Novel Full Chapter 211: Evander Vs Xavier (1)
Chapter 211: Evander Vs Xavier (1)
“And now!” the hostess’ bright voice rang across the entire coliseum, her amplified voice echoing from the enchanted speakers built into the arena walls. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome… our last match of the day!”
The crowd immediately erupted.
Even the people who had been casually chatting or moving around their seats suddenly focused their attention back toward the battlefield.
The woman raised her hand dramatically, smiling widely as she looked across the sea of faces filling the enormous arena.
Honestly, Elion did not think that the crowd could get any louder than it already was.
But between people who had come late, and those who had suddenly found the inner voice in them that they had never thought they had, the noise went up another hundred decibels.
“I don’t think I need to explain why we have only a single fight for the seventh years!”
“YEEEEAAAAAHHH!” the crowd roared in agreement.
Everyone understood what that meant.
The seventh years were the true elites of the academy.
Students who were on the verge of leaving the academy and entering the real world as powerful mages, warriors, or leaders.
Letting several of them fight at once would divide the crowd’s attention, and the academy clearly wanted everyone watching the same battle.
“Because this is our first day, the opening fight will be epic!” the hostess continued. “Probably the most epic fight of the whole tournament!”
More cheering.
“Today…We have brought to you the best… and only the best… that the academy has to offer!”
She paused dramatically, letting the anticipation grow.
Then she suddenly raised her arm and shouted into the microphone.
“Please welcome! Please cheer for… the one and only… XAVIER… DAWNCREEEEESSSST!”
The crowd exploded.
The name alone was enough to ignite the arena.
The man had become nothing short of an urban legend during his tenure in the academy, and the reasons were plenty. Mostly because he was charismatic and outgoing.
Many people stood up from their seats as the cheers and whistles shook the massive structure.
At that exact moment, Elion pushed open the door to the waiting room and stepped inside.
The roar of the audience echoed faintly through the stone walls and large screens mounted around the room.
He blinked.
“…Looks like I missed a lot.”
He had clearly returned right as the seventh-year match was about to begin. Which meant he had completely missed the fifth and sixth-year fights.
Elion sighed in disappointment.
He had honestly been looking forward to watching those battles.
But after thinking about it earlier, he had ended up wandering into the city for a bit instead. The reason was simple.
Snacks.
More specifically, something Aria had mentioned many times before.
A baked treat called croissants.
Elion had never eaten them before, but Aria had talked about them so much that he finally decided to go find some.
And now he was carrying a large paper bag full of them. He walked further into the waiting room.
Then he paused.
“…How did they take up this much space?”
The small group of beauties he had left earlier had somehow managed to occupy nearly one-eighth of the entire waiting room to themselves.
It made no sense considering how many people were in the room.
People naturally gathered around them while still leaving a comfortable distance, almost like an invisible territory had formed around their group.
Elion walked over.
Isolde noticed him first.
“Oh, hey Elion,” she greeted with a soft smile.
She looked relaxed as usual, sitting quietly while watching the others. Compared to the rest of the group, she seemed the most composed.
Meanwhile, Tessa was loudly talking about something completely ridiculous.
“I’m telling you, when I get back home, I’m going to hunt that wyvern myself!” she declared confidently. “The damn thing has been stealing livestock for years!”
Elion blinked slowly.
’…Wyvern hunting?’
He honestly had no idea what she was talking about. But he didn’t bother asking. Instead, he stepped forward and placed the large paper bag in Mira’s hands.
“I got something for you guys.”
Mira raised an eyebrow. Then she smiled.
“Oh?”
She peeked into the bag.
“Did you go on a date with that pretty senpai or something?” she teased. She laughed lightly as she said it.
Aria, however, immediately pouted.
Elion chuckled awkwardly.
“Uh… no.”
“I just thought you guys might be hungry.”
Mira opened the bag properly and began distributing the baked goods.
“Ohhhh,” she said approvingly. “These look good.”
“OHHHH!” Aria suddenly shouted excitedly.
“Croissants!” Her eyes sparkled. “Gimme the chocolate ones!”
Before Mira could even finish sorting them, Aria snatched the chocolate-labeled package straight out of her hands.
Isolde burst out laughing at the sight.
Mira simply shook her head with a helpless smile.
“You’re hopeless,” she said.
Elion sat down beside them, finally taking one of the croissants for himself. The soft pastry flaked slightly as he tore a piece off.
He took a bite.
“…Not bad.”
Meanwhile, the screens around the waiting room continued broadcasting the arena.
Xavier had already stepped onto the battlefield.
He stood calmly on one of the large stone platforms, his posture relaxed but confident, his presence alone making the entire arena feel tense.
The crowd’s noise was still deafening. The hostess raised her microphone again.
“And now! His opponent!”
She pointed dramatically toward the opposite tunnel.
“Please welcome… EVANDER KLETIS!”
The arena roared once more.
The moment Evander Kletis stepped onto the battlefield, the feeling in the entire coliseum changed.
It was hard to explain, but even the air felt heavier.
The crowd, which had been loud just a second ago, slowly quieted down on its own. People leaned forward in their seats.
Nobles in the balconies stopped talking. Even those in the waiting rooms closer to the screens fell silent.
Because anyone with eyes could see it.
This was different.
This was not a student match anymore. This was a clash between two monsters.
On one side stood Xavier Dawncrest, calm and composed as ever; his hair was moving lightly in the breeze, his posture relaxed but not careless.
He looked almost elegant standing there, like he had stepped onto the battlefield for a casual stroll instead of a brutal fight.
On the other side stood Evander Kletis, broad-shouldered, steady, and sharp-eyed. Dark mana was already rolling off him in faint waves that twisted the air around his body.
The hostess floated high above the ruined remains of the center platform, her voice unusually excited.
“Ladies and gentlemen… what a way to end the first day!” she cried into her amplifier. “Before you stands two of the academy’s brightest stars!”
She pointed dramatically toward Xavier first.
“The heir of House Dawncrest! A prodigy feared and admired in equal measure! The man whose mysterious magic bends even the laws of movement themselves!”
Her voice rose.
“XAVIER DAWNCREST!”
The crowd roared.
Then she swung her arm toward Evander.
“And facing him! The pride of the Kletis clan! A seventh-year titan who has crushed countless opponents with overwhelming dark power! A man whose very presence feels like the edge of night itself!”
She shouted his name with the crowd.
“EVANDER KLETIS!”
The roar that followed was almost deafening.
Back in the waiting room, Elion had stopped chewing halfway through his croissant. His eyes were locked onto the screen.
Mira sat very still beside him. Aria, who normally always had something to say, had gone quiet too.
Even Tessa had stopped talking nonsense. Every eye was on the battlefield.
The proctor in charge of the match floated a safe distance away and raised his hand.
“Begin.”
No one moved.
For half a second, both men simply stood there.
Then—
The battlefield exploded.
Evander moved first.
A surge of black mana erupted around him like smoke and lightning at once.
The stone platform beneath his feet shattered as he launched forward; his speed was so violent that many weaker spectators lost sight of him completely.
At the same instant, Xavier raised one hand calmly. The space around Evander seemed to twist. A crushing force dropped from above.
BOOM!
The platform beneath Evander crumpled inward as if an invisible mountain had slammed onto it. Stone burst outward in every direction.
The hostess shouted over the explosion.
“That is gravity magic!”
But Evander had already vanished from the point of impact.
He appeared above Xavier, dark mana wrapped around his arm like claws, and struck downward with a slash of condensed darkness.
Xavier tilted his head slightly.
The blow missed by a hair.
The ground behind him split apart as the dark slash crashed into it, carving a long black trench through the stone.
Xavier stepped forward and pressed his palm out.
The air itself bent.
Evander’s body jerked sideways as if something had violently yanked him through space. He was dragged off balance for the briefest moment, and Xavier used that opening instantly. A pulse of gravity burst outward from his palm.
CRASH!
Evander was blasted backward through a half-formed stone pillar, shattering it to pieces.
The crowd roared.
“Already!”
“They’re insane!”
But the fight did not slow for even a breath.
Evander planted his foot in the air itself, black mana gathering beneath him like a platform, and launched forward again.
This time, he did not attack from one angle. Three compressed spheres of darkness formed around him and shot at Xavier from different directions, each one crackling with black lightning.
Xavier’s eyes narrowed slightly. He moved one finger.
The first sphere suddenly dropped toward the ground, crushed by a spike of gravity so strong it imploded before reaching him.
The second was flung sideways at impossible speed and exploded harmlessly against a distant barrier.
The third reached him and detonated with a loud boom!
Darkness and black lightning exploded outward in a violent wave. The crowd screamed in shock as the upper half of the platform disappeared in the blast.
When the smoke cleared, Xavier was standing in midair. Not falling, but standing. The stone chunks around him floated too, suspended in his magic.
The hostess laughed in disbelief.
“He’s flying!”
“Of course he is,” someone in the crowd shouted back.
Evander was already in the air as well, dark mana forming a shifting field beneath his feet each time he stepped.
He moved like a shadow skipping through space, appearing and disappearing between streaks of black light.
Then both men attacked at once.
Xavier thrust his hand outward. A wave of crushing pressure spread through the air, so heavy that the entire center of the arena dipped inward.
Evander met it with a wall of darkness that rippled like liquid night.
The two magics slammed into each other and detonated with a shockwave so violent that several of the remaining platforms cracked.
Evander raised both hands, and dozens of black spears formed behind him, long and jagged and dripping with crackling mana. He sent them down like rain.
Xavier answered by lifting his hand upward. The spears slowed, and then they stopped. Then reversed direction.
The crowd shouted in disbelief as the entire storm turned and flew back at Evander.
Evander growled and swept his arm across his body. A crescent of darkness cut through the air and met the returning spears head-on.
One after another, they exploded, filling the sky above the arena with black flashes and bursts of shattered mana.
The battle was no longer confined to the platform.
In fact, the platform had already stopped mattering.
Large parts of it were gone. The other platforms nearby were breaking too, caught in the spillover of their attacks.
Then Xavier moved.