Goro and his companions stood at the heart of the clearing, caught squarely between Bagi's team on one flank and the Lycians on the other. The air bristled with tension, thick as storm clouds, every side measuring the other in silence before the storm.
Albert, one gloved hand resting idly on his lapel, spoke first, his voice languid and dripping with contemptuous amusement.
"My, my… what an utterly unforeseen spectacle. To think that even in this backwater expanse of mud and moss, a creature such as yourself might display such swiftness. Positively quaint."
Henry, fussing with the brass-rimmed contraption strapped to his wrist, peered at its flickering needle as though he were lecturing a dim student.
"Quite so. According to this delicate instrument—though, alas, its calibration leaves something to be desired—these fellows appear to be the most formidable rabble we have thus far encountered."
He tilted the device toward Adheera, his tone dry and professorial.
"This specimen in particular presents a reading not wholly dissimilar to dear George."
George gave a small sniff, delicately swirling the tea in his porcelain cup, his every gesture an act of cultivated disdain.
"Really, Henry. How droll. I had been under the impression that all so-called 'regulars' participating here were scarcely more than ragged vagrants. Unlike, of course, the tea with which I presently refresh myself—elegant, refined, and most assuredly not run down."
Henry's needle danced anew as it passed over Bagi. He raised an eyebrow, voice clipped and superior.
"Ah. Now here we stumble upon something of mild intrigue. The reading is imprecise, naturally, but I daresay this fellow might provide a modicum of amusement for you, Albert."
Albert's smile curved like a razor, his words a lazy drawl.
"How diverting. At last, perhaps this lamentable wilderness will furnish me with something approaching entertainment. I was beginning to fear I would expire of ennui."
Charles, eyes never leaving the lines of his book, sighed as though bored by the entire affair.
"Good heavens, is there truly no one of consequence to be found? One grows weary of trouncing mediocrities. It is such a frightful waste of one's afternoon."
But then Henry's device landed on Goro. In an instant, the needle snapped to its absolute maximum.
Henry's spine straightened like a man struck by revelation. His gloved hand twitched.
Edward moved first, his pistols gleaming as he leveled them with surgical precision.
George, with chilling grace, let the porcelain cup slip from his gloved fingers, the delicate crash punctuating the moment, as he raised the saucer—ready to fling it as though it were the deadliest of weapons.
Charles closed his book with a crisp snap, his ribbed-shell sword sliding into his hand with scholarly elegance.
Albert's posture shifted, all languor gone, his eyes sharp as glass.
And Henry, donning his golden gloves with ceremonial care, raised his fists with the gravitas of a duelist from the Imperial Academies, every inch the pedant even in poise for violence.
"Upon my honor… this individual registers at precisely twice your measure, Albert."
Albert arched a brow, tone insufferably measured, as if the very world ought to thank him for deigning to explain.
"Twice, you say? How utterly delicious. You will recall, gentlemen, that our instrument was conceived in jest—calibrated to halt at no more than double my own refined capacity, both physical and the borrowed sorceries I am permitted to channel by virtue of my instruments. That it should strike its ceiling so precipitously… one shudders to imagine how much higher the measure might have soared, were the scale not so laughably inadequate."
Confusion flickered across the faces of Goro and Bagi. The Lycians' posture was strange, their battle stance unfamiliar, and their words—though English—rang distorted and incomprehensible.
Goro turned to Bagi, his brow arched. "Do you understand a word they're saying?"
Bagi snorted, frowning. "Hell if I know.", his eyes fixed suspiciously on the Lycians.
Then Goro's gaze shifted. His face calmed, almost casual. "Oi, you slowpokes," he said to his teammates, "two more squads are closing in from the flanks. Left and right. Handle the ones on the left. I'll deal with these idiots—and the right side—myself."
The newcomer in Goro's team balked. "Three teams? Two of them top-three contenders! That's suicide!"
Goro turned his head slowly, his eyes cutting sharp as a blade. "Huh?"
The newcomer's words died in his throat.
"These clowns couldn't beat me in a hundred years," Goro said, tone light but iron beneath it. "Now move. And don't lose. If you do, I'll kill you myself."
Adheera sneered. "This bastard's mocking us."
Khara snapped, "Given how Han lost to him, why wouldn't he?"
Han's fists trembled with rage. "I'll smash him into the ground!"
Khara rounded on him, fury of his own flaring. "Smash me into the ground? I carried us to a hundred thousand points! I've been hunting nonstop while you—"
"Enough!" Adheera barked. "Focus! We'll tear this guy apart together."
The Lycian formation shifted, and Bagi stepped forward, fire already coiling around his hands. "Stay out of my way. He's mine."
A blazing orb erupted from his palms, screaming toward Goro.
Goro lifted one hand lazily, a translucent shield flashing into being. The fireball broke against it, scattering harmless sparks.
"Oi," Goro muttered, "don't attack a man without warning."
Bagi grinned, teeth flashing. "Not bad. You stopped it with a single shield." His arms lit again, and this time he unleashed a torrent of fire.
With a simple wave, Goro's palm cut through the flames, snuffing them out like candlelight.
Bagi's grin faltered. "He… extinguished it? With nothing but his hand?!"
Adheera's eyes narrowed. "He's no ordinary regular."
Bagi lunged, thrusting forward a fireball larger than before, sprinting behind it for the follow-up.
Goro's leg flared with magic. He swung, connecting cleanly—kicking the blazing sphere back like a ball.
Bagi's face twisted in shock. He twisted aside just in time, the explosion ripping the ground where he'd stood.
"Tch… damn it." His voice dropped. "I hate to admit it, but I can't beat him alone. We'll have to bring him down together."
Adheera's eyes widened. "I've never seen Bagi ask for help. This guy… he's on par with top D-class mages"
Khara spat, "Top D-class? How can you be so sure?"
"You didn't see it," Adheera shot back. "I've watched Bagi dismantle D-class wizards with ease. The fact he even hesitated tells me everything."
Bagi's leg lashed out in a sideways kick—but Goro stepped onto it, using the strike as a platform to propel himself toward Khara.
Khara swung wildly—Goro shoved the arm down with one hand and drove his elbow into Khara's face. Blood burst from Khara's nose as he crashed to the ground.
"This bastard—!" Bagi snarled, flames erupting from his fists. "—I'll kill you!"
Goro smirked. "Finally. Now it's getting fun."
Adheera vaulted high, dagger glinting as he dove. At the same moment, Bagi unleashed another torrent of fire.
Goro sprang upward, twisting. From the left came a boulder, from the right a roaring whirlwind, closing fast.
Upside down midair, Goro drove a boot into Adheera, knocking him aside, then launched downward, threading the gap between stone and gale. Behind him, wind and rock collided, detonating in a thunderous burst.
Adheera righted himself mid-fall, snapping off a water bullet. Goro corkscrewed in the air, the jet slicing past.
Han and Khara regrouped instantly, hurling searing beams of light.
"Goro conjured a glowing shield beneath his feet and stamped down hard, blasting himself into the air. The magic beams exploded where he had stood, tearing the ground apart in smoke and fire. Goro landed lightly a moment later, unfazed.
Out of nowhere a round projectile tore toward Goro; he stepped back lightly, the shot whipping past his chest. His gaze snapped to the source—Edward, one of his lacquered percussion-cap pistols raised with theatrical precision, a thin ribbon of smoke curling from the barrel.
Goro: "Oi oi, what's this supposed to mean? Why'd you attack me with that weird-looking thing? I was in the middle of a fight."
Henry gave a laugh so dry it might have been dust shaken from an old library. Adjusting the brass-rimmed contraption upon his wrist, he spoke as though delivering a lecture to a particularly slow pupil.
"My good savage, what you so crudely dismiss as a 'weird-looking thing' is, in fact, a pistol. A marvel of civilized engineering, the very emblem of progress. To expect you to grasp its sophistication would be akin to asking a chimpanzee to appreciate the finer points of Euclidean geometry. As for my shot—why, it is the most natural course of action. Consider the lion, resplendent, jaws deep in venison. Does the prudent hunter wait for his own turn to be devoured? Certainly not! He fires while the beast is distracted, securing his own longevity. I merely demonstrated this elementary principle, though I fear the nuance is lost upon you."
Bagi snarled, fire dancing along his arms. "Don't come in my way!!"
Albert gave a languid chuckle, one gloved hand flicking invisible dust from his sleeve as though even the air here offended him.
"My, what delightful bluster. Let us be unequivocal, dear provincials: even united, you lack the faintest prospect of success. The notion that you might lay so much as a fingertip upon him—let alone triumph—is so fantastical it would be laughed out of any reputable salon."
Bagi's face twisted with rage. "What did you say?! I'll kill you next after I'm done with this guy!"
Charles released a sigh, as though the very act of existence had failed to meet his scholarly standards.
"Albert, Albert, must you waste such eloquence upon creatures who cannot distinguish rhetoric from flatulence? They will not comprehend. Permit them their little tantrums. In their desperation, they may—by some fluke of fortune—produce the tiniest aperture. At that moment, gentlemen, we descend. Swift as the guillotine. Precise as an academic's quill. And infinitely more fatal."
Goro scratched his head, bewildered.
"I've got zero idea what any of you are saying, but I'm pretty sure it's about trying to take me down."
At once, jagged pillars of earth erupted from the ground—Han's enhancer magic clawing skyward. Goro wove through them like water. In the same breath, Bagi and Adheera launched a fireball and a torrent of water.
Goro bent backward, spine curving low, his body nearly parallel to the earth—the projectiles roared overhead. As he righted himself, Khara's kick swept toward his ribs.
Still bent in a near-backflip posture, Goro thrust his knee with precision, ramming it into Khara's stomach and folded him in half.
Edward's pistols cracked again, a pair of shots slicing through the air. Goro, balanced on one leg, body still arched in that inverted pose, twisted to avoid them.
Above him, Charles appeared as though conjured by disdain itself, his ribbed-shell sword raised with scholarly grandeur, descending not as a warrior's strike but as though delivering a closing argument none could refute.
Still bent backward, Goro braced the one leg that remained on the ground and pushed off with brutal precision, his upper body lunging toward Charles, head aimed squarely at the scholar's midsection. Charles stumbled backward, coming to rest beside George.
Another team surged in from the right flank, crashing into the battlefield where Goro, Lycian and Bagi's team were already locked in combat. Chaos erupted instantly as four teams collided, attacks streaking through the air in every direction.
Raga, leader of the newcomers, fixed his gaze on Goro. At once he recognized the danger and made his choice. A barrage of glowing magic stars shot from his hands, while his teammates unleashed their own flurry of strikes.
Goro twisted and wove through the onslaught, movements so effortless it was as though the chaos itself bent around him. His expression darkened as the battlefield dissolved into a storm of fire, water, steel, and lead.
Bagi's flames screamed across the clearing, Adheera's torrents crashed in their wake, and Han hurled jagged stone with grim force. Khara lunged from the flank, fists burning with gathered strength. The Lycians descended as well—Edward's pistols thundered, Charles's ribbed-shell sword slashed through the haze, Henry's golden gloves gleamed with an air of ritual importance, and George, utterly poised, raised his porcelain saucer as if civilization itself hung upon its aim.
None of it reached Goro.
Khara's strike was turned aside by a pivot so clean it mocked his strength. Goro's heel shot upward, snapping his head back before he even registered Goro's movement. Han roared, only to find himself driven down, Goro's foot planting mercilessly on his shoulder until stone cracked beneath them both. Adheera lashed out with a whip of water—only to be folded in half by a brutal knee to the stomach, the liquid splintering into useless spray.
Seizing the opportunity the Lycians came rushing in.
Charles swept in with his blade, every motion precise, as though he expected history itself to applaud. Goro shifted aside and drove his fist into Charles's stomach. The man staggered backward, wheezing with outrage, as though the world itself had erred in letting such an indignity occur.
Henry descended next, gloves raised, every inch a duelist of supposed refinement. His words died as Goro caught his wrist, twisted, and slammed him flat into the dirt. The ground quaked; Henry lay coughing, scratches marking his face. Yet even in pain his expression held something of the lecturer interrupted mid-lecture—scandalized more than wounded.
George glided forward, porcelain flashing, lips curled in disdainful promise. His elegance shattered in an instant, crumpling sideways beneath Goro's kick. He collapsed in a heap, still trying, absurdly, to maintain composure even as his breath left him in ragged gasps.
Edward's bullets found nothing but smoke.
Raga's men fell faster still, unconscious before they understood the nature of the storm they had stepped into. A spinning backhand toppled one, a body blow folded another, a sweeping kick cleared the rest. In moments, the newcomers lay scattered across the field like discarded dolls, their ambition extinguished before it had even kindled.
And at the center of it all stood Goro. Unharmed. Untouchable. His weapon remained on his back, swaddled in its bandanas, not so much as brushed by his hand. Magic flared only in brief flickers—never more than what was needed to dodge or deflect. The rest was raw power, honed precision, and restraint so deliberate it bordered on mockery.
The field around him lay broken, filled with wheezing scholars and groaning fighters. Goro, breathing steadily, not even dropping a sweat.
High above, aboard the airship, Hatake watched in stunned silence as Goro dismantled Bagi, Lycian, and Raga's team with effortless precision.
Hatake muttered, his voice tinged with disbelief.
"This is madness… I know Bagi, I know what his team is capable of. And yet, this kid toys with them—without even breaking a sweat. Not only them, but he's fending off the Lycian clan and that newly arrived team as well. The Lycians alone are no joke—they're on par with Bagi's group. Just who in the world is this kid? Now I understand why you claimed he's the strongest Regular you've ever seen."
From his seat, Mawang Kyofu allowed a faint smirk to curve his lips as he watched the chaos below, silent satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Karna's team moved swiftly through the forest, closing in on the location of the top three teams. Kenta had regrouped with them after his fight with Bagi, his eyes fixed on the radar as its screen flickered with shifting blips.
"Looks like the top three teams are fighting each other," Kenta muttered. "Other teams will swarm the area soon. Let's get there fast and try to grab some points."
When they arrived at the commotion, the scene was already chaotic. Raga's team lay unconscious on the ground while several other teams clashed fiercely around them.
Karna frowned, confusion clear on his face. "What's going on here?"
Before he could get an answer, Uma appeared in front of them like a phantom, launching an attack without hesitation.
The team scattered at once—Karna and Reiko sticking together, Kenta pairing off with Fumiko, while Gyoda was left on his own.
Uma charged after Karna and Reiko.
Khara went straight for Kenta and Fumiko.
At the center of the battlefield, Goro stood unshaken. He tore through Bagi, Adheera, Han, and the five Lycian warriors all at once, never taking a hit, his fists breaking their defenses with terrifying ease.
"Oi oi," Goro said with a mocking grin, his voice carrying over the din. "Why are there fewer people now? What happened to those two brats?"
All around them, the other teams continued to battle in the chaos.
Isolated, Gyoda glanced down at his radar. His eyes darted to the unconscious forms of Raga's team lying nearby.
Only five minutes remained before the first test ended.
Moving quickly, Gyoda leapt from tree to tree, weaving through the battlefield. But just as he found cover, a deflected attack smashed into the trunk behind him, the explosion forcing him into the open.
He dove to the ground, rolling across the dirt until he was close to Raga. Freezing in place, he feigned unconsciousness. Slowly, carefully, he placed his hand on Raga's radar and whispered under his breath, "Steal."
In an instant, he claimed their points.
Moments later, a sudden presence dropped into the middle of the battlefield. Hatake appeared, and towering barriers surged up around every fighter still locked in combat. The clashes stopped at once, everyone caught off guard.
"Time's up," Hatake announced, his voice booming. "Four teams have passed the first round. The remaining teams can either move to the Box and watch the next stage, or leave."
"Tsk," Goro clicked his tongue, shaking his head with disappointment. "Man! Just as I was about to have some fun!"
The results were clear: Bagi's team, Karna's team, Goro's team, and the Lycians had passed.
The defeated teams, including Raga's, trudged toward the Box to spectate. Inside, Tenko and Eto were already seated, waiting.
The victorious teams, meanwhile, moved on to their designated waiting rooms, the next stage looming ever closer.
Meanwhile, Karna and Gyoda dashed down the corridor toward the waiting room, their footsteps echoing loudly against the stone walls.
Fumiko trailed behind, her thoughts weighed down. I'm running out of time… I need to get the information soon.
At last, they reached the waiting room.
Almost immediately, Gyoda and Karna clashed—arguing over the staff Gyoda had obtained. Gyoda gripped the weapon tightly with both hands, shouting at Karna.
From across the room, Reiko's voice cut through their noise. "Cut it out, you two."
Fumiko, her tone hesitant, glanced toward her. "Umm… Reiko, can I ask you something?"
Reiko turned her head. "What is it?"
Fumiko lowered her voice. "Can you tell me about the night Karna's clan was slaughtered? How did Karna survive?"
Reiko's expression darkened, her usual calm slipping. "Unfortunately, I don't know. And Karna… he's sensitive about it. It's better not to ask him."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Outside the waiting room, a lone figure stood by the entrance — Pikari, the ever-composed butler of Mawang. Dressed immaculately in the classic attire of his station, he carried himself with a poise that made his presence unmistakable. White hair, combed neatly back, and a carefully kept Indian-style mustache paired with a small beard gave him the appearance of a man in his sixties. Yet in his bearing there was no trace of frailty — only the quiet authority and dignity of someone whose very posture commanded respect..
As Bagi's team drew near their designated quarters, their eyes immediately caught him.
Adheera lowered his voice to his teammates. "That's Pikari. He works for Mawang."
Then, turning to address the butler directly, Adheera asked, "Is he here?"
Pikari's tone was calm, his gaze steady. "Yes. Any information about the Twilight?"
Adheera gave a brief nod. "Yeah. He's strong—far stronger than most Twilights. And… he can wield the lightning element."
Pikari's eyes narrowed slightly. "We already know that. Anything about his past? How did he survive that night?"
Adheera shook his head. "Unfortunately, no."
The butler adjusted his gloves with practiced precision, his expression unreadable. "Well then… let's hope our mole manages to gather what we need."