Gremio Luceri looked like a piece of the untamed wilderness deliberately planted in the formal dueling arena. He didn’t wear the traditional robes of an Arcanum student. Instead, he was clad in the practical, rugged attire of an elite forest ranger, a tailored tunic of deep earthen green, reinforced with hardened bark-leather over his vitals, and supple, knee-high hunting boots that made absolutely no sound against the sand. Instead of a traditional wand or staff, a heavy necklace of carved wooden beast-totems rested against his chest. He stood with the absolute, terrifying stillness of an apex predator waiting in the brush, his eyes locked onto his opponent with a calm, calculating intensity.

Darian Varrus, by contrast, was a walking fortress. He marched out with perfect, measured military discipline. He was clad in heavy, immaculately polished plate armor, wielding a gleaming longsword and a heavy, kite-shaped shield bearing the academy’s crest.

“Will the untamed wilds devour the shield wall, or will military discipline put a leash on Mother Nature? Let’s find out!”

Bruce roared.

Commander: “Look at his center of gravity, kid, feet shoulder-width apart, shield angled at exactly forty-five degrees. He’s using the Form of the Fortress. He isn’t planning on dodging; he’s planning on breaking his opponent against his walls.”

The Commander pointed out genuine respect bleeding into his gruff voice.

The magical bell rang to start the fight.

Gremio didn’t hesitate. His hand darted to the heavy wooden focus resting against his chest. He flooded it with mana, and a brilliant flash of emerald Aether erupted around him.

It wasn’t a gentle transition. Bones popped and realigned with sickening speed; his silhouette expanded violently within the green light. In a heartbeat, the rugged mage vanished, hitting the sand on all fours as a massive, slavering Dire Wolf, its fur coarse and midnight-black.

With a terrifying burst of speed, the wolf lunged, attempting to flank Darian and snap at the unarmored joints behind his knees.

Darian remained utterly composed. Relying on his Armored Combatant training, he pivoted smoothly. He didn’t swing his sword; he simply angled his heavy kite shield, letting the wolf’s snapping jaws spark harmlessly against the steel rim.

As the wolf recoiled for a faster, higher second bite aimed at his exposed neck, Darian didn’t flinch. He simply flicked two fingers of his sword hand upward.

“Scutum.”

He cast the 1st-Circle Spell: Shield, A glowing, golden hexagon of hard-light materialized in the empty air just as the jaws clamped down. The wolf’s teeth scraped violently against the magical barrier with a sound like grinding metal, failing to even scratch Darian’s skin.

Realizing the Dire Wolf’s fangs couldn’t pierce the magic shield, Gremio disengaged. He leaped backward.

Mid-air, his form dissolved and violently reshaped.

Screams echoed from the lower stands as the mass of fur condensed into a horrifying Giant Spider. It landed heavily on the arena, its eight eyes glittering with malicious intelligence.

“And Gremio pivots from fur to fangs! Apologies to anyone in the front row with arachnophobia, but you might want to step back!”

Bruce Doyle’s voice boomed over the shrieks of the crowd.

Darian charged, but before Darian could close the distance, the spider reared up and spat a thick, viscous glob of magical webbing.

The web struck true, plastering over Darian’s shield and wrapping tightly around his torso, pinning his left arm to his chest. The crowd gasped as the armored knight was suddenly immobilized, his primary defense neutralized. The Giant Spider clicked its mandibles, lunging forward to deliver a venomous bite to Darian’s trapped neck.

“He’s trapped!”

Cassian hissed, leaning over the spectator railing.

Ray leaned back in his chair, analyzing the kinetic vectors and muscle tension of Darian’s trapped frame through the Commander’s Eye. Instead of the erratic, chaotic lines of a panicked fighter, the geometric overlay remained perfectly stable.

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“Watch his breathing. He isn’t panicking.”

Ray calmly said.

Down in the arena, time seemed to slow for Darian. Pinned and facing a lethal strike, he triggered one of the Bronze Aegis signature martial skills, Aegis Burst.

An explosive surge of adrenaline and mana flooded his system, red-lining his heart rate and granting him a momentary, impossible burst of speed. He broke the limits of standard human reaction time.

With his free sword hand, Darian pointed two fingers directly at the leaping spider.

“Repello!”

He cast the 1st-Circle Spell: Kinetic Push, a ripple of concussive force erupted in a fifteen-foot cone. The blast slammed into the spider mid-air, hurling its massive body backward into the arena wall with a sickening crunch of chitin.

Riding the exact same fluid motion, utilizing the recoil of his own spell, Darian spun. He brought his longsword down in a brutal, precise arc. The razor-sharp steel sliced cleanly through the taut magical webbing pinning his shield arm.

He ripped the remnants of the web away and reset his stance, raising his shield just as the stunned spider scrambled back to its feet.

“Brilliant.”

Ray murmured. He had known about all signature Bronze Aegis skills from Svane in one of their discussions one of them is the Aegis Burst, and seeing Darian weave spellcraft and raw martial speed together so flawlessly was a masterclass in tactical execution.

Gremio, battered by the concussive force, realized control wasn’t going to work. A soft, green druidic light washed over the spider’s crushed carapace, as he used Beastly Healing skill knitting the shattered armor back together at the cost of his own mana. As the light faded, the form shifted one final time.

The spider expanded, rising up on two massive hind legs to become a towering, seven-hundred-pound Brown Bear. This was pure, unadulterated physical power.

“And now we have a bear! A very large, very angry bear! It seems that Gremio Luceri is throwing the entire forest at the Darian Varrus today!”

Doyle yelled, the arena trembling with the beast’s roar.

The bear roared, a sound that vibrated in the spectators’ teeth, and charged. It swung a heavy paw, aiming to crush the armored knight like a tin can.

Darian braced himself, digging his steel sabatons deep into the sand. As the paw descended, he slammed his shield upward.

“Scutum.”

He cast the 1st-Circle Spell: Shield, a shimmering, invisible dome of hardened magic instantly overlaid with his physical shield. The bear’s claws struck the magical shield, sending violent sparks of mana exploding across the arena. The magic held, preventing the claws from tearing through the steel, but the sheer, overwhelming kinetic weight of the blow was too much.

Darian was forced down onto one knee, the sand cratering beneath him. He was panting heavily now, his stamina rapidly depleting from the constant magical output and the physical strain of holding back a bear.

The beast reared up to its full height, casting a massive shadow over the kneeling knight, preparing to bring both paws down in a finishing crush.

Darian closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. He tapped into his deepest reserves, triggering another signature Bronze Aegis skill Battlefield Respite.

A stabilizing wave of energy washed through Darian’s exhausted muscles. It was a Second Wind, pulled from his brutal barracks conditioning. Fresh oxygen flooded his brain.

Darian’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t try to stand. From his kneeling position, he aimed his sword hand straight up, directly at the looming mass of fur and muscle.

“Telum.”

He cast the 1st-Circle Spell: Seeking Bolt, three distinct darts of crackling, purple-blue force materialized around his fingertips and shot upward like tracer rounds. They didn’t fly straight; they arced, guided by the spell’s inherent tracking matrix, and slammed directly into the bear’s sensitive snout and eyes.

The massive beast roared in disoriented agony, flailing blindly and dropping its guard.

With his Second Wind fueling him, Darian exploded upward from the crater. He didn’t swing the sword. Stepping cleanly inside the giant bear’s blind reach, he reversed his grip and drove the heavy steel pommel of his longsword directly into the side of the bear’s temple with bone-rattling force.

The bear’s eyes rolled back. It crashed onto the sand like a felled oak tree, a cloud of dust billowing into the air.

As the dust settled, the bear’s form dissolved, leaving a bruised, unconscious Gremio lying face-down on the ground. Darian stood over him, chest heaving, his sword lowered, his shield arm trembling slightly from the sheer strain.

“Match!”

Bruce Doyle screamed, the crowd erupting into a frenzy of applause.

“Someone fetch our druid a pot of honey and a very long nap! The winner, advancing to the Quarter-Finals with unbreakable discipline… Darian Varrus!”

Up in the spectator box, Cassian let out a victorious whoop, as he saw his academy marks coming into his account as he checked his medallion he had just won from a disgruntled bookie.

“I told you! Always bet on the heavy armor against the petting zoo!”

Ray smiled, clapping politely along with Rina, but his mind was running a rapid diagnostic of the fight.

Commander: “He managed his resources efficiently, He only has six instances of first-circle magic in his mental tank. He used two Shields, one Kinetic Push and one Seeking Bolt. He held two in reserve, just in case the bear got back up. That is a disciplined soldier.”

The Grizzled Commander noted in Ray’s mind, sounding thoroughly impressed

Ray nodded slowly. He looked down at Darian, then over to the dugout where Viktor Garrick was watching the arena with cold, calculating eyes.

The system’s looming world-level event warning might be an unknown distance in the future, but these fighters were here, right now, and they were brilliant, deadly, and constantly evolving. If Ray wanted to survive to see the end of the world, he had to conquer this arena first.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep