They kept walking.
Already heading toward the edge of the deck, preparing to descend.
Below them, the two remaining airships still sat in the damaged dock—scarred, but intact.
Usable.
Full of resources waiting to be stripped.
Meanwhile, Lyriana had already vanished from sight, dropping back toward the broken warehouse where silence still lingered like a held breath.
Above them, Vaelith remained alone on the control deck.
Still.
Composed.
Watching the sky without urgency, as though time itself answered to her patience.
Waiting.
Because in twenty minutes—
everything would change.
---
The arena had become chaos.
Not scattered.
Focused.
All of it directed toward a single person.
Draven.
Magic tore through the air from every direction—fire, ice, earth, wind—spells colliding, overlapping, detonating against fractured stone.
Participants surged forward without hesitation now.
Because hesitation meant death.
And every one of them shared the same objective.
Kill him.
A massive ice hammer crashed downward.
**BOOOOM.**
The ground shattered. Frost exploded outward in a violent ring.
But Draven was already there.
His arm rose.
And stopped it.
Not deflected.
Not slowed.
Stopped completely.
A crack spread through the frozen construct.
Then—
**SHATTERED.**
Ice burst apart into razor shards, scattering across the battlefield.
The caster barely had time to react before Draven's leg drove forward.
**CRACK.**
The impact launched the man backward, his body tumbling across the stone like discarded weight.
A screech tore through the air.
A beastkin, more bird than human, dove from above, wings slicing through wind as fire gathered at its claws.
Draven shifted.
A single step.
The attack passed through empty space where he had been a moment before.
Missed entirely.
Then—
impact from the side.
The lizardman again.
His scaled body surged forward, muscles coiled with mana, eyes burning with rage.
"…I'm here to pay you back!"
His voice cracked with fury.
"…For that humiliation!"
A weapon formed in his hand—not merely conjured, but extended, stretched, and sharpened into a spear of condensed mana.
He thrust.
Fast.
Relentless.
Draven tilted his body, slipping past the strike by a breath's margin.
But another attack came immediately.
From behind.
Blade. Spell. Fist.
All converging at once.
Draven didn't block them.
He used them.
His body moved into the narrow gaps between attacks, one hand catching a wrist mid-strike and twisting it sharply, redirecting the blow into another attacker.
Mana met flesh.
A scream erupted.
At the same time, his leg snapped upward.
**THUD.**
A second opponent was driven face-first into the stone, the impact cracking the ground beneath him.
But it didn't slow.
It didn't end.
Because more were already coming.
Always more.
The lizardman pressed harder, spear of mana whipping through the air in rapid succession.
"…Fight me properly!" he roared.
Draven did not respond.
Did not even acknowledge him.
He simply moved.
Dodging.
Sliding.
Letting attacks pass within inches of his body.
Again.
And again.
And again.
From the edge of the arena, they watched.
Seryna. Kaelira. Lucien. Tharic. Lucien's sister.
Still.
Unmoving.
Not yet decided.
Because stepping forward meant committing completely.
And there would be no return.
Kaelira's tail flicked once.
"…Tch."
Her eyes tracked Draven's movements, sharp and unblinking.
"…He's not even trying yet. This isn't even half of what he's capable of. I can feel it… I don't even know what he is."
Seryna said nothing.
Her gaze remained narrowed, deeper than observation now—almost analysis.
Lucien's fists were clenched tightly.
Because some part of him already understood what he was watching.
Across the battlefield, two figures finally broke formation.
The mage from Seryna's side.
And the one from Lucien's.
They didn't hesitate.
Didn't look back.
They joined the fight.
Casting. Striking. Adding to the storm.
Tharic's breath caught.
"…They—"
"They chose," Kaelira said flatly.
No judgment.
Only fact.
The pressure on Draven increased further.
Spells collided around him in chained explosions. Dust rose. Stone fractured. The entire arena trembled under the weight of sustained destruction.
The battlefield didn't breathe.
It collapsed inward.
Everything—every spell, every strike, every desperate attempt at survival—converged on a single point.
Draven.
Magic tore through the air like a storm without a center. Fire spiraled into wind. Ice collided with earth. Explosions chained across shattered stone, rewriting the battlefield with every impact.
And in the middle of it all—
he moved.
Not faster than the attacks.
Just… before them.
The lizardman's spear snapped forward again. And again. And again. Each thrust sharper than the last, driven by pure rage.
"…Fight me properly!" he roared.
Draven didn't even look at him.
A subtle shift of his shoulders. A slight tilt of his body.
The spear grazed past him.
Another attack followed immediately—from the side.
This one landed.
A blade cut across Draven's ribs.
Blood spilled instantly.
For a brief moment, it looked like a clean hit.
Then—
the wound closed.
Flesh knitting. Skin sealing. As if time itself reversed the damage.
The attacker froze.
That single moment of hesitation was enough.
Draven's hand snapped forward, fingers locking onto the man's face, and slammed him into the ground.
**BOOM.**
Stone shattered beneath the impact.
But there was no pause.
Another strike came from behind—mana bursting against Draven's back and forcing him forward.
Then another.
And another.
A perfectly timed chain of attacks, relentless and coordinated.
Draven moved through it, slipping between impacts, adjusting his body in impossible angles to create just enough space—
but the ground beneath him shifted.
An earth golem rose directly in his path.
Massive.
Its arm came down like a falling wall.
Draven caught it with a single palm.
The impact cracked the arena floor beneath him.
For a moment, they held.
Then his fingers tightened.
And he ripped.
**CRRRK—**
The golem's arm tore free, stone fracturing and mana destabilizing in violent bursts.
Draven stepped in immediately.
And drove his fist through its core.
**BOOOOM.**
The construct collapsed into rubble.
But before the dust could settle—
something struck him.
Hard.
From the side.
A fist.
Not wild. Not desperate.
Precise.
Heavy.
It connected cleanly and launched him across the arena.
He crashed through other fighters like debris scattering under force—
until—
**BOOM.**
He slammed into the barrier wall.