Fractured God

After a night of careful planning, Tibaut came up with absolutely nothing. If there was one thing he could be grateful for, it was that his opponent likely had no idea about Tibaut's own abilities. He left his room to do his usual cleaning of the mansion.

However, while doing so he noticed something amiss. He didn't see a trace of Elizabeth or Vanessa anywhere. "Well, they probably had something important to do since she's sending me to do this instead. (I'd hope anyway.)"

He said to himself. After cleaning the first floor(which had become routine at this point), Tibaut decided to go to town to see where the event was being held. By the time he arrived, the sun was fully out, which helped to highlight the current emptiness of the town.

"Did everyone get raptured?" he thought to himself. He continued exploring the town until he heard what sounded like a group of people shouting. Tibaut suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Shit is this another cult attack?"

He thought while running to the source of the sound. When he finally reached the source he was shocked by what he saw before him. Several hundred people were sitting on multiple wooden stands overlooking a pit of sizable diameter. The people were wildly cheering. Mr. Bentley also appeared to be on a wooden podium giving a speech.

"Ladies and gentlemen" He shouted boisterously "He's finally here, the upstart of Wisteria, Tibaut the pyromancer." The crowd roared with excitement. "What took you so long, dumbass" "Ezekiel's got this" "I bet good money on you so you better win red-hair." "Kick that loser's ass!" People in the crowd shouted at Tiabut.

"Small event my ass, what the hell is this, the Olympics?" Tibaut thought while feeling nervous. He slowly walked, awkwardly greeting the crowd when they called to him. When he got into the pit he saw his opponent at the far end of it.

In terms of size, he was only slightly taller than Tibaut, not more than an inch or two and for some reason he had dreads. Do they have rastas in this world? However, he was wearing an unbuttoned sleeveless vest which showed how absolutely shredded he was. By appearance, his upper body looked like it had no unnecessary fat or excessively large muscles. It was as if he had a body made out of sculpted marble. On his pants hung a leather pouch that looked like it held something of note. The sword he had by his side was a claymore. "Shit, I thought he'd have a rapier thing like Elizabeth." Tibaut thought.

Mr. Bentley began announcing, "Get ready everyone! It's the time you've all been waiting for! The sixth annual guild clash!" The crowd made a deafening roar.

"Can the leader of Eternal Night finally get his much-desired win this year or will Wisteria be keeping their win streak." Mr. Bentley shouted from his podium.

Due to the atmosphere, Tibaut was stunned and was paying no attention to his surroundings. Before he knew it Ezekiel was in front of him, pointing his sword to his neck. "Hey kid, it's me you're facing, not the crowd." He said before walking back to his side of the pit. The crowd absolutely loved Ezekiel's taunt.

"The fight hasn't even started and Ezekiel's already showing the newcomer who's boss. How will Tibaut respond? Will he defy his expectations or be shown the difference of experience" said Mr. Bentley who was surprisingly really into this whole thing.

Tibaut's face straightened up "This is no place to be getting distracted, after all, it's just a simple spar, nothing else" he said trying to calm himself down.

Two men brought out a giant gong and another followed them with a large hammer.

"Now, let the sixth annual guild clash, BEGIN!!" Mr. Bentley shouted while the men rang the gong. The crowd erupted as Ezekiel made a beeline for Tibaut. Tibaut threw a fireball but Ezekiel easily cleaved it and started to close the distance.

Tiabut had thought "Wait a minute, they called me pyromancer so, he probably thinks I only use fire magic." As Ezekiel got closer and closer, Tibaut tried to attack him with fireballs until eventually, his sword was in range of Tibaut.

The crowd was cheering, believing in Ezekiel's victory until Tibaut got closer to him and delivered a liver blow. ("Magic may be one thing, but when it comes to martial arts there's no better training than combat with a real person") he thought while making a spur-of-the-moment decision to improve his martial arts.

Ezekiel started to swing at him with a focus on speed instead of precision due to this unexpected development. While dodging these sword swings an absurd thought started making its way into Tibaut's head.

"No, I can't, I'm barely dodging these as is." He responded to the thought. Then out of nowhere while he was dodging he got pulled into Ezekiel and got nicked by Ezekiel's sword on his chest. "Huh? How the hell did that happen" he said flustered.

He checked his chest but there seemed to be no cut on his body or shirt even though he felt the strike. On closer inspection of the blade, it appeared to be dull. "Well, using a real sword for a spar may have been a bit too much," he said, thankful he wouldn't have to worry about being cut in half.

Ezekiel did another slash, which Tibaut easily dodged before being pulled back to him again, and narrowly weaving another slash of the sword. "What the hell is going on? How does he keep pulling me back in?"

Up in the stands Elizabeth and Vanessa are eating some corn dogs while watching the fight.

"Are you sure it's okay not to tell him about Ezekiel's magic, Liz?" Vanessa asked while chowing down.

"He can consider it a learning experience" Elizabeth coldly responded.

"You're never gonna get a man if you keep doing stuff like this," Vanessa responded already through five corndogs.

"Hey, stop eating those, we bought ten of them and you're already through six," Elizabeth complained while trying to wrestle the corn dogs away from Vanessa.