Chapter 764: The Miracle Route
By nightfall, the Skull Cup had become the loudest place in the small oasis.
“I watched the Osha-Sandstorm duel myself!” A customer swilled down a jug of Firelantern Wine and slapped the bar. “The black-haired Divine Lady was simply unstoppable. The instant the gong rang, she charged straight at the opposing Divine Lady and knocked her out with a single shield blow!”
“Isn’t the Sandstorm Divine Lady called Sandra Sandrain?” someone challenged from further down the bar. “She can form armor and launch attacks using sand. How did she lose so quickly? Even if she couldn’t react in time, a sand armor should be tougher than anything the Northerners wear. How did it not stop anything?”
“You think I’m lying?” The first customer’s voice climbed a full register. “I wasn’t the only one watching! Yes, the armor may be tough — but I didn’t see it do a thing. The moment Osha’s Divine Lady closed the distance, the sand just scattered on the floor, and Sandra’s face took a full blow. Don’t you remember that in the first duel, that woman stood up to a dozen Cut Bone warriors alone? With strength like that, it’s only mercy Sandra isn’t dead.”
“The sand just… scattered? Was Sandra wearing a God’s Stone of Retaliation?”
“Maybe — I’m not certain. The Cut Bone and Sandstorm duelists were certainly wearing them. Maybe those things simply don’t work on her.”
“A Divine Lady unaffected by God’s Stones? That’s impossible.”
“Will you stop interrupting?” someone groaned from the far end. “Give the man more liquor and let him finish!”
“Thank you.” He accepted the refill and continued. “Sandstorm probably didn’t anticipate their Divine Lady going down first. They lost their formation almost immediately. They’d only sent out half the quota — Sandra was their centerpiece, clearly. Once she fell, there was no real chance left.”
“No one died again?”
“All fifteen of them are alive. Arrows in shoulders and knees, or knocked unconscious by Osha’s Divine Lady. That’s it.”
Murmuring moved through the room.
“But that’s nothing.” The customer’s voice shifted to something more deliberate, building toward something. He stood on the bar counter so the whole room could see him. “The duel two days ago — that one was unforgettable. Osha against Black River. A large clan, infamous for audacity and cruelty — you’ve all heard the name. Very few of the people who have faced them on the platform survived it. They have no Divine Lady, but they field nothing but elite warriors and always send the full strength of thirty. There was a great deal more blood spilled this time, but—”
The tavern quieted on cue. Everyone waited.
“Not one person died on the platform.”
The crowd gasped.
“That’s impossible! I was trading in Iron Sand City today — everyone was talking about Black River’s heavy losses. They’ve hung a black flag of mourning on the Stone Castle. And you say no one died?”
“Ha. You need to listen more carefully.” The customer ticked a finger. “I said: not one person died on the platform.”
“I can confirm it,” someone put in quickly. “I was watching too.”
“Same. I missed the second duel, but I was there the day before yesterday. The platform itself was soaked with blood. That no one died on it — that’s extraordinary.” A third voice.
“What does that even mean?”
“Can someone explain?”
“Give him three more jugs!”
The customer raised a hand for patience. “It’s straightforward enough. The Divine Lady gave them chances to surrender — but even with broken limbs, they kept fighting back. Some tried to use their teeth. Under those circumstances, she was left with no choice but to eliminate their ability to resist entirely.” He paused for effect. “She used a long knife to sever their limbs. Then she kicked them off the platform, one by one.”
Silence.
“An arm or a leg removed — they could survive that with treatment. But without all four limbs, they couldn’t hold on long enough to reach Iron Sand City. The blood loss alone took them. Can you blame Osha for that?” He lifted his jug. “What do you all think? Say it.”
“Probably not. They hadn’t killed anyone in the previous duels. They were clearly forced into it.”
“That no one died on the platform proves she never intended to kill.”
“Right.”
“In my opinion, Black River deserved it. They didn’t even try to learn who they were up against. Thought their usual reputation would be enough to frighten Osha.”
“Well said!”
“Barkeeper — drinks for everyone! On me tonight!” came a shout from somewhere near the door.
Thuram, leaning against the second-floor window, looked down at the floor below and clapped his hands once. “No need. This round is mine. To Osha.”
“To Osha!”
The first floor erupted.
He finished his cup and let out a long breath.
The Skull Cup’s customer count had been climbing for a week. The floor that had always seemed spacious was now packed to its limits, and everywhere Thuram went — the oasis paths, the market stalls, even the water points — people gathered in small heated groups, all discussing the same thing. The holy duels.
And not just locals. The small oasis itself had changed. Moribunds and half-deads from clans across the Silver Stream Oasis were appearing daily, asking anyone they could find for news of Osha. That had never happened before. The kind of attention that used to gather only around the great clans’ power struggles had now fixed itself on a challenger four months old.
An upsurge in population brought its own headaches. The granaries were not fat to begin with, and a crowd of strangers created obvious cover for people arriving with bad intentions. The watchdogs’ usual practice was strict: only merchants or warriors who could offer something to the oasis were admitted. Outsiders who brought nothing were turned away.
All of that had changed by order of the new owner, Drow Silvermoon. Every Ironsand person from the Silver Stream Oasis was now free to gather here.
The Thuram of a few months ago had lived simply — earn enough gold royals for the watchdogs, keep a little back for himself, stay out of the way of anyone larger than him. His fate now was interlocked with the Osha clan’s, bound fast by the bargain he had made, and the weight of it showed in how fully his days had filled. Managing order in the oasis consumed most of his energy.
Fortunately, Drow had thought of his position. After the first duel, she had allowed him to remain here and focus on domestic affairs. Iron Axe had not only brought back a batch of food from the Cut Bone clan but had also purchased supplies from two neighboring oases. When one of those oases declined the trade, Graycastle soldiers raided and seized it the following day — its territory exchanged for grain with the food-rich Silver River clan.
He no longer had any clear sense of what the Osha people ultimately wanted.
They had accepted challenges from clans that had done nothing to harm them. They had spared the Cut Bone and Sandstorm warriors, allowing them to fully recover rather than pressing their advantage. If the goal was simply to become the chief clan, this strategy made no sense. A weakened rival was safer than a recovering one.
The one thing that brought him comfort was that Drow Silvermoon’s Divine Ladies were genuinely that powerful. Four people, again and again, against the full weight of established clans.
There were, at present, only two clans left to challenge.
And tonight, word from the Land of Fire was expected.
The outcome of Osha’s challenge against the Wildwave clan.
Thuram had been upstairs for perhaps an hour when he heard the footsteps on the oasis path below — fast, uneven, the footsteps of someone who had not stopped running at any point that mattered.
The messenger burst through the door breathing in ragged pulls, voice destroyed to a rasp.
“We won — we won! Sir, the Osha clan has won!”
The Skull Cup shook.
“Ha — I knew it!”
“What happened? Tell us how!”
“No casualties again?”
The crowd closed around the man instantly, a jug of fruit wine appearing in front of him from several directions at once. Thuram leaned over the railing and called down, “Breathe first. Then speak.”
The messenger drank, steadied himself. “The two sides didn’t fight. The Wildwave clan reached an agreement with the Osha princess and willingly gave up the second seat.”
The room went utterly silent.
Then the roof nearly lifted.
“They just — surrendered?”
“Does a voluntary withdrawal count as a real result?”
“Doesn’t this put Osha one step away from the chief clan?”
“Four holy duels won without killing anyone — has that ever happened?”
“Never. Never once.”
Thuram stared at the floor below and said nothing for a moment.
The Wildwave clan’s surrender was understandable, he thought — keep the third seat, let Osha and Wildflame exhaust each other, then find the opening afterward. They had nothing to lose by retreating temporarily and everything to gain by surviving with their strength intact. Unlike Wildflame, they could afford to step back.
But it was the pattern that had struck him, somewhere between the messenger’s first word and his third jug.
They were building something. Reputation, yes — but something larger.
There had never been a holy duel series that attracted this level of attention from across the entire Sand Nation. The vengeful return of a exiled princess. Continuous challenges, relentless as a sandstorm. Always four people against whatever was sent against them. The record of not killing anyone. Each element was impossible enough on its own; together, they produced something approaching legend before the legend was finished being written.
Most clans spent their entire existence within the Silver Stream Oasis and never gave the Iron Sand City power rankings a second thought. The Ironwhip-Osha blood feud was known, but the ordinary alternation of clan power was not the kind of news that changed the direction of a life. This was different. A princess sold into slavery who came back. A clan declared dead that wasn’t. These were stories that the weak, the displaced, the clan-less had taken personally — and they had, without being asked, taken Osha’s side.
Then everything afterward had been even more extraordinary. In one month, a forgotten name had become the only name anyone was discussing across the whole desert.
The full tavern was the proof. Whatever their particular feeling — hope, skepticism, plain curiosity — all of them were here. And Drow Silvermoon had become a name that no one in the Southernmost Region did not know.
Thuram knew what a reputation like that meant.
The last clan chief whose name had carried across the entire desert had nearly unified it. He had eventually fallen in the war with Graycastle, but the Ironsand people still called him the Three Gods Emissary.
Did the new master have the same goal?
The difference, this time, was that Osha did not need to stand against Graycastle. The power behind them was Graycastle — the very northern kingdom that the Sand Nation had always known as a suppressor.
His Majesty Roland Wimbledon will bring order and oasis to the Mojin Clan.
Iron Axe’s words. He turned them over again, and this time something unlocked in them that had not been accessible before. Once Osha became the chief clan — something large was going to happen.
Perhaps large enough to change the fate of all Ironsand people.