Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions echoed through the arena like the thundering drums of war. Kaelen darted between the blasts, narrowly avoiding a barrage of ethereal gauntlets , massive, glowing fists created from pure elemental power. Fire, ice, wind, and lightning smashed into the ground around him, leaving craters and scorch marks as the crowd roared in approval.
"Go go go!"
"Crush him!"
"I'm in love with this chaos!"
The cheers rang out with deafening enthusiasm as if violence itself were the day's entertainment. In a way, it was.
High above the arena, instructors observed in silence. Among them sat Tashi, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. But he wasn't worried at all.
This was already the third match for Kaelen but he got lucky as he was matched up against a support type cleric which he ended swiftly without wasting much mana or energy.
But this time he wasn't so lucky.
"Aren't you tired of running? Just give up already!" Arnold's voice rang out through the dust and fire.
The level 24 caster hovered slightly above the battlefield, wrapped in a spiraling aura of elemental resonance. His Epic-rank class, Elemental Convergence, granted him mastery over multiple elements at once. Around him floated six gauntlets each the size of a bucket, glowing with different hues, red for fire, blue for ice, yellow for lighting, brown for earth, grey for gravity, white for light, black for darkness and green for wind.
"You can't win, Kaelen," Arnold spat, voice tinged with contempt. "You're just a cleric! I've refined three elements already! You're level what six? Seven? This is over!"
After refining the elements it boosts the existing elemental power by 50%.
Kaelen didn't respond. He slid to the side, narrowly avoiding a gravity punch that cratered the earth. Sweat lined his brow, but his breath remained steady.
He wasn't fighting with brute strength.
He was fighting with vision.
His Third Eye analyzing the opponent interpreted everything, the twitch of Arnold's muscles, the shifts in mana flow, the temperature changes before a fire spell, even the smallest inconsistencies in rhythm. Kaelen's body moved before his mind made the decision.
Another punch. Ice.
Kaelen twisted mid-air, narrowly missing the chilling shockwave. The audience gasped.
"He's not even using skills," whispered a student in the crowd. "Just dodging."
"How's he still standing?"
Arnold snarled. He slammed his hands together. All eight gauntlets surged with power and shot forward at once.
"Fall!"
Kaelen ducked low, his heel skimming the cracked stone. He rolled forward, slipping between a gusting wind fist and a thunderbolt. A light gauntlet skimmed his hair, and he twisted sharply, forcing his body flat to the ground.
The impact behind him shook the entire arena.
'Keep moving,' Kaelen told himself. 'Let him burn through his mana.'
Arnold landed, panting slightly. Sweat beaded his forehead now.
Kaelen's expression remained unreadable. He wasn't unscathed. A shallow cut bled from his shoulder, his robes singed from an earlier scrape with fire. But his eyes glowed faintly, tracking everything.
Arnold's gauntlets hovered again but slower this time. The resonance around him faltered.
"You should've stayed in the infirmary, Cleric," Arnold sneered. He waved his hand to conjure another pair of gauntlets, but this time, they flickered. His mana was running dry.
Kaelen blinked forward in a quick dash.
Arnold flinched.
But Kaelen didn't attack. He simply circled.
"What's the matter? Running out of tricks?" Kaelen said for the first time, his voice low and calm.
Arnold gritted his teeth. "I don't need tricks to squash a mosquito."
He threw his fire gauntlet with a roar.
Kaelen sidestepped.
A lightning gauntlet struck next, then wind, then ice.
Each one missed.
Kaelen's breathing slowed. Time seemed to dilate. The Third Eye was whispering again.
Now.
Kaelen extended both hands and closed his eyes. His mana flared not wildly, but in precise, narrow threads. Like strands of spider silk, they extended from his fingers, invisible to the untrained eye. They curled and spun in the air, delicate and lethal.
The audience didn't know what they were seeing.
But Arnold felt it.
He jerked back, a sudden spike of danger prickling his instincts. He raised all eight gauntlets, hovering them in a ring around him.
Kaelen moved.
His threads slashed forward, not to cut flesh, but to bind. One thread looped around a lightning gauntlet.then sliced it in half.
Arnold screamed. The feedback tore into his nerves.
Kaelen's threads wove again. They lashed forward in a spiral, binding the remaining gauntlets before they could respond. Arnold tried to disengage, but his mana control was sloppy. The convergence shattered.
In a blink, Kaelen appeared before him.
His fingers brushed Arnold's forehead.
A pulse.
Mana surged into Arnold's core and shut it down temporarily. Not even a single piece of his hair was hurt but Arnold fell backward, eyes wide in shock.
Kaelen has sealed his mana flow.
The arena went silent.
The audience can only hear the screams of Arnold as an endless barrage of mana infused kicks and fists followed. Beating Arnold into a pulp.
"Take that you annoying lil piece of sh…" but before Kaelen could finish his sentence the crowd erupted in cheers.
"He won!"
"That was insane!"
"What was that spell?"
"It wasn't a spell," murmured a veteran from above. "That was pure manipulation."
Kaelen stood over Arnold, chest rising and falling with controlled breath.
He didn't smile.
And with a final kick to Arnold's thighs.
He just turned and walked away.
---
Outside the arena, Jered and Neal waited.
Jered's jaw hung open. "He did it. He actually did it."
Neal chuckled. "Told you. He's not normal."
Jered shook his head. "He's not just not normal. He's a damn monster. But why does he look like a different person during every fight?"
"Maybe he's just focussed" Neal shrugged then clapped Jered's shoulder. "Come on. We've got our matches coming. Try not to get shown up by a healer."
Jered snorted. "Watch me light someone up. Let's go."
Back in the arena, Arnold groaned, still trying to process how he'd lost.
Kaelen simply walked into the waiting tunnel, hands in his pockets.
He whispered to himself, "The next opponent better not be another annoying caster ."