Temari's fingers brushed the bombs at her belt.
Across from her, the brute grinned and cracked his knuckles, thick as tree trunks.
The referee raised his hand.
"Begin."
POOF!
Smoke exploded beneath the gorilla boy's feet before he even took his first step.
"Wha…?! Cough! Hey!"
Temari boosted sideways using Breeze Step, shoes whispering over the arena floor. Her movements were quick and light, like a sparrow.
Ethan clenched the railing. Come on…
Aimi's calm voice cut through his nerves. "Fifty-nine seconds remain."
The brute stomped blindly, swinging arms like a drunk titan.
Temari tossed another bomb.
PFFSHH!
The smokescreen thickened. He became nothing but a snorting silhouette inside the haze.
"Fifty-three seconds."
"You coward!" the brute roared. "Stand and fight, you little insect!"
He charged, grabbed a whole lot of nothing.
Inside the cover, Temari stuck her tongue out. Her heart hammered, but she grinned anyway.
"Forty-seven seconds."
She hurled a tiny green vial.
It shattered.
The smell that erupted was legendary.
Three nobles in the front row fainted with perfect dramatic timing.
The brute gagged so hard his eyes bulged. "What… is… this… poison?!"
Lady Irenia Aurelian pinched her nose. "Uncivilized trickery…"
Someone from House Vauntir cried, "Who created this barbarian gas? How much for production rights?!"
Marine Arkwright scribbled excited notes. "Very effective application. Must research stench composition."
"Forty seconds."
Temari zig-zagged around him, Breeze Step puffing little wind trails.
The brute slipped on his own drool and faceplanted into the smoke.
Ethan pumped a fist. "Slip and slide for the win!"
Kael yelled, "Let justice stink!"
"Thirty seconds."
The brute crawled out of the smoke cloud and staggered right into the stench zone.
Temari ran behind him and kicked… a tiny tap to his left butt cheek.
Absolutely zero effect.
But to Temari, it was a victory.
"That is for calling me a maid girl," she whispered.
The moment Temari's little foot tapped the brute's butt, the entire arena exploded into cheers. They did not care that it barely jigged a single muscle.
A fight between a tiny underdog and a raging gorilla was peak entertainment.
Bystander 1 pumped a fist. "Look at that! The Vales are savage even in diapers!"
Bystander 2 laughed. "That was not strength. That was psychological warfare!"
A burly merchant yelled proudly, "Tactics! Tricks! In real combat, honor gets you killed!"
"Twenty seconds."
The brute gasped for clean air, vision clearing.
His eyes were red. Bloodshot fury.
He saw her.
"Ten seconds."
Temari's breath hitched. The victory was already in her grasp.
Meanwhile the brute surrounded by smoke and stink was losing sanity with every second. And the crowd chanted louder.
"Go Temari! Go Temari! Go Temari!"
Because in every story, when a tiny warrior punches a giant in the ego, everyone roots for the chaos gremlin.
"Only five seconds left," Aimi warned.
Dominic tried not to gag through tears and snot. The voices of the crowd cheering for that insect, lowly maid girl, while he, Dominic Calderis, had to suffer the disgusting stink and smoke.
His anger snapped out of control.
"Forget the rules. You like jumping? Let us see how you jump after this."
He slammed his foot into the ground.
CRACK.
A fracture raced across the stage.
He stomped again, harder.
Stone quivered.
The Starfall students shot up from their seats in alarm.
"Oh no…"
"He is going berserk!"
"That is forbidden!"
"Three seconds."
Dominic roared, a beast's furious scream, and unleashed earth mana like a bursting dam.
BOOM.
Jagged stone spikes erupted upward in a deadly ring.
"Magic use prohibited!" the judges shouted.
Temari froze, eyes wide, air magic drained, nowhere left to run.
The world stopped breathing.
Aimi did not have time to finish the countdown.
Lyra Vale was already in motion. She moved faster than wind. Faster than eyes.
But it was still too late. A jagged spear already pierced through Temari's thigh.
Her scream reverberated through the arena.
Lyra took Temari in her hands. Dominic still sent earth spears flying. Lyra moved her hand and all the spears crumbled to dust.
She pressed her palm over the wound and started healing.
Lyra's voice shook from fury. "You are safe. Endure for a little bit."
Healers ran. Judges ran. Rowan Strath bellowed orders.
Dominic's triumphant grin twisted into a guilty grimace too late.
Before anyone could speak, the arena darkened. Lights flickered. A chill ripped through the stadium. Electric arcs slithered across the air like glowing serpents. Black shadows rose from the floor, merging into a single towering shape.
A figure landed behind Dominic without a sound.
Lightning coiled around his arms.
Golden hair. Blue eyes burning like judgment.
Kael Vale stood there.
Wrong.
Something else stood in his place.
His voice echoed, layered with something ancient, like many voices talking together. "You dare."
The ground shivered under the weight of that rage. The crowd forgot to breathe. Dominic finally turned. He saw the lightning. He saw death.
Ethan's senses were too slow to catch up with all the chaos. One moment, Temari was on the cusp of winning the trial, next moment all hell broke loose. From the moment of Temari's scream to Kael appearing on the ring, less than a second had passed.
Ethan looked at where Kael was sitting. The chair had already started to crumble to dust.
"Holy shit. What is happening? Aimi, how is Temari, and try to scan Kael now."
"Temari stable. Your mother is accelerating clotting and tissue regeneration. As for Kael… reading distorted. Two overlapping signatures. Output spike beyond safe adolescent range."
The stadium fell into silence, the kind that is louder than an explosion.
Marine's notebook slipped from her hand. What was she supposed to do? She looked toward her father, who also looked equally shocked.
The trial was just a way to show the superiority of their students. The most injury should have been just flesh wounds or maybe one or two broken bones, nothing fatal.
With the healers present, those could be closed in minutes. But Dominic's attack had been strong enough to kill, and filled with malice. Anyone could see he was actively trying to go for the kill.
And the girl seemed to be with the Vale household. Though just a maid girl, the Vales were known to be extra protective of their own, even their dogs and cats. Lyra was already up in the ring. Good thing she had not wiped Dominic from existence with her Rank A strength, but there was no guarantee she would not do so after healing the child.
Meanwhile Dominic was not just another student. He was also from a prestigious noble family from the Dunecrest Sultanate. Even though the Academy was neutral ground, they could not let him die here on foreign soil.
Rowan Strath's brows creased, thinking about the mess. He stepped between Lyra and Dominic, bracing, ready to defend the idiot from Lyra's wrath if he must.
Then a chilling voice came from behind him. Rowan thought only a madman who relished carnage could produce such a voice, but when he turned, it was just a boy. The visual effects looked like a god had poured stormlight into a child.
Benedict rose from his seat and gripped the railing. What is wrong with that Calderis spawn? Who cleared him for this trial? I was preparing to retire after this year, working hard to keep my blood pressure in control. Do you idiots want me to become a ghost?
Seraphina stopped him with a slight motion. "Wait a little. Things are getting interesting. It is a canon event. Do not interfere now."
Benedict exhaled. When an S Rank asked you to wait, you waited. He was too old to argue with walking disasters.
On the stage, Kael's expressionless eyes locked on Dominic. He slowly unsheathed a sword that had not been there a heartbeat ago. Lightning crawled along the blade like living veins.
Rowan moved to intercept. "Stand down, child."
Kael did not blink. "Stand aside."
He took a step. The air crackled. Rowan lunged, hand shooting for Kael's wrist. Kael's body jolted with a microburst of electricity that twitched his muscles out of expected rhythm. His shoulder rolled the wrong way, his elbow folded in an impossible angle, and he slipped past Rowan's grip as if his joints were liquid lightning.
Rowan's eyes widened. He adjusted, pivoted, and grabbed again. Kael's spine arched with another electric pulse, his weight vanished, and he ghosted around Rowan's guard like a fish slipping through a net.
"Just an A Rank," Kael said in a voice that carried. "You think you can save him?"
Rowan's jaw tightened. He swept a leg, tried to pin the boy with body weight. Kael pulsed again, feet skittering in unnatural cadence, every nerve firing out of sequence. He did not run in a straight line. He shivered through space, step-stutter, step-snap, step-glide.
He was in front of Dominic.
Dominic raised both hands. Stone surged at his feet, forming a bulwark. The beginnings of a wall. Too slow.
Kael's sword was already in motion. A single, clean cut. The lightning drew a line in the air, thin as a hair and bright as noon. The slash was so precise that for a heartbeat nothing happened.
Then Dominic crumpled.
The stone shield collapsed into rubble. He fell to his knees and then forward, legs buckling in a way that made stomachs turn. The cut had not separated limbs, but it had carved clean through tendons behind the knees. Everything below failed at once.
A scream ripped through the arena. This time it was Dominic.