"Ah, so... can I forfeit?"
Both figures froze, utterly stunned. They turned to stare at Agni, who was still lying on the frozen ground of Frostwind Tundra, his left shoulder slowly regenerating with that unsettling crackling sound as flesh and bone knit themselves back together unnaturally.
He hummed casually, as if he were discussing something as mundane as the weather. "I don't really mind being in C-Class, honestly."
The black-masked man—Raul—stared at him in utter disbelief. His entire body language shifted from combat readiness to genuine confusion. "Does combat not excite you? At all?"
Agni shrugged with his one functioning shoulder, the movement almost lazy. "No. It seems painful and desperate."
He paused, his dark eyes distant and unfocused, looking at something far beyond the frozen landscape. "Above all, I don't think C-Class or S-Class would make any real difference to me. The destination doesn't matter if the journey is meaningless."
"You have zero points anyway," Raul said, his voice growing colder with each word. "So I suppose it doesn't matter for you either way. Not like you'd make a difference to anyone or anything. So feel free to get lost from here."
"Quite rude," Agni muttered, slowly getting to his feet. His regenerated shoulder was still pink and tender, the new skin looking fragile. He turned around, already searching for a different tree to slack off against, as if this entire confrontation had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
The black mask's expression—hidden though it was—seemed to twist into something between a grin and a snarl. "Rude? I'm just being honest. Why are you even at this academy in the first place?"
Agni sighed, the sound carrying years of accumulated exhaustion. "No reason, really. Well, actually—it was for getting married. My father threw me out of the palace, said I had to attend Aethermoor and secure a political match to be useful for once."
He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Then on my way here, I realized I might have found something interesting to look for. Something that made the journey feel like it had purpose."
His voice dropped, becoming quieter and more resigned. "But honestly, after seeing you and the others here, after watching how you all burn with passion and conviction... what I'm looking for isn't here at all. I was wrong."
"So you're just drifting around on someone else's orders," Raul said flatly. "Like a donkey being led by a rope. No will of your own."
The black-masked man's laugh started light, almost amused—then grew deadly serious. His entire demeanor shifted into something far more dangerous.
The snow around his feet began melting, steam rising as the temperature spiked dramatically in his immediate vicinity.
"You'll never find it."
The words carried absolute certainty, like a prophecy or a curse.
"Whatever you're looking for, you'll never find it. You lack imagination and passion to pursue anything meaningful. You think things will just come to you—that's your fundamental problem. You've always had the privilege of everything being handed to you on a silver platter. You've never had to want anything badly enough to fight for it."
The black mask's aura intensified dramatically, becoming almost visible as a heat shimmer in the frigid air. Serina felt shivers run violently down her spine, her analytical mind screaming in absolute terror.
Level 7 Mana Circuit Manipulation! This man is a complete monster! He could kill us both without breaking a sweat!
The sheer intensity of his presence was so overwhelming that the nearby monsters simply... exploded.
Thornspike Diggers, Nightwing Swoopers, and Barkchew Scrapers—D-Grade monsters that had been lurking in the area—burst apart from the pressure alone, their bodies unable to withstand the concentrated killing intent radiating from Raul. Blood and viscera painted the white snow crimson.
"So keep drifting away like the pathetic ghost you are," Raul hissed, his voice dripping with contempt that felt almost personal. "Don't come into my sight again. If you do, I'll take that head clean off your shoulders permanently next time. That's not a threat—it's a promise."
Agni looked back over his shoulder, his eyes meeting the black mask directly for just a moment.
"Wow, that's actually rude," he said with surprising calmness, almost conversationally. "Sure, I won't come your way. I'm heading east, just so you know. For the record."
He heard something then—loud thuds, rhythmic and heavy, like something massive approaching. The ground was shaking beneath his feet with each impact.
"Are you really going to quit?" Serina asked, her voice shaking violently. She looked around frantically, concerned both by the approaching sound and the prince's departure.
A small, desperate part of her hoped he wouldn't leave her alone. Hoped she wouldn't be eliminated here without any fighting chance. Hoped for backup, for support, for anything.
"Yeah," Agni replied without turning around, already limping away on unsteady legs. "Like he said, I'm just drifting. Personally, I don't think what I'm looking for is even worth looking for anymore."
His voice grew even quieter, barely audible over the wind. "So it's best to just give up on it entirely."
Serina's heart sank like a stone dropped into deep water. Her throat suddenly went dry, eyes shaking as she watched the small figure of the prince gradually disappear into the white landscape.
The black mask—Raul—hummed with dark satisfaction, then turned his full, terrifying attention to Serina.
"Surely you're not going to forfeit, right?"
"Of course not!" she hissed, though her entire body was shivering—whether from cold, fear, or adrenaline, she couldn't tell anymore.
The forest began shaking more violently, the tremors intensifying with each passing second.
Serina groaned. "Now what?!"
Trees exploded outward in a massive spray of splintered wood and snow. A giant figure burst through them like they were made of tissue paper—easily seven feet tall, with lush white hair identical to Aurora's and a body built like a walking fortress of pure muscle.
Ashen Drakonis
His massive fist came crashing down toward Raul with enough force to crater the earth and kill a man instantly.
Raul grinned beneath his mask and blocked it with one forearm. The impact created a shockwave that flattened everything in a thirty-foot radius, snow vaporizing from the pressure.
"So you want to join the fun now, Ashen?" Raul said, recognizing the attacker immediately. "Well, you were second on my list anyway!"
He deflected the massive punch with a practiced motion and immediately followed up with a brutal kick to Ashen's chin. The younger Drakonis was pushed backward, skidding through the snow. He rubbed his lips, which bled slightly from the impact.
"Yeah, you weren't that difficult to find," Ashen growled, his voice deeper and rougher than his sister's. "I just followed the sound of someone acting like a complete asshole."
His eyes blazed with barely contained fury. "Damn it, Aurora promised to face me here! She said she'd test me herself! I trained specifically for this matchup!"
His fists clenched so hard his knuckles went white. "I will not forgive her for breaking that promise!"
"No romance development whatsoever!" Professor Sylvia groaned, her elf ears drooping dramatically with disappointment. "They could have bonded over a shared struggle! Build trust through adversity! The narrative potential was right there!"
Professor Helena's eyes twitched with barely suppressed irritation. "Yeah, I knew it from the start. He's just a lazy, privileged kid with no substance. All that mysterious aura was just smoke and mirrors."
Professor Gareth, however, stared at Agni's regenerating shoulder.
Professor Marcus nodded grimly, his arms crossed. "Too ignorant as well. He doesn't even understand what's being offered to him here—the chance to become something more than a prince, a title."
One of the senior students—a nervous-looking boy with brown hair—raised his hand hesitantly. "Will Senior Raul actually kill the prince if they encounter each other again?"
Loren, the purple-haired senior operating the main monitoring console, shrugged casually. "Hope not, but... Raul is just too—ah, what do you even call this?—a linear person, you see. When he believes something, he believes it absolutely. No room for nuance."
The professors exchanged knowing glances.
"Raul gets carried away in his passion sometimes," Professor Whisper said in her characteristic monotone, though there was the faintest hint of maternal concern in her voice. "But we'll teleport the prince to safety if lethal force is detected. Be assured of that."
Professor Lydia sighed in visible relief, her hands unclenching.
Professor Kazuki muttered, "Still a hot-headed Raul. Brilliant student, but too volatile."
Zone 1: Verdant Meadows
Aurora hummed softly behind her white mask. "Are you done mentally preparing yourself, Lyralei? Because I'm about to escalate."
A massive fire blast erupted from the floating fire orbs surrounding Aurora—to call it a "spell" would be a criminal understatement. It was practically a solid train of compressed flames racing toward Aurora at terrifying speed, wide enough to engulf an entire building.
Lyralei dodged it with enhanced reflexes, black lightning crackling violently around her body.
Natural lightning struck down from the stormy sky above, attracted by the massive electrical charge she was generating—but Lyralei's body simply absorbed it like a sponge drinking water. Of course it did. Lightning was her own specific element. She was completely immune to electrical damage and could actively feed on ambient electricity.
She zapped around the battlefield at impossible speeds, moving so fast she left afterimages, her Valen Lightning Style forms flowing seamlessly from one into another.
Aurora followed her movements effortlessly, her white dress billowing dramatically despite the lack of wind.
"Well, I thought super strength was your special element," Aurora remarked conversationally, as if they were discussing academic theory rather than fighting to the death. "Considering your ridiculous physical power and speed, and all those rumors about you... you see."
She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Lightning is quite good too. You and I have a lot in common it seems ? Having the lightning element in a family that practices lightning-based sword techniques? That's extraordinarily rare—usually the element skips several generations."
Aurora squeezed her hand, which had been marked by Lyralei's black lightning earlier. The skin hissed with residual heat, the flesh dulling to grey and nearly charred against her normally sun-kissed complexion. "It's difficult to regenerate instantly from your attacks. Quite annoying, honestly."
She hummed curiously. "So, did you figure out mine?"
Thin wind cutters—invisible blades of hyper-compressed air—slashed through the forest with whistling sounds, felling ancient trees like they were saplings. Lyralei dodged them with practiced ease, her combat instincts screaming warnings microseconds before each attack arrived.
But then Aurora appeared directly behind her, moving faster than Lyralei's enhanced perception could fully track.
"The strongest freshman turned into a scared cat," Aurora said softly, almost tenderly.
A thin lightning bolt materialized—not from Lyralei, but from Aurora herself, the electricity compressed to needle-point precision. Lyralei absorbed it instinctively, her body drinking in the energy.
We've never actually fought before, Lyralei thought rapidly. She's certainly something else entirely. I thought I knew her capabilities from watching her spar, but this is different. She's holding back even now.
"Compression," Lyralei said, breathing hard but managing to sound confident. "That's your special element, isn't it?"
She wagged her finger almost playfully, as if she'd just solved a particularly difficult puzzle.
Aurora clapped her hands together delightedly, the sound echoing through the forest. "Yes! Exactly right! You figured it out faster than I expected!"
"Well, no wonder your lightning was actually hurting me," Lyralei admitted, rubbing her side where one of the compressed bolts had grazed her. "Compressed electrical discharge has enough penetrating power to bypass my natural resistance. But now that I know the trick, no more free hits."
Her mind raced with tactical calculations. Then why didn't any of my physical hits damage her earlier? Is it some sort of compression-based nullification? Damn it. It's known she has a special element, but she never used it in combat . No such combat records exist.
Aurora sighed, her body language shifting to something almost apologetic.
"Honestly, I was supposed to go to a different zone today. Zone 3, actually, in Frostwind Tundra"
But here I'm enjoying the calm winds of Verdant Meadows. It hasn't changed much since my first year.
"But a perverted brat has been bullying my little brother Ashen," she continued, her voice taking on a protective edge. "So I figured I'd humble that pest personally today. Teach him some manners."
She smiled softly behind the mask.
"So here we are. And I'm telling you this because it ends here and now."
The giant fireball floating above them suddenly compressed to a fraction of its size—then reshaped itself into a waffle-pattern grid of fire slashes, each segment burning with concentrated heat that made the air shimmer violently. The attack accelerated dramatically, making its way toward Lyralei with terrifying speed.
Lyralei remained unfazed, her eyes tracking the attack patterns. "Yep. Predictable."
"I'm done with you toying with me!" she declared.
Her black lightning exploded outward in all directions, creating a protective sphere of crackling energy. Then, like a living spear, she bolted in a single perfectly straight line directly toward Aurora, dodging all the fire slashes through a combination of enhanced speed and combat prediction.
She closed the distance rapidly—ten meters, five, three—
Aurora smiled behind her mask. "Darling, you're never getting close with such a scattered, conflicted mind. I can read your hesitation in every movement."
The ground beneath Lyralei's feet suddenly vanished—not just shifted, but vanished entirely as if it had never existed. Then from both sides, compressed earth shot inward like massive jaws, trying to crush and bury her alive between two walls of solid stone.
But Lyralei's power detonated.
"The Valen Lightning Style—First Form: Flash Severance!"
Her entire body became a streak of pure black lightning, cutting through the compressed earth trap like it was made of tissue paper. The ground exploded outward in a shower of pulverized rock and dirt.
Her fist finally connected solidly with Aurora's face, drawing a thin but definite line of blood across her cheek.
Aurora was actually staggered, pushed backward several steps for the first time in the entire fight.
She touched her cheek gently, feeling the warm blood on her fingertips. "Wow…"
As the cut quickly started spreading , in a second Aurora's cheek crumbled.
Flesh dissolving into blood that dripped down her jaw.
Lyralei panted hard, her entire body trembling from exertion and the adrenaline rush of landing a clean hit. "Yes! That felt amazing! You know what? You're right about something."
Her eyes blazed with renewed determination. "I know now what I have to do. The next one? I'm going to pop that smug face of yours properly!"
Aurora chuckled warmly, the sound genuinely amused rather than mocking. "There won't be a second time, I'm afraid—"
Aurora released a barrage of compressed wind cutters toward Lyralei—
"Hello, people!!" A cheerful, almost theatrical voice cut through the tension. "Take this somewhere else, would you? You're scaring the other students! But if the slots are open for a three-way match, I wouldn't mind joining in on this!"
Draekon stood at the edge of the clearing, his hands casually on his hips, grinning widely with that confident, laid-back energy that seemed to follow him everywhere.
His golden hair caught the sunlight filtering through the trees, and his Dragon's Bracelet gleamed on his wrist.