Liam's match was everything the bracket promised.
The Ironveil girl — her name was Vanya, William had learned so from the bracket listing — moved with the flowing aggression of someone who had won eighty-seven percent of her matches against fire and earth affinity opponents and knew exactly how she won them.
She came at Liam in the first exchange with a wind technique that was genuinely elegant — layered pressure from multiple angles simultaneously, the kind of thing that required real control and produced a signature that most fire affinity fighters instinctively moved back from.
Liam moved laterally.
Just like Seraphina had said. Hard left, breaking her timing before the sequence could establish, forcing her to abort and recalculate.
She recalculated fast — she was good. New approach, different angle, adapting.
Liam interrupted again. Not retreating, not attacking directly, just refusing to let her find the rhythm that her win record was built on.
