The registration was complete. We moved toward the Great Colosseum, where the summoning trials would determine our initial ranks. The rule was simple: wield your most powerful spell to summon a spectral echo of a warrior from the past or present who matches your power level.
I couldn't use my two strongest spells—they were not mine to command. Instead, I called upon my third: the Water Mana Dragon. As the dragon manifested,The Water Mana Dragon dissolved into a heavy, damp mist. From the thunderstrike stepped the Shadow Assassin, crimson eyes locking onto the Knight as he weighed his broadblade.
They moved like a lightning strike. Their blades met in the center of the arena with a shockwave that spiderwebbed the stone floor. The Knight wasn't just blocking; he was fighting a mirror of his own lethality. The Assassin swung the broadblade in a massive horizontal arc; the Knight dipped low, iron boots sparking against the stone, and drove a mana-infused shoulder into the shadow's chest.
The Assassin didn't stumble. He flipped backward, his hands glowing as he unleashed a hail of Mana Bullets. The Knight charged through the volley, daggers out, deflecting the bolts with robotic efficiency. Each clash sounded like a cannon blast. The Knight managed to slice the shadow's hand, drawing spectral blood, but he was countered with a kick that sent him reeling. He launched a Wind Slash and Fireballs, but the Assassin cut through them with a single stroke.
The viewers were on their feet. This was a high-speed execution dance. But then, the Shadow Assassin grew tired of the stalemate. He raised his hand, and a shroud of magical soot surged toward the Knight's face.
Dark Cloak.
The arena stayed bright, but the Knight was instantly blinded, trapped in a pitch-black sensory vacuum. For any other warrior, it was a tactical disadvantage. For the man in the iron plate, it was a portal to a memory he couldn't escape. The absolute blackness was the exact shade of the pits where he had spent his life alone, bleeding and forgotten
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
A guttural, agonizing scream ripped through the stadium. The "Noble Knight" clutched his head, his body trembling with a violence that made his iron plate rattle. Under the immense strain of the trauma, the magical concealment on his face began to flicker and fail.
The audience saw a glimpse of a different man. The skin was dark and pitted, the face a map of deep scars. His nose was crooked, his head bald, and his ears were clipped—the jagged notches of a slave. He wasn't crying because he was blind; he was crying because the darkness reminded him of a loneliness so deep it was suffocating.
"Did you see that, Lysandria?" Aeldir shouted, leaning over the railing, his voice shaking.
"What... what is that?" Lysandria whispered. She wasn't thinking about spells or logic; she was simply frozen by the sight of the Knight's face. She didn't know who was under that armor, but the raw suffering in that scream made her blood run cold.
The spectral 2nd Demon General lowered his sword in disgust at the sobbing man. "It is not the legacy of a man to cry in war! Stand up!"
The Knight didn't stand. He unleashed the only thing he had left.
"Domain Expansion: The Valley of Death and Blood."
The System screeched. To prevent a total crash from the sheer output, it projected the feed onto the sky-screens. The Colosseum was replaced by a wasteland of rusted nails, hills of mangled corpses, and a sky weeping black blood. Aeldir fell to his knees, vomiting at the sight.
Inside the domain, the Knight became a laser of divine precision. He didn't use a sword; he used his bare hands to dismantle the General. Every touch shattered bone. The General—the "equal" warrior—was reduced to screaming data in seconds.
The domain snapped back into the void. The Knight stood in the center, the concealment magic desperately re-knitting a "Noble" face over his scarred features as the blindness faded. The silence was absolute.
He didn't wait for a rank. He turned his back on the terrified eyes and walked into the tunnel, a lonely, broken shadow retreating into the dark.