The Coliseum fell into a deathly silence as the announcer's voice boomed across the stands. This was the match the entire city had whispered about since the brackets were drawn. Kaelen of the 10th vs. Valerius Flare of the 1st.
Kaelen stepped onto the Reign. He looked small. His 10th Division uniform was singed from the earlier chaos, and his hands were still trembling slightly—not from fear, but from the raw adrenaline Elias's speech had ignited. Across from him, Valerius didn't just walk; he radiated. The air around the Vice-Captain of the 1st distorted with volcanic heat. His flames weren't orange or red—they were the deep, viscous crimson of flowing lava.
"You should have stayed in the restroom, defect," Valerius hissed, his eyes glowing like embers. "Now, the whole world has to watch me put you down."
Kaelen didn't answer. He took a breath, and for the first time, his flames didn't flicker. They roared to life—a sharp, piercing sapphire blue.
The battle began with an explosion that shook the Spire. Valerius moved like a tectonic shift, slamming a fist into the stone that sent a wave of liquid fire toward Kaelen. Kaelen leaped, his blue flames jetting from his heels to propel him upward, but Valerius was already there.
A volcanic backhand caught Kaelen in mid-air, sending him crashing into the Reign with enough force to shatter the stone. The crowd gasped. A normal fighter would have stayed down. Kaelen's ribs were cracked, his left arm hanging at an unnatural angle.
But he got up.
"Is that it?" Kaelen wheezed, spitting blood that hissed against the heated floor.
Valerius growled, unleashing a barrage of "fire Spears." Kaelen dodged three, but the fourth pierced his shoulder, searing through muscle. Again, Kaelen went down. And again, he stood up.
This cycle repeated for twenty agonizing minutes. Valerius was objectively more powerful—his flames were hotter, his training superior. He broke Kaelen's leg; Kaelen dragged himself up using one arm. He shattered Kaelen's jaw; Kaelen reset it with a sickening pop and stood back up.
The crowd was no longer cheering for Valerius. They were staring in horror and awe. The 10th Division stood at the railing, Sloane clutching her medical bag so hard her knuckles bled.
Suddenly, Kaelen found a gap. As Valerius lunged for a finishing blow, Kaelen ignored the fire burning his skin. He stepped into the lava, his blue flames forming a temporary shield. Snap-Snap-Snap.
Three rapid slashes from Kaelen's fingers caught Valerius across the chest, drawing blood. Then, a heavy, desperate punch landed square on Valerius's nose.
Valerius staggered back, blood dripping from his face. The "Untouchable" Vice-Captain had been struck by the "Defect."
The rage in Valerius snapped. He unleashed a sun-tier explosion that engulfed the entire Reign. When the smoke cleared, Kaelen was standing in the center. His eyes were white, his consciousness gone. He had passed out from the pain, yet his body refused to fall. He stood as a literal statue of defiance.
Valerius, trembling with humiliated fury, formed a blade of hot flames. "Die!"
He lunged, but he never reached the target. A blur of silver intercepted him. Elias stood between them, his bare hand gripping Valerius's plasma blade. The heat did even affect he's skin
"The match is over," Elias said, his voice cold as the grave. "He's unconscious. He won the fight of the spirit. You only won the match."
Valerius recoiled as the judges called the match. Medics rushed in to carry Kaelen's broken but still-standing body away.
Zainab Virel( captain of the 5th division) said
"That kid won, in terms of spirit,he didn't give up even after he was unconscious, drakye does have a promising squad ".
Match 5:
Renji (10th) vs. Vex (2nd)
The arena was still reeling when Renji stepped out. His opponent, Vex, moved with an eerie, stuttering motion. Vex didn't run; he simply existed in different points of time.
The hand-to-hand combat was a masterclass in frustration. Every time Renji threw a precision strike, Vex would "blink" back two seconds, appearing behind Renji before the punch even landed. Renji was being hammered by a man he couldn't touch.
"He can't keep up," Rook groaned. "Vex is playing with time."
"Renji isn't trying to hit him," Jaxen realized. "He's mapping the blinks."
Renji's eyes suddenly shifted. The pupils didn't just glow; they expanded into a complex geometric pattern. The 3rd Edge. The world slowed for Renji. He began to see "ghosts" of Vex's future positions. For three minutes, Renji became untouchable. He landed a flurry of strikes that sent Vex reeling toward the edge of the arena. , vex frowned he controlled time, he was slowing down time and jumping into the future how did renji , land a punch,
Again, renji 3rd edge star eyes, was seeing the future, it saw as vex was entering into the future and everything he was going to do , renji landed series of punch to the joint and every part of vex body. Vex was paralyzed, one more attack and renji would win.
But the 3rd Edge was a forbidden fruit. Renji hadn't mastered the power .
Mid-swing, his eyes began to bleed. His nervous system, unable to process the infinite streams of time, shut down to prevent his brain from melting. Renji collapsed inches away from Vex.
As Vex stood over him, breathing hard, a massive man with the same Star Eyes descended from the stands. Renji's father picked up his son, looking at the boy's bleeding eyes with a rare, solemn pride. "You saw the edge, my son. That is enough for today. I am proud of you".
Match 7:
Vela (10th) vs. Jinn (4th)
Jinn stepped out, his hands glowing with deconstruction energy. He was ready for a legendary duel. Vela stepped out, looked at him, and then looked at the giant holographic clock.
"Lunch starts in five minutes," Vela said, her stomach let out a thunderous growl.
"Are you ready to face your end?" Jinn asked dramatically.
"Nah," Vela waved a hand dismissively. "You win. I'm starving. If I fight now, I'll end up eating the arena, and you will die .
She hopped off the arena and headed straight for the food stalls. The referee stared in disbelief before declaring Jinn the winner. The 10th Division simply sighed; it was classic Vela.
Match 8
Mikasa (10th) vs. Cryo (2nd)
The buzzer hadn't even finished its ring before the air was filled with the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of Mikasa's summoning. In a blur of motion, she materialized two semi-automatic rifles, their barrels glowing with the blue energy of her Evolith. She opened fire immediately, a hail of suppressive rounds designed to pin Cryo to the center of the Reign.
Cryo didn't flinch. He didn't even move his feet. He simply exhaled, and the shadows beneath him rose like a tidal wave of ink. The bullets didn't hit him; they entered the shadow and vanished, the kinetic energy swallowed by the void.
"You're fast, Mikasa," Cryo's voice echoed, sounding as if it were coming from every corner of the arena at once. "But you're fighting a ghost."
Mikasa dropped the rifles as they ran empty, summoning a heavy-duty sniper rifle in a single fluid motion. She leaped backward, mid-air, and fired a high-explosive round toward the base of Cryo's shadow. The explosion forced the darkness to flicker, and for a split second, Cryo was visible.
In that heartbeat, Mikasa was on him. She vanished the rifle and summoned dual tantōs, spinning through the air. Her blades whistled, cutting through Cryo's tactical jacket. She was a whirlwind of steel, her movements governed by the cold logic of a master soldier. Every strike was aimed at a joint, a tendon, or a pressure point.
Cryo finally moved. He didn't strike back with a weapon; he used the shadows as an extension of his own limbs. He reached into the floor, and three obsidian hands erupted from the stone, grabbing Mikasa's ankles.
"Tch!" Mikasa hissed. She didn't panic. She summoned a grenade, pulled the pin with her teeth, and dropped it at her feet. The blast wasn't enough to kill, but the concussive force shattered the shadow-hands holding her. She used the shockwave to propel herself upward, flipping onto the top of a stone pillar at the edge of the arena.
Cryo realized that standard combat wouldn't break her. He raised both arms, and the stadium lights seemed to dim. Shadow domain: .
The shadows on the Reign began to stretch and warp, turning the flat stone surface into a labyrinth of black spires and shifting pits.
Mikasa stood atop her pillar, her eyes scanning the darkness. She summoned a thermal visor, her gaze cutting through the gloom. "I see you," she muttered. She materialized a heavy machine gun, bracing it against her shoulder, and began to shred the shadow spires. The noise was deafening—a continuous roar of lead meeting void-energy.
Cryo emerged from a shadow directly behind her, his hand wreathed in a blade of solidified darkness. Mikasa sensed the shift in air pressure. Without looking, she summoned a riot shield on her back. The shadow-blade sparked against the metal, the force nearly throwing her off the pillar.
She spun, discarding the machine gun for a specialized combat shotgun. Boom. Boom. Boom. Each shot was timed to the rhythm of Cryo's "blinks" between shadows. She was forcing him to stay defensive, forcing him to expend Evo(energy ) maintaining the domain.
"You're good," Cryo admitted, his silhouette flickering like a dying candle. "Most people lose their minds in the dark. You just get sharper."
"I was raised in the dark," Mikasa replied, her voice cold. "This is just another room."
The match had passed the twenty-minute mark. Both were breathing hard. Mikasa's uniform was shredded, her skin bruised from near-misses of concussive shadow blasts. Cryo's mask was cracked, his breathing ragged.
Mikasa decided to end it. She summoned her ultimate weapon: a massive, anti-tank railgun. The power draw was so intense it caused the energy shield of the arena to flicker. She aimed it at the center of the shadow domain, intending to blow the entire floor out from under Cryo.
"Checkmate," she whispered.
But Cryo had been baiting her. As the railgun began its high-pitched whine of charging energy, he didn't run. He dived into the shadow of the railgun itself.
Mikasa's eyes widened. She tried to vanish the weapon, but it was too late. Cryo erupted from the shadow cast by the very gun she was holding. He didn't strike her; he grabbed the barrel and used his shadow power to increase its weight tenfold.
The sudden, immense weight of the railgun pulled Mikasa forward. She refused to let go—and Cryo used that momentum against her. He performed a perfect judo-style throw, using the railgun as a lever.
Mikasa soared through the air, the massive weapon still in her hands. She tried to summon a tether-line to catch the edge of the Reign, but Cryo unleashed a final surge of shadow, a "Void Lash" that wrapped around her waist and accelerated her flight.
She sailed over the boundary, the blue light of the Reign fading behind her. She hit the arena floor with a heavy thud, the railgun vanishing into motes of
light as her energy finally gave out.
WINNER: CRYO (OUT OF REIGN)