Remaining Participants: 14
The number hung on the crystal display like a challenge.
Fourteen.
Not ten.
Not yet.
The crowd's roar had shifted, from shock to excitement to something rawer. More desperate. They had just witnessed something impossible. A strike with no magic that had shattered the arena floor and sent sixteen fighters to oblivion.
And now—
Only fourteen remained.
But the round wasn't over.
The barrier continued shrinking.
The fight continued.
And in the center of the devastation, standing in a crater surrounded by groaning bodies and shattered stone—
Obsidian Tempest was almost unconscious. He could barely hold himself up right and keep his eyes opened.
Valerian Mortis held him upright.
Alone.
The announcer's voice trembled with barely contained frenzy.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN—WHAT WE JUST WITNESSED DEFIES EXPLANATION! OBSIDIAN TEMPEST, WITH NO DISCERNIBLE MANA OUTPUT, HAS DELIVERED A STRIKE THAT SHOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE!"
The cameras zoomed in on the crater.
