5 HOURS REMAINING
They crested the ridge, and the relic node below snapped into view, a stone pedestal ringed with a broken rune-arc, the stolen banner of Erevalen fluttering where Arcane's should have been.
Around it, clustered like angry beetles, the Erevalen force had made a decent perimeter: roughly fifty defenders in staggered rings, spears, wards, and a few rune-gunners posted on the flanks.
Aurelia inhaled once. The world's current, the Aether that threaded the cavern like a slow, living tide, was there, present in the light and in the hollow between breaths.
She reached for it with the same quiet she used to steady her blade.
Where before she'd tried to oppose, now she folded.
The flow answered, small crescents of silver sliding along her arms and into the steel at her hip.
Three points per incapacitated enemy, she counted in a rhythm as precise as a metronome. One. Two.
The math was a steady force beneath the fury, every disciplined strike, every well-placed rune, every rescued teammate added not just to a scoreboard but to their margin for later.
She felt the numbers stack in the back of her mind like stones being piled for a wall.
"On my mark," Lucien murmured, voice low and certain. "Arthur, vanguard left. Kael, winds on the flank. Lysandra, disruption when flanks soften. We go clean, no maiming, no theatrics."
They moved like a blade. Aurelia's first pass was a dislocation, a wrist twisted, a sling of Aether that snagged a spear at the socket and turned it aside.
The defender went down, groaning, limbs tangled, live and out of the fight.
Aurelia felt the small harmonic chirp when her blade found resonance with the man's own current. She slid the cadence into the following motion, and another opponent's stance folded like paper.
Lysandra's flames were not hungry, they were lullaby-fire. She wove them into nets that closed gently, sapping momentum and slipping muscle into sleep.
Kael's wind-threads tugged at armor joints and boots, unbalancing, making the opponents fall prone and easy to bind.
Arthur's crimson Aura sliced through bindings and pried weapons from fingers, timing each incision to avoid lasting harm.
Cassian and Mirielle set up a mobile triage line, stocking it with potions, binding salves, and soft sigils to keep the wounded breathing and conscious.
They were winning the engagement below the relic, efficient, slow, methodical, when the air changed.
It was subtle at first, a new disturbance in the Aether, a dozen unfamiliar notes layered over the field with a sour, metallic tang. Aurelia's skin prickled.
"Ambush!" Kael spat, scanning. From the high gullies beyond, banners that had not been there a heartbeat ago collapsed into the fighting.
Solmara's lithe spear-illusionists and the Imperial Spire's precise sharpshooters are pouring down into the contested bowl.
Not a trickle, a tide. The other academies had converged on the prize at the same instant.
Lucien's jaw tightened. "We're cut off," he said, more to himself than to anyone. "They didn't expect us to strike, they expected to pounce while we were divided. Clever."
Arthur's expression was flat with the sort of annoyance that comes before a smile. "Greed makes strange bedfellows," he muttered. "Or at least very predictable ones."
What followed was no tidy duel but the classic chaos the headmaster had warned about, four academies colliding, spells crisscrossing like lightning, sigils exploding into harmless but blinding flares, and students thrown together and apart like rag dolls.
But even within the chaos, there was craft. Lucien's light-threads cut lanes through the mêlée, carving passages they could move along.
Kael handled the gusts with surgical care, keeping fragments of the fighting from sweeping through their medic lines.
Lysandra's fire carved soft, immobilizing webs that snagged entire clusters of attackers rather than individuals, employing fast, non-lethal crowd control.
Aurelia found herself at the center of a tight knot where Erevalen defenders had tried to re-form.
She rode the current again, not forcing, but becoming the echo, the node's old rune-grid still hummed.
Where the guardian's tether had taught her to fold into a rhythm, here she used that same skill to sense the cadence of enemy strikes and step between them.
Her sword moved not as a blade but as punctuation, a turn to unbalance, a tap that sent an opponent to their knees, a carve that severed a strap so the man's spear clattered harmlessly away.
For a breath, a single measured heartbeat, Arcane's line sang in harmony, incapacitations counted, triage teams hauled down the stunned, and the relic's pedestal stood unclaimed in their zone despite the swarm pressing in from three sides.
The scoreboard in Aurelia's head ticked in small victories: three points, another three, a support rune delivered across the way, two points. Each tally was a promise: keep this up until reinforcements, or break and fall back with losses.
Then a volley of engineered rounds from the Imperial flank thunked into the soft earth, and an entire cluster of their enemies folded like puppets with loose strings.
The Solmara sent illusion-spears that had to be chased down rather than struck, stealing focus.
For a moment, every academy looked up across the field and realized the truth, nobody would walk away without at least one prize taken from a rival.
Lucien barked orders that threaded through the bedlam, his voice a steady line to follow. "Hold the ring! No charges unless I call! Keep it clean and keep it tight! Aurelia, pivot when I signal, we take our window and go hard."
Aurelia's reply was a single, stiff nod. Her lungs filled with Aether, the blade at her side thrummed, and in the roar of four academies clashing, she found the same small, stubborn song that had carried her through the guardian: match, fold, redirect.
They would take what they could, count every non-lethal fall like a coin, and push for the edge that would let them withdraw with a tally worth keeping.
Around them, the cavern became a living map of flashes and shadow, arcs of light, ribbons of wind, netted flames.
The fight had turned from surgical to savage and back again, a dozen small sieges waged inside one enormous one.
Somewhere over the noise, Lucien's laugh cut through, disbelief and exhilaration braided together, and Arthur's blade rang a dry, steady rhythm at the edge of her hearing.
They had hours left. The hourglass above them glowed faint and relentless.
For now, they pushed. For now, Arcane pressed into the teeth of the ambush and counted the small victories that would add up, minute by minute, into a lead they might still hold come dawn.
They pushed until they could push no longer.
The fight condensed into a ring around the pedestal.
Steel clanged, Aether flared, and for every moment they snarled forward, the other academies answered in equal measure.
But Arcane's strikes were not desperate slashes; they were carefully stacked solutions, each motion aiming to make an enemy useless rather than dead.
A wrist snapped out of joint, and the man went down, a foot was swept, and an opponent sprawled, held fast by Lysandra's ember-net;
Kael's winds plucked spears from hands and rolled attackers aside into Cassian's restraining sigils.
Arthur moved like a fulcrum, slicing bindings and opening windows for their teams to push through.
Aurelia found the center of balance in the chaos and rode it.
She no longer sought the big, lethal cut, she hunted seams: a shoulder unbraced, a gunner's stance too wide, a pair of attackers whose timing overlapped.
Matching the cadence of their Aether, she folded herself into each beat, letting the current do the heavy cruelty of motion. At the same time, she delivered the economical touches, a lever, a push, a precise bind.
Each incapacitation chimed in her head like a metered drum: three points, three points, two for support delivered across the field.
Half the contagion of panic came when a unit that looked likely to reform and charge found itself suddenly collapsed into a tangle of sleeping heat and wind-caught limbs.
Lysandra's flames were cruelly gentle, a powerless lullaby, and students trained in rescue swept in and took names, carrying the stunned away to Mirielle's and Cassian's triage line.
The medic tent was an island of motion, binding salves, antiseptic sigils, and whispered life notes.
Then the air changed again. The Imperial Spire's sharpshooters, long, disciplined shots, began carving lanes through the field, and the Solmara's illusionists launched deceptive duplicates that forced whole squads to swing and miss.
For a moment, Arcane risked being sandwiched, two tides pressing inward on their fragile ring.
Lucien's voice cut like a blade. "Now, Aurelia, Arthur, Kael. Clear the west rim. Lysandra, take the south. We pressure the flank and pull their center. Once we break the ring, Scholar Wing on the pedestal plants anchors. Everyone else, push!"
They did. Aurelia moved with single, rigid efficiency, creating the opening Arthur needed by sending a narrow line of harmonized Aether along a cluster of enemy attackers, so that their subsequent thrusts hit empty air.
Arthur stepped through that gap and struck a heavy, displacing blow that sent three men sliding into Lysandra's waiting flames.
Kael swirled wind to deny the Imperial Spire's snipers a stable line and ferried a Scholar Wing runner through a gusted corridor to the base of the pedestal.
At the pedestal, the scholars worked like watchmakers, with quick hands and sharp math skills.
A nervous boy with an astrolabe darted forward and unfurled a rune packet while two others chanted a binding.
The packet sprayed a grid of pale sigils over the stone, the anchors sank into the cavern with a muffled thud, and the rune-clock over the field flickered as it took root.
The effect was instantaneous. The ring of attackers, which had been trying to converge for a final shove, found the node now guarded by an active field, anyone who crossed the threshold found their motions slowed, their Aether fraying at the edges.
The anchors did not kill, they denied. They bought Arcane the breathing room it craved.
Seeing the window, Lucien bellowed the signal. Arcane surged, not as a frenetic mob, but as a serried blade.
They took advantage of the slowed attackers, isolating pockets and collapsing them into knots that were easy to harvest.
Students who, just minutes before, had seemed on the verge of rout were now hauling down opponents, binding them, marking names for points, and helping the wounded.
On the far flank, the Imperial Spire realized its sniping lines were compromised and pulled back to regroup.
Solmara's illusions flickered against Lysandra's discipline and started to dissipate as their anchors bit. Erevalen, sandwiched and outmaneuvered, where they could have regrouped, staggered, and then slipped away in an orderly retreat, dragging what they could.
By the time the dust settled into a low, gritty haze, Arcane was still standing around the pedestal.
The scholars finished setting the final stabilizers. Victoria's slate flashed a confirmation: anchors green, node secured.
Someone hoisted a blue sigil banner onto the pedestal while medics moved through, counting pulses and breaths and applying splints.
Lysandra, dirt-streaked and hair aflame at the tips, laughed breathlessly like a frank child. Kael leaned against a battered column and exhaled so long his shoulders dropped.
Arthur wiped blood from his palm and gave Aurelia a small, unembarrassed nod.
Lucien looked over the field, eyes sharp, and then allowed himself a brief smile.
The score update came as a ripple on the rune-clock above them: Arcane +10 for the relic, the scholar wing's successful anchor package added another +2 for support, and the tally of non-lethal incapacitations, numbers gathered by triage reports and field scribes, pushed a further chunk of points their way.
It wasn't a landslide, but it was decisive. Arcane had taken what it came for and bluntly refused to leave empty-handed.
The scoreboard settled, Arcane back in the lead by a modest margin.
Aurelia sat down on the lip of the pedestal and let her legs dangle.
The sword lay across her knees like a familiar weight.
Her hands shook with the tiredness that comes from perfection, not exhaustion from wasted effort.
Lysandra's hand found hers and squeezed, a small anchor in the aftermath.
"How many hours left?" Arthur asked, voice ragged but practical.
The hourglass rune glimmered. Three hours, the glass answered, slow and unrelenting.
Lucien straightened and barked the orders that would carry them through the next phase, reinforce the node, rotate watch teams, patch armor, bind wounds, and send a runner to the lost relic's node to harry supplies.
Preparations that were part medicine, part calculation, part raw human stubbornness.
Aurelia looked up at the cavern's shifting ceiling and let out a slow breath.
There would be more fights. There would be more nights, more anchors, and more calculated risks.
But for now, for the next small while, they had what they had fought for: a relic, a ringing tally of points, and the knowledge that when they moved together, they could turn chaos into order.
She slid the sword back into its sheath and stood. "Rest," she told the others. "Thirty minutes. Then rotate the watch."
They obeyed. After all, they were tired, because they were sensible. After all, time and strategy demanded it.
Around the pedestal, medics worked, scribes recorded names, and scholars adjusted the anchors to pulse at a lower energy.
Somewhere outside the crater, a wounded Erevalen unit limped away to lick its wounds; elsewhere, the spire's banners flapped as its captains argued strategy.
Arcane had taken, for now, a hard-won advantage.
The tournament's clock ticked down. The cavern rearranged and waited, and the four academies, tired and clever and obstinate, prepared for the next hour's gambit.
Three hours remaining
They moved like tired machines, driven by one bright purpose: to keep what they had and take what they needed before the timers and reinforcements could undo them.
Arcane tightened rotations at the pedestal. Scholar Wing students kept the anchors humming, low and steady, not screaming bright so the field would not call every hungry eye.
Medics worked in shifts. Scouts ran short sweeps and came back red-faced with half-true rumors.
The next hour passed in measured bursts. Small bands from the Imperial Spire attempted probing raids, bright, polite pushes that relied on marksmanship and timing.
The scholar anchors made their shots unreliable, Kael's wind-threads picked off the archers' stands and sent pack-runners scattering into Arthur's blade arcs.
Every time Arcane collapsed a raid non-lethally, a medic counted it, a scribe tallied it, and the rune-clock recorded the +3 for incapacitation.
Those numbers felt small in the moment, but they kept the scoreboard creeping in their favor.
Lysandra and Aurelia became shorthand for disruption and retrieval.
Where Aurelia found seams and rode the flow, Lysandra shaped the field's heat into nets and roads, corralling attackers away from the pedestal and toward waiting traps.
Their synergy costs nothing, only breath, timing, and the slow, stubborn bravery of students who'd rather save than spill.
Two hours remaining
Fatigue bent shoulders and frayed patience. The cavern re-arranged above them once, switching a stretch of low pillars into a narrow, shattered bridge that cut lanes across the battlefield.
That forced a brief flurry of movement, new lanes to hold, new angles to watch.
The Imperial Spire's artificers tried to use the pillars for cover and fired precise volleys. Arcane's scholars threaded sigils into the earth to deny footholds and make the cover treacherous for their boots.
Halfway through the second hour, a Solmara raid struck the east ridge, an elegant, flash assault built around smoke and doubles.
For a heartbeat, it almost worked, illusions split the line, phantoms pulled men one way while blades bit another.
But the scouts, Arcane's fast runners, and a dozen astute Arcanum mages tied to the island, recognized patterns early and funneled the fall of the Solmara force into pre-set restraint nets.
Lysandra's ember-net closed like a soft trap, and the scholars hit the sleep anchors.
Another tally of incapacitations. Another small avalanche of points sounds on the rune-clock.
At one point during this hour, the rune-slate shivered, not a full pulse, but the hint of another assault at their old terrain node.
Victoria barked orders, and the slate-boy there hit the anchor recall, drawing the pack inward just as a mixed Erevalen/Imperial raiding party had peaked.
The recall slowed them enough for Cassian and Mirielle to force the attackers sideways and hold them in place for the med teams to take over.
The trick, quick recall, and the scholar's packet saved people and points.
Arcane didn't snatch glory, but they kept from losing ground.
One hour remaining
The cavern's light deepened. They all smelled of smoke and sweat and the sweet metallic tang of spent Aether.
The hourglass rune blinked: 60 minutes. Everyone felt it in their bones, the last hour always wants a crescendo.
The Erevalen made their push, and this time it was brutal, clever, and loud.
They sent in staggered waves with the explicit intent of drawing Arcane's reserves and splitting them statically.
That plan almost paid off. For twenty heavy minutes, the pedestal resembled a wild knot, forces entwining one another, anchor pulses sputtering as the scholars rerouted energy to patch the holes.
Aurelia was in the middle of it, breathing with the sword, hearing the current, and bending into it.
She and Arthur carved lanes, and Kael turned the air into a stubborn partner that refused to allow quick shots.
Lysandra made small miracles of warmth that turned a charging shoulder into a soggy, sleepy knot.
The medics pulled numbers, Arcane tallies kept rising, incapacitations, support deliveries, successful rune-packet deployments, each counted and added.
It was during this hour that the Imperial Spire tried a gambit, a focused, high-risk strike to the Arcanum island where their ranged mages perched.
The idea was to silence Arcane's overwatch and allow the other academies to sweep in and steal nodes.
Arcane anticipated because their scouts had woken the island's sentries.
The strike hit, but Kael had already spun a wind screen that took the brunt and dumped the initial strike into a canyon side.
The island mages returned fire, and a volley of controlled, disciplined spells thinned the Spire's ranks.
The attempt failed, and the Spire had to pay for it in points when its soldiers were incapacitated in retreat.
Fifteen minutes left
Breathing raw, everyone did exactly what had to be done, tighten, hold, and prep the final gambit.
Lucien's voice was steady as he ordered one last rotation, fresh legs forward, exhausted men to the med tents, a thin band to feign forward and bait any greedy eyes.
Arcane's scholar wing kept the pedestal's anchors at a comfortable hum, never at full blast, but the relic produced its slow minutes.
Those minutes counted, terrain nodes dripped three points per minute, relic yielded two per minute on top of the 10 immediate capture, and every incapacitation added three.
Support deliveries, a rune packet dropped into a bruising pocket to seal a trap, or a med crate shot across the field, counted too.
The numbers stuttering on the rune-clock were the metronome of their survival.
Final five minutes
Everything went sharp. Fights across the cavern ramped into frantic pushes.
Solmara tried a hit-and-run at one of Arcane's terrain nodes, and Erevalen pushed for a flank that would allow a sprint to the relic pedestal if Arcane's guard thinned.
The Imperial Spire attempted a last snipe at the island's archers.
The field erupted into four simultaneous small storms.
Arcane's reply was disciplined and surgical. The strike team Lucien had sanctioned earlier, the one Aurelia led, became a pivot, while the majority of Arcane anchored and held. Aurelia's small band was everywhere at once, creating pressure, collapsing pockets, and binding attackers in non-lethal knots.
Their efficiency was clinical: every movement designed not to kill but to remove.
Cassian and Mirielle ran the close triage and supplies line. Victoria's final rune packet, thrown in the chaos, bought them the last ten crucial seconds for a flanking maneuver to finish dislodging Erevalen from a ridge.
Final minute
The rune-clock thudded like a heart in their ears. Last calls were issued, and the previous anchors were reinforced. Aurelia found herself in the center of a small scrum, Arthur at her side, Kael pushing a gust that slid a would-be snipe off his perch.
Lysandra's flames bloomed like guiding lanterns, not to burn but to shepherd.
Then came the bell.
A high note that reverberated through the cavern. The rune-clock froze. Anchors throttled down.
Students lowered their hands from spells. The final tally began to ripple across the hanging banners.
Phase II — Final Standings
• Arcane Academy — Maintained the lead through steady relic defense, effective coordination, and timely support actions.
• Imperial Spire — Strong tactical execution and early aggression kept them competitive throughout the phase.
• Erevalen Dominion — Relentless assaults and bold maneuvers earned them ground, but overextension cost stability.
• Solmara Enclave — Brilliant individual displays and sudden offensives created momentum, but inconsistency held them back.
The numbers blinked and settled. Arcane had clawed, planned, and bled for that lead. It was not a runaway victory, not by far, but it was enough.
More importantly, the academy that kept its head, coordinated across Arms, Arcanum, and Scholar wings, had the edge.
There were no parades. No triumphant speeches. Just the soft, tired business of being alive.
Wounds were bound. Names were read and noted for credit.
The small, human triumphs, someone carrying a friend out of the ring, a medic patching a cheek, a boy in the Scholar Wing whose rune packet held a flank just long enough were what mattered.
Aurelia sat with her sword across her knees and watched the hourglass rune.
She tasted iron and dust and exhaustion and felt the remarkable quiet of things that had been done well.
Lysandra, flushed and laughing, dozed against her shoulder.
Kael cleaned his hands, eyes on the banner. Arthur idly tended a nick on his gauntlet, Cassian and Mirielle organized med rotations, and Victoria, exhausted and glowing with the satisfaction of a packet successfully deployed, rechecked her slate as if to make sure the anchors honestly held.
Lucien walked the ring once, then met Aurelia's gaze and, in a moment without applause, nodded. It meant the same as a speech.
They had the lead. They had a relic. They had time to breathe, and time, as everyone knew, to lose everything again.
One last rule reminder, soft in the cavern's dim, Phase II had been a grind of restraint and tactics. Phase III, the final converging trial, would not abide by the same measured work. It would be a test of the solitary heart.
For now, they had hours of exhaustion and a night to sleep poorly and plan better.
Dawn would bring the third trial, and everything they had earned would be tested under a single, unblinking eye.
Aurelia tightened her hand around the sword-hilt, felt the Aether hum faintly in response, and let herself breathe out.
The hours were done. The next reckoning was almost here.
The cavern folded like a lung and then, silence. The world tilted, a breath later, the floor snapped back under their feet, and the stands rushed into being around them.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then a single, slow clap rolled out from the platform.
Headmaster Veyron stood where he had before Phase II, runes faint on his coat and a tired, satisfied light in his eyes.
He watched them, one sweep of his gaze taking in the splintered uniforms, the dirt-streaked faces, the bandaged hands, and the students who still trembled from adrenaline.
When he spoke his voice did not need Aether to carry, every ear heard him.
"You have given us theatre and a lesson in equal measure," he said. "You have shown skill, courage, invention, and, above all, adaptability. For that, you should be proud. But the Apex demands more. You will have one week to rest, mend, and prepare. Use it wisely. Train hard. Plan harder. The final trial will test everything you have left to give."
A murmur ran through the crowd, relieved sighs, jubilant whoops from those who still had fight left, curses from the exhausted.
Lucien exchanged a look with Arthur, a half-smile that promised scheming even as his shoulders loosened.
Cassian and Mirielle passed quietly among the nearest students, already coordinating medical runs.
Professor Seris tucked a stray sleeve back into place. She gave a theatrical bow.
Selvara Thane's expression remained unreadable, but she tucked a small notebook into her sleeve with the motion of someone already thinking of runes.
Lysandra flopped onto a bench and stretched, long-legged and loud with relief. "Finally," she sighed, eyes half-closed. "I am so tired of being clever and burning things." She took a long pull from a water skin, held it up in triumph, and grinned at Kael. "Still the best water in any cavern, right?"
Kael, leaning on his slate and looking every inch the scholar-worn soldier, nodded once. "Solid mineral. No ill effects. Trust me, I tested it." His answer was dry, but the corners of his mouth softened.
Aurelia laughed, quiet, bright, because it was the sort of small human thing that cut through the exhaustion better than any rallying cry.
Around them, students swapped stories of ridiculous near-misses and small heroics, a sigil that fizzled into confetti, a guardian toppled by a chain of bad timing, a rescue performed blind and bravely.
When the applause died, Veyron's parting words fell like a clock-stroke. "One week. Make it count. The Apex will not wait." He stepped back, the runes at his heels dimming as more practical hands took over the logistics, and the students began, at last, to disperse.
Some limped to infirmaries, while others already whispered strategies in tight circles, and some found a place in the sun to sleep until the next alarm.
Aurelia stood a moment longer and watched her friends move.
The ache in her muscles hummed like a remembered spell.
She had wanted revenge, clarity, and a breakthrough, and she had found, instead, a messy, yet beautiful, proof that they could stand together.
For now, that would have to be enough. One week to sharpen blades, bind wounds, and harden plans. One week until the final reckoning.