Chapter 134: Tournament [2]

The arena was quiet for a moment.

"Winner: Adrian."

Isabella’s voice carried across the hall with the clean finality of a closing door.

Nicholas stood in the center of the ring for several seconds without moving. He looked at the blade near his throat, then at the floor. His knuckles had gone white around his sword hilt.

’I knew he was strong. I knew that going in. And I still let my guard down.’

The entire hall remained deathly quiet. Everyone present had just witnessed Nicholas, indisputably one of the strongest cadets of their generation, get completely outmaneuvered in seconds.

Leon shot up from his seat, his jaw hanging open. "What just happened?"

Roselle stared at Adrian as he casually sheathed his weapon. ’He defeated Nicholas that quickly?’ Her expression turned deadly serious. ’Just how strong had he become in a single week?’

Adrian lowered his sword and reached over, putting a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. "Don’t sweat it." The grin was easy and genuine. "We’ll go again sometime."

Nicholas gave him the look of someone who is exhausted by the fact that they like this person. "You’re very relaxed for someone who just beat me."

"Why wouldn’t I be?"

Before Nicholas could answer, Isabella’s voice came from above. "Nicholas, leave the arena. Adrian, remain where you are."

Adrian blinked. "Why?"

"You have another opponent."

He looked up at her with the expression of someone who has just been handed an unexpected bill. "I’m fighting twice?" A theatrical sigh. "Fine. I guess I can’t exactly argue with that."

Nicholas stepped off the arena floor and returned to the spectator area. Leon immediately grabbed his arm, still processing what he had just watched. Claire was frowning at the arena. Seris had her eyes on the field.

Up in the spectator section, Alarion’s gaze moved to the terrace where Alden had been standing.

Isabella raised her voice.

"Let us begin the final battle of the Tournament of Spire’s Ascension."

The remaining noise in the hall faded.

"The final battle will be between Adrian."

A pause.

"And Alden."

Claire looked up. "Alden?"

Roselle and Leon repeated it at the same moment. "Alden?!"

Down in the spectator section, Seris turned toward the voice. Her eyes moved to the arena floor, then upward, then swept toward the upper terrace.

’But where is he?’

A figure descended from the terrace.

Not from the floor level where the other cadets had come from. From above, the terrace. Down through the air with a posture that said arriving from the upper level was not an effort, just the current method of travel.

The silver-golden coat settled around him as he descended.

Leon saw the coat first and a massive grin broke across his face. "He finally showed up?!"

Roselle’s expression brightened. Even Claire’s stern look softened at its edges.

Seris didn’t move. Her crimson eyes tracked the descending figure and she said nothing and her chest did something she filed away to think about later.

Alden landed with his back to the audience, so he could not see the crowd behind him. He walked toward the center of the ring without turning, each step measured, his focus already on the arena ahead.

Then the four thrones shifted their attention.

The weight arrived instantly. That specific pressure, the ambient consequence of being looked at directly by four Supreme Lords simultaneously, the thing that had crushed him to one knee in the Grand Selection chamber a week ago.

His shoulders absorbed it.

Kept moving.

He didn’t slow. Didn’t strain. Didn’t show a single line of effort in his posture or his pace. The pressure was there and he was walking through it the way you walk through air.

Because a week of Ulvakor had made air feel like the light version of this.

Roselle frowned.

Her eyes went to Alden’s back, tracking something she couldn’t quite name.

"Wait," she said.

Leon looked at her. "What?"

"Do you feel that?" She kept her eyes on Alden. "Something coming from him."

Leon looked back at the arena floor. A moment passed. Then his expression changed. "You’re right. I feel it."

"It’s similar to what we feel from the Primordials."

Leon stared, his mouth slightly open.

Claire said nothing. Seris said nothing. Both of them were watching Alden walk across the arena floor with an attention that had its own particular quality.

What radiated from him wasn’t the crushing, oppressive weight of Primordial existence. It wasn’t intimidation and it wasn’t the force that had dropped everyone in the Grand Selection chamber to their knees. It was something more contained, more precise. A current moving just beneath the surface of him, dense and unbroken, like a shield that wasn’t pointed at anything specific but was simply there.

Advanced Rai, flowing steadily through him.

Not pressing outward. Pressing back.

Against the weight of four Supreme Lords looking at him.

Up on the balcony, Alarion watched.

"I see you did well."

Ulvakor immediately straightened and puffed out his chest. "Obviously. My training is excellent."

Alarion looked sideways at him. "Narcissism doesn’t suit the Windsky uniform."

Ulvakor ignored this completely and leaned over the railing to watch.

In the arena, Adrian had turned to face the approaching figure. His easy grin had faded into something more focused, the version of him that had appeared for one moment before the Nicholas fight and now came back fully.

"Nice to see you again, Alden."

Alden stopped a few meters away.

Adrian looked at him. At the posture, at the way the air around him was sitting differently than it had in the Grand Selection. At the coat and the expression and the thing underneath both that he could feel even from here.

"You feel completely different."

"So do you," Alden said. "I saw your fight with Nicholas. It was good."

"You flatter me." Adrian dropped into his stance, hand hovering near his hilt. The mischief came back into his expression because that was just what lived in him. "That said." The grin settled into something sharp. "I don’t plan on losing."

Alden’s eyes sharpened.

"Good," he said.

The air in the arena went tight.

Isabella raised one hand from the upper platform, her eyes moving between the two of them.

Adrian locked his posture. Alden’s Rai surged quiet and deep through his body.

Isabella’s hand swept down.

"Begin!"

CLAP.

The exact same instant the word cleared her mouth.

Adrian vanished.

Alden felt the displacement immediately, the disturbance in the air that signaled the movement, and his eyes tracked it before he could consciously decide to track it.

It was fast. Faster than the version of Adrian who had fought Nicholas.

A violent gust swept past Alden’s face from behind and a hand closed around the back of his neck, firm and controlled. Adrian had materialized directly behind him with his momentum already carrying through, his arm locking around Alden’s throat in a clean, practiced hold that had no openings in it.

He leaned in close.

"This match is over." The grin was audible in his voice.

"I won."