Kael didn’t wait for the medical team to rush the arena.
He turned his back on the smoking, unconscious B-rank noble and began the long walk toward the dark tunnel.
His boots dragged in the sand.
His chest heaved with every breath, and the adrenaline crash was hitting him like a physical wall.
He had zero mana, zero caloric reserves, and if the wind blew too hard, he was fairly certain his legs would give out entirely.
“Stop right there, Morgan!”
The voice echoed across the stadium, sharp and dripping with absolute venom.
Kael didn’t stop.
He just kept walking.
A sudden, violent gust of wind slammed into Kael’s back, nearly knocking him face-first into the dirt.
He stumbled, turning around just in time to see Sebastian landing gracefully on the arena floor.
The B-rank noble had vaulted directly from the VIP box, using wind mana to cushion his hundred-foot drop.
Sebastian’s pristine white uniform fluttered in the magical current swirling around him.
His face was twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
The stadium, already dead silent from Valerius’s defeat, somehow grew even quieter.
A student dropping into the arena to interfere with a sanctioned match was a massive violation.
“He cheated!” Sebastian roared, pointing a trembling finger at Kael, addressing the VIP boxes above.
“An F-rank cannot bypass a Pyromancer’s aura!
He used a concealed dampening artifact in his jacket!
I demand an immediate search and a summary execution for violating the Authority’s code!”
Kael let out a long, exhausted sigh.
“I threw a dirty jacket at his face, Sebastian.
If the Rank Authority considers my laundry an illegal artifact, you guys have bigger problems.”
A few scattered, nervous laughs echoed from the provisional seating tiers.
Sebastian’s eyes snapped to Kael.
The B-rank’s aura flared violently, manifesting as a swirling vortex of razor-sharp wind blades around his forearms.
“You think you can humiliate my House and just walk away?
Valerius held back because you’re trash.
I won’t.”
Kael’s Faster Brain registered the lethal intent immediately.
Sebastian wasn’t posturing.
He was going to attack.
Kael tried to step back, but his body simply refused to move.
The tank was completely empty.
He didn’t even have the energy to raise his arms to block.
Sebastian thrust his hands forward.
A crescent-shaped blade of highly compressed wind—sharp enough to sheer through solid steel—shot across the sand directly at Kael’s neck.
It was moving too fast.
The blue screen violently slammed into Kael’s vision.
[Lethal kinetic anomaly detected.] [Host mobility: 0%.
Caloric reserves: 0%.] [Concept Node: LUCK activated.]
The world fractured into shimmering, microscopic threads.
Kael saw the crimson line of certainty connecting the wind blade directly to his throat.
He didn’t have the mental energy for a big push.
He didn’t have the strength to redirect it into the wall.
So, using the absolute last drop of his willpower, Kael just flicked the thread with his mind.
A millimeter shift.
The world snapped back to real-time.
Kael didn’t flinch.
He didn’t blink.
The compressed wind blade screamed through the air and struck exactly where Kael had been standing—except Kael’s exhausted posture caused him to slouch a fraction of an inch at the exact millisecond of impact.
The blade sheared cleanly through the collar of Kael’s shirt, cutting a single lock of his dark hair, and whistled past his ear.
It slammed into the reinforced stadium wall behind him, carving a deep, jagged trench into the stone.
The wind from the near-miss ruffled Kael’s hair.
He hadn’t moved a muscle.
To the thousands of spectators watching, the F-rank had just stared down a lethal B-rank attack without even bothering to dodge, fully calculating that it would miss.
It was the ultimate display of absolute, terrifying arrogance.
Sebastian froze, his mouth falling open in shock.
“How…”
Kael looked at him, his eyes dead and cold.
“Your aim is as bad as your strategy.”
Before Sebastian could summon another blade, a heavy, suffocating pressure dropped over the entire arena.
It was so intense it forced Sebastian to his knees in the sand.
Principal Richter stood at the edge of the VIP box, his hand raised, his A-rank mana locking Sebastian down like physical chains.
“Enough,” Richter’s voice boomed, magically amplified to shake the foundations of the Colosseum.
“Sebastian Pembroke.
You have interfered with an official tournament match and attempted to strike a student after the bell.
Guards.
Remove him from my arena.”
Two heavily armored A-rank guards dropped onto the sand, grabbing Sebastian by his arms and hauling him to his feet.
Sebastian didn’t fight back; he just stared at Kael in absolute horror as they dragged him away.
Kael watched them go, his vision rapidly narrowing to a pinprick.
Nailed it, he thought.
Then, for the second time that day, the F-rank anomaly completely lost consciousness and collapsed like a sack of bricks into the dirt.