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There were four rounds remaining, and only sixteen combatants. Before the fighting could resume, there was a brief intermission. Daniel was giving another performance, and as the music played, Noah went to see Saimallah.“Here,” he said, handing back the monk’s headband.“Too much for you, huh?”

Roc struggled against Ingram, but desperation made the man’s grip as solid as steel shackles. With all three limbs and one of his wings locked in Ingram’s grip, he could do nothing to fight back. He couldn’t even save himself when Ingram finally let go. Was this it? Was he going to lose? Was he going to die? If he just had his arm, he could win, but without it, this was the end. Plummeting towards the ground, he glanced at the useless remains of the appendage. If he at least had his elbow, he could have affixed a wooden hand or a blade, something to help even him out, but he was just left with a useless stump, like a clipped wing.“Damn you, Noah,” he hissed.

Noah had already made progress in slowing the flow of his mana and his bodily functions, and the headband was helping. His heart dropped to one beat a minute, and he all but stopped breathing. Typically, such a state would be fatal, but the more he slowed down his mana, the more he could forestall damage. Without mana flowing, his cells would stop processing nourishment and oxygen, but they wouldn’t wither and die, for the molecular processes of cell death were also halted. Caught in a near-perfect state of suspended animation, his physical senses operated at the lowest possible level, and he became more attuned to the flow of mana around him, sharpening his spirit senses.