Valdred advanced without warning.
He didn't run.
He crossed the field like a red missile.
Jay barely had time to raise his shield.
KOOOOOOOOM!
The impact was so absurd that Jay slid almost five meters backward, his boots carving deep furrows in the sand. The shield's core absorbed enough energy to glow like a living furnace.
Marcus saw the opening.
"Now!"
He surged forward so fast he became a blue streak.
Three strikes.
Fast.
Violent.
With real intent to kill.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Valdred, without even looking, blocked all three with the shaft of his axe.
"Impressive speed. But still weak."
Marcus snarled and attacked again, aiming behind the giant's knee.
The strike landed.
Valdred dropped to one knee.
"That's it!" Emanueru shouted, a spark of hope flaring.
Valdred looked at Marcus. Blood ran down his leg.
And he smiled.
"I think… I like you."
The punch came like a meteor.
It smashed into Marcus's stomach.
The warrior folded in midair and was launched like a ragdoll, rolling until he stopped, gasping, coughing blood into the sand.
"M-Marcus!" Emanueru cried.
Jay rushed to him, planting himself in front with the shield raised.
Valdred advanced toward them, each step a small earthquake.
"You're durable. But you still haven't awakened true Wrath."
He raised the axe for a blow that would split the ground.
Jay leapt forward, bracing the shield.
KRAAAAAAAM!
The shield absorbed it.
And absorbed it.
And absorbed it.
The core glowed so brightly it trembled. The Guardian's Ring hardened Jay's skin at the exact instant, saving his life.
The world spun for a second…
But he didn't fall.
Valdred arched an eyebrow.
"Oh? A wall that doesn't fall? Interesting."
Jay activated the spikes.
TCHAK!
He lunged in a short charge, slamming into Valdred's abdomen.
The giant staggered a single step backward.
The entire arena fell silent.
Jay's arm trembled.
His body screamed for rest.
Even so, he smiled.
"I'm… still standing."
Valdred laughed, ecstatic.
"You're my favorite now!"
Emanueru knelt beside Marcus.
"Hold on… hold on…"
His mana was at the limit, his status display flashing a frantic red warning. The pressure saturating the air shoved emotions so intense that Emanueru's heart felt like it might combust.
He gripped the grimoire with trembling hands, but the pages remained still. There was no familiar glow of runes, no sound of paper flipping in search of a spell. For the first time, the book in his hands felt like a dead object.
"Please… just a little more…"
Emanueru closed his eyes, ignoring the Insufficient Mana alerts floating in his vision. He didn't seek power in the book; he reached into the void.
"Lux… Anima…"
In the next instant, the sound of the battlefield vanished.
It wasn't a glow.
It was a rupture.
A thread of pure white light tore through the fabric of reality as it burst from Emanueru's palm. It passed over the closed grimoire and plunged into Marcus's chest.
The light gave off no heat; it was a vacuum that sucked warmth from the surrounding air.
Unlike any healing magic, there were no particles of light, no visible regeneration. Time around the wound seemed to falter. The drops of blood staining the grass and Marcus's armor leapt back into the gash, like a film running in reverse, before the flesh sealed without leaving even a scar.
Where there had been a fatal hole, there was now only intact skin—as if the enemy blade had never existed.
Emanueru's console crackled.
A sharp, static hiss—like a radio out of tune—echoed directly inside his skull, drowning out the surrounding shouts. Where the spell record should have appeared, there were only corrupted characters and empty gaps.
The System wasn't ignoring the magic.
It was incapable of processing an action with no computable origin.
Emanueru tried to close his hand—and took a second to remember how.
Marcus choked, arching his back. He didn't gasp like someone healed, but like someone dragged back from the other side of a veil, his eyes lost in a terrifying déjà vu.
"I'm alive?"
"You never died," Emanueru said, smiling before collapsing beside him. "But it was close."
Marcus rose slowly. The wound didn't look healed… it looked as if it had been rewound.
"Jay… I'm coming!"
Valdred stopped playing.
The three runes on his chest ignited at once.
The air grew heavy.
The temperature rose.
The arena's wooden structures began to burn.
"Enough warming up."
He slammed the axe into the ground.
BOOOOOOOOM!
A red shockwave exploded in every direction.
Jay held behind the shield.
Marcus planted his sword into the ground to keep from being thrown.
Emanueru was hurled against the wall while shielding the unconscious Sienna.
When the dust settled…
Valdred was different.
Darker.
The axe pulsed like a living heart.
"Now… you will face pure Wrath."
He advanced again, this time aiming for Emanueru.
Jay intercepted.
KRAAAM!
The core nearly burst under the accumulated energy.
"Marcus! Now it's you! Go!" Jay shouted.
Rejuvenated by Emanueru's miracle, Marcus charged like lightning.
Sunbreaker Rael blazed, solar energy colliding with the red aura of Wrath.
He cut the arm.
Cut the thigh.
Cut the ribs.
It was like watching a yellow tornado clash with a living volcano.
Valdred roared, finally irritated.
"ENOUGH!"
The axe shaft smashed into Marcus, hurling him away again.
But now Valdred was bleeding.
A lot.
Jay's shield pulsed like a caged beast.
The core was completely saturated.
He knew.
It was now.
Or they would all die.
"Emanueru! Cover Marcus!"
Jay ran.
"You again?!" Valdred roared.
Jay raised the shield.
The pistons expanded.
The spikes snapped out.
Valdred brought the axe down in a killing blow.
And Jay…
Accelerated into the impact.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
All the accumulated energy was released at once.
A frontal kinetic beam tore through the arena, blasting Valdred backward, destroying the giant's chest, extinguishing two runes, and shattering part of the surrounding structure.
Valdred turned his head, ignoring Jay.
His red eyes locked onto Emanueru.
"You…"
"That power…"
He smiled, even while bleeding.
"That didn't come from within… it came from outside."
Strength left his legs.
"And nothing that comes from outside…"
"…ends well…"
He fell forward, raising a cloud of dust.
The system's voice echoed in their minds:
FRAGMENT ACQUIRED — (6/7)
Jay dropped to a seated position, wrecked… but smiling.
Marcus crawled over to him.
Emanueru fell onto his back, exhausted, laughing weakly.
Behind them, Sienna remained unconscious.
Jay looked at her.
"Sienna's going to lose her mind when she finds out she missed the most epic fight ever…"
Marcus laughed.
"She'll want to rewind time just to curse the boss."
"And say you only won because you were trying to impress the blacksmith," Emanueru added.
Jay turned red instantly.
"Don't start."
Their laughter echoed faintly through the ruined arena.
But Emanueru didn't laugh.
Lying on his back, staring at the red sky, his body too heavy to move, he felt that exhaustion wasn't what kept him still.
Valdred's words still echoed in his mind.
It came from outside.
The system had registered the victory.
The Fragment was there.
Everything had worked as it should.
Except him.
Emanueru slowly raised the hand before his eyes—the same one the light had emerged from.
Nothing happened.
No runes.
No alerts.
No response.
Still, a shiver ran up his arm.
The system hadn't recognized that magic.
As if… it simply didn't know it existed.
When he looked around, the arena was celebrating.
But to them, the sound felt distant.
Dust still hung in the air when the upper gate burst inward.
Ethan and Elenya sprinted down the stairs.
"JAY! MARCUS! EMANUERU!"
When they saw the three collapsed, exhausted… and Sienna unconscious…
Jay raised a trembling hand.
"That… that was just the warm-up."
Ethan let out a sobbing breath of relief.
Elenya almost smiled.
They rushed to the group.
"Emanueru?" Ethan called. "Are you okay?"
He blinked, forcing a tired smile.
"I am…" he replied. "I think so."
But inside, the doubt wouldn't let go.
He didn't remember learning that spell.
Or creating it.
He only remembered asking.
And something… answering.
Emanueru closed his eyes.
The arena still vibrated with victory.
The Sin of Wrath had fallen.
The Fragment had been claimed.
But for the first time since waking in Elysium…
He felt the strange sensation
that something, somewhere,
had responded to his desire.
They went to check on the others.
Marcus breathed heavily, sitting on the ground.
Jay dropped the shield and fell onto his back, staring at the arena's red sky.
"Jay… that was insane," Ethan said, trying to catch his breath.
Jay gave a short, weak laugh.
"Thanks…" he murmured, closing his eyes. "But I never want to do that again in my life."
Elenya knelt beside Sienna, lightly touching her forehead.
"Mana nearly zero. But she'll be fine."
She sighed, a tired smile appearing.
"Of course Sienna passes out during the most incredible fight I've ever seen."
Marcus chuckled softly, spitting a bit of blood before shifting for comfort.
"She's going to want to rewind time when she finds out."
The group stayed there, resting for a few moments.
The arena still echoed with distant cheers, but for them, the world seemed to have slowed.
Exhausted.
Wounded.
Standing.
They knew it.
They had survived something that should have broken them.