The liquid metal sword hissed through the air, vibrating with intense, scorching heat. Moving with calculated precision, I didn't rely on my raw speed. Instead, I timed my counter perfectly to match Zenni's persona.
I bit my lip again, drawing a rapid pool of crimson, and thrust my hand forward. The blood erupted from my palm and instantly solidified into a thick, rotating shield made entirely of my blood.
CLANG!
The liquid metal sword collided with the pressurized blood barrier, sending a shower of silver sparks and crimson droplets spraying into the sand. The impact echoed loudly inside the mana dome. Up on the bleachers, the crowd gasped, and my newfound harem immediately erupted into cheers.
"Oh my gosh, look at him go!" Cindy Ella squealed, leaning over the railing.
"Zenni, you're amazing! Hold your ground!" Amelia Earhart shouted, her eyes glued to my figure.
But Garret wasn't a top student for nothing. While my shield was occupied blocking his blade, he didn't hesitate. He thrust his left hand forward. The quicksilver bubbling over his heat-resistant glove instantly detached, condensing into a dense, boiling-hot molten metal ball.
Before I could adjust my stance without blowing my cover, the searing projectile punched right through my guard and struck me squarely across the face.
The boiling mercury splashed over my cheek and jaw. A normal first-year's head would have been incinerated, but my underlying durability kept my skull intact. Still, the extreme heat instantly scorched and burned away half the shapeshifted skin on my face, exposing the raw, painful reality underneath.
The sheer force of the blunt impact did exactly what Garret intended, it sent me stumbling backward across the sand.
My boots skidded through the dirt, and my heart dropped as I realized where I was falling. The momentum pushed me directly out of the arena's shadows and straight into one of the wide, harsh beams of the noon sun cutting through the roof.
The moment the unfiltered Sisiphon sunlight hit my already scorched face and bare shoulders, the environmental weakness of my skin flared with an excruciating, agonizing burn. Smoke began to curl lazily from my flesh as the dual heat of the molten metal and the sun pushed my endurance to its absolute limit.
Garret lowered his silver-clad fists, panting slightly as he watched me smoke in the light.
"I told you not to hold back, Zenni!" he called out through the heat haze, entirely unaware that the sun was doing far more damage to me than his metal ever could.
"Stop the match! Zenni, step out of the ring!" Miss Karrie yelled,
Karrie's clipboard hitting the sand as she moved toward the edge of the dome, her face pale with worry. She could see the smoke rising from my uniform and the violent red burns spreading across my face.
I held up a trembling hand, my teeth gritted against the dual agony of the molten metal and the blistering sunlight.
"Not... yet," I forced the words out, my voice raspy but firm.
Up on the bleachers, a sharp, mocking laugh cut through the sudden tension. Josan had finally woken up, his nose crudely bandaged as he sneered down at me.
"Look at him! The freak is literally melting under a first-tier attack! Go back to the slums, Zenni!"
"Shut up, Josan!" Cindy Ella snapped, turning around to glare at him.
"You couldn't even last a minute against Zenni, so close your mouth!" Amelia Earhart chimed in fiercely, while Aisha Tyler heavily shushed him, the entire group turning their backs on the noble boy to focus their undivided support on me.
"You can do this, Zenni! Stand up!"
Garret didn't follow up his attack. He stood a few paces away, his liquid metal fists lowering slightly as he watched me smoke in the light. His dark eyes softened with that same conflicted, edgy kindness.
"Hey... if you can't take it, just yield, there's no shame in it. You proved your point against Josan. Don't let this skill kill you."
He thought my own Blood Manipulation was draining my life force and burning me from the inside out. He had no idea I was fighting the sun itself.
I have to end this right now, my vision blurring slightly from the pain.
I reached into my core, pulling a precise amount of blood through my palms. For a split second, my instinct screamed to form a massive, high-density blood sword, a weapon that could easily cleave through his quicksilver armor. But I caught myself. An blood blade would slice Garret clean in half, and the crushing guilt of killing Gary's son would haunt me forever.
Instead, I molded the crimson liquid, spinning and lengthening it into a fluid, pressurized Blood Whip. It crackled with kinetic energy, designed to disarm and incapacitate without a single lethal edge.
With a sharp snap of my wrist, I stepped forward, the whip whistling through the air like a striking serpent, aiming straight for Garret's heat-resistant gloves.
Garret saw the crimson whip tearing through the air and instantly reacted. He pulled the quicksilver seeping from his gloves, condensing it into another heavy ball of molten metal, and hurled it straight at my face.
I didn't flinch. With a sharp snap of my wrist, I brought the pressurized blood whip down in a vicious arc.
CRACK!
The whip struck the boiling projectile mid-air with perfect kinetic force. The impact was cataclysmic, the molten metal ball exploded into a hundred glowing, liquid shrapnel pieces that violently sprayed across the inside of the arena dome. The scorching hot droplets deflected back toward both of us. While my underlying resilience shielded me from the worst of the spray, several glowing beads of quicksilver pierced right through Garret's defenses, searing his exposed skin and forcing him to stumble backward with a gasp of pain.
Up on the bleachers, Cindy, Amelia, and Aisha erupted into a frenzy of cheers, their voices echoing off the stone walls as they watched me completely shatter his offense.
Seizing the absolute perfect opportunity, I moved to end the match before the sunlight could blister my skin any further. I had to be careful, using my blood skills carried a massive risk of exposing my passive Lifesteal effect, which would instantly heal my sun-scorched face and tip off Miss Karrie that I wasn't a normal first-year. I suppressed the healing trigger entirely, keeping my face burned, and instead channeled my mana to spew a thick, blinding wave of blood straight across the arena into his face.
It was the exact same disorienting trick I had used to blindside Josan.
Garret raised his heat-resistant gloves too late. The crimson fluid covered his vision, blinding him completely. Closing the distance in a fraction of a second, I tapped into a tiny, controlled fraction of my true physical strength. I drove a swift, non-lethal kick directly into his midsection.
The blunt force sent Garret flying across the sand. He crashed heavily into the shimmering mana dome, the blue barrier rippling violently from the impact, before he slid down into the dirt.
I could see the calculation in his eyes as he wiped the blood from his face. He was a prodigy, but he was also smart, he knew when he was utterly outmatched. His breathing was heavy, his skin was scorched from his own scattered metal, and his vision was completely compromised.
As expected, Garret slowly raised one of his charcoal-grey gloves into the air.
"I... I surrender, you win, Zenni."
The moment the words left his mouth, the entire gymnasium seemed to shake with the thunderous applause of the first-years. Cindy, Amelia, and Aisha were practically leaping over the bleacher railings, screaming my name in absolute triumph as the slum ghost officially claimed the title of the strongest student in Room 1-B.