Unlike the other defeated champions, Midas walked away unhurt. He had already worked out where he went wrong.
Mastering the Gambler's Book, though, was proving brutal. Among its countless tricks, it could copy thousands of weapons, and that library only grew with time. Midas had heard the stories about the Death Scythe's power. Nobody had mentioned what it cost, and that gap had lost him the match. He needed to learn these weapons properly before he reached for them again. Next time, he would.
Sephir had mastered one more combination of the Tempests. Tomorrow she would go after the last one, and with it the full power of the Tempest Vase.
Sraptor watched her progress with something close to wonder. She learned fast and she worked without complaint, and in all that time she had never once reached for power because it was power. He had come to admire that in her over these past days. A person who held gentleness and kindness alongside that much strength and discipline deserved the title of Wind Goddess.
The thought tugged at something in his chest, and he let it.
Elsewhere, Arzoth and Liath trained without pause. Arzoth had chosen shadow chains, weapons that could swallow an opponent whole and crush what was left. Liath had chosen Lightning Chakrams — fast, and capable of paralyzing and binding anything they touched.
The day ended. It was time.
Arzoth, Champion of Shadow, walked out in spectral armor cut from something like obsidian that drank the light around it, so that he seemed less a man than a silhouette with horns. Every rune across his breastplate pulsed with a slow, malevolent glow.
Liath came the other way in armor that crackled. Enchanted metal shimmered bluish-white like the belly of a thunderhead, and small arcs leapt from the crest of his helm and skittered off his boots as he walked.
The feather brushed the arena floor.
Arzoth moved first.
"Prepare yourself, Liath." His shadow chains shot out low and fast, striking like serpents.
Liath flicked both wrists and his Lightning Chakrams spun into his hands, each one gleaming like a piece of broken storm.
"You'll need more than shadows to beat me."
He set the discs spinning and carved through the tendrils reaching for him, shearing them apart before they could close. "Try harder!"
Then he flung the first chakram straight down the middle. It screamed through the air in a cascade of sparks and struck Arzoth square, and crackling energy webbed out across him, locking his limbs.
"Feel the power of the storm!"
Arzoth tore loose and fell back on his dark arts. Shadow chains coiled around him in a spinning vortex, a shield against everything Liath could throw.
He had not accounted for the second chakram.
Liath had already sent it wide on a slow curving path, out of Arzoth's sight, and it came in behind the vortex where the chains were thinnest. It latched onto him and poured lightning straight into the shield, and everything the chains had trapped stayed trapped.
Arzoth's screams filled the arena as the chakram spiraled back into Liath's waiting hand.
"You've lost." Liath's voice did not waver. "Surrender now, before you meet your end."
Arzoth was on his knees, broken. "I surrender."
The Coliseum erupted. Liath stood in the middle of it with both chakrams humming, victorious, while the cheering rolled over him in waves. The lightning died down. The shadows went quiet. What was left was the strange charged stillness that follows a storm.
The champions withdrew to their corners of the arena. Sephir wore a small smile and gave Liath a nod of respect as he passed. Every one of them knew these fights were only steps on a long road toward godhood, and that a loss taught as much as a win. Midas carried no wounds out of the Coliseum, but he carried something heavier — the understanding that his path would be paved with failures as much as victories, and that he would have to learn from all of them.
Sephir's eyes shone with resolve as she made herself a quiet promise: she would unlock the last secret of the Tempest Vase, and she would become the full might of the wind.
Liath stood tall, and behind his eyes burned the same fierce want — to push further, to command lightning like it had been his all along.
The arena stood silent now, still humming faintly with the echo of everything that had happened in it. The story of that clash would travel through the realms. The gods they meant to become were still distant, still shining somewhere far above them like stars, pulling them onward toward harder trials and greater victories.
And so they prepared, hearts alight, ready for whatever came next.