The fall into the lower arena felt like being swallowed by a titan. Stone, dust, and fractured platforms tumbled around the surviving fighters as the upper battlefield collapsed in jagged chunks. Magical residue flickered through the air like sparks from a dying star. Runes that once illuminated the main arena sputtered and dimmed, casting chaotic shadows that danced across the cavernous space below.
And then the survivors hit the ground.
Some rolled across unstable stone, others landed on half-floating platforms, and a few crashed through brittle mana crusts and barely pulled themselves back up. The subterranean chamber was enormous—easily the size of the primary battlefield—but far darker, older, and pulsing with unpredictable energy. The ceiling above them was a jagged maw of broken stone and glowing veins. Blue mana rivers pulsed through the floor like arteries in a living creature.
Swift coughed, ice forming in his breath. "Jake… you okay?"
Jake wobbled on his feet, bronze scales sparking. "I think I dented my… everything."
Swift sighed. "Then we're fine."
All around them, fighters staggered upright. Ember Claw shook flames off her arms with a hiss. Tundra Lynx landed in a crouch, frost spreading beneath him. Jade Killington spun once, cracking his arms CH-CHNK like loading shotguns of chi. Shadeclaw rose to his full height with a low growl, eyes glowing in the dark. Sedge Hat surfed down a slanted platform on a piece of scrap metal, cackling.
And then came the warped, glitch-filled WHRRRR of the malfunctioning builder bot as it plummeted from the upper battlefield—screaming in binary terror—and smashed face-first into the stone.
"ERR0R! ERR0R!" it shrieked, wobbling as it tried to right itself. "UNSTABLE MAN-A VEIN DETECTED! INIT—I—FAULT—FAULT—FAULT."
Sedge clapped. "Love that little menace."
The bot sparked and shot a random welding beam into a mana vein.
The ground rumbled.
Blue light erupted from the crack like a geyser.
Jake screamed. "WHY DID YOU PRAISE IT?! IT HEARD YOU!"
Swift snapped, "Stop complimenting the destructo-cannon!"
The subterranean gauntlet had officially begun.
—
The battlefield shifted in real time.
Massive mana veins pulsated underfoot. Floating platforms drifted in uneven orbits. Hard-light remnants blinked in random intervals. Gravity warped—sometimes making debris rise, sometimes slamming everything downward with crushing force.
A few fighters attempted to regroup.
It didn't work.
Three shadow tendrils shot from a dark alcove, grabbing one fighter by the leg and yanking him into the dark. His scream was cut short by teleportation light.
Another fighter leapt onto a floating stone only for it to tilt violently, sending him careening into a mana burst that hurled him skyward—straight into a teleportation flash.
The subterranean arena had no mercy.
Nearly thirty fighters remained here—each one desperate, brutal, and skilled. But they had never fought in a battlefield like this.
And now the strongest among them began to unleash hell.
—
Swift inhaled deeply.
His Half-Silver Dragon power flared.
A spectral wing outline shone behind him—ghostly, beautiful, unstable.
"Jake," Swift muttered, "don't move unless I say."
Jake replied with a shaky nod. "I'm trying… but my scales itch… and I think something's vibrating… inside my pancreas…"
Swift didn't dignify that with a response.
A squad of aerial fighters swooped down from a floating platform, blades drawn. One hurled a chain of arcane sickles at Swift's throat.
Swift snapped his fingers.
A wall of solid ice erupted from the floor, blocking all three sickles.
The aerial fighters circled—until Jake fired a bolt of bronze lightning straight upward like a panicked flare. One was hit in the face, spinning out of control, screaming as he teleported away involuntarily.
The other two dove.
Swift slid under their blades, swept his clawed hand across the ground, and froze their feet mid-flight. Momentum took over. They face-planted hard and teleported out instantly.
Jake blinked. "We're… good at this?"
Swift rolled forward, grabbing Jake by the collar again as a collapsing platform smashed into the floor where Jake had been standing.
Swift muttered, "We're alive. That's enough."
—
Across the chamber, Jade Killington and Shadeclaw faced a different threat entirely.
They stood atop a dimensional fault line where pure mana surged upward in glowing pulses. Every pulse made their abilities fluctuate.
Jade's chi blasts doubled in explosive power.
Shadeclaw's claws glowed with crackling blue-white light.
A trio of rune monks approached, each one wrapped in protective glyphs.
Jade grinned. "Oi! You lads ready to lose your teeth again?"
Shadeclaw grumbled, "Must everything be a joke to you?"
Jade answered by blasting a chi-boom uppercut into the lead monk, launching him twenty feet into a hard-light spike that flickered into existence—just long enough for the monk to hit it—and teleport away.
Shadeclaw leapt forward, claws slicing through a monk's shield like butter. His claws hummed with mana-enhancement, carving glowing trails through the air. He slammed the monk into the ground so hard he teleported out without even trying to get up.
The final monk attempted a spinning kick infused with runic energy.
Shadeclaw dodged.
Jade punched the monk in the face.
BAH-CHOOOM!
The monk vanished instantly.
Shadeclaw turned to Jade, eyes narrowing. "Your chi is too strong. It's dangerous."
Jade shrugged. "Your claws are glowing like a rave. We adapt."
—
Sedge Hat, meanwhile, was in his element.
The shifting platforms?
Perfect for trap chain reactions.
The mana pulses?
Perfect for explosive amplification.
The builder bot?
Well… perfect for accidental chaos.
Sedge placed a series of traps that were immediately destabilized by mana feedback. Instead of precise timing, they launched into a chaotic chain:
A gravity-flip tile launched a fighter upward
Onto a floating mine
Which bounced him onto a collapsing platform
Which dumped him into a mana geyser
That launched him into the ceiling
Triggering teleportation before he became ceiling jam
Sedge clapped. "Art."
Shadeclaw yelled across the chamber, "STOP CALLING THIS ART!"
Sedge grinned, "IT IS—look how the colors explode!"
Even the malfunctioning builder bot got involved:
"BEGIN—RE—PAIR—SEQUENCE—"
It welded a rock.
The rock exploded.
Sedge nodded proudly. "Yes. Natural talent."
The bot shot a welding beam that melted a levitation crystal, collapsing an entire floating platform.
Two fighters screamed as they plummeted—teleporting away instantly.
—
Ember Claw and Tundra Lynx moved like a synchronized dual-element storm.
Ember Claw ignited a mana vein, turning it into a fire-flood that roared across the floor.
Tundra Lynx froze the ceiling above another group, causing icicles the size of trees to fall.
Together, they trapped a group of rival elementalists in a steam-chamber.
The survivors stumbled out… only to be eliminated by Giga-Ronin.
Because Giga-Ronin had arrived.
—
Giga-Ronin absorbed EVERYTHING.
Mana pulses
Falling debris
Ember Claw's fire
Tundra Lynx's ice
Shadow tendrils
Sedge Hat's stray detonators
The builder bot's welding beams
His body glowed with swirling circuit patterns across his torso.
He stepped forward.
The floor shook.
Four fighters attempted to ambush him.
He didn't even look.
His pulse burst eliminated all four in a wave that left a crater.
Swift whispered, "He's more dangerous than Danny in close quarters."
Jake whimpered, "We should hide."
"Agreed."
—
But then—
The hum started.
A deep, resonant, magical hum vibrating through the chamber.
The waffle appeared, floating upside-down, glowing gold and blue.
Runes spiraled around it.
Its surface pulsed with mana.
Jake screamed. "OH NO. NO NO NO—IT FOLLOWED US DOWN HERE."
Swift shielded his eyes. "It's feeding off the mana…"
Mira-the-Silent stared at it from the shadows. "It's… alive."
The waffle vibrated.
One rune flared bright.
A tendril of mana touched it.
And suddenly—
The waffle dropped straight into a mana fissure.
Vanishing.
The fissure sealed behind it.
For one second, the chamber was dead silent.
Then—
THOOOM.
The mana veins beneath the fighters pulsed.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Then violently.
Jade's eyes widened. "That ain't normal."
Shadeclaw snarled. "Something's waking up."
The arena rumbled as if a giant heartbeat reverberated beneath them.
The chapter ended with the entire subterranean battlefield vibrating underfoot.
Fighters Remaining: 260 / 500