The bridge loomed like a half-forged dream amid the swirling cloud mist. Heavy thunder rumbled in the distance, a low, vibrating hum that made it feel as if the sky itself held its breath following Seig's blazing arrival.
Smacking his palms together, Seig grinned wildly, the superheated fire on his knuckles casting a fierce orange glow across his face. "Seig Pendragon has finally arrived—! Prepare to get burned!"
From the edge of the wooden scaffolding, Miki's shoulders dropped in relief. The crushing weight of panic lifted, and her face instantly brightened with renewed hope. "Seig…" she whispered softly, her voice carrying across the damp air.
Feeling the absolute peak of Shonen confidence, Seig puffed out his chest, throwing a thumbs-up toward the crackling electrical dome. "Don't worry, Aturia! I've got your back! I'll protect you!"
Inside the sphere, Aturia scoffed. Despite her visible exhaustion, her aristocratic features twisted into an expression of mild irritation. "I never explicitly said I wanted your help, you complete loser. I could have easily handled this situation on my own."
Green Phoenix watched the display from afar, adjusting the dark fabric of his cloak. "That loud-mouthed brat is finally here, huh?"
Captain Baka let out a low, amused chuckle, his hand remaining casually rested on his katana hilt. "That idiot boy… always making such a flashy entrance. There's absolutely no point to a grand arrival if you don't even bother to catch the enemy off guard, you know."
Az didn't let the chatter break his focus. The sight of Seig immediately brought back the memory of their brief conversation at the inn, but hesitation had no place on a battlefield. Activating the full output of his Raijin Orb Domain, Az's physical form instantly dissolved into a crackling current of blue electricity, vanishing into the network of floating spheres.
"All right—here we go!" Seig yelled, digging his boots into the stone. "Fire Magic: FlashFire Fist!"
His knuckles erupted into a brilliant, concentrated blaze. With a burst of speed, he charged headlong toward the nearest lightning orb, intending to shatter the domain from the outside.
Seeing the boy advance, Green Phoenix flicked his wrist from across the bridge, casting a fast, minor lightning jolt to intercept him. The electric bolt streaked through the fog, targeting Seig before the hyperactive knight could even react—
BOOM!
Suddenly, a completely separate bolt of lightning shot outward from one of Az's own orbs, colliding with Phoenix's spell in mid-air and canceling it out in a shower of sparks.
Everyone on the bridge froze in absolute, stunned disbelief.
Miki blinked rapidly, her mind struggling to process the bizarre tactical contradiction. "Did… did Az just save Seig from his own brother?"
Mr. Iroh adjusted his glasses, his voice shaking slightly. "To think the enemies' attacks would accidentally cancel each other out like that… that was incredibly lucky."
Captain Baka, however, didn't look amused. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhled heavily. "Hey—what kind of utter moron attempts to cast a close-range magic spell directly in front of an opponent? Didn't you learn a single thing back at the academy with Mrs. Lily? You need to be constantly aware of your surroundings, kid."
Seig stopped in his tracks, dropping his fighting stance to scratch the back of his head, his face flushing bright red with embarrassment. "I'm incredibly sorry, Captain Baka…. My bad. It seriously won't happen again."
Across the stone path, Green Phoenix snarled, his calm demeanor slipping as he glared at the floating domain. "Az—what the hell is the big idea?!"
Az's voice echoed from the spheres, layered and unnaturally calm. "Leave this kid to me, big bro. Please… let me fight this specific battle my own way."
Phoenix narrowed his eyes under his hood, letting out a sharp tsk. "So you mean no interfering, right? You're just as naive as usual."
Trapped inside the perimeter of the crackling dome, Aturia used the brief distraction to push herself up. Her mind raced as she evaluated her condition. Naive, huh? she thought, looking down at her torn uniform. Phoenix might actually be right… judging from my wounds, it's only minor cuts and superficial bruises. No vital areas have been targeted so far. Is this masked kid even genuinely trying to kill me?
Baka's gaze hardened as he tracked the layout of the field. It looks like those two might desperately need my physical intervention after all, he thought. But I don't think Phoenix will let me break away that easily.
As if reading his mind, Green Phoenix slowly ran his tongue along the flat edge of his massive executioner blade, a menacing grin forming beneath his bandages. "Hey—don't get any bright ideas, Captain. If you move even a single inch from that spot… you already know exactly what happens to the old man behind you."
Baka's tactical thoughts sharpened. He's right. If I move away from this position to aid Seig and Aturia, Phoenix will close the distance and kill Iroh instantly. There's absolutely no way Miki can protect him alone; she's still far too inexperienced in lethal combat.
Phoenix gestured toward the glowing dome with his sword. "How about it? Let's just stay put and watch these young kids fight each other to the death… or we can focus entirely on our own little match."
Inside the domain, Seig pointed an aggressive, flaming finger at the orbs. "That porcelain mask—you're definitely Phoenix's comrade after all, aren't you?! You've got a lot of nerve coming into our inn and completely deceiving us!"
"I am truly sorry…" Az's voice resonated from the sphere directly above. "But your own captain explicitly said it, didn't he? Things like deceiving the enemy and catching them off guard… it's a basic, fundamental skill for any magic knight. Please don't take it personally."
"You don't have the luxury to lecture him either!" Aturia snapped.
With a sharp motion of her wrists, she launched a rapid volley of jagged ice spikes directly at the upper orbs. But Az's electrical movement was too fast; he zipped through the network, dodging the frozen projectiles with ease.
"I haven't forgotten about you," Az noted, his tone turning cold. "I would have highly preferred it if you had just gone down quietly… but it looks like things won't work out that way. Fine then—I'll put a definitive end to you and your noble pride."
In a flash of light, Az materialized back into his physical body directly behind Seig. Before the fire mage could pivot, Az grabbed him tightly by the collar of his shirt and violently hurled him straight out of the Raijin Orb Domain. Seig skated across the rocky ground, landing outside the barrier with a loud, painful thud.
"Hey! What the hell is your problem?!" Seig barked, pushing himself up and shaking the dirt from his hair.
Az stood at the edge of the barrier, pointing a singular finger back at him. "I'll fight you later," he said calmly, before his body dissolved back into pure current, vanishing into the upper sphere.
Aturia set her feet, bracing her weight against the stone floor. "Here it comes…"
The connected orbs sparked with violent, erratic energy once again. A continuous barrage of blue lightning bolts shot downward, striking Aturia directly. A sharp scream of agony tore from her throat as the intense electrical current racked her body, forcing her down.
Dropping heavily onto her knees, Aturia gritted her teeth against the lingering static pain, her mind desperately analyzing the magic circles. Think... there has to be a structural weakness, she reasoned rapidly. It's highly conceivable that most of these orbs are simple sensory fakes… and the specific one he's physically hiding in is the only real core. He's syncing them to strike simultaneously to mask his position—but how do I pinpoint which one is the real deal?
She clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white. The only viable option I can think of is a synchronized pincer movement. I need to attack the core from the inside, while Seig coordinates an assault from the outside—
"Yo! So, what's the tactical plan?"
Aturia froze. She turned her head slowly, only to see Seig standing right beside her inside the lethal dome, waving his hand with a bright, completely carefree smile.
The absolute absurdity of the sight made Aturia's entire face turn bright red with pure, unadulterated rage.
"You complete bucket-for-brains, meat-headed idiot!!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her aristocratic composure entirely shattering. "Why on earth did you come back inside his domain?! Why didn't you just stay put on the outside when he went through the trouble of tossing you out?! And dang it—I've officially had it with you! You complete fool—you are so incredibly annoying!"
Seig's jaw dropped, his competitive spirit immediately flaring up as he stepped right into her face. "Fool?! What the hell do you mean by fool, you stuck-up ice queen?! Take that back right now! I came back in here to save your skin!"
"I didn't ask for a rescue from a moron who can't even follow basic instructions!"
Right in the middle of a high-stakes, lethal battlefield, the two rookies began loudly bickering and arguing, waving their fists at one another.
Watching from the safety of the perimeter, Captain Baka let out a massive, exhausted sigh, rubbing his temples in sheer disbelief. "As is to be expected of the number one hyperactive, enthusiastic, and completely unpredictable magic knight… the kid is giving me an absolute headache. He's actively making the situation worse and worse by coming to 'aid'."
"Alright, fine! Enough!" Aturia yelled, cutting off Seig as she slammed both of her palms flat onto the stone foundation. "Since it's officially come to this... Ice Magic: Absolute Zero!!"
Using every single drop of her remaining mana reserves, Aturia unleashed her most advanced foundational spell. The air pressure plunged instantly, an absolute wave of extreme frost expanding across the bridge. The conceptual drop in temperature was so severe it began freezing the very atoms themselves, forcibly slowing down the electrical movement of the Raijin orbs.
The deep ice enclosed the entire area, the plummeting temperature binding the electrons within the lightning arcs to halt the flow of electricity.
But the sheer magnitude of the spell was too much for her depleted body to sustain. Within seconds, Aturia's mana pool completely bottomed out. She cut the technique off, stumbling backward, barely remaining conscious as her breathing turned shallow.
From within the frosted network, Az's voice echoed, slightly strained but steady. "You won't completely stop my lightning orbs with a spell whose overall scale is so weak… but I will admit, it did successfully nullify the current for a short moment. I'll give you a bit of praise for that effort."
As the ice began to crack and melt, the spheres immediately became lively again, sparking with a furious blue luminescence. A double surge of lightning shot downward, striking both Aturia and Seig simultaneously. They both collapsed onto the hard stone, groaning in intense pain as static electricity danced across their skin.
Seig gritted his teeth, forcing his trembling legs to lock as he pushed himself back up. "Damn it…" he muttered, coughing slightly. "If I can't get close enough to punch him with my physical fists, then I'll just have to rely on range attacks instead!"
Drawing a massive breath into his lungs, Seig threw his head forward. With a sharp bark, he spat out a rapid succession of multiple medium-sized fireballs, each one flying straight toward a different floating orb.
But Az's mobility was absolute. He stepped out of one sphere and slid instantly into the next, and the next—moving through the network like a blur of incredible, reality-bending speed. Utilizing a sudden burst of Wind Magic, he generated a localized vacuum that extinguished Seig's fireballs mid-air. Before the fire mage could even track his movement, Az materialized directly in front of him, delivering a brutal, heavy sucker-punch straight into Seig's stomach.
The sheer kinetic force made Seig vomit a spray of blood, his eyes widening in intense pain as he fell hard to his knees, clutching his gut tightly.
Az stepped back, looking down at him through the cold eye-slits of his mask. "I can freely teleport from one orb to another at will. Watching you and those slow fireballs with my overwhelming speed… it almost seems as if you're not even moving at all."
Seig coughed, pressing his forehead against the damp stone, but his emerald eyes never lost their spark. Weakly, painfully, he forced himself back onto his feet once more. "To hell with that… I can't afford to die in a place like this yet. Because I have a massive dream that I must turn into absolute reality—the dream to have my true strength recognized by every single person back in the Kingdom of Camelot… and become the King of Knights!"
Az went completely silent for a moment, the wind whipping his dark hair around the edges of his porcelain mask.
"Well… for someone like me, simply becoming a regular magic knight in the Lightning Kingdom is completely difficult," Az murmured, his voice dropping into a somber, deeply grounded tone. "If I truly have the choice… I don't want to kill any of you. And I certainly don't want to get killed by you either, staining your young hands with my blood. But if you are still going to stubbornly come at me—I will completely kill my own feelings with a sword and become a true magic knight."
Az raised his arm, the Raijin orbs humming with an ominous, low-frequency resonance as the fog gathered around them.
"This bridge is the ultimate battleground that connects each of us to our respective dreams," Az continued, his tone suddenly shifting into something dark, steady, and terrifyingly menacing. "I—for the precise sake of my dream—want to protect the person who is most dear to me. I work and I fight solely for the sake of that person… and I want to make that person's dream a reality, no matter the cost. You might call it entirely selfish, or entirely selfless… but for the sake of that dream, and for the sake of my big brother, I will completely kill my emotions—and slaughter you all."