The four remaining members of Elijah's team burst from the base in unison, the glow of the Aether Guardian's blessing still pulsing strongly in their veins. Mira was gone, still locked in the respawn chamber. That left Elijah, Brax, Rennik, and Sylvara—their battered formation staring down the monster who had carved his way through the Awakening Exams like few else.
Ryden.
He stood at the foot of their mana core, his twin spectral blades, one crimson with fire, one pale and storming with wind, trailing sparks and arcs of energy across the stone floor. The last obelisk had crumbled behind him, leaving the core exposed, its radiant hum drowning out all other sound. He didn't rush. He didn't need to. He simply waited, calm and inevitable, the embodiment of everything Elijah had worked to counter this entire match.
"Four of us, one of him," Elijah said, his voice steady but taut. "But he's worth ten. Don't fight him straight, play around each other. Trust the setup."
Brax slammed his fists together, stone creeping over his arms and chest until his whole upper body gleamed like granite. "I'll hold the line as long as I can."
"Good," Elijah replied. "Rennik, find your shots. Sylvara, keep us alive."
Ryden tilted his head, expression unreadable. "Four against one really seems unfair you know… You should have brought at least 8. You really think you can stop me?"
Elijah didn't answer. His senses were already stretching, every nerve on fire. The strange new instinct in him, the one that prickled like invisible threads brushing against his skin, was screaming. Ryden was danger embodied.
Ryden moved. One heartbeat he was standing before the core, the next he was a streak of wind, his form blurring as his projection shot past Brax to flank Rennik.
Elijah's danger sense flared bright, hot. Behind!
"Down!" he barked.
Rennik threw himself forward as the projection's blade scythed overhead, sparks of flame showering the floor. Before it could finish the swing, Brax intercepted, stone-armored forearms locking against Ryden's blade. The impact was thunderous, shoving Brax back three paces despite his hardened stance.
"Can't hold him long!" Brax grunted.
Elijah leapt in, firing a sticky mana line at the projection and yanking it off-course. The construct dissolved into wisps the moment it hit the ground, buying them a breath.
That breath was all Rennik needed. He planted his feet, conjuring three glass javelins at once and hurling them in rapid succession. They sang through the air, refracting the light of the core into dazzling shards.
Ryden's wind blade flicked, and all three shattered before reaching him. The fragments spun dangerously, one nearly slicing into Sylvara's cheek before her harmonic shield thrummed, dispersing the shards harmlessly.
She pushed her hands outward, weaving mana threads in a spiraling chord. The hum resonated in Elijah's bones, his muscles suddenly lighter, faster. "Go!"
Elijah dashed forward, enhancing his body with mana, sticking one hand to the floor to slingshot himself low under Ryden's guard. His free palm shot out, sticky mana clamping onto Ryden's ankle. He yanked.
For the first time, Ryden stumbled.
Brax roared, slamming a stone-coated shoulder into Ryden's chest and driving him back from the core. Rennik followed up with a rain of glass arrows, each one carrying Sylvara's amplification. A few managed to puncture Ryden's shield, glowing fissures rippling across it.
But then the fire blade came down.
The sheer force of it cracked Brax's stone skin and hurled him backward into a wall. The follow-up wind slash carved a shallow trench into the floor, forcing Elijah and Rennik apart.
Still, Ryden wasn't unscathed. One arrow hit his thigh, another his shoulder, both glowing faintly where Sylvara's resonance had forced them deeper.
He pulled them free without a flinch. "Better than the rest. But not enough."
Ryden blurred again, but this time Elijah's instincts pulsed red-hot before he moved. Elijah felt the shift in Ryden's mana, like a storm surge, and shouted: "Spread out!"
Ryden whispered under his breath "Fate Sealed".
A half-second later, Ryden unleashed his ultimate.
The projection ripped from his body, doubling in size and speed, tethered to him by a searing mana thread. Both forms slashed wide arcs, and the air itself detonated. If they had still been clustered, all four would have been obliterated instantly.
Even spread out, the storm tore through them. Rennik's shield cracked dangerously as he dove behind a broken obelisk. Sylvara's harmonics wavered, her shielding chord breaking as she was flung across the floor. Brax raised his arms, stone splintering, his shield finally registering damage. Elijah himself only avoided the hit by hurling a sticky line high up a wall and yanking himself up and over the storm.
When the dust settled, the core pulsed unguarded, and Ryden strode toward it.
"Not done yet!" Elijah shouted.
He dove back down, firing two lines—one to the floor, one to Ryden's shoulder. He snapped the tether taut, arresting Ryden's movement mid-stride. "Now!"
Rennik burst from cover, glass shimmering around him like a quiver of stars. With Sylvara's faint hum strengthening his aim, he launched a spear the size of a ballista bolt.
It struck. Ryden's shield cracking and splintering in a spray of burning mana.
But Ryden didn't fall.
Instead, his aura flared brighter, fire and wind howling around him as if the near loss of his shield only enraged him further. His projection surged back into existence, both blades carving outward in a cyclone.
Brax stepped up again, unyielding despite the cracks spreading across his stony form. "Go ahead! Break yourself on me!" He caught the cyclone head-on, both arms locking around Ryden's blade, stone groaning under the pressure.
Elijah's danger sense screamed, too much, too fast. Brax couldn't hold it.
So Elijah jumped. He stuck one foot to Brax's shoulder, one to Ryden's chest, forcing the three of them into a tangled knot.
"Rennik! Now!"
Rennik's breath came ragged, mana nearly drained. But he conjured one last weapon, a spear so fine it was almost transparent, edges honed to impossibility. Sylvara's resonance wrapped it in a harmonic pulse that shook the air itself.
He threw.
The spear lanced through Ryden's chest, piercing flame and wind alike, and exploded in a spray of crystalline shards.
Ryden convulsed, projection shattering. His blades flickered, dimmed, and dissolved.
For a heartbeat, silence. Then his body hit the ground with a thud that echoed louder than any cheer as his form dissolved to mist.
Elijah collapsed to one knee, chest heaving, sticky mana lines dissolving from his palms. Brax lay sprawled on the floor, stone flaking from his body as his ability finally gave out. Sylvara knelt with hands shaking, throat raw from the strain of her last chord. Rennik stood frozen, hand still outstretched from the throw, eyes wide with disbelief.
They had done it. They had slain the raid boss.
Ryden, the tenth-ranked student of their entire year, had been defeated.
The silence after Ryden fell stretched on, heavy and unreal.
Elijah forced himself back to his feet, every limb aching, lungs clawing for breath. Brax groaned as he rolled onto his side, stone crumbling from his body like flakes of shale. Rennik stood rooted in place, hand still trembling from that final throw. Sylvara, pale and drenched in sweat, sank against the base wall, her harmonics fading into quiet.
They had done it. Somehow, impossibly, they had slain Ryden.
But the match wasn't over.
Elijah's danger sense had gone blessedly still, but the countdown in his head hadn't stopped. Ryden would respawn soon. The moment he returned, everything they'd built would be undone.
Elijah's gaze snapped to the map overlay. Their base was still intact, barely. The enemy's base, by contrast, had been torn wide open by their earlier efforts. Two obelisks remained, guarding the enemy's mana core. One push could end it.
"Elijah…" Sylvara's voice was hoarse. "I… I don't know how much more I can…"
"You don't need to," Elijah said sharply, but not unkindly. He pulled her upright with a sticky tether to her arm, steadying her before she collapsed. "We've got the Aether buff. That's all we need. One last run. That's it."
Brax pushed himself to his feet, cracked knuckles flexing. "Then let's make it count."
Elijah nodded, his eyes narrowing. "Everyone, back to base. Now."
They all dashed back to spawn, no need to recall since they were close enough that running would be faster. A heartbeat later, they stood in the spawn platform, health and mana restored, items topped off. The glow of the Aether Guardian's buff coiled faintly around their limbs like living starlight.
The clock was ticking.
"Straight down mid," Elijah ordered. "Don't split, don't stop. Kill whatever's in front of you. Ryden's on a long timer, but the second he respawns, he'll sprint here. We can't let him."
Mira respawned as they took off.
The five of them burst from base together, a ragged but determined phalanx.
The enemy's surviving champions scrambled to regroup, but they were still weak, still starved of gold and experience. Veyra tried to block their charge, gauntlets sparking, but Rennik skewered her from halfway down the lane before she even reached them.
"Sixteen!" he shouted, voice cracking with triumph and disbelief.
Kael and Luthar tried to defend the obelisk, but Brax barreled through them like a living boulder, stone armor grinding sparks across the lane. Elijah followed close behind, sticky lines yanking the archer's bow from his grip before slamming him into Kael. The two collapsed in a heap, shields breaking under the combined assault.
The obelisk fell seconds later, its protective barrier dissolving into the air.
One left.
"Keep moving!" Elijah snapped, heart pounding. His danger sense was calm, but it wouldn't last. Ryden's timer ticked ever closer to zero.
Corvex made a desperate stand at the final obelisk, summoning barriers of spectral steel chains to stall them. Rennik laughed breathlessly, shattering each one with glass javelins of his own, shards slicing through the air like falling stars. Sylvara steadied him, her harmonics weaving a steady pulse that sharpened his aim, boosted his strength, and softened the few counterstrikes Corvex managed to hurl.
The obelisk crumbled.
Now only the enemy core remained, pulsing like a living heart at the center of the base.
Elijah's breath caught. We can win this.
"Core! Core! Core!" Brax bellowed, slamming stone fists into its crystalline surface. Rennik hurled spear after spear, each one detonating in a burst of refracted light. Sylvara pushed her harmonics to the brink, amplifying every strike. Elijah stuck his palms flat against the core, channeling every drop of mana-enhanced strength into tearing its defenses down.
Ryden respawned at this moment but before he could take even a single step…
The crystal cracked.
The cracks spread.
And then…
The core shuddered as the first fissure ran through its center. Across the colosseum, the portion of the audience paying attention to this fight swelled from thousands to tens of thousands. The name "Ryden" carried weight, and once word spread that the tenth-ranked student was fighting tooth-and-nail against a no-name squad, eyes turned.
The commentators' voices carried over the broadcast.
"They've done the impossible, Ryden is down!" one cried, his tone disbelieving. "This team of relative nobodies has managed to topple a titan!"
In the guild halls of the mercenary networks, men and women leaned forward in their seats.
"That kid with the glass," a grizzled veteran muttered, eyes narrowing. "Creative. Efficient. I'd pay good coin to have him on a job."
Another mercenary barked a laugh. "Forget the glass kid. Look at the stone one. He's a wall with fists. That's battlefield material."
From a high-ranking military box, two officers watched in silence.
"Four against Ryden," one finally said, his tone a mixture of awe and calculation. "And they won. Do you understand how rare that is?"
The other officer simply nodded. "We'll need to flag their files. Every single one of them."
The general audience roared louder with each passing second, as if their disbelief needed an outlet. Students watching from other matches pointed in shock. Even rival teams done with their fights looked at the projection feeds in their team rooms with surprise and worry. Elijah's squad, the nobodies, the underdogs, just toppled Ryden's entire team.
The enemy core splintered, beams of light bursting outward in jagged rays. Its pulse faltered, then slowed, then stopped. With a deafening crack, the core exploded into radiant shards, dissolving into pure mana that flooded the arena floor.
Elijah and his team were thrown back by the surge, landing hard on their backs. For a moment, none of them moved, all of them staring up at the fading glow in the sky above.
They'd done it. Against all odds, they'd actually done it.
The system message flashed in their vision:
VICTORY
Before Ryden could fully respawn, before he could rally, before he could do what everyone thought inevitable, the match was over.
Light coiled around their bodies, teleport magic tugging them skyward. The battlefield dissolved in a haze of mana, and a heartbeat later, the team was standing back in their private room. The roar of the colosseum was muffled, distant, but still audible even through the walls.
The five of them looked at each other. Exhausted. Shaking. Barely standing. But smiling.
For Elijah, it wasn't just relief. It wasn't just pride. It was something deeper: belonging. For the first time in his life he wasn't going to be looked down on.
They had won.