Wars are fought and won by armies, but empires are forged in solo combat."
— Grand Strategist Vela Torin, Codex of Sovereign Blades
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Cadet Coliseum — Zero-G Dueling Arena
The arena was old.
Its cutting-edge gravity modulators and phased shields were unable to eradicate the sense of something older—something more fundamental.
Combat.
Inside the glass dome, twenty cadets were quiet. The best. The brutal. The survivors.
They had all survived Tier Three of the final weeding-out.
Kale stood in line, bruised and still bandaged from defending the uplink. His eyes swept over the others: Kora. Ox. Lie Cadence. And sitting across from them—
Cassian Dorne.
His arm was still in a sling. His face, thunderous.
A voice boomed through the dome, deep and mechanical:
Welcome to Duel Ascension. You are the final twenty. Each of you has proved your worth. But to go higher—to surpass your peers—you have to show superiority in one-on-one combat."
A holographic screen sprang to life above the arena, showing matchups.
Kale scowled.
ROUND ONE
Match 1: Kale Drayen vs. Vortan Malik
Match 2: Kora Veil vs. Asta Myr
Match 3: Ox Renn vs. Silar Vex
Match 4: Lie Cadence vs. Mira Thorne
Match 5: Cassian Dorne against Aether Juno
Ten duels.
Five winners were to be relegated to semifinals.
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Match 1 — Kale Drayen against Vortan Malik
Vortan was giant.
A Vanguard master from the ranks of Titan's militia, he looked like a siege engine rather than a cadet. His armor was bulky, his warhammer heavier.
"Don't take it personal," Vortan snarled as they took to the platform. "I crush everyone."
Kale didn't answer.
The arena shifted around them—gravity field changing, obstacles forming. A floating zero-G arena now. One wrong step and you'd drift into open exposure.
A buzzer sounded.
Vortan charged.
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Kale ducked under the hammer swing that could've shattered steel. He moved in sharp, calculated bursts—letting Vortan's weight become a liability.
"You're fast," Vortan admitted, grunting. "Won't matter."
He activated magnetic boots and launched himself mid-spin.
Kale activated his counterboots, breaking gravity entirely.
He floated.
Pivoted in air.
Stepped off the back of Vortan's armor and smashed a stun baton directly into the back of his helmet.
The hammer went clattering off into space.
Swiped its weight, grabbed Kale extended, shoved Vortan toward the gravity well.
And the impact rocked the world.
Vortan didn't rise.
> "MATCH ONE: WINNER — KALE DRAYEN."
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Outside the Ring
Kora watched with a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Show-off."
Lie did not move.
Cassian? He sat still, too, staring.
Not at Kale.
Through him.
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Match 2 — Veil Kora vs. Myr Asta
Asta was a Cipher — slick, fast, merciless. A Lunar Clade daughter.
Kora was methodical, deliberate, calculated.
Asta started with shadowstepping rushes, flicker-blades flashing in a vortex.
Kora fought back with trap darts, vision scramblers, and calculated side-rolls. At minute five, Asta was bewildered and tripping into her own blindspots.
A pulse-round to the knee took her down.
Kora didn't finish hers. She just uttered: "This is why we plan."
> "WINNER — KORA VEIL."
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Match 3 — Ox Renn vs. Silar Vex
It was a slugfest.
Two Ironborn. No tricks. Instead, raw metal and fists alone.
Ox absorbed a broken jaw and gave back a shattered shoulder. Ultimately, it was his grip strength that put an end to it—choking Vex out in a bloodied lock.
> "WINNER — OX RENN."
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Match 4 — Lie Cadence vs. Mira Thorne
Nobody breathed during this match.
Both were fast. Both were precision incarnate. Mira liked to use projection blades. Lie used razorwire fans and dust pellets.
It was a dance of death.
Lie won in under sixty seconds.
A single flick.
A throat-cut so clean Mira didn't even realize she'd lost until the blood splattered the floor.
> "WINNER — LIE CADENCE."
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Match 5 — Cassian Dorne vs. Aether Juno
Aether was good.
Cassian was another.
Ignoring the sling, ignoring the pain, Cassian moved like a starving killer. He absorbed blows, blitzed through blood, and shattered Aether's guard in two brutal blows.
His final attack?
A slapping downward with both hands that knocked Aether out.
> "WINNER — CASSIAN DORNE."
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Aftermath — Observation Deck
Five were left.
Kale. Kora. Ox. Lie. Cassian.
Their names lit up the center display.
A voice echoed once again:
> "Semi-final seeding will now begin. Top rank by cumulative score: Cadet Kale Drayen."
Cassian's jaw clenched.
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> "Semifinal Matchups:
1. Kale Drayen vs. Ox Renn
2. Lie Cadence vs. Kora Veil
Cassian Dorne advances by bye to final."
There was a silence.
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Then Cassian laughed.
Dark and low.
"Well," he said. "Looks like I get front-row seats to watch Drayen bleed."
Kale didn't look at him.
Not yet.
But he would.
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"In duels, you don't kill the body—you kill the will."
— Lord Admiral Kaelen Vos, Reflections of War
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UNSCADET ZERO-G ARENA — SEMIFINAL STAGE
Gravity field warped.
Where twenty had stood, five remained.
Above them, the holographic dome pulsed with the words:
DUEL ASCENSION – SEMIFINALS
The cadets were silent. Ox cracked his knuckles. Kora adjusted her visor. Lie stood still, face expressionless. Cassian sat cross-legged, arms folded, his shadow cast long upon the earth.
Kale's gaze flitted from one to another.
He could feel it—something had changed. Friendly rivalries of Tier One forgotten. These were no longer trainees.
They were obstacles.
And only one would survive.
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SEMIFINAL ONE: Kale Drayen vs. Ox Renn
The arena reconfigured itself. Metal floor plates shifted, revealing a fractured battlefield—half stable, half floating debris. Gravity was inconsistent, drifting between 0.8G and 1.2G. Perfect for chaos.
Ox gave Kale a long look. "You sure about this, boss?"
Kale smiled faintly. "We're beyond loyalty right now, Ox."
Ox nodded. "Yeah. Thought so."
They stepped onto the platform.
The countdown began.
> 3…
2…
1…
DUEL COMMENCE.
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The Clash
Ox attacked like a human battering ram. His exo-shell whirred with mechanical strength, fists that were piledriver-shaped. Kale parried the initial punch and unleashed a close-range deflector blast.
Ox absorbed the impact and pressed on.
They fought blows among the wreckage of the arena. Kale was faster, more accurate. But Ox's resilience was terrifying. He took punches that would send most cadets to the ground within seconds.
Then Kale adapted.
He stopped trying to wear down Ox.
And started isolating terrain.
Using Ox's momentum, Kale baited him into unstable platforms. Made him overextend.
And finally—
Kale triggered a manual override in his gloves, magnetizing them to a floating slab of debris. He used it as a shield, launching himself backward, then springing off it mid-air.
He vaulted behind Ox.
And stunned him with a double baton strike to the spine.
Ox grunted and dropped to one knee.
Kale whispered, "You'll thank me later."
Then finished it with a clean pulse to the chestplate.
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> "WINNER – KALE DRAYEN."
The crowd roared behind the observation dome.
Ox groaned from the ground, laughing breathlessly. "Damn… you've gotten mean, Kale."
Kale offered a hand. Ox took it.
Cassian watched from above, chin resting on his fist.
His expression?
Predatory.
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SEMIFINAL TWO: Lie Cadence vs. Kora Veil
Kora adjusted her rifle module, optics narrowing. Lie unsheathed two silver threadblades—delicate, whisper-thin wires attached to her gloves.
The arena became dark.
A twilight backdrop. Poor visibility. Artificial wind.
This was not a fight.
It was a hunt.
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The Dance of Death
Kora laid down proximity mines out on the field in quick bursts, retreating back into cover. Her tracer-lit rifle. She fired to push Lie out.
But Lie did not flee like prey.
She moved like fog.
A blink—and the first proximity mine went out.
Kora's eyes widened. "She's cracking them."
The other three went dark before she was able to reach them.
Then the wires came.
Silver ribbons wound through the darkness, wrapping around her wrist.
Kora cut the line with a plasma scalpel and rolled for cover, cursing.
War raged for four minutes.
Kora using sound decoys and flashbangs.
Lie responding with wire-cracks, fan-blades, and well-timed silence.
Kora finally set a trap that she knew Lie would misread.
And Lie walked right into it—because Kora employed the trap as a decoy for the actual killshot.
Pulse-round to the thigh.
Another to the ribs.
Lie stumbled.
But she was grinning.
> "WINNER – KORA VEIL."
Kora came over, assisting her to her feet.
"That was…"
"Fun?" Lie suggested, blood at her mouth.
"Terrifying."
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Waiting Room
There were only three cadets left.
Cassian rose slowly. "You both did well."
He looked at Kora. "I look forward to seeing who makes it through to fight me."
Then to Kale:
"And I look forward to crushing you."
Kale did not reply.
But his eyes did.
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Observation Deck — Instructor Briefing Room
Vice Marshal Tern endured the semifinals with an unreadable face.
Beside him, a cluster of high-ranking officers took notes.
"Drayen that kid," complained Rear Admiral Solen. "He's adapted at every level."
"Too versatile," complained another.
Tern inhaled through his nostrils. "He's the one."
Pause.
Then he added, "But so is Cadence. And Dorne. The final round will decide more than bragging rights."
A third individual stepped forward. "May we begin bets, sir?"
Tern did not smile.
"This is not a game," he said in a low voice. "The winner of this duel is going to the frontlines. The real ones."
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