The cheers didn’t die down right away.

They fractured instead, some turning into chants, others into argument, disbelief, speculation. The arena buzzed like a disturbed hive, sound washing over the sand in uneven waves. Officials moved. Healers followed the stretcher. The announcer finally ran out of things to shout.

And still no one came. Ludger noticed the absence almost immediately. Too long, he thought.

He didn’t shift his stance, didn’t uncross his arms. Outwardly, nothing changed reminding anyone that he was twelve, wounded, or had just burned through a noticeable chunk of mana. Inwardly, his attention sharpened.

Delays meant decisions. In a clean duel, the next fighter would already be waiting behind the gate, nerves high, adrenaline pumping, eager to ride the momentum of the crowd or break it. Ashbound hadn’t done clean since day one.

So why the pause? Perhaps an argument. Someone backstage was pushing to send a fighter not yet approved. Maybe paperwork. Maybe a loophole stretched a bit too far. The whip-user had failed spectacularly; that changed calculations. Risk tolerance dropped fast when assassins started losing.

Another option would be re-evaluation. They’d learned something. Too much, maybe. The swords weren’t raw power, they were control. Formation-based. Sustained. That made counters harder. Anti-mage tactics wouldn’t be enough. Someone was scrambling to adjust orders.

Then, there was intimidation. Let the silence stretch. Let the crowd simmer. Try to make him wait. Make him look small. Make him impatient. That one almost made him scoff. If they thought time pressure worked on him, they hadn’t done their homework.

Finally, the last option the dangerous one. They were deciding whether to escalate. Ludger’s eyes flicked, just briefly, toward the Ashbound section of the stands. No obvious reactions. Too composed. Members sat stiff-backed, hands folded, faces carved into careful neutrality. That, more than anything, confirmed it.

They hadn’t expected to lose the whip-user like that. He cataloged the implications calmly. If the next fighter was delayed because they were afraid, then the next one would be either expendable or overwhelming. No middle ground. Either a probe meant to die and gather data… or a piece they hadn’t wanted to show yet.

The crowd began to notice.

Murmurs spread. People leaned forward. A few boos rose from the cheaper seats. Nobles whispered behind fans and gloved hands. The announcer tried to fill the gap with speculation and recaps, his voice lacking its earlier confidence.

Ludger stayed where he was. Arslan watched from the stands, arms folded like his son’s, expression hard. He didn’t like the delay either. Delays meant control had shifted backstage, and never to honest hands.

Lord Torvares tapped a finger once against his cane. Just once. Thoughtful. Measuring.

Viola bounced on the balls of her feet, barely containing herself. “They’re stalling,” she muttered, more excited than angry. “They’re scared.”

Kharnek laughed, loud and unapologetic, the sound rolling over nearby seats. “Let them wait,” he said. “The boy does not rot while standing.”

Down below, Ludger exhaled slowly.

Mana circulation was stable. Stamina fine. The shoulder ached, but it was distant, manageable. His mind ran quiet simulations, formations tightening, dispersing, overlapping fields of control. He reviewed what he’d shown and, more importantly, what he hadn’t.

If they sent something meant to die, he’d end it cleanly. If they sent something meant to break him… He’d adjust. Minutes stretched.

Then, finally, the gate on the opposite side of the arena creaked.

The sound cut through the noise like a blade. Ludger lifted his head slightly, eyes locking onto the dark opening as shadows shifted beyond it. There you are, he thought calmly.

Ludger frowned.

It was subtle, barely more than a tightening between the brows, but it was there.

The figure stepping out from the gate was wrapped head to toe in a dark cloak, fabric heavy enough to hide build, posture, even breathing patterns. The hood stayed low, shadow swallowing the face completely. No insignia. No colors. No attempt to play to the crowd. But the way she walked gave it away.

Balanced. Light. Each step measured, deliberate. Not drifting. Not hesitant. Definitely a woman.

That alone wouldn’t have mattered. Skill didn’t care about gender, and Ludger had learned that lesson early when Viola broke his fingers more than a few times… But something else bothered him.

Mages didn’t usually enter arenas like this. The older man from yesterday should have been a good enough proof of that, even with all his tricks and spells, he was unable to do much.

A mage worth their salt needed space. Time. Positioning. An arena stripped those advantages away. Too many eyes. Too many rules. Too little room to retreat. Most mage avoided close-quarters duels unless they were desperate or hiding something ugly under the hood.

And Ashbound had already burned through desperate. Which meant this wasn’t a normal mage. The crowd quieted as she stopped near the edge of the sand, cloak still drawn tight, face unseen. Whispers spread again, lower this time. Uneasy.

The narrator hesitated for half a heartbeat, just long enough to sell the tension, before his voice boomed across the arena.

“AND IT SEEMS ASHBOUND COMPACT IS NOT FINISHED YET!”

The volume spiked, excitement forced but contagious.

“STEPPING INTO THE ARENA NOW, ANOTHER FIGHTER SHROUDED IN MYSTERY! HER NAME IS LUCIA, HER AFFILIATION, HER SKILLS, ALL WITHHELD FROM PUBLIC RECORD!”

Gasps rippled through the stands.

“A WOMAN THIS TIME, FOLKS! CLOAKED, SILENT, AND UNREADABLE! AFTER THE FALL OF THE UNKNOWN WHIP-USER, ASHBOUND SENDS IN YET ANOTHER ENIGMA!”

The narrator leaned into it, feeding the crowd exactly what they wanted.

“IS THIS A MAGE? AN ASSASSIN? SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY? NO ONE KNOWS, BUT SHE’S STANDING ACROSS FROM LUDGER, AND THAT MAKES HER THE NEXT OBSTACLE IN THIS UNPRECEDENTED DUEL!”

Ludger’s eyes never left her.

No visible mana flare. No obvious focus points. No trembling anticipation. Just stillness. That was worse.

Before he could sink further into analysis, before he could test her with pressure or provoke a reaction, the referee raised his hand sharply.

“Fighters ready!”

The cloaked woman didn’t move. Ludger uncrossed his arms at last, feet settling into the sand, weight shifting forward a fraction. The referee’s arm dropped.

“BEGIN!”

The match started instantly. No warning. No delay. And whatever Ashbound had finally decided to send… it was already moving.

Ludger moved smoothly, settling into his stance with practiced ease. His footing grounded into the sand, weight balanced, mana circulation tightening into a clean, efficient loop. His breathing slowed, senses sharpening as he prepared for impact.

Then he frowned. Her mana wasn’t behaving the way it should.

Instead of surging or flaring, it stretched outward in thin, controlled strands. They spread across the arena quietly, slipping through the space between them rather than rushing toward him. Ludger felt the first hints almost immediately, a faint pressure brushing against his awareness, subtle but deliberate.

Before long, those strands began to converge.

Not in one location. Not even in a handful. Small concentrations of mana formed all around the arena, near the ground, in the open air, above and behind him. Dozens became hundreds, each cluster weak on its own, but together unmistakable. Ludger could feel the air itself vibrating as the mana density increased, a low hum building beneath his skin.

He braced automatically.

His instincts prepared for a barrage, spells striking from every direction, layered attacks meant to overwhelm defenses. His muscles tensed, mana ready to harden into swords at a moment’s notice as his mind mapped angles and potential kill zones.

But nothing came. Instead, the number of convergences kept rising.

More points. Tighter spacing. Greater density. The pressure in the arena increased steadily, not like an explosion waiting to happen, but like a structure being assembled piece by piece. The vibrations sharpened, the air beginning to feel thick, almost resistant. Ludger’s frown deepened as he adjusted his assessment.

This wasn’t an attack. It was a framework.

From the stands, no one noticed a thing. To most of the audience, the fight looked stalled, two figures standing motionless, staring each other down. No spells, no weapons, no visible exchange. Confusion rippled through the seats, followed by mutters and scattered complaints.

“What are they waiting for?”

“Is this some kind of trick?”

Even the narrator hesitated, his voice lacking its earlier confidence as he tried to speculate his way through the silence. Ludger ignored it all.

His focus stayed locked on the invisible pressure surrounding him, on the growing lattice of mana that only he could properly sense. Whatever the cloaked woman was building, it wasn’t meant to impress the crowd.

It was meant to trap him. And she was still adding more.

Ludger made his decision instantly.

Whatever she was building, it wasn’t finished yet, and waiting for it to be would be a mistake. The arena was already filling with invisible pressure, the lattice tightening by the second. If he let it close completely, movement would become a liability instead of an option.

He pushed off the sand and charged.

The moment his foot dug in, two concentrations of mana peeled away from the air ahead of him, condensing as they moved. They slid into his path with deliberate timing, hovering just high enough to block his advance.

Spheres. Perfectly round. Featureless. Dense, but almost completely invisible.

Ludger adjusted without slowing, preparing to leap over them and break the formation before it could stabilize.

Then the spheres collided.

The impact wasn’t subtle. Mana compressed, destabilized, and detonated.

Flames erupted outward in a violent bloom, heat crashing into him like a wall. A scorching wind tore across the arena, sand blasting his armor as the force of the explosion hurled him backward. Ludger dug his heels in, muscles straining as he fought the momentum, boots carving shallow trenches into the ground.

Before he could fully recover, another surge of mana streaked toward his back. He felt it a split second before impact.

Ludger twisted sharply, bringing his forearm up just in time. The strike landed against his guards with a sharp crack, cold biting through the metal as frost exploded outward. An ice sphere shattered on contact, fragments scattering across the sand before evaporating into mist.

He landed in a low stance, breath steady but eyes narrowed. A moment ago, those things hadn’t been elements. They were raw mana clusters. Neutral. Unaspected. Now they burned and froze on command. Ludger’s frown deepened as the realization settled in.

She wasn’t just shaping mana. She was assigning it an element after deployment. And that changed everything.

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