The cataclysmic collision between Draz's *Drago Meteor* and Alquimme's *Mind Barrage: Full Overdrive* had converted Group 1's main arena stage into a smoking crater of shattered metal and molten steel.
A blinding flash of crimson, jade-green, and deep violet Urja light illuminated the entire horizon of planet Anipla. Thunderous shockwaves surged outward in concentric rings, cracking the thick, blast-resistant glass of the upper spectator tiers. Automated cooling vents hissed violently around the perimeter, struggling to disperse the dense, suffocating blanket of thermal steam and residual psychic static that hung heavy in the air.
Fifty thousand spectators sat frozen in their seats, their ears ringing from the deafening acoustic impact. Nobody dared to speak; nobody dared to cheer. The sheer scale of violent Urja density unleashed by two low-tier tournament contenders was beyond anything the bracket organizers had anticipated. The structural integrity grid of the entire sector flickered red, warning of structural degradation across three separate support beams beneath the stage.
---
Up in the VIP viewing suite reserved for high-ranking families, the protective Urja curtain hummed violently, glowing a stressed orange as it absorbed the residual kinetic pressure of the explosion.
Lam stood near the front glass panel, his left hand resting lightly on the polished wooden railing while his right hand remained tucked deep inside his trousers pocket. His usual relaxed, nonchalant posture had completely vanished. His sharp dark eyes were narrowed into thin slits, locked onto the center of the ring where the thick gray smoke was slowly clearing.
Beside him, Krodh stood with his arms folded across his chest like a granite statue, his cold expression unreadable. Bayu leaned heavily against the wall, wiping a bead of nervous sweat from his temple, while Asad leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees as he analyzed the residual Urja signatures fluttering across his tactical screen.
"The volume of Urja Draz detonated in that single exchange was absurd," Asad broke the silence, his voice low, measured, and deeply analytical. "He channeled enough raw output to flatten an entire armored military battalion. If his density vector had been focused even two degrees narrower, the stage floor would have vaporized instantly down to the bedrock. But..."
"But he threw it completely blindly," Krodh finished, his voice cutting through the quiet room like a frozen blade. "He relied entirely on maximum brute force output instead of precision alignment. Against an opponent who understands tactical conservation, energy efficiency, and spatial countering, throwing your highest-cost technique in the opening minutes of a match is nothing short of suicide."
"Look at the ring floor," Bayu pointed out, shaking his head with a grim expression. "Draz's core is flickering erratically. He spent everything he had on that single opening volley, and now he has zero reserve cushion left."
---
As the arena's automated ventilation turbines finally sucked away the thick curtain of thermal smoke, the true condition of both combatants was laid bare before the entire stadium.
Standing near the far western edge of the ruined stage, Alquimme was down on one knee. Her thirteen-year-old frame was trembling lightly, and the fringes of her lightweight combat robes were blackened and frayed by thermal sparks. The dark violet -z tier Staff in her right hand was dripping with heavy condensation, its central crystal orb hairline-cracked and dull. Sweat poured down her pale forehead, dripping off her chin onto the scorched metal floor. Yet, despite her obvious physical strain, her eyes were sharp, calculating, and completely calm—the eyes of a seasoned fighter who had spent years mastering the intricate arts of combat efficiency and momentum control.
At the center of the largest crater, forty meters away, Draz lay flat on his back.
His upper combat shirt was shredded to rags, revealing bruised skin and multiple small cuts across his chest and forearms. Blood trickled from a shallow gash near his hairline, smearing into his dark, sweat-soaked hair. His chest heaved violently in ragged, shallow gasps. The dual greenish-blue and blackish-red draconic auras that had wrapped around his body so fiercely during the opening minutes were now completely extinguished, leaving him devoid of any outer defensive layering.
With a ragged growl, Draz pressed his bloodstained palms against the hot alloy floor. His small, ten-year-old frame shook violently as he forced his knees under his weight, struggling to stand. His vision swirled with dark spots, his throat feeling as though he had swallowed molten sand.
*Why...?* Draz's mind screamed in confusion as he stared across the floor at Alquimme. *I put every single drop of my draconic Urja into that Drago Meteor! It was my strongest move! Why is she still standing?! Why am I the one who can barely breathe?!*
Alquimme slowly pushed herself up, using the shaft of her dark violet staff as a crutch until she stood upright. A thin, bitter smile touched her lips as she looked down at the panting, battered boy.
"You're strong, kid... stronger than any ten-year-old has any right to be," Alquimme said, her voice carrying a distinct mental reverberation that echoed directly inside Draz's ears through telepathic projection. "Your raw Urja reserves are terrifying. If one of those meteors had hit me clean, I would be in the intensive care ward right now. But your battle experience is absolute zero."
Draz locked his teeth, his fingers digging into his palms so hard his knuckles turned stark white, drawing faint beads of blood from his skin.
"You have zero knowledge of Urja efficiency," Alquimme continued, her tone turning cold and critical as she took a slow, calculated step forward. "You have zero concept of tactical conservation, element matching, or defensive pacing. And worse... you have absolute zero knowledge about your own dormant capabilities! You don't even understand the true nature of the core sleeping inside your own body! You fight like a wild beast swinging a heavy club—hoping that sheer noise and weight will hide your complete lack of control."
Her words slammed into Draz's chest far harder than any physical blow could.
Deep inside, a cold knot of dread tightened in his stomach. He wanted to shout back, wanted to yell that he was the strongest, but as he looked down at his trembling, empty hands, he couldn't deny the reality standing in front of him. He had relied entirely on raw, unrefined instinct. He had thrown massive, high-cost techniques one after another, assuming his infinite enthusiasm would carry him through—completely ignoring how an experienced Mind Type user could bypass raw force through tactical conservation and precise application.
"Shut up..." Draz growled, his voice rasping against his dry throat as he dropped into an unsteady, low combat stance. "Shut up! The fight isn't over yet!"
"It is over," Alquimme answered flatly, raising her staff. "You're running on empty, while I still have more than enough Urja to break your stance."
---
Without granting Draz even a three-second window to stabilize his breathing, Alquimme executed a swift, horizontal slash with her dark violet staff. The cracked crystal orb at its tip flickered with a murky, sickly green light.
**"Toxic Beam!"** Alquimme shouted.
A violent, pressurized stream of bubbling green Toxic Type Urja erupted from the staff's tip, cutting across the cratered floor toward Draz like a surging serpent. The acidic vapor hissed as it came into contact with the air, instantly melting the alloy plating along its trajectory and releasing a cloud of poisonous, lung-searing fumes.
Draz's eyes widened. Gritting his teeth through the agonizing burn in his muscles, he forced his inner core to squeeze out whatever residual Thermal Urja remained in his channels. Thrusting both open palms forward, he tried to erect a defensive wall of fire.
**"Flame Barrage!"** Draz yelled.
A scattered salvo of six bright crimson fireballs burst from his hands, flying straight into the incoming acid stream.
*BOOM! BOOM! SSSSSSSSS!*
The fireballs exploded against the poisonous torrent, but Draz's weakened thermal Urja pressure was far too low! The corrosive green liquid didn't just extinguish the fire—it dissolved his fireballs mid-air, cutting straight through his thermal wave and slamming violently into his right shoulder and torso!
"GUAHHH!" Draz shrieked as the kinetic impact lifted him off his feet.
The acidic liquid seared through his remaining fabric, scorching his skin and sending a sharp, agonizing wave of toxic shock straight into his bloodstream. He crashed heavily onto the ruined floor, rolling three times across the jagged metal edge before coming to a stop on his knees, clutching his burning shoulder as black smoke rose from his wounds.
Alquimme didn't pause. She stepped over a pile of rubble, her movements precise, unhurried, and devoid of waste.
**"Psycho Ball!"**
With a light flick of her left wrist, three condensed, perfectly spherical globes of bright purple Mind Type Urja materialized around her shoulders. With a soft hum, they shot forward like guided missiles, curving through the air from three different angles to trap Draz in a pincer formation.
Draz gritted his teeth, forced his head up, and drew a deep, painful breath into his scorched lungs. Knowing his physical hands were too slow, he converted his breath into raw acoustic output.
**"Sound Waves!"** Draz roared from the depths of his chest.
A visible, fan-shaped wave of dense acoustic Urja pressure blasted outward from his mouth, expanding in a cone of distorted air. The sheer vibrational force slammed into two of the incoming *Psycho Balls*, detonating them harmlessly in mid-air with a sharp *CRACK!*
However, Alquimme didn't miss a beat. Anticipating his acoustic counter, she surged forward, catching the third *Psycho Ball* on the curved metallic rim of her staff while simultaneously aligning her weapon's spatial plane with Draz's sonic cone.
**"Reflection!"** Alquimme commanded.
The Sound Type vibration built into her -z tier staff synchronized instantly with the frequency of Draz's sonic wave. In a fraction of a microsecond, her staff inverted the kinetic frequency, sending Draz's own acoustic force rebounding straight back toward him, fused with the kinetic weight of the third *Psycho Ball*!
*KABOOOOOM!*
The reflected acoustic shockwave and psychic blast detonated simultaneously against Draz's upper chest!
The acoustic recoil shattered his inner equilibrium, instantly blowing out his balance and sending an agonizing, high-pitched ringing through his inner ears. Simultaneously, the psychic Urja slammed into his cranium, rattling his brain within his skull.
"AGH!" Draz choked out, blood spilling from his nose as he collapsed onto one knee, his hands pressed tightly against his ears as the world spun wildly around him.
"Damn it... damn it all!" Draz spat through bloody teeth, his dark eyes blurring as double vision took hold.
He was being completely played. Every attack he launched was analyzed, absorbed, and turned against him. Desperate to create distance to clear the high-pitched ringing in his head, Draz forcefully activated his Liquid Type Urja core, pulling every drop of ambient moisture from the steam clouds and liquid condensation resting in the cratered ring.
**"Tsunami!"** Draz bellowed, sweeping his left arm upward in a wild, frantic arc.
A towering, thirty-foot wall of pressurized, churning liquid Urja erupted from the floorboards, roaring across the central arena toward Alquimme like an avalanche of water!
Alquimme stared at the approaching tidal wave without a single flicker of fear in her eyes. She didn't bother dodging physically. Instead, she tapped into her spatial Mind techniques, her body shimmering into a translucent, purple-hued outline.
**"Teleport!"**
Space displaced with a sharp, instantaneous *pop*. Alquimme vanished entirely from the path of the crushing wave. The massive *Tsunami* thundered onward, slamming uselessly into the empty western boundary wall and flooding the cratered floor with several inches of harmless foam and floating debris.
Before the sound of the crashing water had even faded, space warped directly above Draz's exposed flank. Alquimme materialized five feet in the air, floating effortlessly with her dark violet staff cocked backward like a throwing spear.
**"Psystrike!"** Alquimme barked, driving the tip of the staff downward toward his upper spine.
A dense, invisible needle of pure Mind Type Urja shot out from the crystal tip, traveling at near-instantaneous speed. It struck Draz dead-center between his shoulder blades.
*THUD!*
"ARRRRGGGGHH!" Draz let out a blood-curdling scream as the mental lance pierced straight through his outer nervous system.
The technique was designed not just to inflict excruciating physical pain, but to short-circuit the target's neural pathways. Draz's limbs convulsed violently in involuntary muscle spasms. His legs gave out completely, and he crashed face-first onto the cold, wet metal floor. His dark hair was drenched in dirty water and blood, his hands twitching against the floorboards as residual psychic electricity surged through his spine, completely paralyzing his motor control.
The fifty thousand onlookers in the stadium gasped in unison. The silence that followed was suffocating.
The match had turned into a total catastrophe for the younger fighter. Draz's total lack of battle experience, his complete ignorance of Urja conservation, and his zero understanding of his true internal power had left him utterly defenseless, pinned to the floor at the feet of a ruthless tactical practitioner.
Alquimme descended lightly onto her boots three feet away from Draz's twitching body. She was chest-heaving, her face pale and covered in cold sweat, her own Urja core reaching its dangerous lower limit. But as she looked down at her paralyzed opponent, a clear, decisive victory shone in her dark eyes.
"This is the end, Draz," Alquimme said softly, her voice carrying over the quiet arena. She raised her cracked -z tier Staff high into the air with both hands.
Every single remaining drop of Mind Type Urja within her body roared into the central crystal orb. The orb swelled rapidly, expanding into a colossal, eight-foot-wide sphere of unstable, dark-purple mental Urja that crackled with jagged arcs of black telekinetic lightning. The sheer gravitational pressure of the sphere caused the water on the floor to push outward in a perfect circle.
"You possess unbelievable potential for a ten-year-old," Alquimme declared, her eyes narrowing as she locked onto his spine. "But in this tournament, potential without control is just a fragile target!"
She brought the staff crashing down with absolute, lethal intent.
**"PSYCHIC APOCALYPSE: ULTIMATE PSYSTRIKE!"** Alquimme screamed at the top of her lungs!
The massive, sun-like sphere of dark purple Mind Type Urja descended directly toward Draz's exposed back, tearing through the air with a terrifying, sonic-shrieking howl. The sheer weight of the mental bomb carried enough concentrated force to not only knock him unconscious, but permanently shatter his Urja core forever!
---
Up in the VIP viewing box, Bayu took a sharp step forward, his hand gripping the metal barrier so hard it groaned. "She's going to break his core! Referee, call the match!"
"DRAZ!" Asad yelled, leaning over the glass.
Lam stood frozen, his eyes wide, his fists clenched inside his pockets until his nails bit into his skin.
---
Down in the crater, Draz lay pinned against the wet alloy floor, unable to twitch even a single pinky finger.
The shadow of the falling purple mental apocalypse expanded over his face, reflecting in his wide, bloodshot eyes. He could feel the terrifying, bone-crushing pressure approaching. He could feel the imminent reality of absolute defeat.
*I'm... losing?* Draz's thoughts echoed inside his mind, sounding distant and broken. *I'm losing to a thirteen-year-old girl... because I don't know how to control my Urja? Because I don't understand my own power?! Because I'm weak?!*
*NO.*
*NO! NO! NO!*
Deep within the innermost, sealed sanctuary of Draz's soul—far beneath his Draconic Urja, far beneath his Thermal and Liquid reserves, buried under layers of ancient cosmic seals—something primordial, ancient, and unfathomable snapped.
A sound echoed—not through the stadium speakers, not through the air, but through the fundamental fabric of space itself.
A sudden, terrifying burst of raw, violent **Red Urja** erupted from every single pore of Draz's body!
It was not the crimson glow of Thermal fire, nor was it the dark blackish-red of his draconic fury. This was an ancient, blood-red Urja that burned with the absolute, terrifying gravity of supreme authority. The pillar of Red Urja blasted upward into the sky like a spear of pure destruction, instantly vaporizing Alquimme's frozen *Ultimate Psystrike* into fine, harmless purple dust in a single microsecond!
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*
The pure atmospheric pressure of the Red Urja wave exploded outward in a 360-degree shockwave. Alquimme was lifted off her feet and blown backward across the ring like a ragdoll. She slammed violently onto her knees fifty feet away, throwing her arms up to shield her face as the sheer, suffocating gravity of the Red Urja pressed down upon her shoulders, threatening to crush her into the floor.
"W-What is this?!" Alquimme shrieked in absolute terror, her voice cracking as her staff cracked further under the static pressure. "What kind of Urja is this?!"
The air around the arena distorted heavily, the physical atmosphere itself shaking violently under the pressure.
Slowly, agonizingly, Draz stood up.
His head remained bowed, but his body was completely engulfed in a roaring, majestic inferno of Red Urja. The paralyzing psychic shock in his nervous system had been utterly incinerated, replaced by an infinite, bottomless tide of primordial power.
As Draz slowly lifted his face, his eyes were no longer dark—they burned with a brilliant, blinding golden-red light.
Simultaneously, a colossal, eighty-foot-tall spectral entity materialized high above his back, towering over the entire open-air stadium!
It was not a dragon.
It was a towering, primeval **Golden and Red T-Rex-like Aura**!
The spectral apex predator possessed thick, shimmering scales forged from pure golden light, razor-sharp teeth dripping with blood-red Urja, and eyes that burned with the absolute, ancient authority of a supreme tyrant! The golden-and-red T-Rex threw its massive head back toward the clouds and released a silent, space-rending roar that sent physical shockwaves through the entire planetary crust of Anipla!
---
Up in the VIP viewing suite, Lam, Krodh, Bayu, and Asad stood frozen in total, unadulterated shock. The glass railing before them vibrated violently under the pressure of the blood-red T-Rex aura looming below.
"That Urja..." Krodh whispered, his deadpan, stoic tone completely shattered for the first time. "That isn't elemental Urja... that's the divine Urja! The true awakening!"
"He unlocked his dormant core under extreme mortality pressure!" Asad gasped, his hands shaking as he stared at the roaring aura. "His body couldn't control his basic Urja earlier because his inner core was suppressing this true power all along!"
---Far beyond the atmosphere of planet Anipla, deep within the roaring, fiery depths of cosmic space...
Floating comfortably upon the liquid-plasma surface of the cosmic Red Star Colex-5411025—where stellar temperatures burned endlessly at 54,110,025 degrees Celsius—the Five-Armed Man sat chilling, watching the fight unfold through the cosmic fabric of space-time.
His lower two hands rested casually upon his Plunger Cameraman spiked plungers, his middle two hands held his five-headed red trident and ten-orb red drum, while his fifth hand held his glowing Red Orb.
As the massive, apocalyptic Red Urja pillar erupted on planet Anipla and the spectral Golden and Red T-Rex-like Aura expanded into the sky, all five of the Five-Armed Man's cosmic eyes widened in absolute, staggering disbelief.
Without moving an inch from his comfortable spot on the liquid plasma, his jaw dropped open:
**"WHAT THE FUCK?!, looks like The CONTRACT has Awakened,let's see what it do."**