Ren laughed.
Not loudly.
Not mockingly.
Just once.
"I thought you'd be easier," he said, adjusting his grip on the hilt. "You're heavier than you look."
The Black Knight stood unmoving. Plates of dark steel shifted softly as he straightened.
"Experience," he replied calmly, "is something children mistake for weight."
Ren's mouth curved slightly.
"We'll see."
The air between them tightened.
Then—
They moved again.
The Real Beginning
This time there was no testing.
No probing.
The Black Knight surged forward, Viora flooding his limbs. The sand shattered under each step, stone beneath cracking like thin ice.
Ren met him head-on.
Their blades collided—
And the impact was different.
Deeper.
The sound didn't ring.
It pressed.
A low tremor rolled through the entire colosseum.
People felt it in their ribs.
In their teeth.
In their lungs.
The quartz walls shimmered violently.
They clashed again.
And again.
Each strike heavier than the last.
Ren shifted to precision — short arcs, controlled counters, forcing angles.
The Black Knight answered with crushing downward blows that dented the arena floor.
Neither retreated.
Then—
A mistimed parry.
Both blades were torn from their hands.
They landed yards away in opposite directions.
For a breath—
Stillness.
Ren stepped forward barehanded.
The Black Knight did not.
His sword trembled.
Then lifted.
By itself.
Zenkyou froze.
"…That's wrong," she whispered.
The blade did not return normally.
It stretched.
Metal bending outward like living bone. The edge thickened. The weight increased unnaturally. The air around it warped.
The Black Knight staggered half a step.
"This wasn't part of—"
The sword moved.
Not toward Ren.
Outward.
Toward the structure.
It swung.
The arc carved through the air and struck the arena wall.
The impact was silent for half a second.
Then the world cracked.
The Colosseum Breaking
The tremor this time wasn't contained.
Quartz fractured in spiderweb patterns. Pillars split from top to bottom. The containment seals flared violently — then flickered.
The crowd didn't scream at first.
They stopped.
Like prey sensing the earth shift beneath them.
Then chaos erupted.
But it wasn't disorder.
Guards moved instantly.
They didn't teleport.
They ran.
Perfect coordination. Preplanned evacuation paths. Civilians lifted, redirected, shielded. Soldiers forming barriers with their own bodies as debris fell.
Shura grabbed Yura's wrist as the ground split nearby.
Stone collapsed where they had been standing seconds earlier.
Dust swallowed everything.
Another strike from the warped blade.
Another section of wall shattered.
Shura felt it then.
Not fear.
Structural failure.
"This isn't just damage…" he muttered.
The floor beneath them vibrated again — deeper, unstable.
Yura looked around, confusion in her eyes.
"This shouldn't be happening," she said quietly. "The seals are layered. Reinforced. This place was built to survive war."
A massive crack ripped through the upper tier.
For the first time, uncertainty flickered across her face.
"I don't understand…"
Shura's gaze locked onto the sword — still moving unnaturally in the Knight's grasp, like something pulling it.
"…Wait," he said slowly.
The tremor came again.
Stronger.
He looked at Yura.
"I'm sure you think I don't know what's happening."
Another explosion of stone behind them.
He swallowed.
"But I'm pretty sure… that sword isn't his anymore."
Yura's eyes widened slightly.
Because she felt it too now.
The pressure.
Not from the fighters.
From something else.
The Interception
The blade swung again.
Before it could tear through another wall—
A figure intercepted it mid-arc.
Yun Shi.
The collision rang across Aethelgard like a bell struck at the center of the world.
But even that wasn't enough.
Cracks continued spreading outward.
The colosseum wasn't just damaged.
It was destabilized.
Ren stood in the middle of the collapsing arena, staring at the Black Knight.
The Black Knight stared at his own weapon.
Neither had expected this.
Above them, stone gave way.
What was meant to be a match—
Had become an incident.
And in the rising dust of Aethelgard's greatest arena—
Order began to fracture.