When the final day of the tournament arrived, the Central Arena was experiencing one of its most historic moments. However, an unexpected last-minute development had thrown all plans into disarray: Revia's semifinal opponent had decided to withdraw from the tournament, citing an injury. With this decision, Revia secured a direct spot in the final and on the championship podium.
When the names appeared on the giant screen, the cheers from the stands reached a deafening volume:
Kael (Eastern Academy) vs. Ronan (Central Kingdom)Although Ronan was the same age as Kael, he was a light mage who had managed to reach the 5th ring.
Zephyros had been plagued by an uneasy feeling since the start of the tournament. Gathering the continent's finest young talents for no apparent reason and offering a sacred plant as a prize... his eye was constantly on Archmage Luminos.
"I wonder if they've already noticed that power within Kael? Is this tournament a trap?" he kept wondering.
When Kael and Ronan stepped onto the field, the crowd's excitement reached its peak. With the referee's signal, the battle began.
The moment Ronan raised his staff, the entire arena was bathed in a pure, intense white light. Using the speed and power of his magic, Ronan left Kael no room to breathe. Light arrows raining down from the sky and energy waves shattering the ground forced Kael to remain on the defensive.
Though Kael tried to break free with his speed, the opponent before him was no mere 4th-ring fighter—he was a genius on the verge of the 5th ring. Ronan sensed the points where Kael would move and blocked those paths with his spells.
Toward the end of the intense battle that had lasted for minutes, Kael was on the verge of collapsing to his knees. He was breathing heavily, feeling his mana running out. Small magical burns had formed on his body from Ronan's arrows of light. His opponent, however, didn't have a single drop of sweat on him. A 5th-ring light mage was far beyond Kael's current limits. Inside,
"I can't use the black flames... Master Galm strictly forbade me from using them," he muttered
Kael clenched his teeth and looked up at the glowing flower.
"But if I lose this tournament... I'll never be able to obtain Astra Lumina. That flower is the only way to heal my mother."
Kael closed his eyes. The helplessness within him had intensified.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Zephyros..."
When Kael opened his eyes, the crimson flames around him suddenly shifted direction, transforming into pitch-black flames within seconds.The light mage Ronan took a step back when he sensed this ominous energy.
"What on earth is this? The flames... they look so ominous."
Zephyros leaped to his feet, his eyes wide with shock. It was the first time he'd seen Kael's black flames. At the same moment, Vaelmon, watching the match on the magical screen in his home, froze in front of the screen.
"What on earth are these flames...? Why are Kael's flames black? Which school of magic is this?" he muttered to himself.
In the royal box, King Arkonis turned to Luminos in astonishment.
"Luminos... Have you ever seen a black flame like this before?"
Luminos's sharp eyes strained to discern the truth beneath the dust and smoke.
"No, Your Majesty... I'm seeing this for the first time," he said, though his doubts had deepened. What other secrets was this young man, whom he'd been watching since the tournament began, hiding?
Kael gripped the Phoenix Sword in his hand tightly. The moment the black flame wrapped around the sword's metal, the blade evolved, shifting its form and taking on a completely dark, sharp appearance.Kael assumed his stance. He drew the sword back and, unleashing the dragon's will within his consciousness, shouted the name of the sword's third evolved form:
"Echo of Grosol!"
As Kael swung the sword toward Ronan, a dragon silhouette formed from pure black flames burst from the tip of the blade. As the dragon advanced, it warped the air and light around it, leaving a pitch-black void in its wake.
Ronan channeled all his mana into his staff to suppress this deadly and ominous magic, creating a barrier of sacred light layered before him.
However, the moment the black dragon reached Ronan's barrier, it opened its jaws. The shield of light shattered into dust within seconds between the black flames' teeth. The shockwave created by the barrier's collapse hurled Ronan several meters backward.
Ronan crashed to the ground, unconscious, his staff split in two.Just at that moment, cheers to celebrate the winner would have risen in the Arena, but instead, a eerie silence fell, followed by a great roar.
"What on earth was that?" "Did anyone see that attack just now? How did the flames suddenly turn black?"
"A fire that devoured the light spell? Is this a cursed spell that violates the kingdom's laws?"
Rota, Lyra, and Revia were frozen in their seats. Rota thought to himself,
"Kael... when did you awaken such power, my friend?"
Revia, however, simply remained silent.
The referee, recovering from the shock, urgently called for medical personnel to enter the arena. The attendants rushed over to Ronan, who was seriously injured. Kael's dark magic had taken a heavy toll on the genius from the Central Kingdom. Normally, Kael wasn't the type to inflict permanent damage on his opponent or lose his temper. But the thought of healing his mother was preventing him from thinking clearly at that moment.
Kael slowly sheathed the sword that had emerged from his black form. He paid no heed to the buzzing around him or the fearful stares of the crowd. He had a single goal. He fixed his gaze on Astra Lumia, standing on the podium above. "There's nothing standing in my way for the final now," he thought—but...
At that moment, the sky seemed to split in two. A massive ball of light plummeted from the royal box, like a meteor, straight into the center of the arena.
When Archmage Luminos stepped onto the field, the marble floor beneath his feet shattered into thousands of pieces and collapsed. At that very moment, the live broadcast spell casting the tournament across the entire continent cut out with a loud crackle, and the projection screens went dark.
Vaelmon and Nerya, who had been watching the match at home with bated breath, were overcome with deep anxiety when the screen suddenly went dark. Nerya leaped to her feet, clutching her heart.
"Kael! Vaelmon, something's happened to my son—I can feel it!"
Vaelmon, meanwhile, was trying to calm Nerya down
"Calm down, Nerya, please... Zephyros is there, by Kael's side. I'm sure it's just a technical glitch with the projection screens."
In the arena, just as Kael was about to turn and leave, Luminos's voice echoed:
"Wait, boy!"
Before Kael could even blink, Luminos appeared right beside him at the speed of light. The pure mana pressure radiating from this man at the peak of the 9th ring was literally crushing Kael physically. Luminos raised his right hand and shaped a massive sword made of pure, intense light, extending its tip toward Kael's throat.
Zephyros, in the stands, wanted to leap from his seat the moment he saw Luminos's move. But Luminos had already activated his signature spell:
"Sacred Domain: Great Cathedral!"
In an instant, the entire arena was sealed inside a massive cathedral, surrounded by colossal, pure-white pillars of light reaching toward the sky and adorned with windows. A 9th-ring mage's signature spell was so terrifying that the cathedral's radiance blanketed everyone below the 7th ring in a blinding light. Spectators, students, referees... Everyone's senses had vanished in an instant. They couldn't move, see, or make a sound. Only Zephyros and a few high-ranking mages of the kingdom had managed to retain their consciousness, but even they were frozen rigid under the absolute pressure, able only to helplessly watch what was unfolding on the field.
Kael's vision had completely vanished as well. He was left in pitch-black darkness.
"W-what's happening? I can't see a thing... I can't move!" he thought to himself, his body not shifting an inch.
"You can't move or see within the Cathedral's spell, boy. Don't bother struggling."
"I've been watching you since the start of the tournament. Exactly what are you? I am Luminos, a 9th-circle mage... I've never seen a flame like this in my life."
Despite the immense pressure bearing down on him, Kael managed to speak with great difficulty:
"I-I don't understand what you're saying, sir... I'm a student at the Eastern Academy, just—"
"Don't lie!" roared Luminos, cutting Kael off.
"An ordinary 4th-circle student couldn't possibly beat a 5th-circle light mage this badly! Did you think I didn't notice that seal ring on your finger?"
Luminos swiftly grabbed Kael's left hand and yanked the seal ring off his finger in a single motion.
As the ring came off, the immense dark mana suppressed within Kael's body erupted outward with a shocking force. Amid the Cathedral's white light, pitch-black, ominous aura engulfed the entire area. Kael was trying to stop the energy surging wildly from his body, but his 15-year-old body was still too inexperienced to control the demonic power.
"My seal ring... No! If people find out I'm a half-breed..."
Kael pulled out the teleportation scrolls Zephyros had given him for emergencies. But in the blink of an eye, Luminos swung his light sword, shattering the scrolls into dust in midair before they could activate.
"It seems you've planned everything,"
Zephyros, standing in the stands, went berserk when he saw what was happening before him. He was forcing his rigid body to move until his bones were on the verge of breaking, but he couldn't physically overcome the 9th Ring's signature spell.
Luminos's eyes narrowed when he saw two black wings suddenly burst from Kael's back.
"My suspicions were correct... I can't believe the Eastern Kingdom has infiltrated a demon into the academy. You're a threat to this continent, boy!"
Luminos raised his light sword into the air. Just as the Grosolun within Kael was about to fully emerge, a masked man darted out like a shadow and landed on the field. He blocked Luminos's sword with his own in midair, deflecting Luminos's attack.
Luminos took a step back in surprise
"Who are you, anyway!? Since you can move so freely within the cathedral's magic, you can't be human... Or is that demon child behind you someone you know?"
The masked stranger didn't answer. As he flipped his sword and took a step forward, a massive shadow rose from the arena floor toward the sky. Two colossal mages stood face to face.Luminos raised his hand:
"Holy Light: Seven Stars!"
Seven massive light meteors appeared in the sky, hurtling toward the masked man at full speed. The masked man thrust his sword into the ground, activating his own spell:
"Dark Art: Void Wall!"
A pitch-black vortex rising from the ground sucked in and trapped all the descending light meteors.
Kael couldn't see a thing; his vision was completely black, yet he could feel the two massive waves of mana swirling around him down to his very bones. The clash between the two mages was literally shaking the arena like a cradle.
Luminos smiled slightly in the face of the masked man's power,
"It's been a long time since we've fought on equal terms, stranger... You're truly powerful. But the time has come to put an end to this battle!"
Luminos began gathering all the light mana within the cathedral into his hands. He was preparing a destructive spell that would reduce everything to ashes. The masked man, realizing the gravity of the situation, quickly turned around and grabbed Kael by the shoulder with one hand. Just a split second before Luminos could unleash his spell, the masked man had teleported himself and Kael out of the arena to an unknown location.
When Luminos's massive spell wave exploded, a gigantic crater hundreds of meters deep formed where Kael and the stranger had been standing.
Luminos stared blankly at the empty crater from which smoke was rising.
"Hmm... Who was that guy? The fact that he could move so freely within my signature spell... Maybe he really isn't human," he muttered.
Luminos lowered his hand and dispelled the Great Cathedral spell. As the spell faded, everything returned to normal. The thousands of people in the arena, whose senses had been temporarily shut down, looked around in a dazed state, unable to comprehend what had just happened. No one had seen Kael's wings or the masked man.
The moment Zephyros could move his body, he flew onto the field in a rage, landing beside Luminos. His aura was raging like a madman.
"Damn you! What did you do to Kael?!" he shouted.
Luminos smoothed out his cloak and gave Zephyros a cold smile.
"It's been a long time since I last saw you, my friend Zephyros... calm down. Everyone is watching us—or do you want to fight me right here?"
Ignoring Zephyros's seething rage, Luminos teleported in a single motion to the box next to the King. Zephyros, however, began frantically scanning the entire city but could sense Kael's presence nowhere.King Arkonis turned to Luminos in astonishment from his box.
"Luminos... What just happened? I didn't see anything when you went down,"
Luminos bowed in greeting.
"Ah, Your Majesty... During the duel in the arena, I thought I saw a sinister demon that had slipped in from the southern border. I used my magic immediately for the tournament's security. However, the demon was quite fast; I must have let it slip through my grasp. Please forgive me, Your Majesty."
The King was deeply surprised by what Luminos had said. It was nearly impossible for anyone to escape the grasp of the kingdom's most powerful mage.
"So where did that boy named Kael go?"
"It seems the duel ended in a draw amidst the chaos, Your Majesty. Ronan and Kael were severely injured by the explosion and were immediately taken to the infirmary by our medical team,"
Luminos had lied to the king, though his motive remained unknown.The king sighed. "I see... In that case, the official winner of the tournament is Revia from the Eastern Academy, who automatically advances to the finals."
"Yes, Your Majesty. I had thought the students of our Central Kingdom would win, but..."
King Arkonis smiled slightly. "I thought so too... The Eastern Academy truly surprised us today."Down below, Rota and Lyra were searching for Kael. Their friend had vanished right before their eyes.The King stood up to announce the tournament's winner
"Noble warriors of the Central Kingdom Tournament and my beloved people! Today, here, we have witnessed the incredible battles of the young prodigies who will shape the future of our continent. Every student from each kingdom has filled us with pride. However, the undisputed winner of the tournament is Revia Cave, who has demonstrated the unwavering resolve of the Eastern Academy! I congratulate her and pray that Astra Lumia may guide her!"
As cheers rose, Revia showed not a single trace of joy on her face when she learned she had won. Stepping onto the field, she took the sacred plant, Astra Lumia, presented to her on a golden tray, into her hands. Even if Revia didn't want the flower, she had to accept what the king had bestowed. The tournament was over, but the true great battle was just beginning in the shadows of the kingdom.