Chapter 206: Egotistical

The fight began with neither man wasting time on empty circling.

Marcus Vale opened with earth. A low ridge burst up under Roulet’s lead foot and tried to break his stance before the first real exchange.

Roulet answered by flooding the broken ground with fire, not as a wide spectacle but as a controlled sheet that raced along the ridge line and forced Vale to abandon it.

Heat shimmered between them. The crowd reacted at once.

Kalon watched without blinking.

Vale’s earth use was precise. He treated the cage floor like a tool, raising short walls to cut angles and raising platforms under his own feet whenever he needed sudden elevation.

When Roulet closed distance, Vale switched to light. Thin hard beams snapped out from his palms and scored bright lines across the air, forcing Roulet to change path mid-step.

Roulet did not look troubled.

The Third Dragon’s fire was denser than most circuit flames Kalon had seen on broadcasts.

When he punched, the fire followed the fist late and exploded on delay. When he kicked, a trailing arc of heat cut through the space behind the strike and made it hard to retreat.

One of those delayed bursts caught Vale on the outer thigh and made the Atlas fighter’s stance dip for half a second.

Vale answered with a broader earth skill.

The centre of the cage cracked into a shallow basin and tried to drag Roulet’s footing inward. At the same time, Vale flooded the basin edge with light, creating a harsh glare wall that made the fire harder to aim through.

It was a good combination.

Roulet walked through the glare anyway.

Fire compressed around his forearms in tight coils. He slammed both arms down into the basin edge and detonated the coils on impact.

The earth structure blew apart in a spray of molten stone chips and broken plate.

Vale had to leap back on a rising earth pillar to avoid taking the blast full-on. Light spears stabbed down from above him as he rose, trying to pin Roulet in place.

One spear landed.

It punched through Roulet’s outer guard and left a burned-white line across his shoulder. The first clear damage of the match. The Atlas section of the crowd roared loudly at the sight.

Roulet smiled through it.

His next skill was larger.

A pillar of fire erupted directly under Vale’s floating earth platform and climbed fast enough to swallow the whole structure.

Vale dropped through the underside before it fully collapsed, caught himself on a slanted earth ramp, and rolled into a light-assisted dash that carried him to safety. The ramp cracked apart behind him under residual heat.

Kalon leaned forward slightly.

The gap between the fighters was becoming visible.

Vale was skilled. His dual affinity work was good. Light for interruption and speed. Earth for footing, defence, and altering the arena. In a standard organisation matchup, that toolkit would punish most fire users who relied on raw output.

Roulet was simply operating with better fundamentals.

Every time Vale created a structure, Roulet either melted it or bypassed it.

Every time Vale used light to control tempo, Roulet accepted minor damage and paid it back with heavier fire on the counter.

The Third Dragon was not rushing. He was dismantling the fight piece by piece.

Vale tried to change that.

He slammed both palms to the cage floor and raised a full ring of earth spikes around Roulet, then flooded the gaps with intersecting beams of light until the centre looked almost sealed.

For a moment it looked good. The crowd noise climbed, sensing a possible trap finish.

Roulet detonated everything.

Fire exploded outward from his body in a hard spherical burst and erased the spike ring in one pressured wave. Two light beams bent off course in the heat distortion.

Vale had to throw up an emergency earth slab just to stay on his feet. The slab held for less than a second before Roulet’s follow-up punch drove clean through it in a spear of compressed flame.

The hit landed solidly into Vale’s ribs.

Vale staggered. His next light shot went wide.

Roulet walked him down without urgency, fire gathering around both hands now more aggressively.

Vale raised another earth wall. Roulet kicked straight through it and sent a horizontal wave of flame after the broken pieces.

Vale blocked part of it with a light barrier, but the barrier fractured under the pressure and left his left arm hanging lower than before.

From the upper section, Kalon could see that the end was near.

Vale still had technique. He still had both affinities. What he no longer had was the battle IQ.

Every structure cost him more than it cost Roulet to destroy. Every light line bought him less space than the last one.

The Third Dragon was making all the right decisions, where Vale was not.

Vale made one last attempt.

He drove a pillar up under himself, launched high, and rained refined light spears down from above in a dense pattern meant to end the bout through accumulated puncture damage.

Several hits landed. Roulet’s upper body took marks across the chest and collarbone.

For the first time, the Ten Dragons fighter had to plant both feet and guard seriously.

It was not enough.

Roulet exploded upward through the spear net with a rising column of fire and caught Vale at the peak of his jump.

The impact folded the Atlas fighter mid-air and smashed him back down into the cage floor hard enough for the barrier lights to flare on contact.

Vale tried to rise. His earth affinity flickered weakly under one hand. Roulet stepped over him and drove a final controlled flame burst into his exposed torso.

The referee cut in immediately.

Match over.

The arena noise broke open in a roar.

Jacques Roulet stood over the fallen Atlas fighter with fire still bleeding off his arms in thin trails, scarred face calm under the lights.

Marcus Vale remained down long enough for the medical team to enter, conscious but clearly finished.

Kalon sat back in his seat as the crowd continued to lose its mind.

Both men were strong. Very strong, especially the dragon.

However, Kalon had to ask himself something.

Am I being egotistical for thinking I

could beat both of them at the same time?