The floor cracked beneath Elior's feet, dust spiraling up like smoke.
Vincent wasted no breath and his blade drew a crescent of compressed sky-force, a wave so sharp it cleaved through the cracked sand.
Elior ducked, the air pressure slashing over his shoulder, but Vincent was already in motion, flipping forward, his boots charged with sky magic. He came down like a hawk, blade angled straight for Elior's skull.
Elior twisted sideways, letting the strike miss by inches. He jabbed his dagger upward, but Vincent spun midair, redirecting with another burst of air, turning the stab into a near miss. They hit the ground almost at the same time. Vincent became light as a feather, Elior was heavy but balanced.
The shuriken screeched toward him. Sassy had angled it perfectly with the draft of Vincent's attack, the weapon doubling in speed.
Elior planted his palm in the sand, pivoted, and let it pass him. The blade nicked his vest, but more importantly, it clipped Vincent's cape. The noble cursed as fabric tore.
"You're using me as a shield?" Vincent spat, eyes narrowing.
"Not a shield," Elior said flatly, breathing calm. "A path, still a shitty one."
Before Vincent could retort, Azmaik's hand blazed. The chains of light erupted again, this time above, raining like spears. Elior slashed three apart in a blink, but one cut into his shoulder, driving him down.
Vincent saw the opening. His sword glowed, sky-magic chanted as he thrusted forward with a spear of condensed wind.
Elior raised his broken right arm. The crowd screamed—suicidal! But the air around that arm bent. Space wavered like liquid, and the wind-spear veered, sliding past his head as though it hit an invisible wall.
Vincent's eyes widened. He bent the strike?
Elior didn't wait. He grabbed the deflected force with his dagger, cutting through the distortion, and redirected the gust toward Sassy. She barely ducked, her hair splitting in two strands.
Sassy's smirk vanished.
Elior pressed forward with one arm, one dagger, driving Vincent back with short, sharp slashes.
Every clash forced Vincent to expend sky-magic to dodge, his coat tearing, his shoulder cut shallow.
But Vincent adjusted quickly. With a roar, he slammed his sword into the ground. Air exploded outward, a dome of pressurized sky-magic that blasted Elior off his feet.
Elior skidded across the sand, rolling until his dagger dug into the dirt to stop him.
Vincent exhaled, chest rising. "Enough games."
Above, the air condensed into spears, hundreds of sky-arrows shimmering in blue light. They all pointed down at Elior.
The crowd roared.
Elior stood, dust covering his bandages, his arm trembling. His eyes were cold and terrifying which never blinked.
He whispered, "Smile."
Space warped. His branches flickered out thin, jagged, twisting reality around his body. The spears above started to shatter midair, unable to hold form.
Vincent gasped seeing the warp in space then backed up a step. "You're—"
The ground cracked further. The two leaders realized too late, Elior had finally stopped holding back.... fully....
The crowd's roars felt muffled, drowned beneath the suffocating tension that clung to the air. Three figures circled Elior, their shadows stretching long in the torchlight.
Azmaik raised his hand first. No chants or circling. Just a whisper of steel against stone. His artifact was a twisted glaive of black metal veined with pale veins of bone shifted in his grip, breathing like something alive.
Its edge dripped a faint, translucent ichor that dissolved into the ground. Wherever it touched, the sand grew brittle, flaking away like old ash.
Elior's dagger pressed tighter into his palm. He could feel it stir. The branches crawling at the edges of his skin, eager, whispering.
The "Smile" never shouted. It mocked him. Its quiet voice slid behind his ears " Let me out."
The more they struggle, the sweeter they rot.
Vincent struck first, blade streaking through the air, compressed wind screaming in its wake.
Elior slid sideways, dragging his foot across the sand. A ridge lifted beneath him like a rolling wave, redirecting the strike's momentum harmlessly into the ground.
The air-blade tore the dune apart instead of his body.
Sassy's shuriken snapped in from the side. Elior bent at the waist, then twisted his sand-wave upward.
The grains caught the shuriken mid-spin, grinding against its edges like a millstone until sparks flew. She cursed, yanking it back before it shattered.
"Focus!" Azmaik's voice cracked like a whip. His glaive pulsed, and shadows crawled out from its spine, not corpses but silhouettes of people who weren't there, those were fragmented memories of the dead.
Each shadow carried a piece of pain, frozen in loops of their last moments: choking, burning, clawing at invisible air. They didn't attack, they distracted, a hundred deaths flickering like a nightmare carousel around Elior.
His chest tightened. For a breath, the arena blurred, faces of people he'd seen die. People he couldn't save fused into the shifting silhouettes.
Grandson… a whisper echoed from one of them. His dagger trembled.
Azmaik lunged, glaive slicing horizontally.
Elior reacted. The sand beneath him collapsed, sucking him downward like liquid.
He vanished waist-deep in an instant, the glaive cutting only air. Then, just as suddenly, the sand spat him upward behind Azmaik, dagger angled for the spine.
But Azmaik had waited. His glaive bent unnaturally, as if the metal had no bones, hooking back mid-swing to meet Elior's strike.
The impact sent sparks dancing. Elior staggered back. Their eyes were locked.
"Do you hear them?" Azmaik's voice was low, steady. "All those you failed? My artifact lets me preserve their memories. Their agony feeds me."
Elior's branches writhed on his back, forcing through skin like cruel thorns. A lily fell, rotting to dust before it touched the ground.
His Face whispered again, more insistent now. Why fight them? Let despair bloom. I'll finish what you're too kind to do.
His vision warped. A moment, he saw himself not fighting Azmaik, but standing beside him, glaive in hand, shadows at his command. A mirror self, smiling through blood.
"No…" Elior growled, gripping his temple.
Azmaik didn't wait. The glaive's ichor spilled wider, forming a circle of brittle, corpse-colored sand around them. He stepped inside it like a king on his throne.
"You'll break," Azmaik said, eyes gleaming. "Or you'll become like me."
Elior slammed his dagger into the ground. The brittle sand crumbled but then he twisted his wrist.
Normal grains surged upward, swallowing the brittle ones, dragging them into a spiraling vortex. Azmaik's own circle betrayed him, locking his feet for just a second.
Enough for Elior to close the gap.
His broken arm lashed forward as branches snapped out, reality tearing with them. The glaive clashed, shadows screaming louder.
The clash between Elior and Azmaik had stopped being a fight of men; it was an argument between their Faces.
Azmaik's glaive screeched like a dying beast, its shadows spiraling out of the blade into the arena like smoke, feeding on screams that only half the crowd could hear.
Elior's branches twisted like antlers, splitting the space around them, each thorn humming with the low, terrifying note of rotting reality.
Azmaik's teeth were bared, eyes sunken. "You'll become me," he hissed, pressing his glaive harder into Elior's dagger. "You already hear them, don't you? The weak begging, the lost weeping. That's the truth of strength, misery is the root."
Elior's jaw clenched, veins straining across his temple. His Face whispered louder, too loud. Don't deny it. You want to crush them, don't you? To stop being the boy who fails everyone?
Then, in a blink,
Vincent appeared from blind spot....
From behind....
His sword aimed straight at Elior's heart. He was fast, faster than Elior could turn. His blade gleamed under the starry night. The crowd gasped.
But the instant it should have pierced Elior, the thing rotated. The sword twisted in his grip, like an unseen hand had caught it, and the steel buried itself through Vincent's ribs instead.
The noble's eyes widened, a strangled gasp escaping as the momentum carried him forward, impaling himself deeper.
The arena fell into silence. Even Azmaik was stunned.
Vincent stumbled back, his blade falling loose from his hand. He stared at Elior not with anger, but disbelief. "It… it turned… why…" His knees buckled.
Then one voice broke the stillness.
"What the heck is going on here?!"
Tom Greyrat's voice cracked like thunder as he emerged from the entrance, daggers already drawn, aura burning sharp.
Beside him walked Vera Astrid, calm as stone, his trident glinting under the arena's torches.
Between them Grace Lewis was standing silently.
Her small hands were clenched against her chest, her face pale as her eyes locked on Elior. She shook her head, almost unable to breathe.
"Elior…" she whispered, her voice breaking, tears brimming in her eyes.
Elior's gaze flicked toward her for just a second. His breathe falling heavily. Blood dripped down his chin. His Face stirred again, eager, monstrous.
The environment was so heavy it felt like time itself hesitated to flow.