The coliseum had stopped feeling like a coliseum.

It no longer resembled an arena where young warriors tested their skill.It no longer had the rhythm of competition or the heat of conflict.It had transformed into something ancient, something ritualistic — a furnace of history, a stage upon which destiny was violently rewriting itself.

The heat was unbearable.Not simply the heat of the sun — but the heat of mana, of fear, of fate pressing down on the entire structure like a divine thumb grinding mortals into the sand. The air felt thick, metallic, almost oily. Every breath dragged like molten iron scraping the lungs. Even blinking felt slow, heavy, wrong.

In the stands, where tens of thousands had once screamed for blood and talent and spectacle, now sat a forest of pale faces. The noise had drained from them like blood pouring from a throat. What remained was a trembling murmur — a collective, instinctive dread.

It was the hush an animal makes before the earthquake hits.Before the forest burns.Before the sky cracks open.

Down on the battlefield, Avin recognized it immediately.The shift.Subtle but catastrophic.

It wasn't mana.It wasn't pressure.It wasn't even atmosphere.

It was the world flinching — a shift in the undercurrent of fate itself, like a string in the tapestry of reality had snapped somewhere out of sight.

The arena around him sprawled in ruinous beauty.Dunes of shredded sand.Cracks that spiderwebbed across scorched earth.Cratered footprints left by warriors moving faster than thought.

To Avin's right, the Prince was locked in a deadly dance with the Swordsman. The Prince's armor pulsed like liquid gold, each discharge of energy scattering sand in glittering arcs. His movements carved trails of glowing embers through the air.

Forty meters farther, Henry rolled beneath a greatsword strike so powerful the earth fractured beneath him. The ground split open, a jagged wound in the battlefield pouring dust into the sky. Henry sprang back up with a gasp, spear spinning, sweat flying from his brow in glittering droplets.

Theo blurred in and out of existence, dimensional doors cracking open like slits in time. Each step he took collapsed into a ripple of silver, warping space around him. His expression was focused, jaw tight, movements sharp.

Behind them, the Princess stood firm despite everything—arms trembling,eyes glowing silver,a dome of shimmering mana protecting the team.

Each incoming attack shook her barrier like a hammer striking thin glass. Bright, then dim. Thick, then fragile. Every pulse of resistance tore a little more strength from her body. Her breath trembled. Her knees shook.Still she held.

Avin saw the battlefield that way only chronos could — a map of motion and intent, a tapestry of trajectories and intertwining destinies.

But he wasn't looking at the Prince.Nor Henry.Nor Theo.Nor the Princess.

His gaze was locked on a single figure.

The God-folk.

Blue-haired, drifting across the chaos as if gliding over a calm pond, not a battlefield.His robe fluttered with languid grace in the blistering wind. His posture was straight, relaxed, the kind of posture one only sees in royalty — or deities.

He didn't dodge.He didn't brace.He didn't fear.

He simply moved, a few inches above fresh ice that unfurled beneath him with every step — the ice reflecting his form, the battlefield's fire, and the chaos of war with sickening elegance.

Avin's fingers tightened around the hilts of his blades.His heartbeat slowed.Focused.

The God-folk radiated an aura of wrongness, of impossible superiority — the kind of quiet arrogance mortals weren't meant to withstand.

Avin lowered to one knee.

The battlefield changed the moment he did.

It wasn't dramatic.Not a quake, not a blast.But a reverberation, subtle yet terrifying.

The sand quivered around him.The sound of combat muted.Even the wind's whistle seemed to choke on its own breath.

Avin planted both swords into the earth.

The hilts clicked against sand.His posture dropped lower, muscles compacting, tendons stretching, as his stance sank into a predatory coil.His forehead touched the crossguards — not in reverence, but alignment.

The air leaned toward him.The earth listened.

Mana ignited.

Not like a surge.Not like a flame.

More like a birth — painful, blinding, brilliant.

His veins glowed beneath his skin like rivers of moonlight, pulsing in sync with his heartbeat. His breath fogged, despite the blistering heat. His boots dug deeper into the sand as the ground shifted beneath him, supporting him, bracing him.

The swords awakened.

The left sword erupted into golden radiance.Runes flared like burning constellations.Every sigil burst alive, sparking chains of light that crawled along the blade's edge.The sword sang — a high, dazzling note that warped the very air.

The right sword bled red light.Crimson veins snaked along the steel, pulsing with molten life.Red lightning crackled around the edge, biting into the ground, scorching handprint-sized pits.

The air buzzed.The sand trembled.Avin's vision tunneled into the God-folk's quiet, too-serene face.

Then the world erupted.

Sand didn't just scatter — it detonated, exploding outward in a perfect ring as Avin launched. The ground beneath him instantly glassed over, crystallizing into a fractured mosaic that glittered like a fallen star.

Avin shot forward.Faster than sprinting.Faster than falling.Faster than thought.

The God-folk's calm expression fractured like a mirror struck by a hammer.

He reacted — ice exploding beneath him, flinging him sideways in a desperate escape. The ice hissed with speed as he slid, droplets scattering off the edges in glittering arcs.

But Avin didn't chase in a straight line.

He wasn't the Prince.

Halfway into flight, Avin slammed his foot into the ground.A crater blossomed beneath the impact.Rock splintered.Earth screamed.

He pivoted — with impossible precision, redirecting all momentum at an unnatural angle.

The God-folk's eyes widened in genuine fear.

Avin appeared directly in his path.

A frozen wall surged upward, three meters tall, its surface shimmering with trapped sunlight and refracted ice.

Avin didn't slow.The golden blade plunged into it.

Steam exploded outward in a violent cloud, sending shards of boiling frost in every direction.

The wall evaporated.

Avin tore through with the crimson blade, the red arc slicing horizontally across the God-folk's torso.

The body cleaved—

—but dissolved into a violent rush of water, splashing across the sand. The liquid spiraled upward behind Avin, forming limbs, torso, hair, face — a perfect reconstruction materializing out of fluid.

Twin ice knives pressed against Avin's throat.

He inhaled once.Accepted the cut.

Darkness swallowed the world.

Not shadow.Not night.

Oblivion.

The sky extinguished.The sun died.Heat vanished.Cold rolled in so violently it felt like drowning in winter.

Light twisted.Colors faded.The coliseum fell into a choking violet dusk.

Every fighter stopped.

Not by spell.Not by shock.But by instinct—the same instinct that freezes prey when the predator's shadow falls.

Dust motes hung suspended in air like a halted galaxy.The Prince's blade hovered inches from its target.Theo's portal flickered mid-unfolding.The Princess stumbled as her barrier flickered, mana stuttering.

Then—

BOOOOOM.

The arena floor erupted.

A mountain of sand and stone exploded upward, flinging fighters like leaves in a storm.The shockwave hit the stands, cracking stone seats and sending spectators crashing into each other.

Henry rolled across the ground, crashing into debris.The Prince dug his sword into the sand to anchor himself, sliding backward meters.Theo was thrown violently through a collapsing portal, tumbling across the battlefield.Even the Princess was sent sprawling, her barrier shattering into luminous fragments.

Professors leapt forward — artifacts blazing.They slammed, full-force, into a dome of violet energy that hadn't been there seconds earlier. The barrier spat them back like insects hitting a wall.

Then the ground split wider.

Something crawled out.

No — ascended.

A chittering hum reverberated through the bones of every person present. No one could tell if it was sound or if it was simply vibrating inside their skulls.

A colossal segment of chitin rose first.Red-black, glossy, massive enough to crush houses.Then another.And another.Each segment lifting with awful deliberation, until the creature's enormous, spiraling body cast a shadow large enough to swallow an entire district.

Mandibles the size of tree trunks clicked.Each impact shook the stone foundations beneath the arena.

A skull-like head emerged next.Humanoid.Insectoid.Wrong.

A crown of broken swords pierced through its head, fused as though melted into bone.A thousand tiny, milky eyes bulged across its face, glowing softly with diseased green light.

The smell hit next —like rotting metal and old blood drying in the sun.

The crowd finally screamed.

Seven hooded figures stood upon the monster's ridged back.The shadows of their cloaks did not follow the light.They dripped downward like liquid night.

The figure at the front lifted his head.

A skull mask covered his face.The jaw missing.Golden stitches holding his lips together like a grotesque ornament.

He spread his arms slowly, as though embracing a prophecy fulfilled.

"Finally," he whispered, the voice far too calm for the apocalypse he brought."Finally, the time has come."

The golden stitches snapped.His mouth stretched too wide.

The creature's mandibles cracked open.From within its throat came a soft, wet clicking—

Its tongue unfurled.

Not a tongue.Not flesh.

A mass of human fingers, all writhing, reaching, grasping.

Avin's swords lay in the sand.Their light flickered.Dim.Overwhelmed.

He reached for them — hands shaking, breath quivering.

A realization clawed up his spine:

This wasn't a battle.

This wasn't a challenge.

This wasn't a test.

This was the beginning of something the world was not prepared for.

And Avin felt it—the way a lone match feels the coming inferno.

To be continued…

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