The arrival of the airship drew William from a trance-like study of Ragnarok's cool marble interior. Since arriving, the revenant had spent his time memorizing every facet of the structure. His destructive enlightenment had shown William a dozen ways he could exploit the structure's minute flaws to bring the artifact tumbling down around him. It wasn't surprising to find that those flaws were few. Ragnarok had, after all, stood for countless years. Unmolested, it would stand for countless more.
One thing he had taken note of was that Ragnarok's builders had seen fit to not only weave an enchantment on the structure to ward off the ravages of time, but to also control the building's interior climate. The hot desert breeze that whipped across the sands outside were being magically stopped from crossing Ragnarok's threshold. In its place, a magically generated cool wind circulated which kept the arena pleasantly refreshing. It reminded William of the opulently high-end hotels in Radasanth that would have employees to churn giant fans behind massive blocks of ice in the summer to keep the hotel's common spaces and suites chilled.
It struck William as quirky that Ragnarok's builders would build an arena that would compel fighters to try to kill one another, but that it would also make sure that they weren't in any discomfort as they did so. Perhaps they'd figured that fighting in a sweatbox would cut down on the bloodshed? Perhaps the surrounding area had turned from a temperate forest into a blasted wasteland in the years since Ragnarok's construction? Or it could just have been that the builders had been so far removed from humanity that William was incapable of understanding them? Whatever the reason, William put the thoughts out of his mind as a bullish man leapt from the airship and dropped heavily into the sands.
William supposed that this man was the opponent that Ragnarok had chosen for him. Like the structure, William studied the man as he approached, letting his destructive enlightenment take the man's measure. From the look of him, William judged that the man was Salvaran, though he'd never met anyone from Salvar who was either as tanned or as thick as this man. Though he stood roughly the same height as William, his opponent had to have an extra hundred pounds lean muscle on him. Not that more muscle translated to more strength, necessarily. William's own enhanced strength was enough that his charred claws could tear through steel like it was soft cheese.
Still, the rippling of corded muscle under the man's skin told William that this contest wouldn't be a stroll in the park. Furthermore, his enlightenment saw that the man's muscles had a coating of some form of organic armor. Tough yet flexible, the man's own body was its own protection, and one that wouldn't hinder him like a suit of armor would. Coupled with the inhuman grace that the man displayed as he moved and William knew that the man he faced was no simple bruiser.
William took up his obsidian warscythe and marched down to the water to meet his opponent. The pool's cool stillness shattered as his aura of heat caused the thin layer of water to sizzle and hiss where it touched him. As is in reply, William felt a surge of excitement well up within him. Regeneration could rid his body of the strain caused by marching across burning desert sands for days on end, but nothing had been able to rid him of the tedium that came with it. This man, however, seemed to have some promise. Hopefully his death wouldn't be too quick.
Knowing how far his burning aura extended, William stopped a dozen feet away from the bulky Salvaran. The old urge to simply leap at the man surfaced briefly within him but he clamped it down. Why end this quickly when he could take his time and enjoy it?
"My name is William Arcus and it looks like I'm supposed to kill you." It surprised William to hear just how well his voice carried around the open structure, even as dry and raspy as it was with disuse. "Will you give me your name before we start, or do you just want to get straight to it?"
