The Colosseum was silent.

A moment ago, it had been a cauldron of noisem, 100,000 people screaming for blood. Now, the only sound was the hiss of cooling stone.

Gareth, the Champion of Class C, stood frozen inside his earth fortress. He didn't breathe. He didn't blink.

He reached up slowly, his gauntleted hand trembling, and touched his ear. His fingers came back red.

He looked at the stone wall in front of him. A perfectly circular hole, no wider than a gold coin, had been melted through three feet of magically reinforced granite.

The edges of the hole were glowing white-hot, dripping molten slag onto his boots.

"Surrender," a voice squeaked from across the arena.

Gareth looked up.

Lukas stood twenty meters away. He looked terrified. His knees were knocking together, and he was gripping his right wrist with his left hand as if trying to steady a violently shaking gun.

Smoke curled from the tip of his index finger.

"Surrender," Lukas repeated, his voice shaking. "Or... or the next one goes through the middle."

Gareth stared at the shaking boy. The fear that had gripped him for a split second began to curdle into something else.

Shame.

He was the Class C Champion. He was a Peak 2nd Order Earth Mage. And he had almost pissed himself because a Class F reject got off a lucky shot?

Gareth looked at Lukas's trembling legs.

'He's shaking,' Gareth realized, his eyes narrowing. 'He's not holding back. He's out of mana. That beam was a fluke. A desperate, one-time trick.'

The crowd began to murmur. "Is Gareth hurt?" "Why is he freezing up against Class F?"

The whispers hit Gareth like a slap to the face. His face flushed purple.

"Surrender?" Gareth roared, gripping his granite staff until his knuckles turned white.

"You get one lucky shot, and you think you've won? Don't look down on me, you gutter rat!"

BOOM.

Gareth slammed his foot into the ground.

The earth beneath him responded. The defensive fortress shattered, transforming into jagged shards of rock that floated around him like asteroids.

"You missed your chance, Matchstick!" Gareth screamed. "[Earth Magic: Rolling Boulder Assault]!"

He swung his staff.

Three massive boulders, each the size of a car, ripped out of the arena floor and hurtled toward Lukas.

"Eep!" Lukas squeaked.

He turned and ran.

He didn't run gracefully like Alaric. But thanks to months of hellish training under Mozart, he didn't run slowly either.

He moved like a panicked recruit, a blur of flailing limbs and desperate energy.

CRASH!

The first boulder smashed into the spot where Lukas had been standing a second ago, sending shrapnel flying.

"Stop running!" Gareth yelled, charging forward. He encased his body in [Granite Armor], turning himself into a living tank.

"I'm going to crush every bone in your body!"

Lukas dove to the right, rolling through the dust. He scrambled up, coughing.

"I can't aim!" Lukas shouted to himself. "He's moving too fast!"

"Die!" Gareth was on top of him.

He raised his granite-encased fist for a hammer blow.

Lukas looked up. He saw the massive stone fist descending. He saw the rage in Gareth's eyes.

Panic flooded Lukas's brain. The Blue Flame in his chest roared, demanding to be let out. Explode, it whispered. Vaporise him.

'No,' Lukas thought, biting his lip until it bled. 'Don't be a bomb. Be a needle.'

Instantly, he rolled onto his back and thrust his palm upward.

[Flame Art: Flash-Weld.]

FWOOSH.

A short, intense burst of blue fire erupted from his palm, a wall of superheated plasma.

Gareth's fist hit the fire.

It didn't stop the punch. But the heat was so intense that it instantly melted the granite armor encasing Gareth's hand. The stone turned to liquid lava in mid-air.

"ARGH!" Gareth screamed as molten rock sprayed onto his real armor.

He stumbled back, flailing.

Lukas scrambled to his feet, panting. He was cornered against the arena wall. He had no room to run.

Gareth recovered, burnt, angry, and humiliated.

"Fine," Gareth hissed. The air around him grew heavy. "No more games."

He slammed both hands into the ground.

[Advanced Earth Magic: Tectonic Vice.]

Two massive walls of earth rose up on either side of Lukas. They began to close in. Gareth intended to crush him like a bug between two fingers.

"Squeeze him!" Gareth yelled.

The walls groaned, closing the gap. Ten feet. Five feet.

Lukas looked at the closing walls. He looked at Gareth, who was safe behind a new layer of stone armor.

"I... I didn't want to do this," Lukas whimpered.

He raised his right hand. He pointed five trembling fingers at Gareth.

He closed his eyes. He pictured five candles.

'Don't melt the wax.'

"Needle Barrage."

THWIP. THWIP. THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.

Five beams of compressed blue light fired in rapid succession.

He aimed blindly, terrified, just wanting the walls to stop moving.

HISSS.

The first beam punched through Gareth's shield. The second beam punched through his shoulder plate. The third beam grazed his helmet, slicing the visor in half.

The fourth and fifth beams missed Gareth entirely. They slammed into the base of the left-hand earth wall.

CRACK.

They didn't hit a magical weak point. They just vaporized the structural foundation of the wall.

With its base turned to gas, the massive slab of earth lost its balance. It didn't crush Lukas; it toppled backward, crashing onto the arena floor with a deafening thud.

Gareth stood there. He looked down.

His armor was smoking. It looked like Swiss cheese.

Lukas crawled out of the dust cloud. He was crying a little, and his glove was glowing red hot.

He pointed one shaking finger at Gareth's face.

"I... I missed the vital organs on purpose," Lukas lied.

Gareth looked at his ruined armor. He looked at the holes. He realized that if those beams had been an inch to the right, he would be a corpse.

The rage evaporated, replaced by cold, hard terror.

CLANG.

Gareth dropped his staff.

"I yield!" Gareth shrieked, throwing his hands up. "I forfeit! Get him away from me!"

"WINNER: LUKAS OF CLASS F!"

The crowd was stunned. There was no cheering. Just the sound of 100,000 people trying to process how a Class F student had just dismantled a tank with his fingertips.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.