The golden pillar of Heaven's Judgment crashed down like the wrath of a god. The air in the stadium superheated instantly, the blinding light forcing the fifty thousand spectators to shield their eyes.
At the epicenter, Marcus Hale did not block. He didn't have the mana to conjure a shield, and his battered claymore would have melted under the concentrated heat of a Level 40 ultimate skill.
Instead, Marcus relied on the one thing the forest had taught him: survival meant sacrificing pieces of yourself to keep the whole alive.
As the golden meteor struck, Marcus threw his body violently to the left, leading with his heavily armored shoulder. He didn't escape the blast radius—no one could—but he avoided a direct hit to his core.
BOOM!
The stadium floor detonated. A shockwave of pulverized sand and searing light blasted outward, cracking the magical barrier protecting the audience.
When the light faded, a massive crater scarred the arena.
Marcus was still standing, but barely. The entire left side of his armor was slag, fused to his blackened skin. His left arm hung uselessly at his side. But his right arm—his sword arm—was pulled back, muscles bulging, veins popping against his neck. His eyes burned with the red light of Emperor's Retribution. He had absorbed the splash damage of the ultimate attack, converting the agonizing pain into raw, unadulterated physical power.
Prince Valerius landed in the center of the crater, panting, a triumphant smirk forming on his lips. He thought it was over.
He was wrong.
"Is that all you've got, Your Highness?!" Marcus roared, his voice tearing his throat.
Marcus lunged. He was slower now, dragging his ruined left side, but the sheer momentum of his heavy claymore was terrifying. Valerius's eyes widened in absolute shock. The Prince tried to raise his spear to parry, but he was still suffering the micro-second of lag that followed an ultimate skill.
CRACK!
The Greatsword of the Sunken King slammed into Valerius's ribs. The Prince's enchanted golden breastplate buckled, the metal shrieking as it caved inward. Valerius was lifted off his feet, the air driven from his lungs in a spray of blood and saliva. He flew backward, tumbling across the sand like a broken doll before skidding to a halt near the arena wall.
The stadium went dead silent. The invincible Golden Prince was bleeding in the dirt, put there by a commoner from Batch Two.
Ren watched from the tunnel, his eyes narrowed. 'He did it. He broke the Prince's guard. But...'
Marcus tried to take a step forward to finish the fight, but his right knee buckled. He drove his sword into the sand to keep himself upright, his chest heaving violently. The red glow of his skill faded. His stamina was completely, utterly empty. He had nothing left to give.
Across the arena, Valerius slowly pushed himself up.
His helmet was gone. His golden armor was ruined. His face, usually a mask of aristocratic perfection, was twisted into a grotesque snarl of pain, humiliation, and pure, unhinged terror. He had almost lost. He had almost been killed by someone twelve levels beneath him.
"You..." Valerius wheezed, spitting a glob of blood onto the sand. "You filthy, low-born animal!"
The Prince's aura flared, but it was no longer the majestic, controlled light of a Dragoon. It was jagged, chaotic, and blindingly bright. He abandoned all technique. He abandoned his forms. He gave in to panic.
[Skill: Dragoon's Ascension (Overdrive)]
Valerius didn't use a martial art; he just used his stats. He pushed his Level 40 Speed and Mana to their absolute maximum. He became a blur of golden light, crossing the arena in a fraction of a second.
Marcus couldn't even raise his sword.
Valerius slammed the butt of his spear into Marcus's chest, shattering the remaining armor. Marcus fell backward, but before he could hit the ground, Valerius was on top of him. The Prince unleashed a flurry of strikes—kicks, punches, and spear thrusts. It wasn't a duel anymore. It was a tantrum.
"I! AM! THE! PRINCE!" Valerius screamed with every blow, beating the exhausted warrior into the sand.
Marcus took the beating in silence, his body jerking with every impact, until his eyes finally rolled back into his head.
"Winner!" the referee shouted, diving between them and throwing up a magical shield to push the frenzied Prince back. "The match is over! Prince Valerius is the victor!"
The crowd erupted, but the cheers were strained, mixed with murmurs of unease. They had seen their Prince win, but they had also seen him lose his composure. He didn't look like a hero; he looked like a bully who had barely survived a street fight.
Valerius stood over Marcus's unconscious body, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. He glared at the crowd, daring them to judge him, before turning and limping toward the medical wing.
High above on the Royal Balcony, the King's face was unreadable. He stepped up to the magical amplifier.
"The winner is Prince Valerius!" the King announced, his voice echoing over the uneasy crowd. "A testament to the power of the Crown!"
He paused, letting the noise die down.
"The trials will continue tomorrow! The second match of the ranking tournament will be... Eren, the Gaze Tyrant versus Lira, the Overflowing Saint Elementalist!"
Ren turned away from the arena floor, pulling the hood of his cloak lower. The show was over. He had seen exactly what he needed to see.
He checked the massive magical clock tower looming over the stadium walls. 3:00 PM.
"Ren-ni," a small voice whispered from near his knee.
Ren looked down. Erna was tugging on his trousers, his silver wolf ears hidden safely beneath the oversized hood Ren had given him.
"That shiny man was loud," Erna muttered, his silver eyes tracking the blood on the arena sand. "But the big sword man was cooler. Can we eat now? Watching them hit each other made my tummy rumble."
Ren felt his own stomach give a sympathetic growl. "Yeah. Let's go eat."
They avoided the Noble District, where the prices were inflated and the eyes were too sharp. Instead, Ren navigated the winding streets to the Merchant Quarter, finding a bustling, noisy tavern filled with mercenaries and traders. The air was thick with the smell of roasted meat, spilled ale, and spices.
Ren found a booth in the darkest corner. He ordered three whole roasted chickens, a massive side of beef, and a simple bowl of stew for himself.
When the food arrived, Ren slid the platters of meat under the table. Erna, sitting cross-legged on the floor hidden by the long tablecloth, didn't complain.
CRUNCH. SNAP. GULP.
Ren ate his stew slowly, ignoring the terrifying sounds of bones being pulverized beneath his boots. He replayed the fight in his mind, analyzing the data not with a System skill, but with the cold, paranoid logic of a survivor.
'Marcus lost because of the level gap,' Ren thought, taking a bite of bread. 'He had the battle IQ, he had the grit, but his stamina pool was too small. Valerius won purely because his stats carried him when his technique failed. Numbers matter. If I fight Valerius, I can't let it become a brawl. I have to end it before his stats can overwhelm me.'
After the meal—which cost Ren another 1,200 Yen, making him wince internally—they returned to the academy hostel.
The room was quiet, the shattered floor still covered by the rug. Ren went straight to the washroom. He stood under the hot, magically heated water for a long time, letting it wash away the dust of the arena and the lingering tension in his muscles. It was a luxury he still wasn't used to, but it helped clear his head.
When he stepped out, drying his dark hair with a towel, he found Erna already asleep. The boy was curled up in a tight ball in the center of the large bed, his hood pushed back, his silver wolf ears twitching softly in his dreams. He looked entirely harmless.
Ren walked over to the small wooden desk in the corner. He pulled out a cheap, leather-bound notebook and a quill he had bought in the market.
He sat down, chewing thoughtfully on the feathered end of the quill. It felt strangely nostalgic. It reminded him of sitting in the back row of his history class at Northgate Academy, cramming for midterms while the teacher droned on.
Only now, the subjects weren't dates and dead kings. They were the people he had to dismantle to win the King's prize.
He opened the notebook and began to jot down his observations. He didn't rely on his high Intelligence stat to do the thinking for him; he relied on the same sharp, human instincts that had kept him alive when he had no stats at all.
[Tournament Study Notes: Match 1]
Subject 1: Prince Valerius (Holy Dragoon)
Observation: Huge stats, terrible mindset. He relies entirely on his level advantage and flashy, high-mana moves. When he actually takes damage, his ego shatters. He panics and just spams his aura to compensate.
Counter-Strategy: Don't fight him head-on. Spook him. If you break his pride, his technique falls apart completely. Use Shadow Step to bypass his 'Heaven's Dive' and tap his blind spot. He'll fold.
Subject 2: Marcus Hale (Blade Emperor)
Observation: Hits like an absolute truck, but his stamina is a massive, fatal flaw. His ultimate move, 'Emperor's Retribution', drains his tank completely. He has a 5-second recovery window where he can barely lift his sword.
Counter-Strategy: Play keep-away. Bait him into using his big attack, dodge it, and just disarm him or knock him over while he's catching his breath. He can't fight a war of attrition.
Ren stared at the ink drying on the page. He wasn't looking at them as enemies to be slaughtered. He was looking at them as test questions to be solved. He didn't want to kill Marcus or the Prince; he just needed to know exactly how to break them if they stood between him and the one million Yen he needed for his next major upgrade.
He closed the notebook, sliding it safely into his inventory, and extinguished the mana-lamp.
As he lay down on the soft mattress next to his snoring, primordial brother, the darkness of the room felt comforting. In the next two days, he would watch Eren fight Lira.