Caelum's hand opened.
And the world learned what atomic intent looked like.
Spheres of condensed atomic energy formed around him as tiny suns, each one vibrating with unstable particles.
They didn't glow like fire. They glowed like truth, stripping color from the air around them as if matter itself was ashamed to exist nearby.
With a flick of his wrist, he launched them.
The first sphere detonated mid-air, not in flame but in disassembly.
Trees vanished. Stone unraveled into dust. The shockwave folded the forest inward like paper.
Sofie's phoenix wings flared wide as she twisted sideways, barely dodging the blast. Annabeth warped space beneath her feet, blinking out of the impact zone just as another sphere tore through the ground where she had stood.
"Don't let them touch you!" Annabeth shouted.
Caelum laughed."Touch?" he said. "Oh no… they don't touch."
Another sphere formed.
Above them, Klaus hovered in the sky, watching silently.
Ashborn's voice echoed in his mind.
"So? What now?"
Klaus didn't answer immediately.
He watched Caelum erase Annabeth's gravity construct with a lazy wave.
He watched Sofie's fire get atomized mid-flight.
He watched both of them forced back, bleeding, still standing but losing ground.
Klaus exhaled.
"…This is getting boring."Ashborn paused.
"…You wish to finish the test?"
Klaus checked the timer.
Not much left.
He looked down again.
Annabeth and Sofie lunged together space and fire intertwining into a massive strike as Caelum raised one finger.
Everything vanished.
Not deflected.
Not blocked.
Erased.
Then he lifted both hands.
An orb formed between them.
It was different.
Not a sphere.
A core.
Dense. Black at its center. Purple-white at its edges.
Atomic Bomb Energy.
The air screamed.
Even the coliseum shields flared violently as the construct expanded.
Caelum dropped it.
The explosion did not bloom like fire.
It bloomed like death.
A mushroom-shaped cloud of purple-black energy rose from the forest, tearing a crater into the world.
Shockwaves rippled across the battlefield and into the stands. Students were thrown back in their seats. Barriers flickered.
When the light faded Annabeth lay unconscious in shattered terrain.
Sofie lay several meters away, wings fading, body bruised and unmoving.
Silence.
Not cheers.
Not screams.
Silence.
The screens locked onto Caelum.
In the royal chamber, Malrik Vortan threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahahaha!"
The Paragons stared.
Anastasia watched calmly.
One Paragon finally spoke.
"…Who is that man?"
Anastasia answered first.
"This year, we made the test… different."
Another Paragon frowned.
"We know he's an external. But who?"
Malrik stepped forward.
"That," he said proudly,"is Caelum Radien. Former Captain of Special Task Force 141."
He smirked.
"And my disciple."
The room exploded with disbelief.
"YOU had a disciple!?" "Since when!?"
"That man is… that man!?"
Only Anastasia remained composed.
In Varion's private booth,Lady Sera screamed.
"SOFIE!!!"
Varion crushed the armrest in silence.
Back in the wasteland as Caelum stood in the center of devastation.
Smoke curled around him.
Then he looked up.
Klaus.
The screens shifted.
Every screen.
Only two figures remained.
The boy in crimson and violet.
And the man who split atoms.
Ashborn's voice whispered.
"Will you use it?"
Klaus nodded.
"…Yeah."
Power poured out.
Purple and black light wrapped around his body.
Red-black energy bled from Fushigiri like a wound in reality.
Caelum teleported and vanished.
Klaus reappeared behind him.
And struck.
Not with the blade.
With the hilt.
BOOM.
The impact cratered the ground. The shockwave tore through the coliseum.
The crowd erupted as Caelum was smashed into the earth like a meteor.
Klaus descended after him but a dome snapped into existence.
Atomic containment.
Caelum rose within it, one hand extended.
A tiny dot flicked into the dome.
It exploded inside.
Dust filled the air.
The dome vanished."…Hah," Caelum said. "Did that do it?"
Nothing.
Then Above.
Klaus descended like judgment.
He swung and released atomic energy.
Caelum's eyes widened.
He nullified it instinctively.
The energy collapsed.
They stared at each other.
"…That's how you do it, huh?" Klaus said calmly.
Caelum's mind screamed.
How in the fuck did he just copy my move?
The arena had not yet recovered from Klaus and Annabeth's last collision.
Their clash still echoed through the colossal dome BOOM—BOOM—BOOM like the heartbeat of a god.
Every strike they exchanged sent violent tremors racing through the coliseum's foundations.
The stone terraces where the audience sat began to spider-crack. Energy barriers flared erratically, rippling like water struck by a meteor.
High above, spectators clutched their seats.
Some were forced to their knees.
Others screamed as cups and weapons slid across the shaking platforms.
"Are they trying to kill each other?!"
"This isn't a duel this is a calamity!"
Caelum.
His aura had dimmed slightly, no longer raging but still vast, ancient, crushing.
He glanced at Klaus and gave a faint, approving nod.
"…You copied my move just now."
Klaus tightened his grip on Fushigiri.
"…I had to."
Caelum actually smiled.
"Good. Adaptation is survival."
Then, casually, he asked,"How much time remains in the test?"
Klaus blinked.
"…Why does that matter?"
"Answer."
Klaus exhaled.
"…Three minutes. 00:03:00 remaining."
Caelum's smile widened.
"…Perfect."
He drifted backward, spreading his arms.
"Then listen carefully, Klaus."
The air around him began to distort.
"This is your first lesson of the academy."
His body ignited.
Light and energy fused into him as his form transformed muscles carved from radiant force, eyes glowing like miniature suns, his chest burning with a pulsing atomic core.
The arena darkened around him as if the world itself dimmed to frame his ascension.
"Respect," Caelum said, voice echoing like layered thunder,"your teachers."
Klaus planted his feet.
Fushigiri angled forward.
Aura roaring.
Caelum inhaled.
The air screamed.
From his mouth erupted a beam of condensed annihilation ATOMIC BREATH.
It wasn't fire.
It was pure devastation.
A pillar of white-blue energy tore across the arena, vaporizing stone into plasma, leaving molten glass in its wake.
The beam struck Klaus head-on as he crossed Fushigiri and his arms, bracing.
The ground behind him disintegrated.
He slid backward meters at a time, boots carving trenches into the floor as his suit began to smoke and peel.
Then
Caelum raised one hand.
From the beam fragmented hundreds of condensed orbs with Atomic bullets.
They screamed through the air like divine shrapnel.
Klaus parried desperately slashed and deflected.
But some struck.
His suit tore open.
Blood sprayed.
Each impact felt like being punched by a collapsing star.
Just as Klaus steadied the attacks stopped.
Silence fell.
Caelum raised both arms.
Energy spiraled around Klaus
A colossal, rotating sphere of atomic force formed an atomic vortex.
Dark at its edges, blinding at its core, swirling like a miniature universe.
Klaus was yanked inside.
Darkness swallowed him.
Inside the vortex, reality twisted up became down,sound vanished,light bent into spirals.
Then
The attacks resumed.
Beams tore through the darkness.
Bullets ripped past him.
Klaus was struck again and again, skin tearing, blood drifting weightlessly in the warped space.
He roared and forced himself upright.
"No—!"
He raised his hand.
Energy surged through him.
He inhaled.
And unleashed and Atomic breath.
But different.
Denser.
Sharper.
Twice as violent.
The beam exploded outward, ripping the vortex apart from the inside.
The dark sphere collapsed in on itself and detonated in a burst of blinding light.
Caelum halted mid-air.
His eyes widened slightly."…He copies my techniques… and they return amplified."
He stared at Klaus through the fading light.
"…Twice as powerful."
A pause.
"…Just who are you?"
A Monarch's prodigy?
Or something worse?
Before Klaus could answer a bell echoed across reality.
—TEST COMPLETE—
Golden light engulfed the arena.
The battlefield vanished.
And every fighter were ripped from the coliseum and teleported outside in a single instant.
Klaus reappeared on solid stone, bloodied, breathing hard, eyes still glowing faintly.
The sky above was calm.
But the silence felt heavier than any explosion.
And Caelum, standing nearby, watched him with something new in his gaze.
Not dominance.
Not amusement.
But with interest.