Michael raised his hand, and the sunlight died.
A wave of absolute Darkness erupted from Michael, an ink-black dome that swallowed Solace's vision. It wasn't just the absence of light; it was a physical weight, a sensory deprivation that felt like being buried alive. The crowd was gone. The sky was gone. There was only the sound of Solace's own ragged breathing and the cold, mocking presence of Michael Hern.
Solace closed his eyes. He didn't need them. borders came to life, the world's boundaries etched in his mind. He could 'see' the ground, the air currents, and the shimmering, arrogant outline of Michael standing six meters away.
"Oh? You can still find me?" Michael's voice came from the void. "Impressive. But can you move?"
The gravity shifted.
Solace was slammed into the ground. It wasn't a push; it was a crushing, relentless force that felt like a building had been dropped on his back. His ribs creaked. The air was forced out of his lungs in a pained gasp.
Solace wheezed, his vision blurring. He needed to bait him. He needed Michael to stop being a composed young master and start being a petty, angry boy.
"Your brother... Gabriel..." Solace gasped out, forcing a bloody grin. "I saw him once. He looked... disappointed. I guess he knows his little brother needs to play with gravity just to hit a half-dead kid."
Michael froze mid-air. The gravity in the arena seemed to ripple, the very air becoming thick and suffocating. He dropped to the ground, landing with a heavy thump that sent a shockwave of dust outward.
"You don't get to say his name," Michael whispered, his voice losing its melodic quality and becoming a jagged rasp. "You don't get to speak of the Hern lineage while you're bleeding in the dirt."
"Lineage?" Solace scoffed, leaning against his knees. "Is that what you call it? I call it a leash. You're just the spare, Michael. The backup. The one they send to the Academy because the real heir is busy doing things that actually matter."
'Hit the nail, Solace rejoiced inside.
Michael's face contorted. The arrogance vanished, replaced by a raw, naked malice.
"I was going to make this quick. I could just break your bracelet. I could end this and walk away." Michael said, his hand beginning to glow with a dark, swirling energy. "But I think I'll take my time. I'm going to break you into so many pieces that not even your family will recognize what's left."
Michael stepped into Solace's sensing range. He moved with agonizing slowness, savoring the moment. He reached down and grabbed Solace's right hand.
"You like your fingers?" Michael whispered.
Snap.
Solace's world exploded in white-hot agony. He tried to scream, but the gravity was so heavy he couldn't even make a sound.
Snap.
Michael methodically broke the bones in Solace's hand, one by one, his face inches from Solace's in the dark. Solace could sense the heat of Michael's breath, the sadistic curve of his lips.
"Cry for me," Michael urged. "Let me hear that commoner pride break."
Snap. Snap.
"Four," Michael counted, his voice a soft, terrifying croon. "You have six left. Should we do the toes next? Or maybe I'll just start on the larger bones. The radius? The ulna?"
"I thought maybe you would use that strange ability to nullify my thread. But it seems you can't use it, can you?" he asked. "All that talk just to turn out to be a One-trick pony."
Michael stood up and began to thrash him. It wasn't a fight; it was a slaughter. The crowd had since gone silent, seeing the state Solace was in. Michael used gravity to lift Solace six feet into the air, then slammed him down with enough force to crater the ground. He kicked him in the ribs, the stomach, the head. Each blow was calculated to hurt, to humiliate, but never to knock him unconscious.
Solace lay in the dirt, his mind a fractured mess of pain.
His eyelids were becoming heavy. It really was too much for him. He just wanted to sleep.
The ground below felt so good, it really felt like heaven.
He thought he could use Michael's arrogant nature against him, but the gap between their power was so wide that he was crushing Solace with purely his abilities there was no tactic. He thought maybe fighting close range would give him an advantage, but Michael was a step ahead. He was manipulating his own gravity rather than crushing him.
Solace's eyes were unfocused, his heart beating with a desperate, dying rhythm. He was at the very edge. The void was closing in, not from Michael's power, but from the darkness of death itself. He was really losing.
Michael, standing above him, saw his pathetic state and sighed. "I guess I should end things now."
Then he once again reached out to Solace's arm, ready to end things for once.
Solace's mind was a dimming light; even so, when Michael's hand reached out, the moment seemed to stretch out. The blood dripping from Solace's eyelids stopped mid-air as if the world had stopped for him, and in between that stretched moment, it finally happened.
He felt a warmth.
It started deep within his marrow, a soft, pleasant glow that felt like a mother's touch, or the first ray of sun after a decade of winter. It was the feeling of a lock finally clicking open. It was the sound of a thousand glass bells ringing in perfect harmony.
The Breakthrough.
The transition from E-minus to E wasn't just a mental shift; it was a physical hunger.
Suddenly, Solace's body became a vacuum. absorbing the surrounding essence to fill his soul.
The ambient essence in the arena, the essence exhaled by eighty thousand people, the residual energy of Michael's darkness, the very heat of the sun began to flow toward him. It wasn't a gentle stream; it was a deluge.
A pleasant, yellow light seemed to radiate from Solace's skin, contrasting with the ink-black void. The essence rushed into his meridians, knitting the shattered bones of his hand back together, not fully, but enough to move. The pierced lung stabilized. The influx of pure, raw power burned away the exhaustion that had been a leaden weight on his soul.
The exhaustion that had been dragging him down was incinerated. His essence reserves, which had been a desert, were suddenly a pressurized reservoir.
Solace's hand, the broken one, clenched into a fist. He stood up like a dead man coming to life.
"What... what is this?" Michael hissed, leaping back, his gravity field wavering. "A breakthrough? Now? You think a single rank will save you?"
Solace didn't answer. He took a long and deep breath. It was the first full breath he had taken since the match began. It tasted fresh.
He looked up at Michael.
The crowd filled with excitement a chant broke out in the audience. All those who were watching felt adrenaline rushing through their body. Nicole, the Pope, and the King all had their eyes glued to Solace.
"You talk too much, Michael," Solace said. His voice was no longer a croak; it was a calm, chilling resonance that seemed to vibrate the very darkness. He was feeling full.
The real fight began.
And this time, Solace moved.