The Combat Division's arena was nothing like the classrooms.
It was a bowl of jagged stone, sunken deep into the academy grounds, surrounded by black walls etched with sigils that pulsed faintly—containment runes, suppression chains, safety nets that only worked when instructors wanted them to.
Most days, they didn't.
Students filed into the stands in tense silence.
Combat Division students looked excited.
Magic Division students looked curious.
Support Division students looked terrified.
Caelum looked… calm.
He took a seat with Dorm Nine's cluster on the lower tier—close enough to feel the heat of the sand underfoot.
Lira whispered anxiously, "I heard Combat instructor Dravos kills at least one student every year."
"He doesn't kill them," Jalen muttered. "Not directly. He just… steps back and lets nature take its course."
Caelum watched the arena floor, hands folded loosely.
Nature is efficient.
A hush fell.
Someone was coming.
Kael Dravos appeared like a storm given a human shape.
The giant man walked onto the sand with a slow, heavy stride, the weight of a soldier who had survived a hundred wars and then grew bored of them.
The arena doors slammed behind him.
His voice rolled across the bowl like thunder.
"Today," he said, "you learn the difference between surviving… and living long enough to regret it."
He turned slowly, scanning the stands.
Every student stiffened.
The air tightened like stretched leather.
Dravos lifted a single hand.
The ground rumbled.
Panels in the arena floor split open, releasing bars, gates, doors—small metal cages rising from below.
Inside each cage…
Movement.
Scraping.
Breathing.
Lira grabbed Caelum's sleeve.
"Oh no."
Dravos grinned like a wolf pulling back its lips.
"Your first Combat lesson," he said, "is simple."
He approached the nearest cage.
"Face a creature stronger than you."
He kicked the cage door.
Hard.
Something crawled out.
The first beast was a Shade Boar.
Black bristles.
Teeth like carved obsidian.
Its eyes burned with void-hunger.
A mutated variant—twice the size of its natural kind.
Students gasped.
Dravos grabbed the boar by a tusk, lifted its massive head with one hand, and slammed it into the ground.
The arena shook.
The boar squealed once before falling limp.
"That," Dravos said mildly, "was a warm-up."
He lifted his eyes to the stands.
"Support Division."
A wave of dread washed across Caelum's section.
"Come down."
Lira's breath hitched.
Several Support students whimpered.
Jalen whispered, "This is bad. This is very bad—"
Dravos pointed.
"You. And you. And you."
Students descended, trembling.
Then his finger landed on Caelum.
"Veylor."
Whispers erupted immediately.
"He picked him again?"
"What is with Dravos and that failure?"
"Why him?"
Caelum rose slowly.
His heartbeat did not change.
He followed the others down the steps, descending into the hot, echoing silence of the arena floor.
The sand crunched beneath his boots as he reached the circle of students.
Lira stared at him from above, pale and shaking.
Dravos folded his arms.
"Good," he said. "You're all terrified."
He swept his gaze across them.
"You should be."
He snapped his fingers.
A second cage opened behind him.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
A foul stench spilled out like rotting smoke.
Something dragged itself to the entrance.
Something with too many joints.
Something half-human.
Lira screamed from the stands.
Jalen swore loudly.
Even some nobles recoiled.
The creature crawled forward—body mangled, skin twisted, arms extending in unnatural lengths. Its jaw hung loosely, as if unhinged. Its eyes were white and empty.
Caelum's eyes narrowed slightly.
A corrupted student. Dorm Nine. One of last year's casualties.
Dravos didn't flinch.
"This," he said, "is a Mindscarred. A corrupted humanoid born from a failed Sigil evolution."
He gestured at the six Support students in the circle.
"You will not fight it."
A wave of relief spread through them—shaky, desperate.
Dravos crushed it instantly.
"You will survive it."
The Mindscarred shrieked.
Every student jolted.
Dravos pointed at Caelum.
"You," he said. "Step forward."
Gasps.
Lira's voice cracked from the stands: "Caelum!"
Caelum stepped forward calmly.
He felt no fear.
Only curiosity.
Dravos watched him carefully.
The Mindscarred lunged.
Chaos erupted.
Support students scattered in raw panic.
The creature screeched, limbs snapping unnaturally as it chased the nearest runner.
Dust exploded across the arena floor as bodies fled, stumbled, screamed.
Dravos did nothing.
He simply observed.
Caelum stood still.
The Mindscarred turned toward him—drawn by stillness, by the wrongness coiled inside him.
Good.
Come closer.
It rushed him with a jerking, animalistic fury.
Teeth bared.
Claws extended.
Caelum didn't dodge.
Until the last possible second.
He sidestepped smoothly, letting the creature's claws slice the air where his face had been.
The Mindscarred stumbled, confused.
Caelum watched it with cold precision.
Speed moderate. Cognition low. Corruption middle-stage. Threads exposed near the sternum.
Another lunge.
Caelum tilted his body.
The creature crashed past him again.
Dravos raised a brow.
He had expected fear.
Not this.
The Mindscarred shrieked and came again, faster this time, erratic but stronger—flailing, claws snapping like broken glass, jaw stretching too wide.
Caelum moved like quiet water—stepping around each strike, redirecting momentum with minimal effort.
He touched the creature only twice:
A brush of fingers along the wrist.
A light press on its shoulder.
Barely contact.
But enough.
Its threads trembled under his touch.
Its balance failed.
It crashed into the sand.
Silence swept across the stands.
Caelum didn't move.
The Mindscarred scrambled back to its feet, trembling, confused by something it couldn't understand.
"Finish it!" someone shouted.
"Run!" someone else yelled.
Dravos said nothing.
He wanted to see what Caelum would do.
Caelum stepped closer.
The creature lunged—
—and Caelum tapped two fingers gently against its collarbone.
Just a tap.
But the Proto-Sigil stirred—threads unraveling invisibly into the creature's corrupted soul.
Not enough to reveal himself.
Just enough to weaken.
The Mindscarred collapsed instantly, screaming as its soul-thread spasmed.
Caelum lowered his hand.
The creature writhed.
Students stared in horror.
Dravos' eyes sharpened.
He felt that.
The creature snarled, trying to rise again.
Caelum met its gaze calmly.
"No."
The creature froze.
Then slumped forward—unconscious, body twitching from corrupted backlash.
The arena was silent.
Dravos stepped forward.
He stared at the unmoving creature.
Then at Caelum.
Slowly.
"Interesting," he said.
The word was quiet but heavy.
It carried the weight of a predator discovering new prey… or a new threat.
Caelum bowed his head politely.
"Thank you, Instructor."
Dravos barked a laugh.
"Don't thank me, Veylor."
His voice lowered.
"Pray I don't test you harder next time."
Students whispered wildly.
"Did you see that?!"
"He didn't even use a weapon—"
"He neutralized a Mindscarred alone—"
"Why is an F-rank moving like that?"
Lira looked both relieved and terrified.
Marenne scribbled notes furiously.
Seraphine Pyrell… smiled.
The first time she had shown emotion all week.
Not happiness.
Recognition.
The Combat Division lesson ended early.
Dravos dismissed the class with a wave, but his gaze followed Caelum as he left the arena.
It lingered on him like a warning.
Or a challenge.
As Caelum walked into the shadow of the academy walls, he felt the whisper again—
From beneath the stone.
Deeper than the arena pits.
Older than Dravos.
"…thread… awakening…"
Caelum exhaled quietly.
Chapter 10 will be… educational.