On a vacant space in the battlefield, the sounds of clashing metal echoes repeatedly.

“Ha, ha, ha, hahaha!! This is so exciting!! Mister!!”

“Glad to hear that! I’m fighting for my life though!!”

Just when Teagan thinks he has parried the blade coming from the left, she thrusts the pole from the right.

When he blocks her slashes from above, she attempts a strike from below.

Irijina’s seamless attacks force him to take a defensive stance.

The spear is superior to the sword in two areas.

The first is, obviously, the length of its reach. The second is the ability to attack with both of its ends, the blade and the pole.

Irijina’s spear is somewhat shorter than the ones usually used by soldiers in field battles. Thanks to its reduced length, she could spin it and use centrifugal force to unleash continuous attacks.

In the time he takes to swing his sword once, Irijina could perform two attacks with her weapon’s blade and pole. Their speed is more or less the same, which means that he is at a massive disadvantage in terms of attack frequency.

“What’s wrong!? Is this all the best fighter amounts to!?”

"Simpleton. Can't you even remember the word Redcliffe or Ferelden?" He is increasingly annoyed at her lack of vocabulary and memory.

Irijina is probably confident in her superiority: she shouts as she continues attacking, without leaving him any time to regain my balance.

“Hah, I can’t act uncool before a woman like you! Guess I should put in some effort!”

He dodges Irijina’s pole strike and uses his free hand to perform a palm thrust. His target is the center of Irijina’s lance, the axis of its rotations.

“Khuh!?”

No matter how fast she spins her weapon, as long as she rotates in a circle, there is an axis about the center.

Since the axis doesn't move, there is no way to evade his strike.

Shana takes the full brunt of the impact and is knocked backward.

“Impressive…! To see through my spearmanship in such a short time…!”

As he shortens the distance between them, his shorter weapon gives him the advantage. He rains onslaughts on her.

She hurriedly blocked the attacks. 

It was finally his turn. He continues bombarding her with slashes, without giving her one second of pause.

“Tch! Ah! You sure are nimble, aren’t you!!”

Irijina gradually creates distance so her spear could be effective again, while parrying his slashes.

Teagan steps forward everytime she steps backward, so the distance between them does not change.

He continues attacking as he moves, of course. He isn’t going to get in range of her blasted spear ever again.

“Grr, damn you and your tricks….! Time for a change of plans…”

Irijina stops parrying the slashes, retreats a bit, and wields her lance in a different stance.

She looks full of openings at first glance: 

What’s going on…? He thinks.

He has a bad feeling and concentrates more on her movements.

The next instant, he finds that his instincts are right on the money.

Irijina thrusts her spear forward and shoots towards him at high speed.

He instinctively rolls on the ground to dodge the point blank attack, and the attack crashes through the tree behind him.

She attacked him from the left and the right, and he could not dodge completely: one of them grazes his left arm, which starts dripping blood.

She swings her lance multiple times and once again, he is forced on the defensive and runs around the vacant plot.

Putting more distance between them, however, turns out to work against him. He starts running out of breath without finding any opening to counterattack.

She has been swinging her lance with reckless abandon the whole time, but after half an hour she starts sweating profusely.

Judging from the fact that her legs, exposed by the slits of her dress, are clearly sweating too, she has to be fairly fatigued already.

She probably never fought an opponent skilled enough to dodge the combo attacks repeatedly.

Her fighting style is simply too straightforward. Trump cards should be kept hidden till the last moment: but she completely lacks such tactics and schemes.

Irijina is quiet for a while, then finally speaks.

“…I see. This was a learning experience.”

“This is what you call a trump card!!”

Irijina raises her lance high, then swings it down. Its accuracy and speed are much greater than the previous one.

He jumps and blocks that attack with his hand covered by an armguard, but the cut is strong enough to reach his skin. Blood drips from the deep wound.

Teagan uses the momentum of his jump and hits the speechless Irijina with a flying kick.

“There!!”

“Gah…!!”

Maybe because she has run out of energy after attacking to the fullest, Irijina couldn’t move and his kick hit her squarely in the abdomen, sending her flying. 

Her spear falls from her hands and rolls away from her. She manages to pull herself up on her feet and quickly picks up her spear.

Teagan silently laments his worsening condition. She still uninjured despite sacrificing his hand. She seems exhausted but there is no injury on her body.

The man draws his sword and prepares for battle, ignoring the dripping blood from his left hand.

Moments of silence flows between the two.

“Haah!!!”

Teagan moves first: he approaches Irijina at incredible speed, his sword dancing in the air.

“Hmm.”

In contrast, Irijina twirls her spear, with the least movement possible. However, it is enough to knock the blade out of her opponent’s hands and send it flying away.

“What the!?”

Irijina plants a roundhouse kick in the man’s defenseless torso. He crumples in on himself and falls to the ground.

“You...bas..tard...”

Teagan instinctively remembers her wife and nephews. But before the memory plays further, his torso is pierced and his view becomes pitch black.