They turned a corner. The hall here dipped slightly, lit in deeper blue, spell light bouncing off tal pipes overhead. A soft hum ran through the floor. Generator buzz. Field stabilizers kicking into sync with the arena glyphs.
Gen pushed open a heavy door marked CAGE SUPPORT – STAFF and stepped aside.
"Ho sweet ho."
Lucen stepped in.
The room was plain. One bench. One mirror. One water bottle already sweating from the chill glyph nearby. No branding. No emblems. Just a prep box and a screen panel looping crowd footage from outside.
Lucen glanced at it once.
Hundreds.
Already packed.
The cara feed swept over signs, fans in cheap hoodies, people chanting. Half didn’t even know his na. They just wanted blood.
Gen set his cup down on the bench.
"Want to go over the rules again?"
Lucen unzipped his coat. "You an the rules we both know I’m going to ignore?"
Gen gave a crooked grin. "Exactly."
Lucen folded the coat, set it on the bench, and sat down beside it.
The lights in here were clean. No glare. No hum. Just steady white, cool across his skin.
Gen watched him a second longer. Then, quieter, "You good?"
Lucen stretched once, rolled his shoulders.
Then answered, "Better than him."
Gen gave a small, short exhale. Amused. "You’re not even pretending to be humble anymore."
"I thought about it," Lucen said. "Then I rembered he made rch."
That actually made Gen laugh.
A real one.
Then he stood straight and walked to the door.
"Fifteen minutes," he said. "Then you’re on."
Lucen didn’t nod.
He just leaned back against the wall, eyes half-closed.
And waited.
—
Gen leaned against the wall near the west corridor, one boot braced flat, jacket open at the collar. The coffee in his cup had gone cold twenty minutes ago, but he held it anyway.
Not because he was drinking it. Just because people looked at you less when your hands were busy.
The crowd noise filtered in like weather, muffled but rising. Steady bassline of cheering, punctuated by bursts of laughter and the sharp thump of caster drone wings flaring above the arena.
A door hissed open across the hall.
Three people walked in.
Rikta ca first.
Flanked by a tall guy in tactical sleeves and a woman chewing on a mana stabilizer tab like it owed her money.
Probably his handlers. Maybe trainers. Hard to say. They weren’t talking to him. Just orbiting him like security with personality issues.
Rikta wore a black longcoat split down the side seams, sleeveless underlayer, short gloves. Combat casual. Pretty. Useless.
His sword was already strapped to his back, tilted just enough to suggest it had been placed there for the cara angle. Not for speed.
Gen didn’t say anything.
Just watched.
Rikta paused at the check-in glyph near the side terminal. It scanned him instantly, cast a low-glow ID across his forearm.
[Combatant: Rikta — Class Confird / Arena Active]
[Record Status: 17-0]
[Ti to Arena: 13:22]
The boy didn’t even flinch. Didn’t blink. He looked good. Clean. Confident.
Too confident.
Gen sipped the coffee. Bitter. Lukewarm.
Rikta finally noticed him.
Turned his head slightly.
Raised a brow.
"You with him?" he asked.
Gen tilted his head. "If by ’him’ you an the kid you’re about to lose to, then yeah."
Rikta smirked. Didn’t answer. His eyes moved across Gen’s face like he was reading a price tag. Then glanced back at his handler.
"Guess we’ve got fans."
The handler didn’t reply. Just tapped sothing into a wrist panel and adjusted her earpiece.
Rikta turned back to Gen. Still grinning. "You want a picture or sothing? Before the numbers change?"
Gen shrugged. "Nah. I already backed up your fight record."
There was a pause.
Rikta’s smirk dimd just a little.
Then the voice in his earpiece buzzed, and the handler gestured toward the south corridor.
Rikta moved.
Didn’t look back.
The hallway swallowed him and his entourage in a few long strides.
Gen didn’t follow.
He just stood there.
Watched the empty space where the bravado used to be.
And said under his breath, "Twelve minutes left."
—
The lights in the room were dimd to their lowest setting, cool gray against matte black walls. No mana flare, no system pings, no background ads humming through the glass.
Just silence.
Varik sat on the couch.
One leg crossed over the other, hands steepled under his chin. The screen mounted into the wall ran clean, no UI.
Just the raw feed: three floating caster angles, one main stage cam, and a fourth in split view showing the audience ripple every ti the feed flexed for drama.
He watched without blinking.
No coffee. No wine. Just a plain ceramic mug on the table in front of him, steam long gone. The sll of ginger tea still lingered faintly, sharp, clean, slightly bitter.
The room behind him was big. Too big. High windows facing the skyline, filtered through tempered shields. The air was pure. The kind you only got when your ducts didn’t share walls with civilians.
The announcers’ voices were off.
Muted.
He didn’t need them.
Lucen stepped into fra.
Hood down now. Eyes steady. Shoulders square.
The other one, Rikta, was already in the cage, pacing slightly, stretching his left arm with the kind of practiced rhythm you used when your body didn’t trust your nerves yet.
Varik leaned forward half an inch.
The table adjusted with a soft shift, sliding the screen closer.
Lucen stopped at the center line.
The field glowed faintly as the glyph walls sealed in, barrier hexes shimring across the outer periter like spiderwebs catching moonlight.
Nothing flashy. Just standard regulation stuff. Public fights didn’t allow heavy pressure zones.
Not officially, anyway.
Varik exhaled once through his nose.
Not laughter. Not concern.
Just knowing.
The feed cut angles.
One tight on Rikta’s face. Jaw set. Shoulders loose. But his eyes? Moving too fast. Flicking from left to right like he was still rehearsing sothing.
’Overclocked,’ Varik thought.
He didn’t need a system readout.
He could see it in the way Rikta held his stance, like his body wanted to twitch faster than his brain could steer. A slight forward lean, too aggressive. Energy dump too early. Pupils sharper than needed.
Varik said nothing.
He didn’t need to.
Lucen finally rolled his shoulders and gave the faintest grin.
Not big.
Not mocking.
Just a man who already knew how the fight was going to end.
Varik leaned back into the couch.
Hands still steepled.
Eyes never leaving the screen.
Not even once.
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