[Location: VIP Box – Distinguished Guests]

SLAM.

A fist hit the mahogany table so hard the wood cracked.

Professor Arthur, the Head Instructor of Class S, stood up. His face was a mask of purple fury. Veins bulged in his neck.

"CHEATING!" Arthur roared, his voice shaking the glass of the VIP box.

He spun around and pointed a trembling finger at the figure sitting in the corner.

"That was an artifact! It has to be!"

Arthur leaned over the table, spit flying from his mouth as he screamed at the silver-masked man.

"No First-Year student has that kind of compression! That isn't a feat he should be able to achieve!"

Isabelle, sitting next to Damien, stiffened. Her eyes narrowed behind her lace mask, her hand drifting toward the hidden dagger in her gown.

However, Damien didn't move. He didn't flinch. He calmly lifted his teapot and poured a fresh cup. The liquid swirled, dark and calm.

"Admit it, Mozart!" Arthur screamed.

"You gave him an illegal focus tool! You rigged the match because you knew your garbage students couldn't win a fair fight!"

The other dignitaries in the box turned to watch. Duke Vane looked on with interest, swirling his wine glass.

Damien set the teapot down.

CLINK.

The sound was soft, but it cut through Arthur's shouting like a knife.

Damien turned his head slowly. The silver mask caught the overhead magitech lights, reflecting Arthur's distorted, angry face.

"Professor Arthur," Damien said. His voice was smooth, calm, and utterly terrifying. "Your tea is getting cold."

"Don't give me that mysterious act!" Arthur spat. "I demand an inspection! I will have that boy stripped and searched! I will have you fired!"

Damien stood up.

He wasn't a large man. He didn't flare his aura, nor did he shout.

But suddenly, the temperature in the VIP box dropped ten degrees.

"Cheating?" Damien repeated softly.

He walked to the edge of the balcony, looking down at the arena where Lukas was currently hyperventilating and checking his gloves for damage.

"You teach your students to build walls, Arthur. You teach them to hide behind rock and stone. You teach them that safety lies in thickness."

Damien turned back. The eyeholes of his mask seemed to swallow the light.

"But my students do not have that luxury. They have spent the last month in a place where walls do not work. Where hiding means death."

He took a step toward Arthur. Arthur instinctively took a step back, hitting the wall.

"Lukas did not use an artifact," Damien whispered, lying through his teeth.

"He used trauma. He learned to condense his fire because if he didn't, he would have burned his friends alive."

Damien leaned in, face-to-face with the furious instructor.

"Do not blame your lack of teaching ability on cheating, Professor. It just highlights your own incompetence."

Arthur opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out. The sheer weight of Damien's presence the confidence of a man who owned the very room they stood in, crushed his argument.

Even if Lukas was using gloves, Arthur suddenly felt like accusing him would only make himself look petty.

Damien patted Arthur on the shoulder. It was a patronizing, dismissive gesture.

"Sit down, Arthur," Damien ordered, returning to his tea. "And watch the next match. You might learn something."

Arthur slumped into his chair, humiliated and seething.

Duke Vane chuckled from across the room. "You have a sharp tongue, Professor Mozart. Let us see if your 'Saint' has teeth to match."

...........................

[Location: The Arena Floor]

"NEXT UP!" the Announcer boomed, shaking off the confusion of the previous match.

"WE HAVE A CLASSIC CLASH OF ELEMENTS! LIGHT VS. DARK!"

"FROM CLASS D, THE MASTER OF BONES... SYLAS!"

The East Gate groaned open.

Sylas walked out. He was a gaunt boy with dark circles under his eyes, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.

He wore robes stitched with bone fragments and carried a staff topped with a human skull.

Green necromantic mist drifted around his ankles, wilting the grass in the arena.

The crowd cheered. Necromancers were creepy, but they were flashy.

"AND FROM CLASS F... THE FALLEN PRINCESS... ELENA!"

The West Gate opened.

Elena walked out.

She moved with the fluid grace of royalty, her combat uniform pristine white. She didn't wave or smile at the crowd.

She simply adjusted the Crystal Monocle (Photon Lens) over her right eye, her expression one of utter disdain.

She stopped in the center of the arena, twenty paces from Sylas.

"Heh," Sylas chuckled, spinning his skull staff.

"Class F got lucky in round one. But you're out of your league, Princess. Light magic is weak. It's just... flashlights."

He slammed his staff down.

"BEGIN!"

[Necromancy: Rise, Legion.]

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

The ground beneath Sylas split open. Skeletal hands burst from the earth, clawing at the air.

Ten... twenty... thirty skeletons dragged themselves out of the dirt.

They were armed with rusted swords and rotting shields, their eye sockets glowing with pale green witch-fire.

The crowd gasped. Thirty summons? That was impressive for a First Year.

"I have an army," Sylas grinned, standing behind his wall of bone. "What do you have? A healing spell?"

Elena looked at the army of the dead. She felt the vile mana polluting the air. It reminded her of the Sector 0 lab. It reminded her of the things floating in the tanks.

"Filth," Elena whispered.

She closed her eyes for a split second.

'Thread the needle,' she told herself, remembering the hours spent in the Old Gym. 'Wind is chaotic. Light is worse. Don't force it. Guide it.'

She imagined the mana not as a flood, but as a single, impossibly thin thread passing through the eye of a needle.

Opening her eyes, they were glowing gold.

She tapped the rim of her Photon Lens. A small rune on the monocle flared.

[Artifact Activation: Focus Mode.]

"You think Light is weak because you have only seen it used to mend wounds," Elena said, her voice amplified by wind magic so the whole stadium could hear.

She raised her right hand to the sky.

"But the sun does not just heal, Necromancer. It burns."

[Light Magic: Solar Flare – Judgment Variation.]

A ball of condensed golden light formed above her palm. It wasn't large, maybe the size of a grapefruit, but thanks to her training, the edges were razor-sharp, not bleeding energy into the air.

Elena snapped her fingers.

FLASH.

The ball of light passed through the Photon Lens.

The crystal refracted the condensed energy, amplifying it into a wide-angle cone of pure, concentrated radiance.

It was a flood.

The wave of white-gold light washed over the arena.

SCREEEECH.

The skeletons instantly disintegrated.

The moment the light touched the necromantic constructs, the mana binding their bones was purified instantly.

The bones turned to ash mid-step. Thirty skeletons vanished in the span of a single heartbeat, leaving nothing but piles of white dust on the arena floor.

The light continued, washing over Sylas.

"MY EYES!" Sylas screamed, dropping his staff and clutching his face.

The light wasn't hot enough to burn his skin, but it was bright enough to blind him through his eyelids. T

he green mist around him evaporated instantly, cleansed by the sheer density of the holy mana.

The flash faded.

The arena was silent again.

Thirty skeletons were gone. Sylas was rolling on the ground, weeping and blinded. Elena stood untouched, her monocle glinting in the sun.

She walked over to Sylas, her boots crunching on the bone dust of his army.

She looked down at him with cold indifference.

"You rely on the dead to fight your battles," Elena said. "Next time, bring your own strength."

She looked up at the VIP box, locking eyes with Duke Vane.

"I forfeit!" Sylas sobbed, unable to see anything but white spots. "I yield!"

"WINNER: ELENA OF CLASS F!"

The Announcer sounded terrified.

"That..." the Announcer stammered. "That wasn't a regular healing spell, folks. That was... mass exorcism?"

In the waiting tunnel, Alaric laughed, clapping his hands.

"She's scary," Alaric grinned, hefting The Anvil onto his shoulder. "I'm glad she's on our team."

He walked toward the light of the entrance.

"My turn."

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