The Nullhalo Beetle’s halos whirred louder, rings rotating so fast they blurred into streaks of light. Every beat of its wings warped the air, making Reed’s silhouette flicker like a mirage. The battlefield, already chaos, began to splinter into fragnts of perception. Even the audience struggled to keep track of everything that was happening on the field.
The Demonwing Harpy screeched from above, talons blazing, wings unfurling into a destructive fan of fiery wind. It dove at the Gravity Wyrmling, expecting the tiny dragon-like creature to dodge, but the Wyrmling surged upward to et her.
Boom!
A sonic blast rippled from the impact, shockwaves bursting outward as claw t claw. The Harpy faltered, reeling midair. Partly from the recoil, but also partly from surprise that it t such strong resistance.
The Wyrmling, extrely small for a mber of the sub-dragon family (only slightly larger than a tall man), fought toe-to-toe with the larger Harpy, using gravity on its side to make its body feel dozens of tis its normal weight. Its body coiled like a spring under gravitational compression before snapping forward again—a precise tail slam aid at the Harpy’s wing joint. The seemingly weak attack, likely weighed as much as a Titan under the increased gravity.
It connected.
The Harpy spiralled down, slamming into the scorched arena floor. Reed didn’t even look up. He had already redirected the Aetherfang Myriapod to intercept the advancing Dreadclaw Demon.
The demon thundered forward, each impact of its fists sending explosions of force into the cracked stone. The Myriapod scuttled low, weaving in unnatural angles beneath the arcs of its strikes. As the Dreadclaw brought both arms down in a hamrfist, the Myriapod vanished beneath it—then burst out behind its back.
Thin arcs of warped gravity lashed out from the creature’s thorax, dragging the Dreadclaw slightly off balance. Not enough to topple. But enough to delay. To frustrate it.
The Phoenix shrieked in fury, gathering power. Its feathers ignited into an infernal nova. It spread both wings wide, molten spirals coalescing at the tips.
Kain, watching from the sidelines, tensed as the flas continued to gather around the phoenix.
"Does she not care about such an indiscriminate attack harming her own side?" he muttered.
As if in answer, Isolde’s contracts took to the skies and flew to the back of the Phoenix, in the narrow sliver of the air away from the direction of its attack. The only two contracts, the gorilla-like Dreadclaw Demon and the Lion-resembling Infernal Manticore, were airlifted to safety by the Demonwing Harpy and Infernal Gargoyle respectively.
Once it saw that it’s allies were out of the range of the widespread attack, the Phoenix unleashed its full might.
A spiralling inferno erupted from the skies, ant to wash over the entire battlefield as if to reset it entirely. The kind of move ant to purge setups, reset montum, and annihilate all traps and gravitational control zones.
But just as the fire descended—
The Sinkmaw Tortoise shifted.
Its shell glowed, a deep mineral red. Then, like a vault sealing, its gravity field hardened into a solid do around Reed’s team. The inferno slamd into it.
And bent.
The fire curved around the shield, like water over stone, spilling off in useless waves.
The announcer praised Reed’s team. "He reinforced his entire team with a compressed gravitational field? That tortoise is like a walking bunker! It’s rare for a shield to have that much range. The Royal Guard should pay attention to this potential recruit!"
But it had limits. The barrier trembled. One of the Stellarthread Weaver’s legs twitched—its energy fading fast from reinforcing the tortoise’s barrier from the inside out. Its webs crisscrossing the do like thin support beams that reinforced the gravitational energy.
But as the only green-grade contract, it had its limitations. The little spider was burning itself out.
And it didn’t help that Isolde’s contracts were all hamring at the shield like an invading troop trying to bulldoze down a city wall. If they weren’t hamring at it nonstop, the shield could last far longer...
Reed sighed.
The Nullhalo Beetle released another ring.
This one dropped straight down.
Clang.
It hit the arena floor and spread outward, causing a localized ripple that either nullified gravitational effects or made gravity distorted in a select zone.
The Phoenix’s flight trajectory faltered. The Harpy’s agile movents slowed, unable to maintain its previous speed and stability in the air. The Incubus’ attempts to break through the barrier with a concentrated strike halted, as the shift in gravity threw off its stability and ability to gather its energy into a single strike.
Isolde narrowed her eyes.
"He has a lot of tricks... but I have more."
With a brief wave of her hand to convey so kind of signal, all six of her infernal-blooded contracts responded instantly, spreading into a coordinated assault pattern that crackled with practiced aggression.
The Burning Abyssal Phoenix launched into the air, its wings igniting with renewed fury. Fla trailed behind it in a tightening spiral as it began to dive. But not toward just any spot in the barrier. Counterintuitively, toward the spot with the most threads for reinforcent—it was targeting the Stellarthread Weaver.
The phoenix seen it reinforce the tortoise’s barrier. It was fragile. Green-grade. Yet annoyingly effective.
Its strategy proved effective. The Phoenix’s impact shattered the tortoise’s barrier with a cracking boom, a visible ripple racing through its structure as gravitational energy dispersed in jagged waves. Shards of spiritual energy flared into the air, the remains of the Stellarthread Weaver’s support network. Without the tortoise’s barrier, the battlefield was now fully exposed—and every contract on both sides surged forward into renewed combat.
The Demonwing Harpy, singed but still functional, veered wide around the center do, hunting for the small Gravity Wyrmling again, whose compression tactics had made it a problem. From above, the battlefield turned into a flaming maze, heat shimring from the Phoenix’s wake, while the Harpy dipped low in tight, vicious arcs.
The Soulreaver Incubus flickered into view again, wings folded neatly as it glided down with eerie grace. It landed atop the shattered remnants of the gravitational web that had coated the defensive do made by the tortoise.
With an elegant motion, it raised both arms toward the disoriented Stellarthread Weaver, still reeling from the backlash after its threads were destroyed. A pulse of violet-black energy surged from the Incubus’ chest, and shadowy tendrils erupted—latching onto the Weaver like puppet strings. For a mont, the tiny spider spasd midair, then floated helplessly toward the Incubus, suspended like a marionette. With a single swipe of its clawed hand, the Incubus slashed downward, severing the tether and detonating the Weaver in a small but brilliant burst of flas.
Reed’s expression didn’t change. He remained calm, even as the Stellarthread Weaver was attacked.
The air snapped violently, threads unravelling like an unravelling cheap blanket as the green-grade contract was forcibly recalled back to Reed’s star space.
Burned out. A necessary loss.
Five left on his side, but the enemy wasn’t unscathed either...
On the ground, the Dreadclaw Demon reengaged the Aetherfang Myriapod, this ti moving slower—but more deliberately. Its claws swept in brutal arcs, no longer relying on overwhelming speed but instead using raw reach and power to drive the Myriapod back, any slight misstep and its venomous claws will be able to take it out in one fell swoop.
The Infernal Sentinel Gargoyle, whose forward motion had been stalled by the effect of another ring from the Nullhalo Beetle, finally adjusted and began flying again. Heat poured from its chest as it activated a long-range attack skill, channeling a line of molten energy across the floor directly toward Reed’s Veltrake Serpent.
And the Infernal Manticore, tail twitching, still hadn’t moved.
It was watching.
Waiting.
Another ring releases from the Nullhalo beetle again.
It flattened against the arena floor like a coin and sank—disappearing from view.
At first, nothing seed to happen.
Then Isolde frowned.
The Harpy jerked mid-flight. Its wings flared at the wrong angle, sending it spinning slightly off-course.
The Phoenix slowed—its dive curving downward too fast.
The Incubus hesitated mid-step.
The battlefield tilted.
Not literally. But in terms of gravity. Equilibrium skewed. Angles shifted. Small adjustnts to every enemy contract’s internal weight distribution threw their orientation off just enough to disrupt montum, canceling a dozen movents mid-execution.
The Nullhalo Beetle’s Equilibrium Collapse had activated.
It was subtle but effective interference—destabilizing directional gravity relative to each target’s current trajectory.
The Serpent took that mont to break free.
Its scales shimred as it rolled onto its side, dodging the line of molten force sent by the Gargoyle and lashing upward with its tail.
The tip—razor-sharp and dense—caught the Gargoyle on the chin.
Crack!
Stone splintered.
The Gargoyle staggered, dazed.
But in the midst of all the change on the battlefield, one target was unaccounted for...
Isolde blinked.
Reed wasn’t where she last saw him.
In fact... she couldn’t even say what direction he was in.
A disorienting sense of displacent washed over her as gravity twisted around points that didn’t exist. The crowd couldn’t follow. Caras flickered. The announcers stamred. Even the dics and staff lost focus, unsure of which part of the arena to monitor. Both the beetle and Reed’s skills work together in tandem to throw any and everybody off.
In the middle of it all, Reed walked calmly forward.
Invisible.
Unseen.
A void in the center of attention.
And for the first ti, Isolde felt sothing unfamiliar stir inside her.
Uncertainty.
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