The Arena of Echoes was not built for sport. It was a colossal, circular sinkhole of ancient, black basalt, its tiers carved not by masons but by time and some forgotten cataclysm. Spectators sat on natural stone ledges, their murmurs rising in a chaotic chorus that was swallowed and distorted by the arena's strange acoustics, becoming a ghostly whisper that seemed to emanate from the stones themselves. At the center was the fighting floor, a wide, flat disk of packed earth stained dark with the memories of countless battles.
High above, in a shrouded box of obsidian and silver, sat High Inquisitor Valerius and the other Church dignitaries, watching with the detached interest of gods observing an ant colony.
Shuya stood in one of the competitor gates, the cold shadow of the tunnel a stark contrast to the gray, diffuse light of the open arena. The roar of the crowd was a physical pressure, but he let it wash over him, finding his center beneath the noise. He wore simple, durable combat gear, no armor. Armor was a confession of expected impact. For him, impact was a gift to be returned.
Across the arena, the gate opposite shuddered. With a grinding roar, it was torn from its hinges and thrown aside as a mountain of fur and muscle emerged.
Gorok the Berserker was even larger than the stories suggested. Well over seven feet tall, his body was a topography of scar tissue and swollen muscle. He wore only a loincloth and a spiked iron collar, his face a permanent snarl beneath a matted mane of black hair. In his hands, he carried not a weapon, but two massive, spiked bucklers, each the size of a barrel lid.
"SEE!" he bellowed, his voice cutting through the spectral whispers of the arena. He beat the bucklers together, creating a concussive BOOM that shook the very air. "THE LITTLE SUN! I WILL CRUSH YOU! I WILL DRINK YOUR LIGHT!"
The officiant, standing on a narrow ledge above the fray, announced the combatants. "...and in the challenger's gate, the anomaly from Valorhold, Shuya Matsumoto!"
The announcement was met with a mixed wave of boos and curious cheers. Shuya ignored it all. He walked forward, his steps measured and silent, until he stood in the center of the stained earth. He didn't adopt a fighting stance. He simply stood, hands loose at his sides, and waited.
Gorok's eyes, small and furious, narrowed. The lack of fear, the lack of posturing, infuriated him. "YOU DARE LOOK DOWN ON ME?!"
"I am looking at you," Shuya replied, his voice calm, carrying not with a shout, but with a peculiar clarity that silenced the echoes around him. "You are simply… below me."
The insult, delivered with utter serenity, was the final spark. Gorok let out a world-ending roar and charged.
The ground trembled. He was a juggernaut of pure, mindless violence, closing the distance in seconds. He didn't swing with the bucklers. He led with his shoulder, intending to tackle Shuya and grind him into paste against the wall.
Shuya didn't move.
The crowd gasped. Lyra, watching from the competitor's section, gripped the rail until her knuckles turned white. Yoru watched, unblinking, a scientist observing a fascinating experiment.
At the last possible second, Shuya shifted his weight. It was a minimal movement, a subtle turn of his hips and torso, the kind of adjustment he'd made a thousand times in a dojo to evade a lunging strike. Gorok's charging bulk missed him by inches.
The Berserker skidded to a halt, spinning with surprising agility. Rage boiled off him in visible, red-tinged waves—a crude, violent aura. "HOLD STILL!"
He swung a buckler in a horizontal arc meant to bisect Shuya at the waist.
This time, Shuya didn't dodge.
He raised his left forearm, a casual, almost dismissive block.
The spiked iron shield connected.
KR-CHANG!
The sound was not of breaking bone, but of shattering metal. The entire buckler exploded inward, the spikes bending backwards and punching through Gorok's own forearm. The Berserker howled, more in surprise than pain, staring at his mangled arm as blood welled around the embedded metal.
The crowd fell silent, the only sound the ragged echo of Gorok's scream.
Shuya hadn't flinched. He stood, arm still raised, his gaze still locked on Gorok. A faint wisp of golden light curled around his forearm like smoke from a extinguished candle.
"You hit me," Shuya stated, as if noting the weather.
Gorok's pain was consumed by a deeper, more primal fury. His eyes glowed with a bloody light. The Church's blessing—a rage-enhancement, making him numb to pain, to reason, to survival. He tore the ruined buckler from his arm, ignoring the gushing wound, and attacked again, a frenzied storm of blows with his remaining shield.
Shuya became the center.
He didn't block every strike. He didn't need to. He moved through the torrent of violence with the flowing grace of his kata, his evasions so precise they were insulting. When a blow was impossible to avoid, he let it land. A punch to his ribs shattered the bones in Gorok's fist. A kick to his thigh dislocated the Berserker's own hip.
Each impact was a lesson. Each rebound was a statement.
Gorok was slowly, systematically, dismantling himself. He was a puppet, and his own uncontrollable fury was the hand smashing him against the unbreakable stone that was Shuya. He staggered back, his body a wreck, one arm useless, his leg dragging, his face a mask of blood and bewildered rage.
"WITCHCRAFT!" he slurred, spitting a tooth.
"Physics," Shuya corrected softly.
He finally moved forward, taking the initiative for the first time. He didn't run. He walked. Each step was deliberate, his Calm Dominance aura thickening, pressing down on the broken Berserker. The radiant warmth washed over Gorok, and for the first time, the magical rage couldn't withstand it. It was burned away, leaving only the raw, terrified animal beneath.
Gorok's eyes widened in horror. He tried to raise his remaining buckler, but his body would not obey.
Shuya stopped within arm's reach. He didn't strike. He simply looked at the broken man.
"You have lost," he said, not as a taunt, but as a simple, irrevocable fact.
He reached out and tapped a single finger against the center of Gorok's forehead.
It was the lightest of touches. But it was the conduit.
The accumulated force of every one of Gorok's rebounded attacks—the kinetic energy Shuya's body had stored and contained—channeled out through that single point.
A silent, invisible shockwave erupted from Gorok's back. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed to the earth like a felled tree, unconscious but alive.
The Arena of Echoes was utterly, profoundly silent. The ghostly whispers had died. The crowd didn't breathe.
Shuya lowered his hand. He looked up, not at the stunned spectators, but directly at the obsidian box where the High Inquisitor sat. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
The message was clear: I am here. I am not hiding. What will you do next?
The officiant, his voice trembling, broke the silence. "The victor… Shuya Matsumoto!"
The silence shattered into a roaring tempest of sound—cheers, boos, screams of terror, cries of awe. The name "Sun-Bearer" began to ripple through the crowd, no longer a secret, but a legend being born in real time.
As Shuya turned and walked back to the gate, he saw Kaelen standing in the shadow of his own tunnel. The Vanguard captain's arms were crossed, his expression no longer merely cold. It was focused, calculating. The executioner had seen that his target was not a lamb, but a lion.
In the shrouded box, High Inquisitor Valerius steepled his fingers, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. The anomaly was proving even more interesting than he had anticipated. The trap was set, but the prey was turning out to be a hunter. The game was finally getting worthy of his attention.
Shuya stepped back into the cool darkness of the tunnel, the roar of the arena at his back. The first blow had been struck. The Sun had risen in the arena, and all had felt its heat.
The path to the Spire was now open, and it was drenched in the light of a Forbidden Dawn.