Gilda Ali suddenly went still.
The rage that had been twisting his features… vanished.
No more shouting.
No more shaking fists.
Only silence.
A dangerous kind of silence.
He lowered his head, placed one bloodied palm against the stage floor, and closed his eyes.
The audience leaned forward, confused.
Some thought he was surrendering.
Others thought he was stalling.
But the mage teachers—the ones who knew magic—felt the air tighten.
Master Anders's voice dropped to a whisper, almost fearful:
"...He's not healing. He's channeling."
Then—
The ground trembled.
A soft vibration at first, like distant thunder beneath the stage…
then it spread—rippling outward in a perfect circle.
Dust lifted.
Pebbles shivered.
The entire arena floor responded to him.
From the edges of the stage, the earth began to rise in jagged clumps—sand, clay, hardened soil—pulled together like metal to a magnet. Dozens of fragments shot through the air in streams, swirling toward Gilda Ali's hand as if obeying a king's command.
His eyes snapped open.
They were bloodshot.
And full of something far more terrifying than anger.
Intention.
In seconds, the floating debris compressed—merging, molding—until it took shape:
A figure.
Not crude or unstable like a lump of summoned earth.
But structured, layered, reinforced.
A man-shaped warrior, taller than either of them, built like a statue brought to life—its joints formed of dense clay, its chest plated in compacted soil, its fists like carved pillars.
A golem.
A real one.
Not the kind students practice with—
but the kind meant for war.
The arena gasped as the creature's head lifted and two hollow cavities burned open like eyes.
Mistress Elena's grin finally faded.
"That's… not a duel technique," she muttered. "That's battlefield magic."
The golem did not wait for a command. It has already been given in the intention of its maker during creation.
With a thunderous BOOM, it launched forward, the stage cracking at its takeoff. Each step sounded like boulders colliding, shaking dust from the rafters. The audience felt the vibration in their ribs, like a heartbeat made of stone.
Adebi Monta's smirk died instantly.
That was not something she could playfully sidestep, spin behind, and cut with a dagger.
That was something that could crush her.
Her instincts screamed at her—move, now!
Her body, still bruised and aching, obeyed before her thoughts did. She sprang back, just as the earthen colossus slammed a fist down where she had stood—shattering the floor, sending debris flying like shrapnel.
She rolled, landed, coughed blood, but kept her blades in hand.
Her breath was sharp, jagged.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
And for the first time—
She felt the threat.
Not just physical danger…
But the kind of danger that came from someone no longer fighting for points, rules, or honor.
Gilda Ali wasn't just fighting to erase humiliation.
He wanted to end her.
And the golem was only the beginning.
Adebi steadied herself—daggers reversed, one low, one high—knees bent, chest rising and falling like a drum of war. Blood streaked her side. Sweat dripped into her eyes. But her gaze never left the monster charging toward her.
No one in the martial arts school was smiling now.
No one in the mage school was relaxed either.
Even the students who had mocked her earlier were silent—because this wasn't two students competing anymore.
This was survival.
The golem thundered forward, every step punching shockwaves through the arena floor. Its fists swung like hammers capable of snapping ribs just from wind pressure alone.
Adebi moved—but not like a dancer anymore.
More like a ghost.
She leapt, twisted, bent backward at impossible angles. Each dodge left sand swirling where her head should have been. Each sidestep came a fraction before the earth shattered beneath her feet.
"GBAAA!"
The golem's fist slammed down, exploding tiles into shards.
"GBAAAAA!"
A sweeping arm smashed through a chunk of the stage, uprooting the earth like it was dry clay.
Adebi just slipped past it—knees skimming the ground, body folding and unfolding like a silk ribbon.
The crowd watched in disbelief.
"She's not blocking anything—she's just surviving!" "That thing could cave her chest in with one hit!" "She won't last long—she's losing too much blood!"
But Adebi Monta was calm.
Not confident. Not reckless.
Focused.
Her movements were tighter, smaller, more precise. Not dodging wildly—evading with purpose. Every time she slipped past a blow, she brushed a fingertip along the golem's arm, shoulder, knee—tiny touches, almost invisible.
But they meant something.
And Gilda Ali?
He wasn't moving at all.
He stood there with his eyes closed, one hand pressed to the floor, controlling the golem through the earth beneath his feet. Every tremor in the ground was a nerve. Every grain of sand a thought.
He no longer looked furious.
He looked serene, almost holy—like a priest in communion with the land itself.
Blood still poured from the cut in his leg, but he didn't seem to feel it.
All of his awareness… was in the monster.
"Do you see it?" Master Herold whispered to the other mages. "He's using closed-channel earth resonance. He's not casting spells one at a time—he's bonded to the terrain. He is the stage."
Mistress Elena's jaw tightened.
"And that means she can't attack him."
Because if she did—
The golem would react before her blade even landed.
Adebi knew it too. Every time she got close, the earth creature adjusted, tracking her like a predator that didn't need eyes.
One hit would end her.
One mistake and she was gone.
And yet…
She wasn't panicking.
She was waiting.
She slid back from another crushing blow and whispered to herself between gasping breaths:
"Almost."
Her fingers flexed.
Her stance shifted.
She wasn't dodging to stay alive anymore.
She was dodging to count.
Every strike.
Every pause.
Every re-formation of earth.
Every second Gilda Ali channeled instead of breathing.
Because martial artists didn't just fight bodies.
They fought patterns.
And Adebi Monta had already found one.
She wasn't darting around to survive—she was measuring.
She wasn't dodging aimlessly—she was mapping.
Every time the golem swung, every time it reformed, every time the earth pulsed beneath her feet, she was learning something about the shape of Gilda Ali's magic… and the rhythm behind it.
She wasn't tracking the monster.
She was tracking the mage.
Twenty evasions.
Twenty angles.
Twenty near-deaths.
Each one narrowing down possibilities.
Now she finally had it.
The one path—the single line of movement—where the golem reacted half a second slower.
The angle where Gilda Ali's focus shifted fully into the golem and left his real body vulnerable.
The range where earth magic lagged behind instinct.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. Her vision was blurring. Her body felt like shattered glass held together by sheer stubbornness.
But her eyes were bright.
Like a hunter who had finally seen the opening.
She whispered—not to the crowd, not to Gilda Ali, not even to the golem—
…but to herself.
"There you are."
Her foot slid back, heel digging into the cracked stone.
Her fingers curled around both daggers.
She stopped running.
The audience didn't understand at first.
"Why did she stop?" "She can't block that thing!" "She's giving up—?!"
No.
She was coiling.
Every muscle under her bruised skin tightened into a single explosive line of movement.
Mistress Elena saw it first.
Her eyes widened.
Her smile returned—slow and proud and fierce.
"Oh," she breathed, "she's going for the kill."
Gilda Ali, eyes still closed, lifted his hand and clenched his fist—guiding the massive construct for the final blow.