"For the next battle, the drawing begins."
"The drawing is complete. Next battle, number thirty-five."
As the words fell, both camps sank into a brief silence.
But after that brief silence, both sides began rubbing their fists and flexing their wrists.
The next battle had begun.
"Number thirty-five."
"After waiting so long, it's finally my turn."
"Off I go."
On the Origin Continent's side, a gentle voice rang out, and a figure slowly emerged from the crowd.
He was a middle-aged man, of average build but on the thin side, wearing a short coarse-cloth tunic washed so often it had grown worn.
Its color lay somewhere between gray and brown; it was impossible to tell which it had originally been.
The collar of his cloth tunic had frayed, and a ring of fine stitches ran around the cuffs, mended with meticulous neatness.
A straw rope was tied around his waist, with half a broken writing brush tucked into it. Its shaft was dark, and most of the bristles at its tip had splayed, as though it had been used for many years.
On his feet was a pair of straw sandals, their soles worn very thin.
His toes could almost feel the grain of the stone paving, and the tops of his feet were covered in calluses and fine, dry cracks.
His face bore the weathering of someone washed over time and again by the years.
His cheekbones were slightly high, his cheeks slightly hollow, and his skin was a dull yellow, covered in fine lines.
The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes resembled water rippled by the wind, layer upon layer.
His eyebrows were half gray and half black, thick and unruly, with a deep vertical crease between them, like a mark left by years of frowning.
He