent Darion off-line. A sharp kick to the shin that disrupted his stance.

To outsiders, it still looked like Darion was attacking.

To the Morgains, it was obvious.

Darion wasn’t controlling the fight. He was being guided through it, turned, redirected, and punished for every overextension. Trafalgar stood exactly where he wanted to be at all times, blade quiet, body loose, eyes calm.

The realization spread through the circle in stages.

First, the veterans understood. The ones who had held blades for decades saw it in the footwork, in the angles Darion was being forced into, in the way every attack collapsed before it could become dangerous. Darion wasn’t failing because he lacked strength. He was failing because nothing he tried found a purchase. Trafalgar was already there, already moving, already deciding the shape of the exchange before Darion finished committing to it.

From the edge of the hall, a servant stood perfectly still, head slightly bowed, eyes lowered in practiced deference. Caelum did not need to look closely. He recognized the rhythm instantly. The timing between steps. The restraint in every movement. The way pressure was applied without excess, without flourish.

It wasn’t a specific technique he was seeing.

It was a style. Cold. Efficient. Purpose-driven.

Valttair du Morgain’s.

Caelum had seen it enough times to know when it appeared again. Reproduced naturally, as if it belonged there. Trafalgar wasn’t trying to fight like Valttair.

He simply did.

Lysandra noticed next. Not the whole pattern at once, but the details. The shifts she herself had drilled into him for months. How he entered range without overcommitting. How he disengaged without retreating. The cadence of his breathing matched the one she had corrected again and again during training. It wasn’t just familiar. It was exact.

At the center of it all, Armand watched in silence.

His grip tightened slightly as something unsettled him, deep and instinctive. Magnus had been an SSS talent. A once-in-a-generation heir. But even Magnus had felt bounded, measurable, defined by a ceiling that could be reached if one climbed high enough.

Trafalgar felt different.

There was no visible limit to what he was doing. Just steady growth, unfolding in real time, adapting without resistance. In Armand’s mind, a single thought took shape, unwelcome and impossible to dismiss.

Darion felt it slipping.

Not all at once, but in fragments. A strike that should have landed and didn’t. A step that came a fraction too late. Air entering his lungs unevenly, faster than it should have, heat building where control was supposed to live. His grip tightened around the hilt, knuckles whitening as frustration bled through discipline.

He pulled back a step, just enough to reset, chest rising and falling harder now. The circle around them seemed closer than before. Tighter. Every pair of eyes felt heavier, sharper, waiting for something to break.

Darion drew in mana.

It flooded into his limbs in a familiar rush, sharp and reassuring, reinforcing muscle and intent alike. The pressure in the air shifted immediately. Those who knew the difference felt it at once. This was no longer a contest of positioning and restraint. This was power being committed.

Ysolde’s expression tightened where she stood. Her fingers curled into the fabric of her sleeve as she watched her son.

Across from Darion, Trafalgar felt the change without needing to think about it. The flow of the fight altered, edges sharpening, weight redistributing. Whatever control he’d been exerting until now would no longer be enough on its own.

Mana flared along Darion’s blade.

The duel had entered its second phase.

And this time, it would draw blood.