The Adventurer's Guild in Arcadia was a chaotic symphony of clattering tankards, boisterous laughter, and the rustle of mission scrolls. Shiro stood in line, feeling the weight of countless curious stares. Beside him, Rael leaned against a wooden pillar, looking utterly at ease.
"Names," the guild clerk droned, not bothering to look up from her ledger.
"Rael. And this is Shiro."
The clerk's eyes narrowed as she scanned her records. "No prior registries. You'll need to undergo a proficiency assessment before you can be ranked."
"An assessment?" Shiro asked, his voice flat.
The clerk pointed a thumb toward a heavy iron-banded door. "The Proving Grounds. Show you can handle yourselves. Survive, you get a rank. Don't..." She shrugged. "The guild's insurance doesn't cover recklessness."
The Proving Grounds was a vast, circular arena of packed earth and stone, surrounded by high walls. As the portcullis ground shut behind them, another opened across the arena. A low growl echoed as a massive, six-legged beast with rocky hide and glowing red eyes lumbered out.
"Stoneclaw Lurker," Rael said, his smile never fading. "Nasty temperament. This should be fun."
The creature charged. Shiro's fists ignited with fire as he met its charge, ducking under a sweeping claw to drive a fiery punch into its shoulder. The rock-like hide cracked, but the beast barely flinched, swatting him aside with its tail.
"A little help?!" Shiro grunted, scrambling to his feet.
"You're still trying to overpower everything," Rael called out, not moving from his spot. "Watch its feet."
The Lurker charged again. This time, Shiro noticed what Rael saw—the beast favored its left front leg, the one he had struck. Instead of meeting it head-on, Shiro sidestepped, creating a wall of fire as a distraction. As the beast turned its head, he unleashed a concentrated blast of fire at its injured leg.
The rock hide shattered. The Lurker roared in pain, stumbling. In that instant, Rael moved. He didn't teleport or use any flashy technique—he simply ran, his form a blur. He reached the staggered beast, placed a hand on its side, and a faint pulse of energy emanated from his palm. The Lurker froze, then collapsed unconscious.
"What did you do?" Shiro panted.
"Pressure point," Rael said simply. "Even monsters have nervous systems."
As they turned to leave, Shiro glanced back. For a split second, the beast's glowing red eyes flickered with a faint, familiar purple haze before fading. He blinked, and it was gone.
Rael's playful demeanor vanished, his eyes sharpening. "An interesting trick... but not its own." His gaze snapped towards the arena's highest observation tower, a shadowy perch overlooking the grounds. "I'll be back. Don't die while I'm gone."
Before Shiro could question him, Rael became a streak of motion, scaling the arena wall with impossible grace and vanishing into the tower's entrance, hot on the trail of the mysterious manipulator, Lurker.
A new voice, laced with arrogant pride, echoed across the Proving Grounds. "Not bad for a human. But let me show you real fire manipulation."
A half-elf with sharp features and robes adorned with elemental sigils descended into the arena. He landed lightly, flames already dancing at his fingertips. "I am Nihilastra. Consider this your real test."
Shiro said nothing, simply settling into a combat stance, his own fists smoldering.
Nihilastra sneered. "Fire Spell: Blazing Serpents!" Twin serpents of roaring flame uncoiled from his hands, streaking across the arena with a hiss that promised incineration.
Shiro met them head-on, not with a complex spell, but with raw, focused power. He formed a miniature sun in his palm and fired it. The attacks collided in a cataclysmic explosion that shook the very foundations of the arena, sending a wave of blistering heat across Arcadia.
Through the fire and smoke, they charged at each other, exchanging a blistering volley of punches and kicks, each impact a burst of flame. Nihilastra's confidence wavered with every block. How... how is his fire this strong? he thought, his mind reeling. Elves are masters of the element! This isn't just fire... it's... purer. I must end this now!
He disengaged, leaping back. "Enough! Take this! Blazing Arrows of Perdition!" The air itself seemed to fuel his spell, condensing into a giant, swirling arrow of concentrated annihilation. With a final incantation, he fired.
The arrow screamed towards Shiro, its mere passage causing the stone ground to slag and melt.
"Overdrive!" Shiro roared. His hair bleached white, red blazing at the tips as a torrent of mana erupted from his core. This was no mere technique; it was a spiritual manifestation of his will. His flames intensified from orange to a searing white-hot. He unleashed a volley of massive fire blasts, but the arrow pierced through them as if they were nothing.
In the city, people began to sweat, their water skins evaporating. Zuzu, watching from the guild hall, acted instantly. Using her eroding magic's latent healing effect, she channeled green energy over the panicked citizens, shielding them from the worst of the heat, even as the effort drained her mana.
The arrow hit. A pillar of fire erupted, blinding everyone.
But from the heart of the inferno, a figure emerged, walking unscathed. Shiro was not just resisting the flames; he was absorbing their heat, making them a part of himself. The arrows Nihilastra rained down in a panic melted against his skin, fueling him further.
Desperate, Nihilastra summoned a giant, fiery axe. "DIE!" He shot into the sky, then dove down, putting his entire weight behind a blow meant to cleave Shiro in two.
Shiro looked up, calm amidst the storm. On his left arm, flames spiraled into a glowing gauntlet, compressing into a miniature galaxy of fire. "Galactic Blazing Fist!" Using his fire as propulsion from his feet, he became a rocket, shooting upwards to meet the descending half-elf.
The citizens of Arcadia saw two stars—one falling, one rising—collide in a silent moment before the sky detonated. A colossal, upward-pluming fireball blossomed, its pressure wave flattening tents and rattling windows for miles.
When the light faded, Nihilastra was falling, his robes scorched, his body broken. He crashed into the arena floor with a sickening thud. Shiro landed safely a moment later, his Overdrive state receding.
His heart hammered in his chest, a deep, concerning pain spreading through his core. "Ha... ha... this pain..." he gasped, clutching his chest.
As the last of the heat dissipated, a new figure stood before the defeated Nihilastra. It was Saturu, his expression unreadable.
"What will you do next?" Saturu mused, his eyes not on Shiro, but on the trembling Lurker, who had been cornered by Rael at the arena's edge. "I see you plan to play your Trump card."
Lurker trembled, his poison needles lying useless on the ground. What is this person?! The poison did nothing!
Saturu took a step forward. "You know, this isn't my first time being poisoned. People who rely on such cowardly tactics... they piss me off." His voice dropped to a deadly chill. "So, how about we end it here?"
---
[Flashback]
A dark room. Lurker kneels before a woman shrouded in shadow, Anastasia.
"If anything goes wrong, use this as a trump card," Anastasia said, handing him a small, grotesque doll stitched from shadowy cloth. "But I warn you, if used incorrectly, the consequences will be disastrous."
"Do I just say the incantation?" Lurker asked, his voice trembling even then.
"Yep, and it will do the work," she replied, a cruel smile in her voice. "But be warned."
[Flashback End]
---
Back in the present, Lurker coughed up blood, staggering to his feet from the rubble Rael had thrown him into. Rael watched, his arms crossed, analyzing the situation rather than pressing the attack.
"What do I have to lose?" Lurker spat, his eyes wild with desperation. "I can't let a bunch of nobodies come between my plan!" His body began to convulse as he screamed the words. "CURSED DOLL TRIBULATION!"
Intense, malevolent purple energy erupted from his body, consuming him in a pillar of dark fire. His screams of agony were cut short as the energy was violently siphoned into the doll he held. Its eyes glowed with a vile purple light, then it shot across the arena like a bullet, embedding itself into the chest of the broken Nihilastra.
The half-elf's body arched violently, his eyes flying open, now glowing with the same sinister purple. His wounds sealed in an instant, his body restored not with life, but with a rampant, cursed energy. He rose, no longer Nihilastra, but a puppet of pure calamity.
Saturu's calm facade finally broke. "He's still standing? No... this is something else entirely."
Rael's playful grin was long gone, replaced by a look of grim focus. "Shiro," he called out, his voice cutting through the eerie silence. "The real fight starts now."