The arena wasn't quiet, but the chaos had condensed.
Gone were the random skirmishes, the desperate lunges for glory. What remained now was pure concentration. Fewer fighters. Clearer killing intent. The strongest had weathered the storm, and what remained was the fire beneath the ash.
Within the first ten minutes, the massive number of competitors was culled to just thirty. All either at the second or third star.
At the center of it all, the prince stayed, watching, judging, and evaluating. There was no point to all this blood if not for his promised rewards.
The rewards of the Igarian kingdom. An entity as old as the central continent, with resources storied for over a millennium.
Lysara Selyth advanced with the same measured rhythm she'd kept from the beginning — not once breaking form, not once breaking pace. Her ash didn't cling anymore. It controlled. It mapped the field around her with density and command, rendering Jorun Velgrath's heat useless.
Across from her, the magma-wielder's chest rose and fell like bellows. His skin steamed. Not from mana. From pressure.
He tried to ignite the ground again — a stomp meant to rupture the terrain beneath her — but it barely cracked. The ash swallowed it, redirecting the heat. His flames bloomed in a dull wave and died on contact, devoured before they could even roar.
Jorun didn't retreat with grace.
He backed away like a man dragging pride behind him.
And Lysara didn't chase. She stood in stillness, letting her ash consume the path he'd taken. Her expression didn't change. It didn't need to. The battlefield had already declared the victor.
Elsewhere, in the frayed remnants of the northern quadrant, Braegor Dorn and Raen Vhaelor remained locked in a slow orbit.
No wasted steps. No theatrics. Just two predators waiting for the next fracture in rhythm.
Braegor's grip never wavered on his obsidian spear. It gleamed with blood not his own. Every muscle in his frame coiled with potential, waiting for Raen to press forward.
Raen didn't oblige. His movements stayed loose, deceptively relaxed. But around his blade, that subtle shimmer of coldfire pulsed, threading through the air like the hum of a warning. Not explosive. Not loud. Just inevitable.
The clash, when it came, was brief. A pivot, a stab, a twist of momentum. Raen countered with precise parries that denied the full force of Braegor's weight. The sound of their weapons meeting wasn't a clash — it was the metal sigh of force just barely being turned away.
Both men stepped back, neither giving ground.
Not a draw. A delay.
At the edge of the field where silence felt unnatural, Theryn Damaris faced Vessia Keldra.
They hadn't spoken. They didn't need to. Every movement between them had been dialogue. His whiteflame etched straight lines through the air. Her fire curved in symbols and angles, redirecting heat, folding pressure inward.
They were artists working in different mediums.
And their exchange was nearing its end.
Theryn launched a final strike, blade trailing brilliance. Vessia moved like wind around the pattern, her palm pushing out a ring of counterheat. Neither landed cleanly.
They stepped back.
She offered the faintest nod—not concession, not boast. Just acknowledgment.
Theryn returned it with equal weight.
Between them hung mutual understanding — they could continue. But not without risking more than either of them came here to lose.
It wasn't surrender.
It was patience.
High above, Serika Varendel watched from her still corner.
She hadn't needed to prove herself. The proof lay scattered at her feet — unconscious bodies, disarmed opponents, and not a mark on her frame.
Her glaive rested at her side like a torch yet to be lit.
She didn't move.
Because someone else finally did.
From the heart of the arena's ruins, Vaerin Stormont stepped forward — not with the grace of a champion or the control of a trained heir, but with the smug poise of someone convinced the world already belonged to him.
Mana flickered down his blade, Purefire licking off the edge in volatile sparks. He didn't raise it yet. He didn't have to.
Every step he took toward Caelith was a performance.
The field watched.
Not because they cared who he was fighting.
But because they knew who he wasn't taking him seriously.
Caelith stood where he'd been since the last kill. Ashthorn hung at his side. His breath didn't hitch. His shoulders didn't lift. He didn't tense — and that was the most dangerous part.
He looked like he was waiting for something.
Vaerin's voice rang out. Not subtle. Not quiet.
"Do you really think you've earned your place here, mutt? You resemble a long-dead bastard I knew quite closely."
No one interrupted.
Because they all wanted to see what came next.
The mysterious dark horse, who has consistently shown himself to defeat high nobles without much effort, versus one of the five heirs, a future leader of Igaria.
"You've got some skill," Vaerin said, loud enough to reach the upper tiers of the coliseum. "But skill only takes a mongrel so far in a ring meant for bloodlines."
Farren leaned over and muttered, "They always talk the loudest when they're about to eat sand."
Vaerin stopped just ten paces away.
"I'm going to let the crowd watch what happens when a mistake tries to stand beside legacy."
Still, Caelith didn't speak.
Not until he shifted Ashthorn — not toward Vaerin.
But toward the arena's center.
Toward Aurex Vykrall.
And finally, he spoke.
"Hey, prince."
"Could I use my wish..." Caelith's voice carried just enough to silence the crowd again. "…to become stronger than you?"
The words didn't echo.
Instead, they detonated with such force that the entirety of the arena gasped.
Caelith's voice carried his presence, much like Aurex's did, which allowed him to cut through the chaos of battle.
Aurex blinked once.
He was stunned momentarily. Not just by the arrogance Caelith displayed, but also the aura he gave off.
Only those who danced the fine line between life and death could carry such a presence… a presence like his own.
Aurex smiled — not with joy. Not with mirth.
With interest.
The kind of smile a wolf gives a sheep when it finally bares its fangs.
Around them, movement ceased. Even the injured turned their heads, bloodied and battered, drawn to that threadbare string of tension pulled taut between the two figures at the heart of the battlefield.
The prince tilted his head slightly, as if appraising an antique he'd expected to crack — only to find it still intact.
Then a wave of mana encompassed the coliseum once more ,yet not like before.
This wasn't a flood of Aurex's mana.
It was an application of it.
Aurex was using his gift.
The entire arena suddenly felt as if it was borne down upon by a mountain.
Everyone was forced to kneel… the three stars were no exception.
"Your wish?"
Aurex spoke as he looked upon his kneeling subjects.
Yet, Caelith stood tall, undaunted.. His void-like eyes focused on Aurex alone as if every other champion here was unworthy of his time.
The prince's smile grew wider.
"Becoming stronger than me," Aurex repeated, low and measured. "You ask not for victory. Not even for the title. But superiority. You see the essence of life for what it is; only with strength can someone achieve every other wish."
He took a single step forward, the motion casual — yet space itself seemed to bend around the weight of his presence. Heat shimmered from the ground. Mana churned in the air like the breath of something old waking from slumber. The prince was only a two-star, yet the world was giving way to his will. Only exalted beings at the fourth star and above could hope to accomplish such a feat.
And still, Caelith did not flinch.
He simply stood there, Ashthorn lowered, breath calm, gaze level. Not defiant. Just steady. Like he had already made peace with the cost of this question.
"A bold wish," Aurex said. "And a foolish one."
He raised one hand, not in aggression, but in invitation.
"You are the first to provoke my curiosity, and therefore you shall be the first to learn despair."
"If you can wound me…" his tone sharpened, refined into a blade wrapped in silk, "...the royal family will break every limit to elevate you. Wealth. Power. Knowledge kept sealed since the founding of Igaria. The secrets of the Central Continent, of Ascension, of bloodlines shaped by gods themselves."
The coliseum held its breath.The crowd didn't murmur this time.
They held their breath.
And Vaerin Stormont broke it.
With a laugh.
It was sharp, polished, and cruel — the kind meant to cut, not amuse.
He stepped forward, arms wide, basking in the spectacle like it was his stage.
"The prince must be joking?"
He called, voice carrying above the silence.
"If anyone should be granted a wish, it's me. We all know I'm the strongest here."
He turned, slowly, theatrically, toward Caelith.
And then he smirked.
That was it.
Not the arrogance.
Not the words.
The smirk.
A curl of the lip. A twitch of pride. A shape Caelith knew too well.
It wasn't recognition.
Vaerin didn't know who he was.
But he didn't have to.
Because Caelith remembered.
That same smirk had hovered above him in the forest, outlined in firelight, wearing a smear of blood that wasn't his own. A smile that said, "You don't matter."
The world tilted.
Rejection surged into Caelith's legs and manifested between his heels and the ground before the decision even reached his mind.
His hand was already falling from Ashthorn's hilt. His heel dug into the sand. Power snapped through sinew and bone — not violent, not chaotic. Directed. Controlled. Inevitable.
Farren's mouth opened.
Too late.
Caelith moved.
One step — fluid.
A blur of motion — the wind caught his cloak, ash flaring at his heels.
He was in front of Vaerin before anyone processed it.
Vaerin's eyes widened. Instinctively, he tried to raise his sword — but Caelith wasn't aiming for his blade.
He pivoted on the balls of his feet, shifted his weight low, and twisted.
A perfect roundhouse — clean, brutal, final.
Rejection ignited along his leg — a silent scream through muscle and bone, compressing the force of his grief, his fury, his vow, into one savage, beautiful strike.
His shin hit Vaerin's chest like a catapulted slab of stone.
The impact crumpled armor like paper.
The sound was obscene.
Armor didn't clang — it shrieked, bending inward with a scream of war-forged metal giving way. The sigil of House Stormont snapped, warped into a mangled, unrecognizable smear of red-hot iron.
And Vaerin flew.
Launched.
Like a cannonball.
His body twisted midair, armor flaking, mouth wide in a scream that never finished.
He hit the arena wall like a launched warhammer. Stone cracked.
The wall gave.
Dust exploded in every direction — a shockwave that silenced the crowd more than any words could.
The sound echoed.
When the dust cleared, Vaerin's body was embedded in the stone — limbs slack, armor shattered, steam rising off his breastplate.
He wasn't dead.
But he wasn't getting up.
One of the five heirs had been dispatched in under a second.
And Caelith?
Caelith stood still, foot still low from the follow-through.
Chest rising. Face blank.
The Rejection bled out of his bones like breath on cold air.
He didn't look at the crowd.
He looked at the broken heap that had once smirked.
Farren exhaled beside him. "Damn."
Then grinned. "Okay. That one's gonna make the nobles shit themselves."
Above, Aurex Vykrall's eyes narrowed.
Not in anger.
In interest.