The Colosseum was not cheering this time.
When Kael stepped out of the dark tunnel and onto the sun-baked sand, a tense, suffocating murmur rolled through the massive stadium.
The nobles in the VIP boxes weren’t drinking.
The instructors weren’t laughing.
The F-rank anomaly was still breathing, and they were all waiting to see the system correct its mistake.
Across the arena, Valerius Dravon stood with absolute, aristocratic poise.
He didn’t wear leather armor like the C-ranks.
He wore a tailored, crimson silk uniform threaded with gold wire—a fabric specifically woven to withstand extreme temperatures.
He looked at Kael with the detached, mild disgust of a man being asked to step on a cockroach.
Kael rolled his left shoulder beneath his heavy gray provisional jacket.
The freshly knitted muscle protested with a dull ache, but his arm was fully functional.
The massive meal Mori had forced him to eat was currently burning through his system, giving him just enough stamina to stay upright.
[Opponent is a B-Rank Pyromancer.
Heat signature indicates pre-channeling of mana.] [Recommendation: Do not get cooked.
I do not like being crispy.]
“I have to admit, Morgan,” Valerius called out, his voice magically amplified to carry across the quiet stadium.
“I am insulted.
Sebastian paid me a small fortune to step down into this provisional filth.
You aren’t a threat.
You are a stain on the Academy’s floor.”
Kael didn’t say a word.
He just settled into a low, defensive stance.
“SEMIFINAL MATCH ONE.
BEGIN!” the announcer’s voice boomed.
Valerius didn’t even chant.
He simply snapped his fingers.
A sphere of condensed, blindingly hot fire materialized in the air beside him and shot toward Kael with the speed of a cannonball.
Kael’s Faster Brain screamed.
He dove to the right, hitting the dirt hard.
The fireball missed his shoulder by inches, slamming into the stadium wall behind him.
The impact sounded like a bomb going off.
Kael scrambled to his feet, gasping as a wave of blistering thermal radiation washed over him.
He looked back.
The reinforced stone wall was glowing cherry-red, and the sand where the fireball had passed was instantly fused into jagged, smoking glass.
“Oh, you can dodge,” Valerius laughed cruelly.
“Dance for me, trench rat.”
Valerius unleashed a barrage.
Five, ten, fifteen rapid-fire blasts of flame tore across the arena.
Kael was forced into a frantic, desperate sprint.
He pushed Beginner Swordsmanship to its absolute limit, using the footwork to pivot, slide, and weave through the chaotic bombardment.
But he wasn’t completely avoiding the damage.
The ambient heat was suffocating.
His lungs burned with every breath.
The edges of his uniform jacket were beginning to singe, and the sheer concussive force of the near-misses rattled his newly healed ribs.
He couldn’t get close.
Valerius was creating a wall of fire, turning the entire arena into a glass-lined oven.
Kael was being herded into a corner, completely outmatched by the raw, overwhelming output of a B-Rank.
“Bored now,” Valerius sighed, lowering his hands.
The rapid fire ceased.
Kael slid to a halt, panting heavily, his skin slick with sweat and soot.
He was trapped against the stadium wall.
Valerius clasped his hands together.
The crimson silk of his uniform fluttered as a massive, unnatural updraft of heat began to swirl around him.
“Let’s turn the floor to ash.”
Kael’s eyes locked onto Valerius’s mouth.
He’s doing it.
The area-of-effect spell.
Two seconds.
Valerius opened his mouth, chanting the heavy vocal anchor to lock the destructive spell to the physical plane.
“By the ember of the—”
One second.
Kael exploded forward.
He didn’t run at Valerius—he couldn’t cross fifty yards in time.
Instead, Kael dug his lead boot violently into the arena floor.
He channeled a localized burst of Resonance Strike straight down into the dirt beneath his feet.
The kinetic shockwave didn’t travel outward; it traveled up.
A massive, blinding curtain of arena sand was launched fifteen feet into the air, perfectly intercepting the visual space between Kael and the noble.
“—first flame, I command the—”
One and a half seconds.
Kael grabbed the heavy, sweat-soaked collar of his provisional jacket, ripped it off his shoulders, and hurled it with every ounce of strength he had directly through the falling curtain of sand.
The heavy, dirt-covered fabric flew through the air like a net.
Valerius was mid-syllable, his lungs full of air to shout the final anchor word.
The heavy, filthy jacket hit him squarely in the face.
“—ash to…”
Valerius gasped in shock, swallowing a mouthful of coarse arena sand that had stuck to the jacket.
The incantation broke.
Two seconds.
Magic was a precise science.
Valerius had just summoned a massive reservoir of raw thermal energy into his own core without giving it a physical anchor to release upon.
The fire had to go somewhere.
A muffled, concussive WUMP shook the stadium.
Kael dropped flat onto his stomach, covering the back of his head.
A localized shockwave of pure heat blasted outward from Valerius’s position.
When the smoke and dust finally cleared, the crowd gasped in absolute horror.
Valerius was lying on his back.
His pristine crimson silks were charred black and smoking.
The explosive magical backfire hadn’t killed him, but it had detonated point-blank against his own chest.
The B-rank noble was completely unconscious, his face covered in soot, a piece of Kael’s half-burnt jacket resting on his forehead.
Kael hadn’t even touched him.
The silence in the Colosseum was so absolute it felt heavy.
Nobody cheered.
Nobody moved.
Up in the VIP box, Sebastian stood rigidly at the glass, his face pale and his fists trembling with raw, unadulterated rage.
Kael stood up slowly, wincing as his burns stung in the open air.
He brushed the dirt off his bare arms and looked up at the VIP box, locking eyes with Sebastian, and offered the same lazy, two-finger salute he had given yesterday.
The referee, trembling slightly, raised the red flag.
“Winner…
Kael Morgan.”
The blue screen flared brightly in the blinding sun.
[Enemy successfully self-destructed.
Host’s strategy of ‘throwing dirty laundry at the aristocracy’ was surprisingly effective.] [Evolution ceiling remains blank.
But your disrespect is leveling up nicely.]