Then it happened.
[DING—]
The stadium shook. The floating screen went red.
One word pulsed on all sides in brilliant gold script:
REAL FLAG IDENTIFIED: FLAG 3
Silence.
Then—
"OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
The crowd exploded.
Jake shouted over the noise, voice straining against the chaos.
"IT'S REAL!! FLAG THREE IS THE TRUE FLAG! KAINE AND AMELIA HAVE BEEN HOLDING THE REAL ONE THIS ENTIRE TIME!!"
Elira's voice rose sharply, barely calm. "And there are only five minutes left on the clock. That means every participant on this battlefield has exactly one job now—hunt them down."
[STADIUM FIELD – FLAG 3 RIDGE]
Kaine and Amelia stared at the now violently glowing relic in Kaine's hand.
"…Fuck," they said in perfect sync.
The mountain behind them rumbled. Mana signatures lit up from every direction. Like a swarm of wolves catching the scent of blood.
"Not fair," Amelia hissed, already turning on her heel.
Kaine grabbed her shoulder. "We run."
"Obviously!"
The moment that golden glow pulsed from the flag in Kaine's grip, everything changed.
It wasn't a tournament anymore.
It was a feeding frenzy.
The hills shook beneath the weight of dozens—no, hundreds—of participants now descending on a single target. Alliances shattered. Friends turned. Some stopped chasing other flags mid-fight just to chase the True One. Even those with no hope of winning wanted a piece of it.
Because holding that flag meant more than anything.
Kaine and Amelia didn't have time to talk.
Didn't have time to plan.
They just ran.
The screams came first.
Someone from a minor house surged too early and was blown off the cliff by a stray thunder spell.
Two more tried to leap the ridge and were sliced midair by a rogue air blade from someone they didn't even see.
Behind them—ten, twenty, thirty figures stormed up the path like a stampede of bodies hungry for meat. The kind of running that came from bloodlust, not strategy.
Amelia glanced back and swore. "They're not even aiming for each other. They're all coming for us."
Above them, fireballs rained like meteorites. Explosions rocked the ridge. The entire landscape had turned into a battleground with one focal point—them.
[OTHER PARTICIPANT – POV]
"GET IT! GET THEM!"
His voice cracked as he surged ahead, sword raised, mana flaring. A young heir of a mid-tier family.
He just wanted that flag.
Even if it meant trampling through his allies. Even if it meant stabbing the girl next to him as she hesitated. He did.
Her eyes widened, blood trailing from her ribs as she collapsed behind him.
Didn't matter.
She shouldn't have gotten in his way.
[ARENA CHAOS]
Participants shoved each other off ledges.
Water mages drowned people in shallow pools.
Someone threw a body at Kaine like a distraction.
Amelia screamed as a volley of ice spears shattered inches from her head. Kaine dropped a smoke bomb—not for stealth, but just to block line of sight long enough to zigzag into the canyon path.
They reached the cliff edge—
Only to find five more waiting below.
Kaine didn't hesitate.
He jumped.
Landed blade-first.
One went down screaming as Kaine's dark-element sword cracked his barrier in a single blow.
Another lunged—Amelia side-stepped and blasted him with a gravity rune, sending his body slamming into the dirt with enough force to crack ribs.
[COMMENTARY BOX]
Jake's voice couldn't even keep up anymore.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS—THIS IS ABSOLUTE CARNAGE!! WE ARE PAST STRATEGY, WE ARE PAST PLANNING, THIS IS PURE—RAW—PANIC!"
Elira, still composed, spoke like she was calling war casualties.
"Over forty percent of the remaining participants have abandoned all flags to pursue the True One. Casualty rate is spiking. Medical wards are already full!"
Kaine's boots slammed into the dirt as he spun, slicing another attacker across the shoulder. The boy screamed, dropping his weapon. Kaine didn't even stop to watch him fall.
"They're not going to stop," Amelia gasped.
Kaine grit his teeth.
Kaine passed the flag to Amelia in a quick, silent exchange.
Their system had worked so far—hold, switch, run, repeat. But the pressure was building. Dozens had already gone down. They were fighting more with instinct now than strategy.
Amelia barely had time to close her fingers around the shaft before a blur shot through the smoke from above.
A staff came swinging down.
CRACK.
It smacked the flag clean from her grip.
A burst of air scattered the smoke, and out stepped a tall boy with ash-grey hair tied messily back, his cloak half-shredded but his grin wide with wild pride.
"Thanks for carrying it this far," he said, catching the flag mid-spin and vaulting backward over a cracked ledge.
Amelia cursed. "Shit! Kaine—!"
He was already gone.
Kaine moved like a shadow, chasing the thief down the slope. The other boy barely made it three steps before Kaine closed the gap. A flash of dark light erupted across the ground as Kaine's sword swung in a wide arc, hitting the thief's ribs with enough force to bend his spine.
The flag clattered to the dirt.
The boy went tumbling.
Kaine didn't check if he was conscious.
He grabbed the flag and turned.
"Go!" Amelia shouted from above. "They're circling around again—!"
He didn't answer.
He just… ran.
Full sprint. Down the hill. Past the fire-scorched crags, through blood-slicked stone, leaping fallen bodies and shattered barriers. Wind screamed past his ears. Mana arrows lit the sky behind him.
The moment Kaine took off alone with the real flag, the battlefield behind him turned rabid. Everyone chased. Everyone fired.
Lightning spears flew past his ankles.
A girl tried to cut him off from the side—Kaine twisted midair and kicked her in the shoulder, using her body to launch further.
He heard Amelia's voice somewhere behind him, still fighting, covering his escape.
He didn't slow down. Didn't dare to.
[COMMENTARY BOX]
Jake's voice tore through the crowd's roar.
"HE'S RUNNING! KAINE IS RUNNING WITH THE TRUE FLAG AND HE'S NOT SHARING THIS TIME! HE'S MAKING A BREAK FOR IT—LOOK AT THAT MOB!!"
Elira's voice was sharp and clear. "Over half the field has converged on his trail. He's holding the true relic solo. If they catch him, this tournament flips."
[VVIP ROOM – OBSERVATION]
"I knew it," Oriana muttered, sipping her wine.
"Smart move," someone said. "Amelia slowed him down."
"No," Seraphina corrected softly. "He just knows the ending only favors one name."
[STADIUM FIELD – LOWER CRAGLINE, 1:08 REMAINING]
Kaine's breath was sharp now, his body streaked with cuts. His sword hand dripped blood from three knuckles. His ankle was bruised from a misstep off a stone edge. But he kept moving.
He couldn't afford to stop.
He saw the timer flash across the sky—one minute left. One minute of hell.
The mob was closing in again. He turned a corner, bolted through a tight ridge—and stopped.
Just for a second.
Because someone stood in his path.
A figure with long blonde hair that shimmered under the arcane lights. Not white-blonde like frost.
Gold-blonde.
Almost glowing.
His skin pale. His face—inhumanly beautiful. The kind of beauty that made your stomach drop.
The boy stood perfectly still, arms folded, looking not at Kaine's flag, but into Kaine's eyes.
As if he'd been waiting.
[STADIUM FIELD – FINAL 0:58]
Kaine bolted into the narrow stone corridor, boots slipping slightly on cracked, dust-slicked ground. Every breath burned now. His body felt like it was folding in on itself—blood drying in streaks down his side, the flag pulsing like a cursed beacon in his grip.
Behind him was chaos.
More footsteps. Screams. Spells. A raw stampede of students hungry for one thing.
He didn't look back.
He spun around once—mid-run—and with a surge of strength, stabbed his blade into the rock wall lining the corridor's edge.
BOOOOM—
A jagged wave of dark energy ripped through the cliff face. The path collapsed behind him in an avalanche of stone, sealing off the route. Dust and mana burst upward, swallowing the sound of frustrated attackers who had been seconds away from reaching him.
Kaine turned again—
Only to stop cold.
There he was.
The boy with golden hair.
Still standing exactly where he'd been. Unmoving. He looked like a painting that had just stepped off the wall.
[COMMENTARY BOX – SKY BROADCAST]
Jake's voice stumbled.
"...Wait. Wait who the hell is that? That's not one of the five flag holders. Who—"
Elira, for once, didn't have an answer.
"I don't recognize him too!"
[VVIP ROOM – SKY SEATS]
Oriana Esraelle had her wine glass halfway to her lips.
She didn't drink.
Her eyes locked on the screen.
"...What the hell?"
For once, her voice wasn't amused.
Beside her, Iris Ferndale's breath hitched in her throat.
"Lucen....."
[STADIUM FIELD – 0:47]
Kaine stood frozen, chest heaving, blade flickering in his grasp.
The golden bastard in front of him tilted his head slightly, still silent.
"What the fuck are you doing here," Kaine growled, low and breathless.
No response.
Kaine's teeth clenched.
He hadn't chosen this route because he wanted a duel. He came because this was a dead end. If he could seal it behind him, he wouldn't be flanked.
But now?
There was no way out.
Just one path.
Straight through.
His hand tightened around the hilt.
"Fine."
The air cracked.
Space bent.
In the blink of a breath, Kaine was already there—right in front of the boy, sword drawn back, darkness coiling around the edge like black fire. He didn't wait for a greeting.
He swung.
SHHHHK—
The blade came down in a vicious arc—fast enough to shatter shields, brutal enough to split solid rock.
But—
FLASH—
A burst of searing white light exploded against his eyes. His vision vanished in a pulse of heat and radiance. He staggered, one foot sliding.
"What—?"
His eyes burned.
He blinked, trying to see—
And then he saw them.
Not one.
Not two.
Four.
Four swords.
They hovered in the air behind the golden figure. Blades of pure light, humming softly. Each one shimmered with divine precision—too sharp, too stable, too perfect.
They pointed at Kaine like judgment itself.