The sun of the Ecliptic Arena hung low, not in the sky but in the void above, casting a cold, metallic light over the colossal pit. Thousands of spectators—the Network's strongest, minor gods, and constellations alike—watched the opening of the first round. The coliseum's obsidian walls stretched high, dotted with tiers of seats carved into the stone, each line of eyes glinting with hunger and expectation.
The first names were called. Awakeners drawn from the box stepped forward, their sub-affinities shimmering faintly in the void-light, manifesting like a promise of death.
Match One: Calder Voss vs. Niran Kael
Calder Voss, a Dragon-ranked human, stepped into the arena first. His body was lean but hardened, every scar a story of survival. He exhaled slowly, letting the tension in the air cling to him like mist. His dark matter sub-affinity—Pyrokinetic Flux—made the ground beneath his feet hiss as tiny embers sprang to life.
Across from him, Niran Kael, smaller but wiry, grinned as he flexed his fingers. His affinity was Temporal Dark Matter, a subtle manipulation of movement that let him anticipate and dodge attacks slightly before they came. His reputation was a whisper of death: a man who had made his enemies fight their own shadows.
The gong rang.
Calder's first strike was a fireball, thick and heavy with black smoke. It tore across the arena, hissing against the stone floor. Niran's body blurred, moving with a strange cadence—he didn't dodge; he simply reframed his path in the temporal overlay of his mind. The fireball struck where his body had been, scattering stones and leaving smoldering cracks.
Calder roared, surging forward with fists burning in Dark Matter Pyroflux, but Niran's time distortion allowed him to anticipate the arc of every blow, weaving and stepping through space in ways that defied human reflex.
Spectators murmured. Even some of the minor Apostles leaned forward.
The fight escalated, and the arena became a tapestry of destruction. Blackened fire scorched the walls. Temporal waves shattered stone into dust. Every strike burned the air with the tension of human ingenuity against raw elemental power.
And then Niran, with a flick of his wrist, reversed the temporal acceleration of Calder's left arm mid-swing. Calder's fist struck his own chest, spinning him backward as smoke and embers spiraled in the air. The crowd gasped. Niran's grin widened.
It was close, but human limitations began to show. Calder, fueled by sheer aggression and tactical cunning, finally managed to break Niran's rhythm with a concentrated strike of overheated Dark Matter fire. Niran stumbled, staggered, and the first round ended in victory for Calder—but not without leaving both men bloody, exhausted, and gasping.
The spectators applauded, not just for the winner, but for the display of skill, strategy, and cunning that reminded everyone why humanity was dangerous even before divine intervention.
Match Two: Selric Maer vs. Liona Faye
The second fight began immediately. Selric Maer was Dragon-ranked, commanding Decay Affinity, able to eat through stone and metal at will. His very presence corroded the arena's walls in a subtle, threatening hum. Liona Faye, the opposing human, wielded Gravitic Dark Matter, though weaker in scale than Kairis' own mastery.
As the bell rang, Selric lunged, his hand brushing the floor and leaving blackened cracks in its wake. Liona, aware, leapt back, swinging her arms in arcs that bent the air itself, trying to manipulate the small gravitic pulses to toss Selric off-balance.
The crowd watched as the arena became a battlefield of entropy versus force. Selric's hands left black streaks in the air; rocks and debris fell apart into dust the moment he touched them. Liona countered with pulses of gravity, hurling chunks of stone at Selric with deadly precision.
The fight was brutal and messy. Selric grabbed a slab of stone, using decay to erode it into jagged shards, throwing them like knives. Liona warped space around herself, dodging while simultaneously accelerating the shards back at Selric. Every collision sent shockwaves across the arena.
By the end, Liona had managed to trap Selric in a temporary gravitic field, forcing him to crumble his own body defenses to escape. Exhausted, he fell to one knee. Liona stepped forward, victorious—but her arms were trembling from the effort, her affinity nearly exhausted.
The crowd whispered: this was what survival looked like. Every human here was not just strong—they were monsters in their own right.
Kairis Observes
From his vantage point above the arena, Kairis stood calm, hooded cloak hanging loosely, Gravity bending subtly around his feet. His System interface flickered silently in his mind:
> [Awakener Observation Mode Activated]
[Calder Voss: Dragon Rank, Pyrokinetic Dark Matter, 87% stamina remaining]
[Niran Kael: Dragon Rank, Temporal Dark Matter, critically injured]
[Selric Maer: Dragon Rank, Decay Affinity, 25% stamina remaining]
[Liona Faye: Dragon Rank, Gravitic Dark Matter, 10% remaining]
The numbers were meaningless for the crowd—but Kairis processed them in milliseconds. Every technique, every pause, every subtle movement—stored, analyzed, and categorized.
He didn't smile. He didn't flinch. He simply observed.
> [New feature unlocked: Opponent Analysis — ability to read HP, affinity type, and stamina of others; cannot read skills yet]
He flexed his fingers. Gravity responded, bending subtly around his boots.
> "Good," he murmured. "I can finally see how strong humans get without divine interference."
Even observing the fights, he felt the pull of inevitability. The Gathering wasn't just a tournament. It was a testbed for the survival of the human Awakened, a mirror of what would come when monsters and gods invaded the Earth.
Match Three: Twins of the Shadow Rift
The next fight introduced two notorious twins: Kyren and Kaelis, wielding Illusory Dark Matter. Their sub-affinities allowed them to create shadow duplicates, each capable of attacking independently. They were God-rank candidates, but human-born, trained to perfection.
The arena was set. The twins grinned in unison, creating dozens of shadow doubles. Their opponent, a human with Cryo-affinity, stepped in, trying to plan around the illusion.
The fight was a ballet of death. Ice met shadow. Gravity bent around the duplicates. Rocks, dust, and ice shards flew in all directions. The twins coordinated in perfect synchrony, anticipating every counter, forcing the Cryo-Awakener to scramble, panic, and bleed stamina.
Eventually, the Cryo-Awakener made one critical mistake: attacking a shadow that wasn't the real twin. Kyren slammed through him, bone snapping under focused strength. The twins stood victorious, their smiles eerily in sync.
Above, constellations flickered, whispering judgments into the ether.
> [System Note: Human Awakeners can now achieve levels of brutality comparable to lower Apostles. Observation: Potential threat exceeds threshold for Apostle attention.]
Kairis noted this. His smirk returned, just slightly. He would not intervene yet. Let them bleed, let them learn. He had more important battles to fight—ones that would teach him more than raw numbers ever could.
The first round ended with several humans left standing, many broken, some barely conscious. Each fight had left its mark: scorched stone, twisted metal, bloodied bodies, and shattered pride. The crowd erupted in cheers and gasps.
From above, the Apostles whispered to each other, nodding at certain promising fighters, some leaning forward with interest, others shaking heads in disapproval at wasted potential.
Kairis, hooded and silent, observed it all. His System interface had cataloged every technique, every exhaustion point, every nuance of Dark Matter sub-affinity application. Gravity bent around his boots almost impatiently.
> "Not bad," he muttered. "But they're still children playing at a god's game."
The next round would be his.
And when he entered the arena, the scale of chaos would shift entirely.