The stadium pulsed with excitent, the massive arena alive with the raw anticipation of thousands of spectators. The air shimred with the energy of countless eyes locked on the stage, all waiting for the first match of the tournant to begin.
"Ladies and gentlen," Valerie's voice rang through the arena, smooth yet commanding, "welco to the Sovereign's Tournant for the first-year students of Mythos Academy!"
The cheers rose like a tidal wave, crashing against the reinforced barrier surrounding the battlefield. The festival was many things—tradition, spectacle, proof of strength—but above all, it was a stage. A place where only the greatest talents shone.
"This is the pinnacle of spellcasting and martial combat among first-years. Soon, we will witness the rise of a genius among geniuses—the one who will claim the title of Sovereign!"
Excitent surged through the crowd. Faces flashed across the massive holographic screens, each student's ranking displayed next to their image.
At the very top, Lucifer Windward—Rank 1.
And his first opponent? Seraphina Zenith.
"The first match will be between Seraphina Zenith, princess of Mount Hua Sect, and Lucifer Windward, prince of the North!"
A shift in the air.
Even the audience quieted for a mont as both nas were spoken together.
Everyone knew what this ant.
Seraphina, the elven princess of Mount Hua, renowned for her Ice Crystal Jade Body, a Gift that made her an unparalleled ice mage. And Lucifer, the crowned prodigy of the North, bearer of the Yin-Yang Body, an existence that embodied absolute balance and destruction.
The odds weren't just stacked against Seraphina.
They were crushing her beneath them.
Still, she exhaled slowly, her breath visible in the cold mist forming around her as she stepped onto the battlefield. Her long silver hair glimred under the artificial lights, her violet eyes unreadable as she stared at the figure waiting for her.
Lucifer stood lazily at the center of the stage, his verdant green eyes holding no tension, no urgency—just supre confidence. He hadn't even drawn his sword yet.
He doesn't take seriously.
Seraphina ignored the heat pooling in her chest, the simring frustration at being underestimated.
She was used to this.
She had been born into a world where expectations crushed those who could not rise. If she let the weight of it push her down, she would never be able to reach her own summit.
She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second.
Then she moved.
The battle began.
'Breathe. Move. Breathe. Move.'
Seraphina vanished from where she stood, the ground beneath her freezing over as she propelled herself forward with a burst of compressed ice mana.
Her sword flashed, the crystalline edge humming with frozen energy.
Lucifer finally moved—slowly, almost carelessly, his hand reaching for his blade.
Just as her strike was about to reach him, he parried.
A single stroke. Effortless.
Seraphina's attack was stopped cold.
Her violet eyes flickered with surprise.
Not because he had blocked her—she expected that—but because she felt nothing.
There was no pushback, no resistance. Her entire montum was absorbed, diffused into nothingness.
'What…?'
"Too slow," Lucifer murmured.
Then he stepped forward.
And everything changed.
His sword slashed downward, the air itself splitting apart, sending a violent shockwave rippling toward her. Seraphina gritted her teeth, her instincts screaming.
She twisted, spinning away as her ice mana surged outward, forming a protective frost barrier. The force of his strike shattered the ice in an instant, but she had already repositioned, breathing heavily.
Lucifer sighed. "This is a waste of ti."
Seraphina refused to accept that.
She slamd her sword into the ground, and instantly, ice erupted from below, jagged glaciers racing toward Lucifer like a frozen tide. The temperature plumted in the arena, the very air crystallizing into frost as her Grade 6 art began to manifest.
A brilliant violet hue radiated from her body, mana coalescing into the shape of an enormous setting sun behind her.
Violet Sunset Genesis.
Lucifer blinked, as if actually acknowledging the threat.
That alone was an accomplishnt.
Seraphina gritted her teeth as the final phase activated. The frozen spikes launched toward Lucifer in a perfect sequence, a pattern that ensured there was no escape.
It was Mount Hua's greatest offensive ice art—one that would swallow the battlefield in an inescapable, freezing onslaught.
And yet…
Lucifer simply sighed.
He raised his free hand.
And darkness blood.
Black and white mana swirled together, forming a concentrated sphere of Yin-Yang energy. In the next instant, Lucifer dropped it, sending it crashing into the advancing ice.
The mont it touched the frost—
Everything collapsed.
The ice shattered into dust, the sheer force of Lucifer's mana annihilating her attack like a child's drawing wiped from a board.
A deep, gut-wrenching silence settled over the stadium.
Seraphina stood frozen in place, her breath ragged. Her attack—her strongest, most perfected technique—had been erased.
Lucifer finally took a step forward.
Seraphina instinctively raised her sword, but the mont his blade flickered—
She was already on the ground.
The crowd barely even saw what happened. The gap was simply too wide.
Lucifer stood over her, his expression completely unreadable.
"You did well," he said, voice quiet. "But in the end, you were never going to win."
Seraphina tried to push herself up, but her body refused to move.
Her mind scread at her to fight, but her limbs felt like lead.
She was out of mana.
She had lost.
The final buzzer sounded.
The match was over.
Lucifer turned away, already dismissing her existence as he sheathed his sword.
"Winner—Lucifer Windward!" Valerie's voice bood through the arena, and the cheers erupted once more.
Lucifer sighed as he exited the battlefield, his mind already shifting ahead.
Seraphina Zenith had been a minor obstacle.
A stepping stone.
Because the only fights that actually mattered… were still to co.
_________________________________________________________________________________
'I can't believe he used it,' I thought, my eyes narrowing as I watched Lucifer leave the battlefield, the weight of his presence lingering in the air like a fading storm.
The reason Lucifer Windward was called the Second Hero wasn't just his overwhelming talent or sheer dominance. It was that power.
Lucifer couldn't wield light mana or dark mana like .
Instead, he commanded sothing different—white mana and black mana.
A phenonon no one could understand. A force that existed outside the conventional structure of magic, sothing that defied classification. No scholar, no researcher, no archmage could explain it.
It was simply the Yin-Yang Body—his Gift.
A supernatural power that no one else in the world possessed.
A Gift that let him obliterate Seraphina Zenith in an instant, as if all her efforts had never mattered.
Of course, that kind of devastation was only possible because of the sheer difference in their mana ranks. She was still high Silver-rank, while he had already stepped into White-rank, a threshold that only a handful of students in the entire lower years had reached.
But even if they had been equals in rank, would the result have changed?
Lucifer was a monster.
That much was undeniable.
But that just made things more interesting.
I exhaled, rolling my shoulders.
I wanted to go to Seraphina—to offer words of comfort, to remind her that this was not the end, that there was still a long road ahead.
But I couldn't.
Because I was up next.
And my opponent? Ian Viserion.
The dragon prince of the South.
A descendant of dragons, a fighter who wielded fla as if it were an extension of his very being. A powerhouse in his own right.
I had no room for distractions.
Still, as I walked past Seraphina, I let my hand brush lightly against hers.
"Raise your head," I whispered, just loud enough for her to hear. "You did well."
She looked at , her ice blue eyes still glistening with exhaustion, frustration, and sothing else—a quiet determination that had yet to be extinguished.
Then, she smiled. Just slightly.
That was enough.
I turned away and ascended the steps, stepping onto the battlefield.
It was ti.
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