Redone Beogh - a bug or a bad design?

[unrecovered]

So here I am, MDGl of Beogh, facing my first challenger. Naturally, to test it, I first try to smite him. It fails with Beogh clarifying it's a trial of mortal power. After that, the fight goes badly and I use blink scroll to jump away. And then the challenger fukken SMITES and kills me. Like, WTF? What about "trial of mortal power" and all that bullshit?

Is that a bug? Because if it's a feature then it's obviously a bad game design.