The roar of the coliseum was still ringing in my bones when Sensei Slade finally reached me. My legs were trembling, refusing to hold me upright, and every breath was a shard of glass carving my chest.
I had won. Twice. Against odds no one believed possible. But standing hurt almost as much as fighting had.
"Easy," Sensei said, steadying me with a firm grip under my arm. His voice was calm, but I could hear the undercurrent—relief tangled with something else. "You're still in one piece, but not for long if you keep pushing like that."
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough, flecked with blood. My ribs screamed in protest.
Sensei lowered me carefully to a seat near the arena's edge, pulling a vial from his belt. "Drink."
The liquid was bitter, like metal soaked in herbs, and fire ran down my throat. My vision cleared slightly, though the aches didn't fade.
"This'll hold you together until we get you in the recovery chamber. After that, you can fall apart as much as you want."
I managed a shaky nod, eyes drifting toward the center ring where the next youth matches unfolded. Lyra's fight came first.
She fought bravely, every motion sharp with training and determination, but her opponent overwhelmed her with ruthless precision. The crowd winced as she was struck down, and my heart clenched. Joran followed, throwing himself at his foe with bullheaded ferocity, but his strength wasn't enough. He too fell, battered and bloodied.
I wanted to stand, to shout encouragement, to do anything—but my body refused. All I could do was grip the armrest and watch.
Of the three youth matches, only my victories stood. Humanity's hope had rested on the bet: the Lygari claimed humans would win none. But they were wrong. I had carved through the doubt with my own hands.
The arbiter's voice rang loud, clear as a hammer striking stone:
"By the terms agreed upon, humanity claims the wager. The Aetherium ores will be delivered."
The cheers that erupted weren't just noise; they were release. The humans in the stands shouted my name, their voices lifting me higher than my broken body could stand. For a moment, the pain dulled beneath the weight of their belief.
But triumph was short-lived. The adult matches followed—three brutal duels where humanity's seasoned fighters fell, one after another, against Lygari power. No clever trick, no hidden reserve of strength could bridge the gap.
In the end, humanity's side was silent, heads bowed, as the arbiter announced:
"By the losses incurred, humanity owes resources in kind."
Victory and defeat, entwined. We had gained the ores, but the cost was felt just as keenly.
When the arena quieted, comrades gathered around me. Joran clapped my shoulder with a grimace that looked half pride, half pain. "You carried us, Zander. Don't let anyone say otherwise."
Lyra's voice was softer, worried, as she stood close enough for me to catch the faint tremble in her hands. "Are you… okay?"
I forced a crooked smile. "Still breathing. For now."
Relief flickered across her features before she nodded and stepped back. No more words passed between us, but the concern in her eyes lingered longer than the pain in my chest.
"Time." Sensei's voice cut through the moment. He pulled me to my feet again, though most of the work was his. "Chamber's ready."
The walk felt endless. Each step sent tremors of agony through my battered frame. When the door to a private, high-level med-bay slid open, releasing a sterile hiss of air, I nearly collapsed. This chamber was different—more advanced, more isolated.
"Inside," Sensei said, guiding me not to a standard regeneration tank, but to a single, advanced pod in the center of the room. He dismissed the attending medic with a sharp glance.
As I settled into the pod's embrace, Slade didn't activate the healing cycle. Instead, he produced a slender container from within his uniform. Inside, suspended in a clear, viscous liquid, was a single, shimmering vial. The fluid within was the color of liquid starlight, swirling with faint, ethereal light.
"This was to be your prize for a victory well-earned," Slade said, his voice low and serious. "But now, it is a necessity."
He held it up, his gaze intense. "You forced a breakthrough last night, Zander. A chaotic, unstable awakening your body was not prepared for. It is the reason you could stand against Zorix, but it is also tearing you apart from the inside. This Resonance Vial is an amplifier, yes, but more importantly, it is a stabilizer. It will take the raw, uncontrolled power you grasped and forge it into a permanent, stable foundation. It will make that power yours to command, not something that will burn you out." He leaned closer, his eyes drilling into mine. "But the process is not gentle. It will magnify what you've become, flaws and all. Are you prepared?"
I thought of the gulf between myself and the Lygari, of the hope in the humans' cheers. There was no other path. I gave a single, determined nod.
Slade handed me the vial. It was cool to the touch, the glass vibrating with a faint energy that seemed to answer the hum in my own bones. With my heart pounding a steady rhythm, I uncorked the vial and drank.
It tasted of ozone and cold starlight. The moment the liquid touched my tongue, it was no longer a fluid. It was a current of sentient, liquid light that flooded my system. The first wave was pure, agonizing cold, a cryo-burn that seemed to freeze my very marrow. Then came the fire, a white-hot inferno that erupted in my core and blazed through every vein.
My body convulsed, every muscle locking in a brutal cramp. I collapsed back against the pod, a choked gasp tearing from my throat. I could feel the energy surging through me, not just amplifying, but re-architecting. It was taking the chaotic resonance of my premature awakening and building a proper framework around it, tearing out the primitive, makeshift pathways my body had formed and replacing them with something impossibly efficient.
My perception of the world fractured into a million shards of sensory data—light, sound, pressure, temperature—all meaningless and overwhelming. Then, just as suddenly, it all began to reassemble itself into something vast and unfamiliar. My skin tingled, then burned, not with heat, but with information. The world, which had always been something I looked at and heard, became something I felt.
The fire receded, leaving a profound, humming stillness in my wake. The pain of my injuries was still there, but underneath it, I felt… connected. Whole. The chaotic power was no longer a storm threatening to tear me apart; it was a calm, deep ocean within me.
As he adjusted the pod's controls, Sensei's voice softened, but only slightly. "Stay there until morning. The docs will monitor you. You did a thing today, kid. We'll heal the rest of you now. Don't decide the world again tonight."
I thought he was finished, but then he paused. When he spoke again, his tone was lower, tinged with something I had never heard from him before.
"…and when you're awake, we need to talk about your breakthrough! "
The words cut sharper than the medicine now flooding my veins. I opened my mouth, but the combination of my injuries and the vial's aftermath dragged me under before any sound escaped. The chamber sealed, humming softly, and the world dimmed.
The day had ended in ashes—victory and loss, pride and sacrifice all at once. But tomorrow, new questions waited.
And Sensei's voice lingered in the dark.