The Winter Warlock's hand trembled against the grip of her staff.
Not from fear.
Not exactly.
Her mouth moved before she could stop it, words slipping loose like a leak in a dam.
"He's going to kill him," she breathed.
The sound barely made it past her lips. But the weight of it sank heavy.
Her eyes snapped sideways, scanning the ones seated with her.
The Dragon God sat forward, elbows on knees, gaze pinned to the battlefield. His face unreadable. Not tense. Not relaxed. Just waiting. As if the outcome was already calculated somewhere deep behind those timeless eyes.
Burdado, on the other hand, lounged like a man watching a festival performance. His grin hadn't shifted since the start. Wide, lazy, dangerous. His golden eagle tattoo rippled faintly across his skin with every amused chuckle rumbling in his chest.
And the Astral Sovereign—
She wore a smile, too.
But not like Burdado.
Hers was small. Thin. Knowing.
The Winter Warlock's jaw clenched hard enough she thought it might crack.
But then the Sovereign moved.
Slow. Deliberate.
A small shake of her head, just once.
And then her mouth formed silent words.
No sound. No whisper. Nothing but the motion.
But the Winter Warlock didn't need to hear it.
She felt it.
Clear as a spell hammered directly into her mind.
"Scourge Rite. Nothing we can do."
The Winter Warlock's fingers curled tighter around her staff until her knuckles shone white.
Her heart hammered.
Her power itched at her fingertips.
But she stayed.
Because the Sovereign was right.
And down in the arena, where the real storm was gathering—
There was only one path forward.
Fight.
Or fall.
Then—
It hit.
A crushing aura slammed into the arena like a black wave.
The astral plane itself buckled, warping and twisting in on invisible currents.
The announcer didn't even scream.
He dropped where he stood. A puppet with its strings cut.
The audience froze.
Leo's ears caught it. A pair of soft, broken meows.
He turned.
Both cats, clinging to the last edge of consciousness. Their bodies flickering at the seams like weak candlelight.
Ai! Leo barked internally, panic threading into him.
She answered.
But it wasn't clear.
Her voice shattered, glitching like an old broadcast barely holding together.
"The Dragon… Lord has used Tyrant's... Authority..."
Leo gritted his teeth. The weight pressed down harder now, like hands clawing at his spine.
Ai's voice stuttered again, fragmented between static.
"Ability... collapses weak foes... suffocates... strong ones... vision darkens, muscles... seize..."
Another crackle. Her outline distorted.
_"It... can also—unsummon...entities...like—us—"
Then—
Silence.
Both Ai and the cats blinked out, shredded into dust by an unseen blade.
Leo's hand flexed at his side.
Tight.
Tighter.
A slow, searing breath ripped into his lungs.
The world around him blurred under the weight of the Tyrant's Authority. The ground spiderwebbed with cracks. Even the very light seemed to lean away from the Dragon Lord now, warped and mangled like heat haze over a battlefield.
The Dragon Lord sneered.
"You pushed your luck too far," he said.
His voice echoed. Low, final.
He took one step forward.
But before his foot even touched the ground—
He vanished.
Leo didn't even flinch.
No time.
The Dragon Lord appeared in front of him like a collapsing star. Instant, brutal.
Both blades slammed into Leo's chest.
Steel tore flesh.
The sound was wet, heavy.
Leo staggered.
Coughed.
A spray of heated blood splattered the arena floor.
His knees buckled. His sword slipped from trembling fingers.
And his eyes—
The light started draining from them.
Outside the ring, Amanda shot to her feet.
Her scream ripped through the crowd. Raw. Shattering.
Talia grabbed her by the arm. Elois by the waist. Both holding her back with everything they had.
But Amanda thrashed. Wild, hysterical, her voice cracking over Leo's name.
The crowd murmured.
Uneasy.
Afraid.
This was different.
This wasn't a rite anymore.
It was an execution.
Leo's body jerked on instinct. His hands spasmed.
The flesh around the Dragon Lord's blades, still buried deep, began to sear.
Smolder.
Burn.
A cruel heat that gnawed at him from the inside out.
Was this it?
His mind reeled, wobbling between searing consciousness and that cold place beyond.
Second day of being an adventurer, he thought, and a short, broken chuckle rattled out of his ruined throat.
The blood running down his chin felt hot.
Angry.
The ground beneath him blurred, the sounds of the world thinning into static.
Until—
Deep.
Deeper than flesh or bone.
A voice.
A whisper.
"Not yet."
Leo's eyes fluttered.
But his strength drained faster than he could gather it.
The Dragon Lord leaned in.
Close.
The jagged blades dug even deeper into Leo's chest, twisting.
He hissed into Leo's ear, breath hot and foul:
"Thank you," he said. "For Amanda. I'll make sure every inch of her...is used. Day in and day out."
A wicked chuckle vibrated against Leo's dying heartbeat.
The Winter Warlock's face twitched. She wanted to look away, but decided to face the truth.
The world blackened.
Leo's legs gave way.
And darkness yawned open to swallow him whole.
But then—
From somewhere beyond the black.
"WAKE UP!"
The voice hit like a war drum.
A pulse.
A roar.
Leo's fingers twitched.
The Dragon Lord's grin faltered.
Slowly,
Leo's hands grabbed the blades still impaled in him.
He gripped them.
Hard.
Cracks crisscrossed across the jagged steel.
The Dragon Lord yanked, but Leo didn't let go.
Something ancient howled awake inside him.
Above Leo's head, a burning green halo came into existence.
It spun slowly. Deliberate.
Behind him, a golden cloak unfurled.
It shifted and breathed like a living thing.
Leo's eyes opened.
His dark iris was no more.
This pair now burned like a captured sun.
Furious emerald green.
His body straightened.
His foot shifted.
The arena seemed to tilt.
And the air buckled again.
Leo's voice came, reverberating low, alien, endless.
"Let's finish this, shall we?"
Then,
The blades in his chest shattered.
The shards of the broken blades scattered across the arena floor.
Leo stood in the center of it.
Breathing slow. Heavy.
Then—
His aura erupted outward.
No warning.
Just a sudden, cataclysmic surge that shattered the air itself.
The Astral Arena screamed, folding in jagged arcs around him, as if it could barely contain the force tearing loose from his body. The sigils etched into the arena's edge guttered, then flared in a blinding green flare.
Spectators flinched back instinctively.
Even the air grew thicker, dense with an ancient, electric charge that rattled the bones.
Up in the royal balcony, the Dragon God, silent until now, rose to his feet.
Slow. Reluctant.
As if the act cost him something.
His hand brushed over his right shoulder. A place where a deep scar should've been. The fingers moved slow, almost reverent, over flesh that had already healed but remembered the damage.
He stared down at Leo.
And for the first time, his expression cracked.
Curiosity.
Disbelief.
A sliver of something colder underneath.
Amanda, outside the ring, had gone still.
No more thrashing.
No more screaming.
She watched with wide, wet eyes.
Her mouth opened. Sound slipping loose without her meaning it to.
"The Elven God's Gaze..."
Soft.
Not too loud.
Not too quiet.
But the Dragon God heard it anyway.
His head snapped toward her. A quick, sharp movement. Their eyes locked.
Same disbelief.
Same raw confusion.
Like watching an old ghost claw its way into the world.
Down in the arena.
The Dragon Lord bellowed.
A sound like tectonic plates grinding together.
He threw himself backward, boots carving trenches in the stone.
Thick, crimson light coiled around him—tight, violent.
Then—
CRACK!
Crimson wings burst from his back.
Not graceful.
Brutal.
Like something had been torn open.
The leathery wings beat once, sending a ripple through the dust-choked air.
At the same time, his shattered blades reformed. Liquid metal knitting itself together along jagged seams, until they gleamed once again in his hands. Hot. Heavy.
His grin returned.
Madder now.
Wider.
Without hesitation, the Dragon Lord roared again, a burst of raw sound, and blurred.
One streak of crimson.
No hesitation.
He crashed forward, a meteor wrapped in bloodlight, aiming straight for Leo's heart.