Only fifteen contestants remained...
Fifteen people were still standing within the battlefield, and yet only five victories separated them from a place in the Academy.
Out of those fifteen...
Only ten would make it.
Only ten would advance to the next stage.
For the remaining five, their hopes of entering the Academy would end here.
And so, the nature of the battle had changed.
No one was fighting merely to prove their strength anymore.
They were fighting to survive.
Every contestant watched the others with heightened vigilance, carefully searching for the slightest opening, waiting for the perfect moment to strike while avoiding becoming someone else's target.
And amid that tense atmosphere...
Five contestants gathered around Aren.
Three of them were at the upper level of the First Circle, while the other two had reached the lower level of the Second Circle.
Five against one.
The outcome they expected hardly required any imagination.
They surrounded Aren from several directions, cutting off most of his escape routes and leaving him with nowhere safe to retreat.
They resembled a pack of hungry wolves closing in around a lone sheep that had wandered too far from the herd.
One of the five stared at Aren with open contempt before a mocking smile spread across his face.
"What's wrong? Hiding from the very beginning?"
His voice carried enough disdain to make the surrounding contestants glance in their direction.
"Are you afraid of fighting? You've done nothing but run away since this battle started."
Silence descended for a brief moment.
Aren was supposed to become angry.
He was supposed to shout.
He was supposed to prove himself in front of everyone.
But Aren did none of those things.
His expression did not even change.
He merely looked at the boy with calm, almost indifferent eyes.
Then he answered quietly,
"I don't need to prove anything to you."
Silence once again.
For a moment, the boy simply stared at him.
Then—
"Hah... Hahahaha!"
He burst into laughter.
His laughter echoed across the battlefield as though Aren's response were the funniest thing he had heard all day.
Yet halfway through his laughter, he suddenly stopped.
He wiped the corner of his mouth and sneered.
"Hah... Seems like there's nothing left for us to say to each other."
He raised one hand.
Mana erupted around his body.
"Then..."
His smile widened.
"Let's begin."
The spell shot toward Aren.
At that instant, Aren's eyes narrowed slightly.
He recognized the spell immediately.
A Second Circle spell.
Aren moved without hesitation, twisting his body and attempting to evade the incoming attack.
But—
The instant he moved, another attack tore through the air from behind him.
A high First Circle spell.
Boom!
The spell struck him squarely from the rear, sending his body stumbling forward.
Aren gritted his teeth as he struggled to regain his balance.
And in that instant, he finally acknowledged the truth he had been trying to ignore.
His previous strategy...
would not work here.
He could outmaneuver a single opponent.
He could patiently exhaust one enemy, force them into making a mistake, and seize the opening.
But five?
Five opponents moving simultaneously, covering one another's weaknesses and attacking from different angles?
This was no longer a matter of skill alone.
Aren steadied himself, his gaze flickering between the five opponents surrounding him.
Above the arena, Leo watched the entire scene in silence.
His eyes remained calm.
He observed Aren's movements.
The distances between the five opponents.
The way Aren shifted his weight.
The way he searched for even the smallest gap within their encirclement.
Then Leo thought to himself,
He won't be able to overcome this predicament...
He paused for a moment.
Not unless he uses overwhelming power.
At almost the exact same time, Aren seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion.
He had no perfect plan.
He wasn't even certain that the idea forming in his mind would work.
But one thing had become clear.
His options were rapidly disappearing.
Either he would gamble everything...
or lose everything.
Aren closed his eyes for a brief moment.
He drew in a deep breath.
Gathered his scattered thoughts.
And firmly planted his feet against the ground.
If I succeed... then this is my fate.
His fingers tightened slightly.
And if I fail...
He opened his eyes.
Then it simply means I wasn't strong enough.
Aren straightened himself once more.
But his body was far from its best condition.
His legs trembled faintly beneath him, and his breathing had grown heavier. Every movement carried the weight of exhaustion.
Yet he did not retreat.
One of the five noticed his condition, and a broad grin appeared across his face.
"Oh? You still want to stand?"
He stepped forward slightly, amusement evident in his eyes.
"How about this? Bow your head to me and call me 'Master.' If you do that, I might even consider going easy on you."
Aren raised his eyes toward him.
His expression remained completely unchanged.
"In your dreams."
The boy's smile vanished for a moment.
Aren, meanwhile...
began forming a spell.
But this was no ordinary spell.
The flow of mana around his body gradually changed.
The air itself seemed to grow heavier as intricate magical circles began forming around him, each one more complex than the simple spells he had used earlier.
The five contestants immediately sensed the change.
Aren knew the truth.
Defeating them one by one was practically impossible now.
Every time he targeted one of them, the others would interfere.
Every time he tried to escape, another would block his path.
They had turned their numbers into a weapon.
And because of that...
Aren had only one option left.
I have to take them all down at once.
His gaze hardened.
I'll put everything into this attack.
The moment the five realized what he was attempting, their expressions changed.
A strange sense of danger crawled over them.
Something within their instincts screamed at them that they could not allow him to finish whatever spell he was preparing.
They exchanged hurried glances.
Then one of them shouted,
"Don't let him finish!"
All five moved simultaneously.
Mana surged.
Different spells began to take shape.
Attacks were launched from multiple directions, converging upon Aren at once.
But...
They were too late.
Aren raised one hand.
The mana around him erupted violently.
The air trembled.
The magical circles surrounding him shone with overwhelming intensity.
Then—
a force far beyond anything the five had anticipated erupted from his body.
"Third Circle Magic..."
Several breaths abruptly stopped.
Countless eyes widened.
The five contestants froze for the briefest fraction of a second.
Then Aren spoke the name of his spell.
"Storm Severer!"
The next instant—
the storm exploded.
A medium-range attack.
But within that moderate range was an astonishing concentration of power.
The spell tore across the battlefield with frightening speed, carrying a force that seemed completely disproportionate to its size.
The five had no time to evade.
BOOOOOOM!
The attack engulfed all five of them at once.
The ground shook.
Dust erupted into the air.
The surrounding atmosphere twisted violently as remnants of mana scattered throughout the arena.
For several moments, no one could see clearly through the cloud of dust.
Then...
one figure fell.
Then another.
And another.
Until all five contestants lay motionless upon the battlefield.
Unconscious.
Before one of them completely lost consciousness, however, he stared at Aren with eyes stretched wide in disbelief.
His expression seemed to reject what his mind was desperately trying to comprehend.
His lips trembled.
"I-Impossible... How could you cast something like this...?"
His eyes rolled back.
And he collapsed.
...
Silence.
Absolute silence.
The battlefield, which only moments ago had been filled with explosions, shouting, and the clash of magic, suddenly became eerily still.
It was as though time itself had stopped.
The audience said nothing.
The judge said nothing.
No one moved.
The shock had rendered everyone speechless.
What had just happened had completely surpassed every expectation they had of Aren.
The very same Aren who had spent most of the battle retreating and defending...
had been hiding a trump card powerful enough to overturn the entire battlefield in a single instant.
At last, the judge broke the silence.
His voice echoed across the arena as he announced the shocking emergence of a contestant who had reached the Third Circle before reaching adulthood:
"...The fortieth person to reach the Third Circle before adulthood!"
The instant his words reached the audience—
the stands erupted.
Cheers thundered across the arena.
The silence that had gripped everyone moments earlier was completely shattered as countless voices rose together, filling the battlefield with a deafening roar.
As for the result of the battle...
There was no ambiguity.
With the defeat of those five contestants, the number of participants had fallen from fifteen to exactly ten.
The ten who would advance to the next stage.
The judge raised his hand.
Then, in a clear and authoritative voice, he announced,
"With this... the Royal Battle is over!"
But Aren barely heard him.
All he could hear were the cheers surrounding him.
His body had already reached its limit.
He tried to move his feet...
But his legs refused to respond the way he wanted.
His knees trembled beneath him, and for a moment, it seemed as though his own body might betray him.
Perhaps it was the tremendous amount of mana he had consumed.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion that had accumulated throughout the battle.
Or perhaps it was both.
Yet despite everything...
Aren smiled.
It was a genuine smile.
The smile of someone who had finally accomplished what he had set out to do, despite everything that had stood in his way.
He had won.
Above the arena, Leo continued watching him.
A faint smile of satisfaction appeared upon his face.
Then, in a quiet voice, he said,
"That was a battle worth watching."