Everyone stopped after watching the match in which "Ares" had been guiding "Kai" from start to finish, as if everyone in the arena were learning alongside him.
Then suddenly, loud applause erupted from the audience.
Applause.
Applause.
"Long live the Warlord!"
"Long live the Warlord!"
The air shook from the intensity of the screams and applause of all the academy students, to the point that the echoes reached the entire city of "Qalb." The residents felt something mysterious emanating from the academy, which stood proudly atop the city.
"What's happening over there?"
"Who knows?"
"But… I feel a strange excitement coming from that place."
The general public had no idea what was happening, yet their hearts were suddenly filled with energy and enthusiasm from an unknown source.
In the principal's office, "Alan" was watching the scene with a faint smile on his face, yet there was a rare spark of excitement and admiration in his eyes. He murmured softly:
"Ares… truly, you are different from everyone else."
Alan turned his wooden, luxurious chair toward the window, casting a glance at the students shouting at the top of their lungs.
"Even though you made the academy's nobles your enemies, you united those who are greater and more important in moving this empire… the common people. That is the trait of a natural leader."
Alan shared a mindset similar to Ares' — that nobles were useless except for a few, and those few could only be tamed through force. While he was thinking about this, he heard the students' shouts echoing from afar:
"Long live the Warlord!"
"Long live the Warlord!"
Upon hearing the title, Alan burst into loud laughter, his voice bouncing off the office walls.
"Hahaha! Yes, that title suits you, but your path is still long, Warlord."
Calm returned to the room, leaving only the sound of his quiet breathing. Yet, deep in his heart, a seed had grown — a seed of ambition to have an heir worthy of him… and now that seed began to bloom.
"It seems I must act quickly… before he is taken from me."
Thus, Alan decided that "Ares" would be his pupil, yes… that's right.
But elsewhere, someone else was thinking the same thing — not one or two, but everyone with influence had begun to take "Ares" into account.
In the training arena, everyone was astonished by the way Ares fought against Kai. From the start of the match, it was clear that Ares could crush his opponents mercilessly, yet with Kai he did not do so; instead, he guided him and corrected his mistakes.
"Then why is he doing that?"
said "Loki" — a half-dragon — in a loud voice filled with confusion.
"Yes, why did he insult everyone before, but now he doesn't?"
said "Hela" — also a half-dragon — in a quiet, mysterious tone as she observed the arena with her shining golden eyes.
It was clear they did not understand the reason.
"That's because Kai and I follow the leader. That's why he didn't crush him," said "Kira" in a calm tone, but her words were like swords.
"Even though I've only known the leader for three days, we decided to follow him because he is the man who will reshape the history of this world." Her voice was low, yet carried the weight of mountains.
"Hah, change the world? Stop joking."
"Edison" stepped forward heavily, trying to refute her, but Kira looked at him with red, fiery eyes, calm and cold like the fires of hell.
"You, four-eyed one, I have a question for you… since you have more eyes than all of us," she said coldly without raising her voice.
"You, you…"
He tried to respond, but she cut him off with a sharp look and a glacial voice:
"Be silent, four-eyed one, and listen. Who here do you think is qualified to stand before him?"
She gestured toward "Ares," who stood alone in the center of the arena, his sword planted in the ground, hands resting on the hilt, and his head slightly bowed, as if contemplating something only he could see.
At that moment, a mysterious glimmer appeared in Edison's eyes. An image from one of the old books in his family library surfaced in his mind — a man wearing black armor and a white robe, with gray fur on his shoulders and a mysterious crown on his head.
The image matched Ares' appearance before him, causing an involuntary urge to kneel.
He remembered that the book described the man as the first founding emperor, the one who united the entire continent under his rule, marking the beginning of the era of empires ten million years ago.
Edison adored the stories of that legendary emperor but shook his head violently to dismiss the thought, letting out an annoyed snort as he tried to hide his unease.
Kira smiled lightly with mockery as she watched his embarrassment.
"So, who among you sees themselves as better than him to rise?"
She looked at everyone with a gaze full of contempt and coldness.
"Mi," who had been silently observing from afar, felt something strange in her chest, a warmth mixed with a mysterious shiver.
"Is this the innate leader trait my father spoke of?" she murmured to herself, recalling his words about some people being born leaders, uniting hearts without compulsion, with crowds rallying around them without request.
Meanwhile, "Bain," who was still broadcasting the scene live, also felt that he was beginning to understand. Although Ares had made a strange deal with him, which he initially intended to refuse for its insanity, he found himself agreeing without thought, as if something inside him had been awakened.
"This man… was born a leader," he thought to himself as he observed the next opponent — "Loki" — who could not withstand Kira's words and her gaze, igniting his eyes with the desire to crush Ares.
Loki stood before Ares, who lifted his head and looked at him with calm, dead eyes. Loki felt as if he were standing before a sleeping beast that had yet to awaken.
He swallowed hard, especially when he recalled the feeling he had when he met the "Dragon Princess."
Then he realized something… that feeling back then stemmed from the suppression of the bloodlines. In the end, he was merely a hybrid of human and dragon, possessing only a fraction of true dragon power.
But to feel that same sensation before Ares, yet so different…
His golden eyes flashed with a mysterious, majestic spark, as if a momentary spark had leapt from them.
Loki possessed the ability to see the chains or bindings that restricted true power, and he used it on Ares.
At that moment, the world turned black and white, and mysterious symbols resembling dragon runes appeared in his eyes, yet they did not belong to this era of dragons… but to an older, forgotten time.
No one saw him, for he had activated a powerful invisibility spell, a secret even Hela, his sister, could not detect.
What he did not know was that everything was visible in Ares' eyes, yet he pretended ignorance with terrifying calm.
Loki saw gray chains wrapping around Ares like a cocoon, stretching across the sky and ground, as if they were binding him so that what he hid could not be revealed.
They restricted his existence not only in this world but in all worlds, for the moment his true self appeared to the world, even the worlds themselves could not withstand his power.
There was one thing barely visible — his eye.
When their gaze met, Loki felt as if his soul had vanished for a moment.
"What… what is this monster?"
he whispered in a trembling voice, then canceled his ability quickly and took a step back, placing his hand on his head that nearly exploded from the pain if he looked any further.
No one understood what was happening.
It was clear he was fine so far, and the fight had not even begun…
But Loki did not intend to speak of what he had seen, for he knew ignorance is a blessing, while awareness of what should not be seen is eternal torment.
Yet, what would have happened if he saw that those gray chains extended across all worlds, and what he saw was only a small glimpse revealing a single eye?
He lifted his head and looked at Ares, murmuring to himself in a low, trembling voice:
"So… Ares' true power knows no bounds."
Then he turned to his companions behind him, using his ability on them, seeing that the strongest among them were bound by eight or nine chains at most… they were mere ordinary humans before Ares.
He breathed slowly and whispered in a soft voice, as if fearing even the air would hear him:
"Ares… this is not a monster, but a natural disaster."
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when he heard a cold voice slicing through the place like a sword:
"Come on, lizard… have you finished your work?"
That voice sent a deadly shiver down his spine, and he felt a chill running through his bones.
He lifted his eyes and saw Ares smiling calmly, a smile devoid of warmth… the smile of one who knows everything.
Loki swallowed hard once again, whispering a deep internal fear:
"Did… did he discover my power? No… impossible, no one knew about it before…"
But the more he looked at Ares, the more he felt completely exposed before him.
Suddenly his breathing became heavy, as if invisible chains wrapped around his body, pulling him into dark depths with no return, ensuring his silence forever for seeing what should not be seen.
Even the mana in the air changed… becoming heavier, suffocating, as if striking him violently in anger for his audacity to cross the limits of awareness.
The smell of burning iron filled the area, and Loki's heart trembled, while the air around Ares shivered as if the world itself was holding its breath in fear of the sleeping beast awakening.