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"And here she goes, folks! Angela Fleming wastes no time!"
Across the court, her opponent, a boy ranked somewhere in the hundreds, rolled his neck and smirked at her.
"I don't think you're actually strong, you know." His voice carried across the court. "I think you're just abusing your royal power. You don't deserve the rank you have."
"Is that it?" Angela's voice came out flat, almost bored. "Is that all you think of me? Did you even do an ounce of research?"
"I don't need research to know what your family is." The boy's smirk twisted into something uglier as he raised his weapon.
"The royals step on whoever they want and call it order. People like you get handed everything while the rest of us claw for scraps. So no, I don't care what rank they gave you. I'll enjoy knocking the crown off your head myself."
'Okay. Whatever.'
Angela raised one hand.
The elements answered.
Fire and wind spiraled together in her palm, fusing, compressing, and then the world in front of her turned white as a massive beam of destruction ripped across the court.
The boy vanished inside it, and the protective runes along the court's edge screamed to life, flaring blinding bright as they fought to hold the blast, because if they hadn't, there wouldn't have been enough of him left to carry off the field.
The beam faded.
The boy lay smoking at the far edge of the court, out cold.
"Winner, Angela Fleming!"
"HOLY... Henry, are you seeing this?! Angela left no time at all! She just wanted this over as fast as possible!"
"That's the power of a Mythic bloodline, folks! There's a reason she's ranked fourth overall as a first year! The top three should be very, very nervous!"
Back in the holding area, Angela walked in as calm and composed as she had left, not a hair out of place.
"How'd it go, girl?" Mars called out.
"Easy." That was her entire response as she took her seat.
'Damn. Cold.'
The squad settled back in, watching the remaining matches play out on the holograms above.
And by the time the first round came to a close, over half of the contestants had been eliminated, the survivors rolling straight into the second round.
Garrett, Amy and Mars were all called up within the first couple of groups, each finishing their matches with ease as the opponents they drew posed little threat.
Only Amy ran into some trouble, her opponent proving more skillful than the last, and with plenty of words to say on top of it. Amy made it her mission to shut her up.
'Another one paid off by Damien.' Arthur watched from the bench, eyes narrowed slightly. 'Looks like he didn't care to listen to Vespa's report on Amy. His loss.'
Far from the holding areas, in a private viewing room rented under the Blackwell name, Damien stood before the window with his hands clasped behind his back, composure rebuilt piece by piece.
"Jeffrey."
"My lord."
"There's been a change of plans." Damien's eyes stayed fixed on the arena floor below. "We're done trying to destroy him in the early rounds. Clearly that money was wasted."
Jeffrey said nothing, which was the correct response.
"Webb's next opponent. The aura user. Corvin, was it?" Damien tilted his head slightly. "Get to him before the match. New instructions. He's not to go for the win."
"My lord?"
"He's to test him." Damien turned from the window at last, his smile thin and cold. "I want him to draw Webb out and force him to use all he has. I want him to show exactly what that orb can do. Make him burn his mana, and make him show every technique he's been hiding. I want the full capabilities of the Webb laid out in front of me."
He straightened his cuff, calm as still water.
"It seems I can't learn everything about him from Vespa or from the first fight. So instead, we'll figure it out now. Do tell Corvin. And if he fails, payment is off."
"At once, my lord." Jeffrey bowed and slipped from the room.
Back in the holding area, the announcer's voice rolled through once more, and before he knew it, it was Arthur's turn once again.
"Alright then. Here goes nothing." Arthur stood, the squad behind him cheering him on.
"Go get him, boss!"
"Yeah, you got this!"
Their cheers followed him as he walked down into the arena, and the noise of the Coliseum hit him the moment he stepped out of the tunnel.
He could hear his name being chanted as he stepped out, a few other names being shouted alongside it, but his was more prevalent than before.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the dark horse returns! Arthur Webb takes the court for round two!"
"And this time his opponent is no pushover, Jonathan. Corvin Hale, second year, ranked 48th, a genuine mid Silver tier and a dual saber aura user. A truly potent combination, many warriors in the army are aura users. So this will be a fine task for Arthur, a man who seems at a disadvantage on paper."
Across the court, Corvin rolled his shoulders, the twin sabers hanging loosely at his hips, his eyes fixed on Arthur.
The referee's hand went up.
"Contestants, begin!"
The moment the match began, Corvin's aura came crashing down.
It rolled across the court like a wave, twisting and buckling down on Arthur like a heavy weight.
But Arthur saw it coming.
Wrapping his body in a thin layer of mana, he blocked out the aura entirely, like a man who had been standing outside in the rain and simply stepped indoors, no longer feeling a thing.
'Silus was more demeaning than this.' Arthur couldn't help but compare.
Arthur snapped his fingers, a familiar marble of mana blinking into existence.
Corvin's answer was steel.
The twin sabers flashed from his hips as he shot forward. Not one for words, it seemed. He was a man on a mission instead.
The clash began.
CLANG! CLACK! CLANG!
The sabers rained down on the orb from every angle, and for the first time, the orb was pushed back.
It wasn't broken or cracked, but compared to Vyros's fists, the sabers were packing more of a punch, knocking the orb away as its built in resistance proved not enough to fully fend them off.
'He is a Silver tier after all. Fine then. I'll turn it up a notch.'
Not giving Corvin a chance to press the advantage, Arthur pulled out his wand and summoned a barrage of orbs.
They dotted across the sky like little raindrops, tens of them hanging in the air before him, creating a unique sight as Corvin backed off, curious to see exactly what Arthur was planning.
His aura grew twofold, his blades slowly being coated as he watched in silence.
The crowd, however, seeing the two contestants heat up, screamed out in a craze, ready to watch an epic battle between two students. One, the dark horse. The other, a valiant student with a real chance of finishing in the top fifty.
And like a puppeteer pulling a dozen strings at once, Arthur sent the orbs upward.
They arranged themselves across the sky above the court, and between them, lines of light began to draw themselves, connecting orb to orb, curve to curve, until a massive rune circle burned in the air overhead.
"Henry... what is he doing now?"
"I... folks, I don't know how to explain what we're watching. That's an artillery formation! Rune-based artillery! But it's fast, far too fast!"
Down below, Corvin's eyes narrowed, his coated blades rising into a guard.
He had been told to draw the Webb out, but...
'This isn't the easy job I was looking for!' he yelled out in his mind as he braced for whatever Arthur was preparing, because any artillery based magic was devastating, capable of striking many sub tiers above its caster's own.
Corvin unleashed all of his aura for protection.
And just as he was ready, the rune completed itself.
From its center, a basic mana sphere condensed, taking shape into something long and sharpened.
It was simple. One of the most basic artillery spells out there.
A Mana Javelin.
Mimicking a ballista atop a towering wall, this artillery spell existed for one purpose: to puncture the defenses of everything in front of it.
In the hands of an early Silver artillery mage, it would strike with the strength of a mid Silver.
However, Arthur wasn't feeding it ordinary mana.
The orbs poured their essence into the formation, mana touched by the arcane, infusing the rune and amplifying its output far beyond what Arthur's own rank should allow.
And so an early Silver tier mage stood tall on the court, his runic spell gathering a vast, destructive force, his Mana Javelin transformed into a peak Silver tier weapon of destruction.
BOOM!
The javelin fired.
It screamed down from the rune circle like a bolt from the heavens, a lance of condensed blue-teal mana ripping the air apart, dragging a tail of light behind it.
Corvin didn't try to catch it. Catching it would have broken him.
Instead he twisted, both sabers crossing against the javelin's tip at an angle, every ounce of his aura shrieking along the coated steel as he turned the lance off its line.
SCREEEECH!
Sparks and light exploded off the crossing point as the javelin ground past his guard, missing his body by inches before it slammed into the court behind him.
KABOOM!
The stone erupted. The shockwave threw dust and debris across the entire court, the boundary runes flaring bright as they penned the blast inside, and when the cloud finally thinned, Corvin stood in a shallow trench of his own skidmarks, both arms trembling, his sabers still smoking with spent aura.
He had deflected it.
Barely.
"A DEVASTATING attack from Arthur Webb! Corvin turns it aside, but folks, did you FEEL that?!"
"Jonathan, let me put this into perspective for everyone. Artillery mages are the siege engines of the battlefield, but their weakness has always been time. The more complicated the rune, the stronger the spell, and the longer the weave. Minutes, sometimes, for the big ones."
"But Webb isn't weaving bigger runes, is he, Henry?"
"No he is not! He's using those orbs to infuse the rune itself! The most basic javelin in the book, supercharged from the source! It's like hitching warhorses to a farm cart. The cart doesn't change, folks, but you'd best not be standing in front of it!"
Down on the court, Corvin lowered his trembling arms, breath ragged.
His mission said to draw this fight out, but his body was screaming at him. He could not allow this fight to go on much longer.
'Forget the payment. If I eat one more of those, I'm done.'
And so he turned it up a notch, burning the last of his strength for a final showdown.
The aura along his sabers thickened, shrieking as it condensed into a violet edge.
Lowering himself, Corvin settled into his stance.
"First technique. Monster Rush."
And similar to Mars, the man dashed forward with immense strength, except different from Mars, Corvin attacked at range as he ran.
Twin arcs of aura ripped free from his sabers, shaped like the horns of a bull, flying forth through the air, striking out toward Arthur while Corvin himself charged in right behind them.
A two pronged attack.
The horns forced their target to defend or dodge, and either way, Corvin would follow through with a swift strike, leaving little time to react.
However, Arthur was no simple defender.
Condensing his orbs together, he formed an impromptu shield and pushed it out, blocking the horns with ease.
And then he stepped forward.
Mana flooded down the length of his wand, condensing along it in a shimmering edge until the simple focus gleamed like an oversized mana dagger, the same trick he loved to pull back in combat class.
At the same time, the bottoms of his shoes lit up in that familiar blue light, mana coating his soles, and with a burst of propulsion, Arthur shot across the field.
Meeting Corvin head on.
Corvin's eyes went wide.
'He's closing?! An artillery mage is CLOSING?!'
There was no time to think. The gap between them died in a blink, and the two collided in the center of the court.
CLANG!
Wand met saber, blue edge grinding against violet, the shockwave of the exchange rippling out across the broken stone.
Corvin's second saber whipped around toward Arthur's ribs.
The marble blinked into its path.
TING!
The blade bounced off the little orb, and Arthur was already moving, sliding inside Corvin's guard, his propulsion firing in short bursts, each one shifting him a half step faster than Corvin's eyes could track.
Left. Right. Behind the shoulder.
Corvin swung on instinct, aura sputtering along his blades, but he was cutting afterimages, his exhausted body a beat too slow, his heavy sabers cleaving through spaces Arthur had already left.
'Too fast. He's too fast. Where is he, where is he, WHERE IS...'
The marble tapped the back of his knee.
Corvin's stance buckled, his body pitching toward the ground.
Half a second was a lifetime.
Arthur's wand blade came down to end it.
But Corvin was ranked 48th for a reason.
Falling, he spun with the collapse instead of fighting it, rolling across his shoulder, and his saber came whipping up out of the spin.
CLANG!
The follow-up was blocked, sparks raining between them, and Corvin surged back to his feet with a roar.
The real fight began.
CLANG! CLACK! CLANG! TING!
The two collided again and again in the center of the court, blade against blade, and the crowd lost its mind.
Corvin was the better swordsman. Years of drilling lived in his wrists, his cuts clean, his angles sharp, both sabers weaving webs of violet steel.
And none of it mattered.
Arthur's propulsion fired in short bursts, half steps that kept putting him where the sabers weren't, and every time Corvin cornered him, forced the exchange his way, built the rhythm he wanted...
TING!
The marble broke it.
It slipped between blades, bumped a saber off its line, tapped a wrist, nudged an elbow, an invisible third hand that ruined every combination a beat before it landed.
Corvin was fighting on the back foot in a duel he was technically winning, drowned in speed and finesse, bleeding aura with every desperate parry.
'Enough. ENOUGH!'
Corvin planted his feet, and both sabers rose in a form Arthur hadn't seen yet.
"Second technique. Saber Dance."
The world turned violet.
Corvin became a storm, both blades spinning in interlocking circles around his body, a sphere of endless cuts with no opening, no rhythm, no entry point. Offense and defense in one, the technique that had carried him into the top fifty.
The crowd gasped. The commentators screamed something neither fighter heard.
Arthur didn't back off.
He watched.
The blades wove past each other, over, under, crossing at the hip, splitting high and low, and to any eye in the Coliseum it was seamless.
But Arthur's eyes weren't any eye.
'There.'
Every seventh crossing, when the left saber passed under the right, Corvin's lead shoulder dipped, and for one breath, one single breath, the storm opened over his heart.
A hole in the dance Corvin himself had never known was there.
Arthur's feet fired.
He shot forward, straight into the storm, the crowd screaming as he vanished into the violet, and his wand blade slid through the gap like a needle through cloth.
The blades stopped.
The Coliseum stopped.
Corvin stood frozen mid-form, eyes wide, staring down at the shimmering blue edge suspended a hair's breadth from his throat, caught in a flickering lattice of golden light.
The protective runes had activated, wrapped around the blade's edge, holding it still.
The lethal strike, stopped a finger's width from his neck.
Neither of them moved.
Then Corvin's sabers slipped from his hands, clattering against the stone, and he raised both palms slowly into the air.
The referee's hand shot up.
"Winner, Arthur Webb!"
The Coliseum erupted, but Arthur was already stepping back, the golden lattice dissolving as he let the mana edge slide off his wand and slipped it back into his coat.
He offered Corvin a single nod, the closest thing to respect he'd shown anyone on that court all day, then turned and walked off the way he came.
'If a test is what you want, fine. Learn what I have. It won't make a difference when I beat you.'