Authors Note: I further explained at the bottom of this chapter but I would like to apologize for the main characters name change due to my writers block.
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Run?
Max blinked hard. His vision swam. His brain rejected the warning.
We're both first-years. She can't be that much stronger… right?
He barely finished the thought when the air sliced open.
SWOOSH—SWOOSH—SWOOSH!
Something invisible speared into him shoulder, leg, side.
Pain exploded.
"AAAAHH!"
Max crumpled, clutching his ribs as warm blood soaked through his fingers. His mind struggled to comprehend the agony.
"What… what did you do to me…?"
His voice trembled.
Victoria didn't answer only stared with a cold, furious serenity that was somehow worse than rage. Her mana dispersing from her fist now.
Max staggered and swung blindly.
His fist connected with her cheek.
For a second, hope sparked.
She didn't budge.
She just smiled—slow, cold, unhinged.
Blood slid from the corner of her lips, but her expression only grew sharper and much hungrier.
Then… she vanished.
A blink later, she reappeared where she began breathing harder, skin pale like moonlight.
Her mana was draining rapidly but her fury wasn't.
"You humiliated me," she hissed.
"In the cafeteria… and in front of everyone."
She raised her hands to the sky.
"And you dare act like you're better than me?"
Her voice cracked—then roared:
"NO ONE IS ABOVE ME!"
The earth trembled.
Shadows fractured.
Mana surged like a violent storm as she chanted words older than the academy itself.
"By the pact I forged—
By bond, by blood—
Take my mana… take my life if you must
Burn my enemy to ashes."
Her voice became a scream
"SALAMANDER!"
The ground split open.
Red light poured from cracks across the arena, and heat rolled outward in suffocating waves.
Students shrieked.
Screens flickered.
Teachers bolted toward the field but it was too late.
A monstrous silhouette formed behind Victoria fire condensed into a beast's shape.
A Salamander.
A C-Tier Spirit.
Even seasoned combatants paled.
Adam watched from the stands, eyes narrowed not with fear, but disappointment.
"…She's insane," he muttered before walking away.
Alex gripped the railing.
"Bro… he's dead. He's actually dead."
Max's voice broke.
"I—I SURRENDER!"
His hands shot up.
And Victoria eyes glossy was beyond logic.
She didn't hear him.
But someone else did.
SHHHFF—
Three hooded figures appeared silent hunters cut from the night.
Two approached Victoria the other grabbed Max's arm, forcing him upright.
Max gasped, trying to see beneath the hood.
Nothing.
"Hmph. Too late," Victoria whispered.
One figure tried to bind her in chain-like magic and was instantly blasted backward.
Their body slammed into the stadium wall with a sickening crack.
No one could tell if they were alive.
The temperature spiked.
The grass withered.
The air shimmered like molten glass.
The Salamander's consciousness spread across the arena.
"Pathetic summoner… yet the contract binds even though I never consented to this."
"I shall annihilate EVERYTHING!"
Its voice flooded every mind in a three-kilometer radius.
Max's Scan flickered.
[C-Tier Spirit Approaching]
He tried to stand and collapsed.
Mana density alone smothered him.
He hit the ground unconscious.
One hooded figure remaining beside him exhaled.
"Well… aren't you unlucky," they muttered.
"Picking a fight with a girl like that? Rookie mistake."
The Salamander inhaled heat drawing inward.
A fireball formed.
A living sun large enough to swallow a building.
The hooded figure stepped forward, drawing two blades black as void.
Mana surged violently around them.
"Come then," he growled. "Let's dance."
The Salamander released the fireball with a roar. A comet of molten fury screaming across the arena.
The hooded figure didn't flinch.
They slashed the air, once—twice—then faster, faster, faster.
Each swing carved ragged streaks of shadow into existence, black arcs hissing as if the void itself bled from the blades.
Hundreds of cuts tore open reality, forming a storm of abyssal slashes.
Fire met darkness.
And the explosion that followed wasn't sound it was force.
BOOOOOOOOM.
Stone disintegrated. The heat flash vaporized the ground. The shockwave sent debris spiraling like shrapnel through smoke thick enough to choke the sun.
Flames wrapped the Salamander like armor. Its molten spine glowed alive, furious.
Still—
The inferno raged.
Still—
The Salamander burned.
The figure staggered back, breath ragged, mana crackling off their body like electricity peeling away skin.
Their hands trembled.
Their vision blurred.
But their eyes?
Blazing with resolve.
"There's only one way to kill a creature like you…"
They ran.
Dashing through collapsing earth and fire-soaked air, their twin daggers flickered—runic symbols igniting across the steel in a violent, forbidden glow.
The Salamander charged to meet them.
Two forces.
Two destinies.
Colliding.
At the last step—
the hooded figure slammed bothdaggers into the arena floor.
The world stopped.
Then…
KRA-THOOOOOM.
The earth ruptured beneath their feet. The arena cracked apart like an egg, and a massive section of ground dropped away revealing a cavern, black and ancient, hidden beneath centuries of stone.
Flames spiraled downward.
The Salamander roared in fury then the flames continued to heat up and he returned to the spirit world leaving behind a gift of chaos and destruction.
And the battlefield. Fell apart.
"Live or die, kid let fate decide."
The figure tossed Max into the darkness—along with a hidden black sword almost identical to one of his daggers.
Fire swallowed them.
They never screamed.
The remaining hooded figure, evacuating crowds, froze in horror.
"You idiot… no one knows if you'll return from that amount of power alive."
Smoke cleared.
Silence fell.
The duel was over. But the real story…
was just beginning.