Chapter 156: Warm up [2]

"Today marks our official mobilization against the vampire forces. Our Spires will soon depart to hold every line. But before they march it is only right that the people see exactly what stands in front of them!"

The colosseum erupted.

Darius let it roll for a moment before raising one hand. "Witness the strength of your defenders! Know that our realm does not bow and it does not break!"

He turned toward the massive iron gates at the eastern entrance.

"First. Isabella Ashford!"

The gates swung open with a long heavy groan and Isabella walked out onto the sand. White Spire coat. Dark crimson sash across her chest. Every step precise and unhurried.

The crowd lost its mind.

Isabella raised one gloved hand casually.

BOOOOOOM.

The arena floor buckled. Colossal emerald vines erupted from the ground in every direction like something enormous had been sleeping under the sand and had just decided to wake up. The mana density coming off her was enough that several people in the lower gallery seats grabbed the stone rail in front of them instinctively.

"Next! Arvendis!"

He glided out waving to the noble box with a brilliant easy smile like he was arriving at a party.

"Luna!"

The violet-haired Spire stepped into the light and the glow in her pink eyes was immediately visible even from the high seats.

"Theodore!"

He came out already drawing his broadsword and released a burst of crimson aura that scorched the air around him in a visible heat wave.

The crowd was at absolute maximum volume.

Then Darius let it peak and when he spoke again his tone had shifted into something warmer.

"And our newest Spire. Leon Evercrest!"

Leon walked through the gate and froze for exactly one second when the full scale of the roar hit him. Then he raised his hand in a slightly stiff wave. "Uh. Hello!"

His voice didn’t make it five feet before the crowd swallowed it.

He looked up at the endless sea of faces and the stiff wave slowly dropped and the real smile came through. The wide genuine one. A few weeks ago he was a cadet trying to keep up. Right now he was one of eleven people standing in front of humanity.

Darius raised his hand one more time.

"And joining our Spires today. One final combatant."

In the tunnel entrance Alden had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. His eyebrow twitched.

’...Wait.’

Darius looked directly down toward him. "Alden. The new Commander of the Western Front reinforcement division!"

Alden’s jaw dropped two centimeters before he caught it.

’Since when did I become a fucking commander?!’

He looked at Darius. Darius was looking down at him with the most satisfied self-congratulatory smirk he had ever seen on a human face.

’You absolute manipulative old man.’ Alden glared at the figure who had just forced him into the commander role. He had no choice now. He could only step forward into the announcement.

The crowd was already responding to the announcement with a fresh wave of noise.

Alden stared at the Headmaster for another second.

’There was no point fighting this in front of the entire kingdom.’ He straightened his coat and walked out onto the arena floor.

As the colosseum light hit him and he scanned the full scale of what he was standing inside something clicked in his head. Not about himself, but about what Darius was actually doing.

This isn’t just showing off military strength. This is psychological warfare against his own side.

War was close and fear was spreading through both kingdoms faster than any military dispatch could counter. People were scared in the specific helpless way that comes when the threat is too large to see clearly. By parading the strongest fighters in existence and letting them release their actual power in front of a hundred thousand witnesses Darius was replacing that blind fear with something they could anchor to.

If they can see monsters standing on our side they won’t break when the march begins.

’Smart old bastard.’

’In that case, I’ll need to put on a show to boost their confidence.’

He reached into his soul system and opened the interface.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SOUL EVOLUTION

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Forged Blade: Dragon’s Soul

Name: The Living Gazer

Elements: Breath / Electricity / Strength

Rank: S

Equip The Living Gazer?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He selected yes.

The dark crimson blade materialized in his hand and the living smoke curled around his arm and every single eye embedded in the metal began moving simultaneously. Twitching, blinking, rolling in different directions. Several of them found the crowd and stayed there.

Before he could do anything else Isabella made her move.

BOOM.

The ground split open in every direction. Thousands of vines tore up from below the sand all at once and they were thick and thorned and fast and they wove into each other building a dense vertical labyrinth across the entire arena floor in about four seconds. The mana coming off them was heavy enough that the air pressure changed.

"Here it comes!" Theodore barked.

He drew his broadsword and the crimson aura that came off the steel was blinding at close range. He stepped into the wave and swung.

SLASH.

Fifty vines in one arc. He spun left and hit again and then right and the crimson energy carved through the wood in massive shredding sweeps leaving splinters hanging in the air behind him.

"You’re still an absolute monster Isabella!" He was laughing while he said it.

Isabella was standing in the middle of all of it perfectly composed. "Complaining Theodore?"

"Who’s complaining?!"

Luna moved through the chaos like she had no interest in touching any of it. Her twin radiant threads were already out and spinning.

She swung one arm and sent an anchor tearing through the air and the burning golden thread it dragged behind it incinerated a massive cluster of roots into nothing. She flicked her wrist back without looking and the anchor redirected mid-flight to intercept a vine that was about three inches from her neck.

"You haven’t been the only one grinding Isabella~" she said in the most cheerful tone imaginable.