The day of the preliminaries dawned bright and clear, but the air over the colosseum complex was already thick with a tangible, electric energy. The quiet plazas from the day before had transformed into a roaring, chaotic sea of humanity. Tens of thousands of people—merchants, commoners, knights, and nobles—packed the stands of the dozen smaller arenas, their voices a deafening, exhilarating roar. This was the stage. And I felt a thrill, a pure, unadulterated excitement that had nothing to do with my secret mission. It was the simple, primal joy of a fighter about to step into the ring.
My first match was in the Azure Arena, a mid-sized bowl of white marble that still seated a few thousand spectators. My opponent was a young knight from House Marden, a boy with more honor than skill, his face a mask of grim determination as he brandished his greatsword. His aura was steady and controlled, the clear mark of an Adept, just like me. He was my peer in every sense of the word.
The proctor's signal dropped. The knight roared and charged, his sword wreathed in his power. It was a textbook opening, strong and direct.
I didn't meet his charge. I let the Two-Heart Cadence take over, my body a calm island in the storm of the crowd's noise. At the last possible second, I flowed to the side, his massive blade cleaving the air where I had been. He stumbled, overcommitted. We danced this way for another minute. He would attack with furious, powerful blows, and I would evade with an infuriating, liquid grace. The crowd grew quiet, confused. On paper, we were equals, yet he couldn't touch me.
'He's strong,' I thought, 'but he's fighting with anger, not rhythm. He's trying to overwhelm me with the same power I possess, but he doesn't understand its nature.'
He finally made his mistake. Roaring in frustration, he put all his energy into a final, desperate downward slash. This time, I didn't dodge. I stepped inside his guard. As his sword descended, I moved with the cadence, my own hand rising to meet it. Thump-THUMP. My open palm, glowing with the now-familiar blue light of a Rhythmic Infusion, met the flat of his blade. The sound was not a clang of steel, but a sharp, resonant PING.
The knight's greatsword, a masterwork of forged steel, did not break. But the resonant shockwave traveled up the blade and into his arm. His eyes went wide with shock as the limb went numb, the weapon falling from his nerveless grasp and clattering to the sand. He stood there, disarmed and utterly bewildered. I had defeated my equal without throwing a single offensive punch. The proctor, after a moment of stunned silence, declared my victory to a wave of intrigued applause.
I spent the rest of the day observing. I watched Cassius Ardane fight, a force of nature whose spear defeated his opponent with overwhelming, yet respectful, force. I watched Lyra Corva's match; she was a phantom, her daggers appearing from nowhere to disarm her foe before he even knew what was happening. Then came Aria Thorne's turn. Her power was a living thing, a crackling, barely-contained wildfire. She won by vaporizing her opponent's shield, but as she stood victorious, panting, I could see the frustration on her face. She had won by dropping a bomb where a bullet would have sufficed.
Finally, I moved to the Onyx Arena to watch the match of Viktor Vane. The referee in this arena was a legend I recognized from the novel: Sir Kaelen the Unbroken, a famous knight of the realm and a powerful Grandmaster. His presence alone lent the match a grave importance. Viktor's fight was a brutal, ugly affair. After breaking the boy's guard, he had the match won, but he didn't stop. He deliberately stomped on his opponent's ankle, eliciting a sickening crack and a scream of agony. Before he could do more, Sir Kaelen moved like a blur, his hand clamping on Viktor's shoulder, his aura a silent, crushing weight. "The match is over," Sir Kaelen's voice boomed with cold fury. "You are disqualified for excessive force and dishonorable conduct."
The crowd erupted in a chorus of boos. Viktor merely spat on the ground, a sadistic smirk on his face as he was escorted out. As he passed the spectator's entrance where I stood, I felt it. It wasn't a magical scent. It was a deep, primal instinct that resonated from my Dragon Heart. The feeling a deer gets when it catches the scent of a wolf on the wind—not a conscious thought, but a cold, gut-deep certainty of danger. A feeling of an unnatural predator hiding in plain sight. 'That's it,' I thought. 'That's the wrongness.'
At that same moment, another sensation washed over me, a hundred times more powerful. It came from the highest private box overlooking the arena. A feeling of immense, overwhelming pressure, like being plunged into the crushing depths of the ocean. It was not the unnatural wrongness of the Void. It was the instinctual, primordial fear a lesser creature feels in the presence of an absolute apex predator. I looked up and saw a man watching with an air of detached boredom. Marquis Evander, the tournament organizer. 'An Archon,' I remembered from the book. My Dragon Heart could feel the difference between an unnatural threat and a simply, terrifyingly natural one.
Shaken, I made my way back to the main plaza. It was there that I crossed paths with Aria Thorne.
"Impressive display," I said, my voice casual. "You almost managed to hit your opponent a few times."
She stopped dead, her green eyes flashing with fiery indignation. "And you," she shot back, "you're the 'brawler' who won by tapping his opponent's sword? Don't talk to me about a real fight until you learn how to throw a real punch."
"Power without control is just a tantrum," I said with a smile. "You might want to remember that before you accidentally burn the whole city down."
She let out a frustrated hiss and stalked off. I watched her go, my smile fading as my thoughts turned back to Viktor. I found Seraphina and Rolan waiting for me near the main brackets board, their faces grim.
"That man, Viktor Vane," Seraphina said, her voice troubled. "His attacks were not just brutal, they were... calculated. He wasn't trying to win; he was trying to permanently injure his opponent. It was cruel." Her sharp, human intuition had seen the same malice I had.
My gaze drifted to the board, my eyes scanning the names for the Round of Thirty-Two. I found Aria's name. And next to it, her opponent for tomorrow.
Viktor Vane.
The pieces clicked into place. The watcher in the plaza. The sabotage plot from the novel. Viktor's calculated cruelty and the instinctual warning bell he set off in my soul. It was all connected.
I turned to Rolan, my voice dropping, the earlier charm and wit gone, replaced by the cold, quiet authority of a commander.
"Rolan," I said. "That man, Viktor Vane. I want to know everything. Where he's staying. Who he meets with. What he buys from the city merchants. I want a shadow on him until his match tomorrow. Use any of the men you need. Be discreet."
Rolan, who had only seen my friendly, sparring-partner side, was taken aback for a moment by the sudden shift in tone. But then he saw the hard, serious look in my eyes. The look of the man who had saved him in the canyon. He snapped to attention, his expression hardening with purpose.
"Yes, my lord," he said without hesitation. "Your eyes and ears."
He melted back into the crowd. Seraphina looked at me, her expression worried. "My lord, what is it you suspect?"
"I suspect," I said, my gaze fixed on the names on the board, "that Viktor Vane has no intention of winning his match against Lady Aria tomorrow. He's going there to end her career."