The Telgradian had miscalculated. By blinding Rehtul Orlouge, he thought he would have been able to pull off one last attack using his ability to sense the ice mage's position instead of physically seeing him.

However, Shinsou was caught unaware by the powerful storm of razor sharp ice that his opponent had conjured. For all the good his senses did for him, there was simply no way for Shinsou to use them to detect such a vicious assault. So, when the crystallised spears came for him, they struck him hard.

Rehtul’s deadly frozen arsenal manifested around the suit of ice and tore towards the helpless Telgradian. Impaling him with a sickening volley of thwaackkkks, Shinsou Vaan Osiris screamed and sunk to his knees, caking the frosty grass below him with gore.

Ggnnnhhh...

He tried to get back up, but his butchered left leg gave out quickly and sent him crashing on his backside. This caused the terrible wound in his thigh split open further, resulting in an even more profuse bleed and wracking him with a pain so intense that it barely even registered anymore. As his golden eyes finally broke from a determined stare at his opponent to a drooping, downcast gaze at his wounds, Shinsou saw the rips in his clothes. He looked like he had been torn to shreds by a savage wild beast. The injuries presented a bucolic combination of grime, blood, and gore.

Get up.

A frenetic scurry of hands and feet just about got the Telgradian up on a single knee, at least momentarily, but his weak leg was dead weight. He was the beggar this time, his body hopelessly soaked with a fresh coat of the blood and a film of frosty arena soil. He struggled and fell once more.

Come on...

Determined to get up, he could see Rehtul coming down to the ground. The ice mage had tried everything at his disposal, and now looked slower and more vulnerable as the horrendous toll of his own injuries started to become apparent. It wouldn’t be long before the sorceror tried to finish him off with more of his incredible magic. To strike down the Telgradian and finish him once and for all would only be a small matter, now.

Come…on…

Shinsou's left hand shakily held Enpera, his blade. His right had started to clumsily fashion one more dark lance, using all of the energy he had left. There was only one option left to him for an assault, and he knew that Rehtul certainly couldn’t block it. This time…

Ugh…

A sigh. A deep breath. A look of desperate confusion as the world began to blur, and the Telgradian began to lose consciousness. The trees, the frozen grass, the clear skies all became smudged and out of focus, like a watercolour painting on which water had spilled. The lance clattered out of his hand, a few inches in front of him. Enpera found a home in the bloodstained mud next to his body. As Shinsou watched the sky from his back, the world around him started to crumble away into darkness. One thought was all that was left.

Finally someone…I can...