Final Combatants:Kairo Vale – Lightning Koi & Awakened Flame Wolf AspectCael Soren – Undeclared Celestial-Class Aspect
The arena had stopped trying to hold them.
The runes along the dome flickered erratically, the core containment lines fractured and dim. Magisters sat with hands poised over emergency fail-safes. Healers watched from the wings, spells already half-cast.
One more clash.
That's all it would take to end it or break it.
Kairo stood with both aspects now fully active.
His body was surrounded by a storm-ringed silence, crackling lightning twining along his left arm like living current, while blue fire danced along his right shoulder, licking the air with three wolf heads made of heat and light.
The arena floor beneath him melted and sparked at once.
A paradox of elements, perfectly controlled.
He exhaled.
And the wolves stepped forward.
Not summoned. Not projections.
They walked.
One growled.
One circled wide.
The last bared its fangs at Cael.
Cael Soren stood still, arms lowered.
His coat fluttered in wind that didn't exist.
He watched the wolves. Then Kairo.
Then, for the first time, he lifted both hands and spoke a word.
"Reflect."
And everything changed.
Behind Cael, a mirror of light rippled into existence floating in the air like a pane of glass, but with depth that reached through the world.
Within it: reflections of the battlefield, frozen frames of attacks from earlier.
Freya's flame dive.
Dalron's hammer strike.
Even Kairo's lightning koi spiral.
"I don't create," Cael said softly. "I remember."
"Everything I've seen…"
The mirror shimmered.
"...I now become."
The Mirror shattered.
And Cael stepped through it.
Only now, he didn't just walk he glided, feet barely brushing the ground. His body became blurred, layered over itself in fractured echoes of movements already performed.
He vanished
And reappeared to Kairo's left, palm out, launching Freya's phoenix spiral with unnatural accuracy.
Kairo met it with a twist of his lightning palm, crackling in reverse-pulse formation breaking the spiral mid-flight.
But Cael wasn't done.
From his other hand, he mirrored Dalron's earthbreaker punch, aimed directly at Kairo's lower ribs.
Too close.
Kairo dropped low spun and the wolves reacted instantly.
The third wolf leapt, intercepting Cael with a burst of fire.
Not magic.
Instinct.
The wolves were no longer aspects.
They were entities.
The fire collided with Cael's frame
But he phased through it, leaving a flickering afterimage.
Above Kairo now.
Mid-air.
Two reflections behind him now Theren's wind spiral, and even Kairo's own lightning dash.
Cael used Kairo's technique against him bolt-folded and struck his blindside with terrifying precision.
Kairo absorbed the hit with his left shoulder, skidding backward, but kept his footing.
Blood trickled from the corner of his lip.
He didn't wipe it.
He grinned.
"So that's your game."
The three wolves growled in unison.
And then they merged.
A single, towering wolf formed behind Kairo.
Not ethereal.
Not glowing.
Real.
Its fur was made of blue flame. Its fangs shimmered with molten gold. And in its eyes burned the heat of ancient forests set alight by wrath.
It howled.
The pressure broke several remaining arena pillars.
Cael's mirror tried to reform
The wolf devoured it mid-cast.
Now Kairo moved.
No step.
Just motion pure and violent.
Lightning spiraled around him in five-layer rings, and the air between him and Cael warped into a glowing funnel. The wolf flanked left then right then split into three once more.
Kairo launched simultaneous strikes from both aspects:
Left fist: Lightning Spiral Spear
Right palm: Flame Wolf Rend
Cael mirrored again but too late.
He stopped the lightning.
He did not stop the flame.
BOOM.
The impact cratered the entire southeast quadrant of the battlefield.
The flame wolf pinned Cael, fangs sunk into mirrored echoes that shattered like glass, and Kairo stood above him, lightning arcs bouncing across his skin like hungry ghosts.
Cael lay still.
Burned.
Breathing.
But unmoving.
"Combatant Cael Soren downed. Victory goes to Kairo Vale."
The crowd didn't cheer.
Because most couldn't breathe.
Above, the Magisters exchanged frantic glances.
"Shut it down. Lock down the containment wards. Pull him out now before that flame continues to evolve"
"Too late," Elira whispered. "The wolves are already born."
Kairo turned slowly toward where Freya was now standing, barely, hand over her ribs.
She smiled, proud.
And exhausted.
He looked up toward the stands, toward Elira.
She held his gaze.
And smiled back.
TOP 5 FINALISTS ANNOUNCED:#1 – Kairo Vale#2 – Cael Soren#3 – Freya Vale#4 – Theren Lucal#5 – Dalron Vex