Whispers rippled through the formation.
"He's challenging Guy…"
"An actual challenge!"
"Isn't he a little too confident??"
"This is my first time seeing a challenge in real life…"
"Aren't challenges dangerous?"
A challenge.
An old custom, older than most of the orders themselves. Passed down through generations of knights and preserved in dusty records and half-forgotten lessons.
Everyone knew what it meant, even if no one liked to say it out loud.
A challenge was never harmless.
Historically, it ended in blood. Sometimes death.
Because in the past, death was the easiest way to settle disputes.
The challenger proposed the terms. The wager.
And more often than not, the wager was simple and brutal.
Whoever won earned the right to kill the loser.
The challenged had no right to refuse.
They could only argue the terms.
To decline outright was shameful.
Public, permanent shame.
