The battlefield instantly became a war zone of opposing elements. Wanting to keep my lethal bounty-hunter spells hidden from the spectators, I unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of non-lethal moves. I conjured several fluid, hyper-compressed liquid blood spheres, hurling them through the air like crimson cannonballs.
"Detonate!" I commanded, snapping my fingers.
The spheres exploded in mid-air, raining heavy, pressurized bludgeoning droplets down on him. But the fourth-year wasn't an elite student for nothing...Yellow Volcano was faster than I anticipated. With a roar, he swiped his magma-imbued fists through the air, the sheer, explosive heat instantly incinerating the blood into bursts of harmless red steam.
"Is that all you've got, freshman?!"
Volcano bellowed. He slammed both palms into the arena dirt, and a massive wave of bubbling lava began spewing out from his hands.
The extreme, suffocating temperature instantly circled the interior of the transparent mana dome. The air grew so hot it felt like breathing glass, leaving me instantly sweating through my clean uniform. The lava scattered all over the dome, coating the dirt floor in a molten, glowing grid that left almost no safe place to step.
But I didn't give up. Through the shimmering heat haze, I could hear the front row on my right going wild.
"Zenni, move! Don't let it touch you!" Amelia yelled, gripping the railing.
"Keep going, Crimson Phantom! You can do it!" Aisha's voice cut through the roaring flames.
Channeling a fraction of my true phantom speed, I reacted instantly. I sprinted directly toward Yellow Volcano, my boots blurring as I zig-zagged across the battlefield, flawlessly dodging the pools of bubbling lava and weaving beneath the blinding afternoon sunlight beating down through the dome.
Before he could track my movement, I closed the distance and thrust my hand forward, spewing a concentrated jet of blinding blood right into his face.
"Gah! You little cockroach!" Volcano roared, instinctively covering his eyes with his magma-imbued fists.
The intense heat of his hands instantly melted and hissed away the blood spray, but the momentary blindness was exactly what I needed.
While his vision was blocked, I tightly wrapped my own fist in a pressurized, shock-absorbing bubble of blood. Stepping into his guard, I threw a brutal, full-body hook straight through his jaw.
BOOM!
The impact echoed across the stadium. The sheer force of the punch sent Yellow Volcano stumbling backward, his heavy boots skidding through his own molten lava as he clutched his face in shock.
But the victory came at a price. Even with the blood bubble protecting my hand, the ambient, radioactive heat radiating from his magma-skin was so intense that the skin on my knuckles and forearm was actively blistering and melting away, exposing raw tissue.
Any normal freshman would have screamed in agony and collapsed from the shock of third-degree burns. But I didn't even flinch. High up in the VIP seats, Oksana was watching me through her binoculars, waiting to see the true mettle of her apprentice.
I locked eyes with the staggering fourth-year, a dark, unbothered grin spreading across my face. Internally, I quietly activated my hidden Pain Manipulation magic, instantly sending a numbing wave through my nervous system to ease the burning sensation. Within a second, the agonizing pain was completely muted to a dull, distant throb.
I wiped a drop of sweat from my brow, my uninjured hand resting casually on my hip as I waited for him to stand back up.
"Come on, senior, is that all the heat a fourth-year can muster? You're starting to disappoint my guest."
Yellow Volcano shook his head violently, spitting a mouthful of blood and ash onto the arena dirt. My punch had clearly rattled his teeth, but it only served to push him into a state of pure, unbridled desperation.
"You're dead, freshman! You hear me?! Dead!" he roared, his voice cracking with rage.
He didn't care about a clean duel anymore. He thrust both hands outward, his magical circles flaring to a blinding, violent orange as he began casting his ultimate spell. The scattered lava pools that had coated the arena floor suddenly began to ripple and liquefy further, defying gravity as they were pulled backward toward him.
The molten rock flowed like liquid ribbons, rushing up his legs and arms, absorbing back into his core before he molded it into a massive, swirling ball of hyper-compressed lava hovering directly above his head. The air inside the dome warped wildly under the pressure, the ambient heat spiking so fast that the grass outside the barrier began to wither.
"Let's see you dodge this! Volcanic Meteor!"
With a violent throwing motion, he launched the massive lava ball straight at me, the molten sphere immediately fracturing into a barrage of smaller, high-velocity flaming projectiles that rained down across my entire quadrant.
The stadium held its collective breath. Up on the VIP balcony, I could feel Oksana's binoculars tracking my every micro-movement, waiting to see how her apprentice would handle a fatal, mid-range elemental blitz without exposing his identity.
I didn't step back. Channeling the absolute peak of my physical agility, I moved.
I became a blur of ivory and gold beneath the dome. I sprinted, slid, and flipped across the cracked earth, flawlessly dodging the falling chunks of molten rock as they slammed into the ground behind me, exploding into showers of deadly sparks. But I wasn't just dodging the lava...I was calculating the battlefield.
The blinding afternoon sun was streaming through the transparent dome, creating sharp glare points that would normally blind a combatant. Utilizing the precise, hyper-focused spatial awareness of an S-rank hunter, I actively weaved through the blinding rays of the sun, using the light's angle to keep myself perfectly hidden in Yellow Volcano's blind spots even as I evaded his apocalyptic attack.
To the roaring crowd and the screaming girls in the front row, it looked like I was performing a miraculous, death-defying acrobatic dance on the edge of a razor blade. But to Oksana sitting high above, she could see the truth, I wasn't panicked at all. I was closing the distance, completely unbothered by the flames, stepping closer and closer to her target's throat.
Yellow Volcano let out a guttural roar as he recovered his balance, his face twisting into pure, unbridled malice.
"You're dead, freshman! You hear me?! Dead!"
He raised his glowing, molten arms into the air and began casting his definitive spell. The scattered lava pools that had coated the arena floor suddenly vibrated, liquefied, and flew back toward his palms, being sucked into a single, massive, swirling vortex. He molded the searing fluid into a hyper-dense ball of pure, bubbling magma. With a violent thrust, he began hurling smaller, high-velocity chunks of the lava ball directly at me like a volley of meteors.
Using my enhanced phantom reflexes, I danced across the dirt. I dodged the incoming projectiles one by one, weaving my body fluidly while keeping my eyes adjusted against the blinding rays of the afternoon sun cutting through the transparent dome.
While dodging, I needed a counter-strategy. I couldn't use sharp constructs like a sword or a spear...any laceration could accidentally trigger my lifesteal affinity, drawing his vitality into me and exposing my true identity to the entire stadium. So, I focused my mana and molded my blood into a thick, solid baseball bat. Because of the bat's smooth, blunt edges, it would never leave a cut or draw blood, it would only inflict heavy, bone-shattering bruises.
With the crimson bat gripped tightly in my uninjured hand, I began charging straight through the smoke.
Yellow Volcano reacted instantly. Seeing me close the distance, he grabbed a massive glob of the remaining lava ball and heavily imbued it back into his fists, turning his arms into two blazing battering rams.
I vaulted off the ground, raising my blood bat high into the air for a crushing, overhead strike. But Yellow Volcano acted with the desperate speed of a cornered graduating senior. He lunged upward, throwing a blistering, explosive punch straight at my descending weapon.
HISS!
Just as expected, the raw, radioactive heat of his molten fists proved too intense for a blunt, unpressurized blood construct. The moment his knuckles collided with the bat, the crimson weapon instantly boiled, vaporized, and melted away into a cloud of scalding steam.
Before I could re-adjust my balance in mid-air, Volcano's second molten fist came barreling right through the vapor, connecting straight with the side of my face.
BOOM!
The explosive impact sent me crashing heavily onto the arena dirt, rolling several feet before I skidded to a halt. The stadium crowd let out a collective, horrified gasp. The flesh across my cheek and jawline was horribly charred and blackened, smoke faintly rising from the severe, bubbling burns left behind by his magma knuckles.
Up in the VIP balcony, I could feel the sudden, intense shift in the atmosphere as Oksana lowered her binoculars just a fraction, her eyes narrowing. On the bleachers, the girls' cheers instantly died out, replaced by panicked shouts.
I lay on the ground for a split second, the horrific heat still sizzling against my flesh. But as the stadium held its breath, thinking the freshman prodigy had finally been broken, I slowly placed my palms against the dirt and began to push myself back up.
My face was a ruined mask of burns, but beneath the surface, my mind was ice cold. I dialed up my Pain Manipulation magic, completely freezing the agonizing sensory receptors in my face before the shock could even register. I stood up completely straight, wiping a smear of soot and ash from my lips, and looked directly at the triumphant, panting fourth-year.
"You think a little fire can burn a ghost? You've had your fun, senior. Now it's my turn." I thought, a slow, terrifying smile cutting through the blackened flesh of my face.
Through the ringing in my ears, the panicked voices of the girls pierced the sudden silence of the coliseum.
"Zenni! Oh my god, your face! Stop the match!" Amelia shrieked, her hands gripping the front railing so tightly her knuckles turned white.
"Get out of there, Zenni!" Aisha cried, her voice cracking with genuine terror as she stared at the smoke rising from my skin. Cindy was frozen beside them, her hands covering her mouth in pure horror.
Over by the arena gates, Miss Karrie jumped up from her medical bench, a glowing cancellation rune already forming above her palms.
"Referee, call it! The freshman's reservoir is compromised and he has sustained critical, life-threatening burns! This match is over!"
But before the referee could blow the whistle, I snapped my uninjured arm out, pointing my hand directly at Miss Karrie.
"Not yet, don't you dare touch that barrier, nurse. I'm not finished." I commanded, my voice cutting through the ambient heat haze with a strange, chilling stability.
Miss Karrie stopped dead in her tracks, staring at me in absolute disbelief. From where she stood, chunks of my face were horribly charred, completely blackened by the magma, exposing the raw, underlying red tissue of my cheek and jaw.
"Zenni, are you insane?! Your flesh is literally melting! The shock alone could stop your heart! It is far too dangerous!"
"I said, I'm fine,"
I insisted, my posture completely straight, not a single tremor passing through my body.
Little did anyone in that entire stadium know, my hidden Pain Manipulation magic had completely rewritten my nervous system. The agonizing, screaming signals of third-degree burns were entirely muted, locked away behind an invisible wall of ice. Physically, the damage was real, but mentally? I felt absolutely nothing.
To the rest of the thousands of students and faculty watching from the bleachers, I didn't look like a mage using a hidden auxiliary spell. I looked like a terrifying, unyielding monster of a freshman with a superhuman, borderline psychotic pain tolerance.
Up in the VIP box, the atmosphere completely shifted. Oksana slowly leaned forward in Elicia's velvet chair, dropping her silver opera binoculars onto her lap. A slow, deeply intrigued, and thoroughly amused smile spread across her elegant, disguised face. Her violet eyes locked onto my bloody, unblinking glare.
I could see the sheer, dark thrill dancing in her eyes. This was exactly what the Underworld Drug Lord craved...not just raw power, but an unbreakable, terrifying willpower that defied human limits. I could tell that this display alone was burning my image permanently into her mind. I wasn't just a useful tool anymore; I was becoming an obsession.
Across the dirt, Yellow Volcano snapped out of his own shock, recovering his arrogant sneer as he shook the remaining magma from his gauntlets.
"Look at you! You're a literal walking corpse, freshman! Half your face is fried and you're still trying to act tough? You think your little willpower is going to grow your skin back? You're a joke! Fall down already before I turn the rest of your pathetic body to ash!" Volcano mocked, letting out a loud, nervous laugh to mask the fact that my standing posture was creeping him out.
I let out a low, raspy chuckle that sounded absolutely demonic coming through the charred skin of my face.
"Turn me to ash? You've been throwing everything you have at a freshman, and I'm still standing. You're not a volcano, senior. You're a dying campfire."
My plan was working flawlessly. Up in the VIP booth, Oksana was practically leaning over the railing, her eyes wide with dark fascination. I had her full, undivided attention. Now, it was time to end this. Since I couldn't use sharp constructs or lifesteal without exposing my identity, my only option to completely break this fourth-year was raw, visceral brutality.
I dropped to one knee and, to the absolute horror of the entire stadium, I scooped a massive handful of the remaining molten lava right off the ground with my bare left hand.
"Oh my god, he's insane!" a student shrieked from the bleachers.
Miss Karrie looked ready to faint, and in the front row, Amelia, Aisha, and Cindy screamed my name in pure terror. They thought I had finally lost my mind to the pain.
But this was my master plan. As the agonizingly hot, bubbling magma coated my left hand entirely...the flesh sizzling as my Pain Manipulation completely locked out the neurological shock...I used the raw element as a catalyst. I lunged straight at Yellow Volcano, blurring through the heat haze like a vengeful ghost.
"Let's see how you handle your own medicine!" I roared.
With a violent snap of my wrist, I sprayed a massive jet of my own blood directly through the molten magma in my hand. The interaction was instant and volatile. The extreme heat of his own element didn't vaporize my blood this time, instead, it superheated it, turning my crimson fluid into a boiling, pressurized wave of liquid iron.
Because my blood was now matching the exact, unholy temperature of his own magma, it didn't evaporate. It splashed fiercely across Yellow Volcano's face like a lethal, boiling pepper spray.
"AGHH!!! MY EYES! MY FACE!!!"
Yellow Volcano unleashed a blood-curdling shriek of pure agony, stumbling backward as the superheated crimson fluid blinded him, melting through his natural heat resistance and searing his skin. He had never felt his own element turned against him like this.
Sensing the perfect, definitive opening, I didn't hesitate. I wound back my right fist, drawing upon the absolute limits of my physical strength. I didn't use a spell. I didn't use a weapon.
"CRACK-BOOM!"
With a sickening crunch of breaking bones and tearing fabric, my fist punched straight into his stomach, the sheer kinetic force embedding my knuckles deep into his abdomen and knocking the absolute breath out of his lungs.
The sheer, brutal momentum of the impact exploded through Yellow Volcano's core. The violent knockback of my punch launched his heavy, muscular frame completely off his feet. He flew straight across the arena, smashing violently into the reinforced edge of the transparent mana dome.
The heavy structural glass spiderwebbed from the force of his body hitting it. He collapsed into the dirt like a broken ragdoll, hacking up a thick, ragged spray of real blood before his eyes rolled back into his head. His magma gauntlets dissolved into harmless ash. He fell completely unconscious, totally defeated.
The stadium fell into a dead, suffocating silence.
To drive the spike of terror even deeper and firmly cement my image in Oksana's mind, I didn't reach for a medical salve or show a single shred of weakness. Instead, I casually raised my left arm. With a slow, completely unbothered motion, I wiped away the cooling, sticky molten lava from my left hand as if it were nothing more than spilled water.
As the crust of rock fell away, the gruesome reality of what I had done was laid bare. The flesh and muscle had been completely incinerated by the heat, almost nothing but the stark, blackened bone of my fingers and hand remained.
A collective wave of absolute horror swept through the gymnasium bleachers. Students recoiled in their seats, some looking away in pure disgust.
In the front row, the girls were utterly paralyzed.
"Zenni... your hand..."
Amelia whispered, her face completely drained of color, her anger over her expensive soap entirely replaced by sheer, unadulterated shock. Aisha and Cindy could only stare, completely speechless at the grotesque display of raw, terrifying willpower.
Yellow Volcano was a decorated fourth-year. He had years of formal academy training, vast experience in magma creation, and a mastery over high-tier, destructive spells. Yet, he had just been completely dismantled and broken by a slum kid. To the audience, I hadn't used any legendary or forbidden magic...I had won using nothing but low-tier blood manipulation, a psychotic pain tolerance, and the raw, vicious physical strength bred from surviving the slums.
Up on the VIP balcony, Oksana was practically vibrating with dark excitement. Her gaze was locked onto my skeletal hand and charred face. I could see it in her eyes...she was completely enthralled. The Crimson Phantom wasn't just a powerful ally to her anymore; I was a masterpiece of brutality.
The referee finally snapped out of his trance, his hands shaking as he pointed toward me. The announcer's voice trembled through the acoustic speakers, barely able to process what he was witnessing:
"T-The fourth-year combatant is unable to continue! In an absolutely unprecedented, terrifying turn of events... the first-year... the Crimson Phantom... WINS!"