The moment the fighters swarmed between Danny and the Wolf King, the battlefield shook like a wounded beast trying to pull itself away from its own shadow. Dust and ash swirled across cracked stone. The air vibrated with overlapping battle cries, clashing steel, detonating spells, and the collapsing architecture of a dying arena. The twenty fighters who had thrown themselves into the narrow space between the two titans fought with a desperation bordering on insanity.
No one truly believed they could stop Danny and the Wolf King.
They were simply hoping to survive the moment.
Danny stood poised on the fractured earth, still and silent. Wolf King crouched low, claws carving glowing grooves into the ground, golden eyes burning with primal hunger. They were inches from closing the gap. Inches from igniting a battle that would have ripped the arena open like a paper lantern.
And then a panicked fighter lunged between them, swinging a hammer that vibrated with unstable runes.
Wolf King backhanded him so hard he teleported out in a flash of golden light.
Danny blinked.
The ground shook harder.
Ten more fighters threw themselves into the fray.
The arena's automated systems finally realized what was happening and erupted with mechanical terror.
Panels along the walls lit up red.
WARNING RUNE GRID UNSTABLE
STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY BELOW 55%
COMBAT TIER DETECTED: FORBIDDEN LEVEL
The hard-light partitions flickered into existence between Danny and Wolf King—only to immediately shatter from the pressure of their auras.
Jimmy shouted into his mic, "THE ARENA IS TRYING TO BREAK UP A GOD-TIER FISTFIGHT!"
Julian screamed back, "GOOD! IT DOESN'T WANT TO BE INCINERATED!"
Around the two titans, chaos ignited.
Swift crouched low behind a fallen barrier, silver energy flickering around him like mist. His draconic features—silver scales, sharp claws, glowing silver-white eyes—flickered brighter as adrenaline surged.
Beside him, Jake clung to the wall like a terrified bronze-scaled squirrel, electricity crackling across his arms. "Swift… they're… they're getting closer again…"
Swift growled under his breath. "Not if the arena has anything to say about it."
Jake whimpered, "The arena needs to stop having opinions!"
A dozen fighters rushed Swift and Jake, taking advantage of their momentary distraction.
Swift unleashed a frost burst so cold it crystalized debris in midair. He moved forward in a blur, claws freezing legs, arms, and weapons. His half-silver dragon form made him faster, colder, and far more dangerous.
Jake followed with electrified punches—wild, messy, but brutally effective. Every punch sent arcs of bronze lightning dancing across his foes.
Swift barked, "Jake—LEFT!"
Jake pivoted right.
Swift sighed loudly.
Three fighters were blasted backward anyway by Jake's panic-driven thunder strike.
Jake shouted, "I DON'T KNOW MY LEFT ANYMORE!"
Swift groaned, "You have scales on that side! USE THAT!"
Meanwhile, Jade Killington cracked his arms with twin CH-CHNK shotgun sounds, chi blasting off his forearms in spectacular ripples.
"Oi," he muttered, eyeing seven fighters who had formed a loose circle around him and Shadeclaw, "you lot got a death wish? Fine. Line up, yeah?"
Shadeclaw snarled, "We're surrounded, Jade."
Jade grinned. "Not for long."
The nearest fighter charged with a howl. Jade swung a chi-empowered hook into his ribs—the explosion sent him spiraling into the fog before teleporting out midair.
Shadeclaw slashed through two more with lethal precision, leaping between surfaces like a predatory blur.
A caster attempted to blast Jade with a fire beam—Jade stepped forward and slammed a chi-stomp into the ground. The explosion of air pressure sent the caster flying.
Shadeclaw ducked under a hammer swing and hissed, "You're reckless."
Jade shrugged. "You're fast. It all works out."
"Stop using me like a springboard."
"Stop being springy."
They eliminated the group in twenty seconds.
Across the arena, the malfunctioning builder bot skittered across the battlefield like a metallic spider on caffeine. Sparks erupted from its joints. Its welding arm twitched violently, slicing glowing arcs midair.
"ERROR! ERROR!" it screeched. "UNREPAIRED STRUCTURAL ANOMALY!"
It identified a fighter's helmet as "damaged infrastructure" and fired a welding beam at it. The fighter shrieked, staggered backward, and fell into a fissure—teleporting away just before lethal contact.
The bot then zipped toward Danny, welding arm raised in threat.
Jimmy screamed, "NO—DON'T TOUCH HIM—DON'T TOUCH—HE'LL BREAK YOU BY EXISTING!"
Danny looked down at the bot with the blank curiosity of someone seeing a housefly trying to punch a boulder.
The bot sparked violently, glitched, spun in a circle, and then sprinted away as if it had realized it had made a terrible mistake.
Shadeclaw pointed at the bot. "That thing must die."
Jade pointed at the bot. "I'm stealing it."
The bot zipped off shrieking binary nonsense.
Above the battlefield, the mysterious waffle flickered back into existence—glowing brighter, floating overhead like an ascending pastry deity. The runes across its surface spun faster than ever.
Jake saw it and screamed, "WHY IS IT FLOATING HIGHER NOW?!"
Swift refused to look at it. "No. Not today. Not dealing with that."
The waffle emitted a whommmmmp sound and sent a tiny golden beam at the builder bot.
The bot lit up brighter.
Julian screeched, "WHY DID IT POWER UP THE BOT?!"
Jimmy yelled, "THE WAFFLE LOVES CHAOS!"
The waffle vanished again.
At the center of the battlefield, Wolf King threw three fighters aside with a roar that cracked stone. Every muscle in his body tensed as he prepared to leap toward Danny again.
Danny, calm as ever, stepped forward.
One step.
The air buckled.
The ground cratered.
The surrounding fighters fell backward from the shift in pressure.
Wolf King grinned wildly. "COME!"
Danny raised his chin slightly.
But the arena wouldn't allow it.
A deep grinding noise echoed across the field.
Then another.
Then—
BOOOOM.
A massive slab of earth surged up between them, shoving Danny and Wolf King apart. Lava gushed from cracks in the ground. Hard-light walls erupted, glitching and flickering, then reinforcing themselves with emergency energy.
Gravity lurched sideways.
Debris floated upward.
Two fighters were flung into orbit-level altitude before teleporting away.
A hard-light pillar shot skyward, nearly decapitating a fleeing warrior.
Wolf King roared with rage, claws tearing through stone. "DO NOT INTERFERE!"
Danny blinked once, seemingly evaluating whether the new barrier was worth stepping over.
A quake tore through the ground. A nearby platform collapsed. Fighters screamed. Swift and Jake were launched sideways. Jade and Shadeclaw dug their heels in to stay upright.
The arena was fighting for its life.
It could not let the two titans fight yet.
With an agonizing groan, the ground widened the chasm between Danny and Wolf King, pulling them further apart.
Wolf King snarled, grinding his claws into the earth. Danny tilted his head, unbothered.
Jimmy slammed his desk. "THE ARENA HAD TO BREAK THE FLOOR JUST TO STOP THEM!"
Julian cried, "GOOD! GOOD! LET IT BREAK EVERYTHING! I WANT TO LIVE!"
The dust slowly settled.
Danny and Wolf King stood on opposite ends of a newly formed ravine, separated by:
hard-light barriers
falling rubble
malfunctioning runes
lava vents
and the single most overstressed arena in tournament history
Their fight would happen.
But not here.
Not now.
The arena had won this round—
but only barely.
Fighters Remaining: 335 / 500