The leader of the Vance squad, a tall youth named Julian, stepped forward with a confident, condescending grin that barely concealed his underlying frustration from the academic trial.
His wind-infused rapier hummed with a sharp, high-pitched whistle, kicking up small spirals of red sand around his polished leather boots.
Beside him, his three companions spread out slowly, attempting to cut off Wralq’s avenues of escape along the giant stone perimeter wall.
“Hand over your badge, Corvus,” Julian ordered, pointing his glowing blade directly at Wralq’s chest.
“Save yourself the broken ribs and the public humiliation.
You belong in a quiet library archives room, not on the arena sand where real warriors fight.” Wralq slowly tilted his head up, his dark violet eyes meeting Julian’s arrogant gaze with disturbing, absolute calmness.
His hands remained deep inside his coat pockets, his posture relaxed to the point of complete indifference.
“You are over-channeling your wind array,” Wralq said quietly, his raspy voice carrying no anger, no fear, and no hostility—only a flat, clinical observation.
“The mana flowing into your right wrist is roughly three percent higher than your sword’s enchant node can handle without leaking.
If you thrust at full speed, the kinetic recoil will strain your forearm tendons within two exchanges.” Julian’s grin instantly frozen.
A dark, hot flush of anger crept up his neck, turning his cheeks red.
“Arrogant commoner trash!” he spat, his grip tightening on the hilt of his rapier.
“You think memorizing a few lines from a logistics manual makes you qualified to lecture a noble on swordsmanship?” Without waiting for his squad to coordinate, Julian lunged forward.
His rapier transformed into a blur of silver light, accompanied by a sharp gust of compressed wind aimed straight at Wralq’s left shoulder—a strike meant to pin him violently against the ancient stone wall.
Wralq did not draw his sword.
He did not even raise his hands from his pockets.
Instead, at the exact microsecond Julian’s front foot touched the sun-baked red sand, Wralq took a single, precise step to the left—a movement so subtle and economic that it seemed almost lazy.
The silver rapier whistled through the empty air where his neck had been a fraction of a second prior, the compressed air blast carving a shallow trench into the stone wall behind him.
Before Julian could reverse his momentum or reset his footing, Wralq’s right hand shot out from his coat pocket like a striking viper.
His movement carried no flashy mana aura, but its timing was terrifyingly absolute.
Two bare fingers pressed directly into the hidden nerve cluster beneath Julian’s right armpit—the exact structural junction where his mana channels intersected with his physical muscle tissue.
A sickening, muted pop echoed in the small space between them.
The wind array around Julian’s rapier instantly collapsed with a dull, dying hiss.
Julian let out a strangled gasp as a surge of intense numbness shot down his spine.
His right arm lost all sensation, his fingers involuntarily opening as his silver rapier slipped from his paralyzed grip and clattered uselessly onto the red earth.
“What did you do to him?” the dagger-wielding youth shouted in sudden panic, springing forward from the flank to slash two curved blades at Wralq’s exposed throat.
Wralq didn’t offer a word of explanation.
As the twin dagger arcs descended in a lethal cross-pattern, Wralq pivoted smoothly on his heel, grabbing the paralyzed Julian by his leather collar and dragging his heavy body around to serve as a living shield.
The curved daggers bit deep into Julian’s shoulder pauldron with a sharp, metallic crunch.
In the very same fluid motion, Wralq reached around Julian’s slumping form, his bare palm striking the second youth’s sternum.
He did not channel a single drop of demonic energy; instead, he applied pure, optimized kinetic displacement—a martial principle Mammon had refined over millennia of watching physical warfare.
The focused shockwave passed straight through the youth’s light leather armor, violently disrupting his respiratory matrix and locking his diaphragm in place.
The dagger wielder instantly collapsed onto his knees, dropping his weapons as he clutched his chest, gasping wildly and silently for oxygen that refused to enter his paralyzed lungs.
The remaining two Vance mages froze in their tracks, their hands trembling as their half-formed defensive spells flickered and died in their palms.
They stared at their two fallen leaders in absolute horror.
The entire exchange had taken less than four seconds.
Wralq had not drawn a steel blade, had not chanted a single line of incantation, and had barely shifted his footing three feet from the stone wall.
“Insane…” one of the remaining youths whispered, his voice shaking uncontrollably as he clutched his short wooden staff.
“He didn’t use mana…
he didn’t even use a aura burst…
he just destroyed their posture…” Wralq walked slowly toward the kneeling dagger wielder.
He reached down with practiced, clinical efficiency, unpinning the iron core badge from the youth’s gasping chest.
He then turned back to Julian, who was slumping against the stone wall in pure physical shock, and removed his badge as well.
“That makes two,” Wralq noted in his mind, slipping both cold iron discs into his inner coat pocket alongside his own.
“A disgraceful, pathetic performance by those cattle,” Mammon mocked in his consciousness, his ancient voice dripping with profound disappointment.
“Their mana pathways were wide open like an unlocked gate.
You could have severed their throats with a piece of rusted iron and fed their spirits to the sand.” “And draw the immediate, undivided attention of the four generals sitting in the grand box?” Wralq replied internally, his thoughts remaining entirely level.
“No.
True efficiency is about minimum expenditure for maximum result.
We need three more badges to secure our bracket, nothing more.” Wralq turned his head slightly toward the remaining two mages, who were currently backpedaling away in absolute terror, their boots stumbling over the uneven sand.
“Wait…” Julian gritted out through clenched teeth, clutching his dislocated, numb shoulder as blood trickled from his lips.
“Who taught you those movements?
Which hidden martial house do you belong to?” Wralq paused for a brief second, looking back over his shoulder.
His dark violet eyes were completely empty, devoid of pride, malice, or excitement.
“I belong to no house,” Wralq said quietly, his voice swallowed by the roaring cheers of the distant crowds.
“And you should work on your wrist alignment.
Your form is terribly sloppy for someone who claims noble blood.” Without waiting for a response, Wralq turned and walked away into the swirling dust of the arena floor, leaving the four broken nobles lying in the sand behind him.