The sword Damon held had already begun to melt—but he swung it anyway.
In a single motion, he sliced the swordsman automaton clean in half.
The weapon shattered mid-swing, reduced to slag and steam, but Damon caught the broken blade of the automaton itself mid-air. It was half-destroyed and crude in design, but its sheer size—nearly as large as him—made it usable.
He stepped back instinctively as the remaining automata retreated, whirring and twitching. Their internal logic systems scrambled to analyze the violent destruction of their companion.
Across the arena, gasps erupted.
"Wha… what was that?! He just split it apart!"
"Were those… flames? Or shadows?!"
"What kind of spell was that?!"
The Headmaster's eyes narrowed.
'Ashborn…' he thought.
He remembered the detail buried in Damon's incident report—that he could use the flames of the dark spirit Rashi Ignath.
