The Blood Moon Festival was a tradition at Celestial Ascent Academy, held when the larger of the planet's two moons turned a deep, rusty red. It was a night of sanctioned chaos—a school-wide carnival, mock battles, talent showcases, and most importantly, the Inter-Lance Melee, a massive, free-for-all skirmish between all registered student lances in a magically expanded arena.
For the students, it was a celebration and a chance to win great prestige and luxury prizes. For the faculty, it was a stress-test of teamwork and combat under confusing, chaotic conditions.
Lance Ashcroft planned meticulously. Lance Umbra agreed to a temporary non-aggression pact. Their shared goal: survive the early chaos, let the stronger, more aggressive lances eliminate each other, and strike for the top in the final hour.
The night of the festival, the academy grounds were transformed. Magical lanterns floated in the air, stalls sold exotic foods, and the roar of a thousand excited students filled the air. Arlan moved through the crowds with his lance, their grey apprentice uniforms swapped for dark, practical combat gear. Purple-Crack was secure on his back.
He spotted Selene and Blythe near a fortune-teller's tent. Selene caught his eye and gave a slight, knowing nod. The plan was set.
The Inter-Lance Melee was held in the Grand Coliseum, its floor magically expanded to the size of a small town, with simulated terrain: forests, ruins, a small river. Fifty lances, two hundred and fifty students, would fight until only one lance remained standing.
The rules were simple: a "kill" was registered by the Aegis Network when a student's personal ward (a bracelet they all wore) absorbed a disabling-level of force. "Killed" students were teleported to the stands.
As they entered the prep chamber, they saw their competition. The powerhouse lances were easy to spot: Lance Solara, glowing with cosmic energy; Lance Emberheart, Borin's newly reformed team, radiating heat and malice; Lance Frostvein, a team of elite ice and water adepts; and a dozen others.
Borin Emberheart locked eyes with Arlan from across the room, his expression promising violence. Arlan ignored him.
The countdown began. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
BEGIN.
The world dissolved into instant bedlam. Spells flashed, elements roared, and the sound of clashing weapons and shouted commands was deafening. Lance Ashcroft stuck to their plan. Dorian raised a dense thicket of ironwood trees around them for cover. Mira layered it with mist and ice, making their position obscure and treacherous.
They let the storm of the initial clash rage around them. Through the mist, they saw lances fall quickly. A team of earth mages was overwhelmed by a coordinated strike from Lance Frostvein. A lance of beast-kin brawlers was caught in a pincer by two other teams and eliminated.
Fen, his eyes closed, whispered updates into their minds via a psychic link. "Lance Solara is moving. Northwest sector. Eliminating all in their path. Efficiency: 97%. Lance Emberheart is pushing toward the central ruins. Aggression high. Lance Frostvein is holding the river crossing."
They waited, conserving energy. After twenty minutes, nearly half the lances were gone. The battlefield, visible through gaps in Dorian's forest, was littered with the shimmering after-images of teleported "dead" students.
"Now," Dorian said. "Umbra's signal. They've engaged Lance Frostvein at the river. We hit Emberheart at the ruins. Kaelen, you're up."
Kaelen grinned, lightning crackling around his fists. "With pleasure."
They moved as one, Dorian's forest melting away as they sprinted toward the central stone ruins. They found Lance Emberheart there, having just finished off a weakened lance. Borin saw them coming.
"ASHGROFT! Perfect! I've been waiting for this!" Borin roared, his body erupting in flames. His team formed up—a wall of fire.
Lance Ashcroft didn't break stride. Their plan was already in motion. Mira unleashed a torrent of water from the river's direction, not at the flames, but at the ground beneath the Emberheart lance. The stone ruins became a slick, steaming morass.
As the fire adepts struggled for footing, Fen unleashed a Psychic Dissonance Wave. It wasn't an attack on the mind, but on the mana itself. The carefully controlled flames of the Emberheart lance flickered and spat, becoming wild and unstable.
Kaelen didn't blast them. He targeted the wet ground at their feet with a concentrated lightning bolt. The water conducted the electricity perfectly. All five members of Lance Emberheart convulsed as the shock raced through them, their personal wards flashing and overloading in a chain reaction.
BZZZT! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!
Five golden flashes. Lance Emberheart was eliminated in six seconds, Borin's furious scream cut short as he was teleported away.
"Clean," Mira said, brushing water from her sleeves.
"Alert," Fen's voice hissed in their minds. "Lance Solara has changed course. They are coming directly for us. Estimated arrival: ninety seconds."
Of course. Lyra would have seen their quick elimination of a major competitor. She was coming to test him.
"Positions," Dorian said, his voice tight. "This is the real fight."
They took cover in the ruins. A minute later, Lyra Solara's lance arrived. They didn't charge. They took up positions on the high ground of a broken tower opposite the ruins. Lyra stood in front, her blade gleaming with collected starlight.
"Ashcroft. Your efficiency is commendable," she called down, her voice amplified. "But this ends here. Surrender your position, and you will be eliminated with dignity."
"Come and take it, Solara," Dorian shouted back.
Lyra nodded. She raised her sword.
What happened next was not an attack. It was a change of state.
She pointed her blade at the sky above the ruins. A complex, silver rune blazed into existence in the air. From it descended a Gravity Well. Not a crushing force, but a twisting, directional pull.
The effect was immediate and disorienting. "Down" suddenly became "toward the tower." Arlan, leaning against a wall, felt himself being pulled sideways off his feet. Debris from the ruins began to slide and tumble toward Lyra's position. The very battlefield was being tilted.
Kaelen tried to fire lightning, but the bolt curved wildly, striking the ground halfway. Mira's ice shards were pulled off target.
"Disrupt the rune!" Dorian yelled, vines shooting from his hands to anchor them to the ground.
Arlan fought the sideways gravity. This was a stellar-level manipulation. He couldn't overpower it. But Lyra had taught him to understand systems. The gravity well was a localized law, enforced by a runic anchor. Laws could be... persuaded.
He didn't attack the rune. He focused on the space the rune occupied. He couldn't erase it. But he could make that space... slippery.
He poured spatial energy into Purple-Crack and thrust it forward, not with a slash, but with a twisting motion. He attempted a Spatial Shear on the law itself, trying to momentarily sever the rune's connection to the local dimension.
The silver rune in the sky flickered. The sideways gravity stuttered, becoming a nauseating lurch.
It was enough. Dorian's vines, no longer fighting a constant pull, surged forward and wrapped around the legs of Lyra's two support mages, yanking them off the tower. Their wards flashed as they hit the ground.
The balance shifted. Lyra's perfect formation was broken.
What followed was a brutal, five-minute duel of attrition. Kaelen dueled Lyra's remaining stellar adept, lightning against starlight. Mira fought their gravity mage, ice against twisted physics. Dorian and Fen handled their light-blade duelist.
And Arlan faced Lyra.
She descended from the tower, gravity bending around her like a cloak. "You used my lesson against the law," she said, a spark of what might have been pride in her eyes. "Good."
She attacked. Her swordsmanship was sublime, every stroke containing the weight of a small star. Arlan parried with Purple-Crack, the clang of their blades ringing with metallic and spatial harmonics. He couldn't match her raw power or speed. But he could be unpredictable.
He mixed his clean, Lyra-taught slashes with wild, instability-fueled Spatial Bursts that forced her to divert power to shields. He used Shadow-Slip not to vanish, but to make micro-adjustments to his position, appearing inches from where she expected him to be.
He was losing, but he was making her work for it. He saw her team falling one by one to his lance-mates. They were down to a two-on-two: Arlan and Dorian vs. Lyra and her last gravity mage.
Dorian, bleeding from a cut on his brow, locked the gravity mage in a cage of rapidly growing, metal-hard vines.
It was just Arlan and Lyra again.
She was breathing heavily, a first. A faint sheen of sweat on her brow. He was on his last dregs of mana, his body aching.
"You fought well, Thorne," she said, raising her blade for a final, decisive strike—a Nova Point technique that gathered stellar energy to a single, piercing point.
He had one move left. Not a slash. Not a trick.
He dropped his sword.
Lyra paused, confused for a fraction of a second.
In that second, Arlan did something simple. He used the last of his Umbral Mana not for Shadow-Slip, but for Umbral Sight at its most intense. He looked past her brilliant stellar aura, past the cosmic power, and focused on the heat signature of her body, the minute tremble of exhaustion in her sword arm, the pattern of her breath.
He saw not a star, but a fighter at her limit.
As she thrust forward with the Nova Point, a needle of condensed sunlight, he didn't try to block or dodge. He stepped inside her thrust, turning his body at the last possible micro-second. The blazing point seared past his ribs, burning his uniform but missing flesh.
And with his bare hand, he executed a perfect, basic disarming maneuver Lyra had drilled into him a dozen times—a twist of the wrist, a pressure on the nerve.
Her star-forged blade flew from her hand and clattered on the stones.
She stared at her empty hand, then at him, utterly stunned. It was the most basic possible defeat. Not by a greater power, but by a fundamental skill.
The Aegis Network registered the disarm as a fight-ending event. A golden light enveloped Lyra Solara, and she was teleported out, the last member of her lance.
The Coliseum fell silent, then erupted. Lance Ashcroft had won the Inter-Lance Melee.
Dorian limped over, clapping Arlan on the back so hard he almost fell over. "You... you disarmed Lyra Solara with your hands! That's the most disrespectful, brilliant thing I've ever seen!, Bro. Come on, give me a hug", Dorian said trying to hug him
I don't do hugs, Arlan replied in a flat tone
Come on, bro. Just this time, Dorian kept pestering him but he just continued to ignore him
Arlan retrieved Purple-Crack, his body screaming in protest. He looked at the spot where Lyra had vanished.
He hadn't beaten her power. He'd beaten her assumption that the fight was only about power. He'd used her own teaching to remind her of the basics.
It was a lesson. And he had a feeling she would take it very, very personally.
As the cheers washed over them, Arlan knew one thing for certain. Their rivalry had just evolved into a war. And he was ready for it.