60 seconds.
My hands gripped the flag. My body pulsed with the aftershock of the form I didn't understand—hair still white, aura glowing faint red silver.
Mavren stumbled back across the arena floor, eyes narrowed, teeth clenched.
"You're not supposed to have power like that," he hissed. "What are you.....?"
I didn't answer.
I didn't need to.
Because the doubt he used like poison?It wasn't working anymore.
He blurred again, splitting into five copies in a swirl of dark mist. They darted around the field like hunting hounds. I planted my feet and scanned them.
All breathing the same rhythm.
All perfectly synced.
He's using illusions to match real movement...
A voice echoed faintly in my mind again. mother?
"Stop seeing. Start feeling."
I closed my eyes.
And the world slowed.
The crowd, the dust, the wind—all muted.
What was left?
Heartbeat.
Just one heartbeat… slightly off.
I spun—struck behind me—
CRACK!
The real Mavren flew back, crashing into the edge of the arena.
His illusions vanished like smoke being exhaled.
"How…?" he gasped, blood trickling down his mouth. "How are you—!?"
I stepped forward. Aura blazing.
"You spent the whole fight trying to make me doubt who I was," I said, voice calm. "But I've been doubting myself since I was born. You think your words scare me?"
He launched forward again—hands now wreathed in black flame, smoke twisting into jagged claws.
I tossed the flag in the air—
—and met him head-on.
20 Seconds
The arena shook.
Blow after blow. Fist, elbow, knee—neither of us giving in. His flame cut deep across my cheek. I hit his ribs hard enough to break them.
"You're not strong enough," he muttered.
"Then I'll become strong enough," I growled back. "Even if it kills me."
Mavren's smoke swallowed the center of the field—an expanding dome of darkness.
I stood still inside it.
Waiting.
"I was born from this smoke," he whispered. "But you... you're just a boy pretending to be a storm."
"No," I said. "I am the storm."
And then I ignited.
A white, red, and silver aura burst out in a perfect sphere, piercing the smoke and clearing it with a shockwave that shook the sky.
10 seconds.
Mavren tried to blink behind me.
But I was already there.
He tried to vanish again.
But I had learned him.
"You rely on tricks," I whispered in his ear, grabbing him mid-teleport. "But I learned how to stand without any."
I slammed him to the ground.
5 seconds.
He looked up at me, dazed, bloodied.
"Why… won't you… break…"
I picked up the flag.
"Because I'm already broken. But I'm still moving."
1 second.
I raised the flag above my head.
Horns blared.
"FLAG SECURED! TAREK WINS!"
The crowd ERUPTED.
Chants. Screams. Applause that made the stands quake.
My aura flickered, fading—hair returning to black.
I dropped to one knee, chest heaving, sweat pouring.
What was that power…?
That voice…?
But I couldn't think long.
Beneath the Arena...
Far below the cheers and flashing lights… deep under the stage… something stirred.
In a chamber hidden by spells older than most kingdoms, a figure sat on a throne of bone, watching through a crystal orb cracked with veins of red.
The figure had no name here. Just a title.
???
He clicked his sharp teeth together as he watched the boy with white hair return to black.
"He changed... again.""How disappointing."
He rose from his seat, bones crackling as he stepped over a newly sacrificed boy—limp, lifeless, drained of mana.
The blood on the floor formed sigils now. Ritual circles.
"That makes… fifteen. Still not enough.""But he's getting closer. They're getting closer."
He held his hand above the boy's body, smoke curling from his fingers.
"Let them play their little game…" he whispered, smiling wide with unnatural rows of teeth."When the last flag falls, the real tournament will begin.""And then—"
He grinned up toward the arena above.
"We'll feed them all… to the Demon King."