Ludger rolled his shoulders once, Rage Flow humming in his veins, Overdrive still crisp. He looked at the open space around him, the sudden, respectful gap, and then up at the wooden platform where the yawning man watched with the same lazy interest.
Ludgerâs mouth flattened. He spoke under his breath, not for the crowd. Not for Freyra. Mostly for himself.
âMight as well finish this off quickly.â
Then he stepped forward into the chaos like he was walking through tall grass, calm, deliberate, while the rest of the arena finally realized the outsider wasnât prey. He was just efficient.
Ludger didnât chase people. Chasing was messy. It wasted steps. It made you commit direction and timing. He let them come.
The moment the next wave decided the âgapâ around him was an invitation instead of a warning, Ludger stepped into a rhythm, breath, weight, strike, reset, like heâd been built for narrow violence.
A man with a hatchet barreled in first, swinging wide, trying to catch Ludgerâs shoulder and take the fight down into blood. Ludgerâs eyes tracked the arc, calm, and he slipped inside it. Not backward.
Forward.
His left forearm took the haft at the wrist, just a touch, a redirect, and his right fist drove into the attackerâs throat with a compact, ugly punch.
The hatchet dropped immediately. The manâs hands went to his neck on instinct, eyes bulging, and Ludgerâs foot hooked behind his ankle.
A small twist of hips. A shove. The northerner stumbled, found nothing under his heel, and went over the stake line like heâd been placed there. His body hit the snow outside the ring and rolled twice before stopping in a heap.
Ludger didnât even look at him after he landed.
Two more came in with clubs, short ones, dense wood wrapped in leather. They moved together, trying to catch Ludger between them. He let the first swing pass by his face by a fingerâs width, then stepped in and snapped a kick into the manâs thigh.
Bone didnât break. But the muscle seized and the leg went weak.
The club userâs momentum carried him forward, and Ludger met him with a palm strike to the sternum, Overdrive working just enough to make it feel like a battering ram. The man lifted off the ground.
He sailed out of the ring on pure force and surprise, arms flailing like heâd been tossed by a giant. The second club user hesitated, just a fraction too long.
Ludger used that hesitation like a handle.
He pivoted, drove his shoulder into the manâs chest, and ran him backward three steps in a straight line. The northerner tried to brace, boots carving grooves in the snow, but Ludgerâs skill fed him efficiency, no wasted strain, no slipping grip, just relentless forward pressure.
At the edge, Ludger hooked an arm around the manâs belt and
lifted
. Not a clean throw. A violent heave with hips and legs. The club user went up and over the stakes with a bark of surprise and landed outside the arena on his back, blinking at the sky like heâd been personally offended by physics.
The crowd screamed approval. Ludger kept moving.
Another fighter rushed in with a spear, short shaft, sharpened point, trying to keep distance. Ludger didnât respect distance. He respected timing. He let the spear thrust, then slapped the shaft sideways with his left hand and stepped past the point, inside the weaponâs usefulness. His right elbow hammered into the spearmanâs jaw.
Teeth clicked. The man staggered. Ludgerâs foot swept behind the spearmanâs leg and his palm shoved the manâs chest. The spearman went down hard in the snow, and Ludger grabbed the shaft with both hands and
spun
, using the weapon like a lever to drag the fallen fighter across the ground.
One, two steps. Then Ludger planted his heel, yanked, and sent the spearman sliding right out of the ring on his back like a sled.
Ludger tossed the spear to the side,
outside
the arena, where it couldnât be picked up again, and exhaled. Heâd already thrown more people out than most of the ring had managed to
hit
. And he could feel the mood changing. At first, the northerners had attacked him because he was unfamiliar. Now they attacked him because he was a challenge.
A few tried to swarm again, better armed, smarter, spacing themselves so he couldnât just plant one kick and send them all flying.
Ludgerâs eyes narrowed. He shifted his stance, lower, centered, and let Rage Flow feed his strikes without letting it flood his thoughts. One came in from the left with a knife. Ludger snapped the manâs wrist with a short, brutal twist and followed with a knee to the gut that lifted him. The knife clattered away.
Ludger caught the man by the collar and
threw
him outward, not over the stakes but
through
the gap between two of them, sending him tumbling into the snow like a tossed bundle.
Ludger paused for half a heartbeat and realized something. He wasnât the only one clearing space.
A roar on the other side of the arena drew his eyes, movement like a storm, a circle of broken bodies and scattered weapons. Freyra. She was doing the same thing. Not like him. Ludgerâs throws were clean, controlled, minimal.
Freyra was a natural disaster with fists. An armed northerner swung an axe at her head.
Freyra stepped into the swing like she was insulted it existed, caught the manâs forearm with one hand, and
punched
him with the other, straight in the ribs.
The sound was thick. The man folded around her fist. She didnât let go of his arm. She
yanked
him forward and used his body like a shield against the next attackerâs club. Wood slammed into flesh.
Freyra laughed, teeth flashing, and then she kicked the axe-man so hard he left the ground and flew out of the ring in a messy arc, landing outside with a splash of snow.
Another opponent rushed her with a short sword. Freyra slapped the blade aside with her forearm like pain was negotiable, then headbutted the swordsman so hard his feet left the ground.
He stumbled backward, dazed, and Freyra followed with a two-handed shove to his chest that sent him skidding past the stakes and out into the snow. She didnât pick up a weapon. She didnât need one. Her fists were weapons.
The crowdâs attention began to split, first between Ludger and the chaos, then between Ludger and Freyra.
And then it stopped splitting. Because it wasnât
chaos
anymore. It was a pattern. Two centers of violence. Two fighters clearing the field like everything else was practice. Ludger felt it before he looked. A shift in the air. A weight leaning forward.
He glanced up toward the wooden platform. The huge northerner, the so-called master, had been lounging like a bored bear through the first minutes. Half-lidded eyes. Lazy posture. One hand resting near the railing like he was watching weather.
Now he had moved. Not much. But enough. His body had come forward, elbows on the rail, head angled down, eyes sharpened from dull amusement into focused interest. He wasnât yawning anymore. He was
watching
.
Watching Ludger slip inside spear range and turn weapons into liabilities. Watching Freyra walk through armed opponents with nothing but fists and spite. The masterâs gaze bounced between them, measuring. Comparing.
And for the first time since heâd said
Begin
, Ludger got the distinct, prickling sensation that the man wasnât just looking at the fight.
He was looking at
them
. Ludgerâs mouth tightened.
Freyra, across the arena, caught his eye for a heartbeat and grinned like sheâd just accomplished exactly what she wanted.
So thatâs why you asked me to join.
Not to make it fun. To make it loud enough that the master couldnât ignore them anymore. Ludger exhaled slowly and turned back to the remaining fighters circling him.
âAlright,â he murmured, more to his own discipline than to anyone else. âLetâs end this.â
Then he stepped forward again, while above them, the master leaned in like a predator finally deciding the meal might be worth getting up for.
Eventually the arena ran out of bodies willing to keep pretending they had a chance.
The last few northerners came in with that stubborn northern pride, one with a club held too tight, another with a knife that shook slightly from cold and adrenaline, a third with bare fists and a face that screamed
I can still do this
even while his ribs said otherwise.
Ludger removed them one by one. A club swing. He stepped inside it, trapped the arm, and used the manâs own forward momentum like a lever, hip turn, shoulder drop, then a hard shove at the beltline.
The northerner went over the stakes with an indignant grunt and landed in the snow outside the ring with a heavy thud.
The knife-user tried to dart in and out, quick hands, quick feet. Ludger let him get close enough to commit, then snapped a low kick into the ankle. The foot slid. The manâs balance vanished.
Ludger caught the collar, turned, and flung him out of the ring like tossing a sack of grain. The barehanded one was the last. He rushed with a roar, trying to overwhelm with raw aggression.
Ludger didnât meet aggression with aggression. He met it with geometry. A sidestep. A palm on the shoulder. A foot behind the heel. A clean trip that dropped the man face-first into snow.
Ludger grabbed the back of his coat, dragged him two steps, and shoved him across the line. The man slid out of the arena on his stomach, arms scrambling uselessly, pride bruised worse than skin.
And then⊠Silence. Not the masterâs silence this time. The kind that came from a crowd realizing the main event had finally arrived. Only Ludger and Freyra remained inside the ring.
Snow was scuffed and stained. Weapons lay abandoned near the edges where people had been disarmed and tossed. The stakes that marked the boundary looked more like teeth now, framing a pit where the last two predators stood.
Freyra rolled her shoulders and breathed out through her nose. Sweat darkened a strip of hair at her temple, and her cheeks were flushed from exertion. She had a smear of blood on one knuckle, someone elseâs, judging by the way she didnât favor it. She looked tired in the normal way. But her eyes were bright. Almost⊠pleased. Like sheâd just finished shouting into the wind and felt better for it.
Stress relief.
Violence as therapy. Very northern.
Outside the ring, the fighters whoâd been tossed out were recovering enough to watch. Some sat on the snow with teeth clenched while friends wrapped cloth around bruised wrists. Others pressed hands to ribs, breathing carefully, eyes never leaving the arena. A few stood leaning on spears like canes, bleeding and grinning anyway.
Nobody was leaving. Not now. Freyra turned her head toward Ludger, cracked her neck once, and grinned like sheâd been waiting for this all day.
âAlright,â she said, voice carrying. âIâm ready to kick your ass.â
Ludger looked at herâbig, bruised, smilingâthen shrugged like sheâd asked if he wanted soup.
âTry it.â
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