CHAPTER ~22 WHEN FIRE LEARNED FEAR
Iris moved again.
Not back.
Up.
The frozen arena shattered as spears of ice tore skyward, spiraling, multiplying, blotting out the light above.
The temperature plunged so hard the crowd’s breath failed all at once.
Elena inhaled.
Slow.
Deliberate.
The flames around her compressed not larger, not louder denser. Heat folded inward until the air screamed in protest.
Iris thrust both hands forward.
“Shatter.”
The spears fell.
Elena stepped once.
The ground vitrified beneath her foot.
A single line of white fire carved upward, splitting the storm in half.
Ice didn’t melt. It ceased
reduced to steam and screaming pressure that slammed into the barrier like a tidal wave.
Iris laughed, blood on her lip, and snapped her fingers.
The steam froze.
Instantly.
The arena vanished inside a crystal coffin, ice locking Elena in place from every direction.
For the first time, the crowd thought
She’s caught her.
Elena’s eyes narrowed.
“No.”
The coffin glowed.
Then collapsed inward.
Flames erupted without color, without flicker pure thermal force. The ice imploded, shrapnel vaporizing before it could exist.
Elena crossed the distance in a heartbeat.
Her palm struck Iris’s chest.
Not hard.
Precise.
The impact detonated heat straight through her core. Iris was hurled backward, skidding until she hit the barrier and slid down,
steam rising from her coat.
She didn’t stand again.
Silence fell.
Headmistress Eldra raised her hand.
“Winner,” she said flatly.
“Elena von Hestia.”
I exhaled.
The steam cleared, leaving the arena floor a scarred, glassy ruin. Iris was being helped away,
still smiling through the blood, looking like she’d just had the time of her life. Elena walked back to the VIP section.
Headmistress Eldra’s tail finally stilled. She looked at the wreckage of the floor, then at the ledger in the assistant's hand.
"The sand is mess," her voice carrying a terrifying rasp of amusement. "Clean it. We have a different kind of curiosity next."
Runes beneath the floor flared, and the glass shattered, dissolving back into fine sand in a matter of seconds.
"Match 2," Eldra announced. Her eyes flicked toward me not with the boredom she showed the others, but with a sharp,
hungry curiosity.
"Aria Asteron vs. Louis Casper."
The crowd, which had been cheering for the disaster, went silent. It was a different kind of quiet. Not respect. Judgment.
Louis," Lucen said, his voice low. "Remember. She fights clean. That means she'll expect you to fight dirty. Don't disappoint her."
I stepped onto the sand.
Aria was waiting. Her maroon eyes were darker now, reflecting the sunlight. She didn't look at the crowd.
She looked directly to my soul
She held her spear in a low, neutral guard—the most dangerous stance because it has no "predictable" opening.
"The Headmistress is watching, Louis," Aria said, her voice like a sharpening blade. "Try not to make this boring for her."
"Trust me this will be lot of fun" i replayed
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[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
TRIAL OF LUCK: ACTIVATED
Objective: Beat or Draw a Higher Rank Elite.
Current Luck: -11.7
Because this is a Luck-based quest, your negative luck will not influence the physics of the match.
Note: This doesn't mean you’ll be lucky. It just means the ceiling won't fall on your head. You still have the stats of a wet napkin
________________________________________________
Thats great
The moment headmistress raised her hand
i felt her mana erupting
Her hand down
aria shot herslef at me that exact time i used my enhanced sense
_____________________________________________
[SYSTEM MESSAGE] Sense — Enhanced Reaction Window: ACTIVATED (1/2) Remaining Uses: 1
_____________________________________________
In that +0.4 second the "Shit of the Academy" saw what no one else could.
I saw the way the air shimmered around her fists.
I saw the heat-haze distorting her maroon eyes. She wasn't holding back; she was coming in with a high-speed strike meant to end the fight before my brain could even register her movement
But I was already moving.
As she closed the distance, I tilted my body at an angle that looked like a stumble to the crowd.
But in the stretched time of my Sense, I was perfectly calculating the trajectory. I drew my sword, not to slash, but to use the flat of the blade as a shield for the initial heat wave.
CLANG!
Her fist hit the steel, and the force nearly shattered my wrist. The heat was instantaneous,
For the next two minutes, it was a fire dance.
Aria moved like a wildfire unpredictable, jagged, and hungry. Every punch she threw wasn't just a strike; it was a detonation.
I was burning through my stamina just to stay in the ring, my vision blurring into a haze of orange and red. I wasn't fighting an Elite; I was trying to survive a natural disaster.
Then, the sand betrayed me.
My lead leg twisted, the ankle snapping sideways with a sickening grit.
Aria’s eyes flared—predatory, absolute. She saw the opening before I even felt the pain. She lunged, her fist a white-hot comet aimed directly at my fractured stance.
That was her mistake.
I didn't fight the fall. I embraced it. As my body tilted toward the sand, I snapped my left hand forward, i used the spell MINI-WATER CANON
THWUMP.
A slug of high-pressure water tore through the air. Aria’s Elite instincts were terrifying—even mid-lung
she contorted her body, the water slug only grazing her calf, shredding her uniform and drawing a jagged line of crimson.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Mana: 9.4 → 7.0 (25% Consumed)
Condition: Mana-Circuit Strain detected.
She skidded, her momentum shattered. I gasped for air, thinking I’d finally bought myself a second of breathing room.
I was wrong.
Aria didn't snarl. She smiled. It was a wide, manic expression that didn't belong on a human face.
"Speed up," she whispered.
BHOOM!
The sound wasn't a footfall; it was a sonic boom. She ignited the mana in her heels, turning herself into a living projectile. She didn't glide she vanished, reappearing inches from my face.
A wall of fire erupted from her throat like a dragon’s breath, a literal wave of incinerating heat that turned the oxygen in my lungs to ash.
I threw myself back, the flames missing my skin by a fraction of a millimeter, scorching the air so hard it left a vacuum that pulled the breath right out of my chest.
Two steps back. That was all the arena left me.
I was cornered, singed, and drowning in her heat. Aria stood in the center of the steam, her maroon eyes glowing with a terrifying, beautiful light. She looked like a goddess of the hearth—and I was just the trash she was about to burn.
"Is that it, Louis?" she asked, the fire dancing between her teeth.
I looked at my trembling right hand. Then at the puddle of water at her feet.
"No," I croaked, a jagged grin cracking my parched lips. "It’s just the beginning of the show."
I raised a single, shaking hand.
"[WATER WAVE]."
A thin, lazy spray of water—the pathetic utility spell children use to play—drifted through the air. It hit Aria’s face.
It soaked her hair. It ran down the front of her uniform.
The arena went dead silent. A few students actually laughed.
Aria stopped. She stood there, dripping, the fire in her palms dying down to a confused ember. She looked down at the wet patch on her chest, then back at me.
“Louis,” she said, her voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. “Is this a joke? You’re using a nursery rhyme spell in a duel?”
“It’s not a joke,” I whispered back, stepping into the puddle.
I reached out with my left hand, . I didn't grab her skin; I grabbed the soaked fabric of her shoulder.
My hand was encased in a thick, matte-black rubber glove
I grinned, smoke drifting from my lips.
Tell me, aria," I whispered, the sound of her own fires roaring in the background. "In all those expensive classes...
did they ever teach you that water is the world's most beautiful conductor?"
I didn't wait for her to process the words. I didn't wait for the confusion in her maroon eyes to turn into fear.
I didn't release a flame. I didn't release a blast.
I collapsed every remaining drop of my mana into a single, violent short-circuit—a jagged, forbidden bridge between my core and her wet skin.
Then, the world disappeared.
A pillar of pure, blinding blue light detonated from the center of the arena,
turning the midday sun into a dim shadow. It wasn't a flash; it was a violent erasure of vision.
The scream of the discharge wasn't a sound it was a vibration that rattled the teeth of every student in the stands and made the transparent barriers hum in a dying frequency.
In that strobe-light abyss, the silhouette was burned into everyone’s retinas
The Elite Fire Queen, frozen in a jagged, electrified spasm , and the "the accadamy shame," standing unshaken in the center of the storm,
I stood over her, my shadow stretching long and jagged across her trembling frame. My left hand was a blackened mess, the rubber glove fused to my skin in a grotesque, melting heap.
Smoke didn’t just drift from my mouth; it poured out with every agonizing breath, a reminder that my internal "pipes" were screaming under the pressure.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
MANA: 0.1 / 9.4
WARNING: CRITICAL DEPLETION.
HEART RATE: 195 BPM.
Note: You are currently a walking short-circuit.
I didn't look at the crowd. I didn't look at the professors.
I looked at the VIP section.
Elena von Hestia was standing. Her hands were gripped so tightly on the railing that the stone was frost-cracked. Arthur’s face was a mask of pure, unadulterated shock.
Then, the movement behind the barrier caught my eye.
Headmistress Eldra Williams didn't just stand up.
She glided to the very edge of the platform, her black tail thrashing with a violent, rhythmic joy.
She leaned over the railing, her eyes wide, a slow, terrifying smile spreading across her face—the look of a bored god who had finally found a new toy.
Aria made a final, pathetic sound—a choked gasp as the last of the current faded. She slumped forward, her forehead hitting the wet sand at my boots.
She was conscious, but her mana-veins were charred. The "Fire Queen" had been extinguished
I turned my head slowly, looking directly at the Headmistress. My vision was swimming, the edges of the world turning into static.
"Is that..." I coughed,
"...boring enough for you?"
