The Gauntlet was paused.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Around forty thousand people sitting in a stadium that just watched these skill rating pillar things break on a single candidate and were now doing what large crowds of people usually do when they have no idea what just happened.
They waited.
And waited.
I was still standing in the middle of the arena floor. My Magic Capacity was busy soaring to a point it had never been and Oracle had gone silent mode on me.
Then Brenn Earthwalker moved.
At least, I thought he did?
I did not see it happen. Nobody did. One second he was in the viewing box with the other six kings and the next second he was not.
The crowd erupted.
The arena briefly shook.
The time it took me to register he had moved.
He was standing there, twelve feet in front of me.
There was no noise when he hit the ground. Just presence. The air around him settled like it had been disturbed and was trying to remember what normal felt like.
I looked at him properly for the first time.
Brenn Earthwalker was massive. He had these broad shoulders in a way that suggested this was not something he had worked for, but something he had simply always had. His face looked ageless in a way that made it nearly impossible to guess how old he was.
From my guess.
He is either forty or four hundred.
His armour was not like anything else in the stadium.
It looked grown, not made. Dark wood and bone fitted together in plates across his chest and shoulders and arms. The wood looked so old it that it had gone almost black. No metal. No shine. You could feel some sense of magic that ran through it quietly.
He smelled like rain and old earth and something else underneath that I did not have a word for.
Then, Gutter Intuition tried to do its job.
[ GUTTER INTUITION: Scanning individual. ]
[ Name: Unknown. ]
[ Level: Unknown. ]
[ Magic Capacity: Unknown. ]
[ Threat Assessment: Un— ]
The scan cut off.
Just gone. Like something had reached into the process of it and said "not happening".
Before I could think about what to do, he spoke.
"There is no point in what you are doing."
His voice was exactly what his face suggested it would be. Low and direct. Not loud. Just the kind of voice that reached you anyway because it had never once needed to ask twice for anything.
I did not say anything.
I genuinely had no idea what to say to that...
Oracle had some words to say about it.
[ WARNING: Ambient pressure field detected. Source: Individual in front of you. Recommendation: Do not provoke. Do not scan again. Do not — ]
I was already ignoring it.
The floor around his feet was cracking. It was spreading slowly outward through the dark packed dirt from where he was standing. It was like the ground was doing its best to hold it together and was losing. My clothes were not doing well either. The left sleeve had gone from torn to significantly more torn and the right side of my shirt was fraying away.
I gripped my cup.
It was the only thing in my possession that seemed unaffected.
Then, from somewhere to my left I sensed someone move closer to me.
I felt it. Gutter Intuition gave me a good idea of what was about to go down. He stepped forward with his chin up and his shoulders back and his voice at exactly the volume of someone who had decided this was his moment to shine.
"Your Majesty," he said. "I am Sepharian Vayne. I am a Ranked candidate and a three time divisional champion of the Velthas regional circuit. I have been assessed by three separate divination scholars as the primary candidate for the Celestial Hero designation. It is an honour to—"
Brenn looked at him.
Just looked. No expression. No movement.
Then he said something.
"Quiet! Peasant." he said. To Seph.
The stadium was silent enough that I heard Seph's next breath catch.
Gutter Intuition read him immediately and what it came back with was not the usual mix of arrogance and wounded pride.
[ GUTTER INTUITION: Individual. Sepharian Vayne. Current emotional state: beyond readable parameters. Assessment: This is the most dangerous this person has felt since you met him. File accordingly. ]
I filed it accordingly and acted natural holding back my urge to laugh.
Brenn looked at me.
Not the way people had been looking at me all day. He looked at me the way someone looks at something they have been searching for and are not sure if they have found.
"Who are you!," he said.
Just a question. The kind that wanted a straight forward answer.
So I gave him one.
"Kaito Rymur," I said. "I woke up in this random fish alley with a cardboard box and half a loaf of stale bread. I have no class, no home, no money, I HAVE no idea what I am doing." I looked at him stressed. "I do have this cup though."
I held up the cup.
Brenn looked at the cup.
Then back at me.
Not surprised exactly, but something quieter than surprise. The expression of someone who had just heard something that confirmed what they already suspected.
The floor still cracking beneath us.
Oracle was still sending warnings I was still ignoring.
"Vaelstrom," Brenn said, "has been searching for this power for generations."
He said it the way he said everything else. Flat. Direct. Like he was stating a fact.
Then he looked at me one more time.
And walked away.
I just stood there.
Thin clothes that were now significantly thinner and a cup.
"Oracle," I said very quietly.
"Yes."
"Vaelstrom has been searching for this power for generations."
"Yes."
"What does that mean?"
A pause.
"Oracle does not know, but Oracle suggests finding out quickly."
The stadium was still quiet around me.
Somewhere to my left Seph had not moved or spoken.
I looked at my cup.
I looked at the direction Brenn Earthwalker had walked.
I looked at all the people who had just watched all of that and were very carefully waiting to see what happened next.
"Right," I said.
Then the announcer's voice came back.
"THE ROYAL GAUNTLET WILL NOW RESUME. PHASE TWO BEGINS IN FIVE MINUTES."
While the announcer went through the rules, Gutter intuition stopped reading the crowd.
It read the floor.
[ GUTTER INTUITION: Environmental scan. Below arena floor. Single entity detected. Classification: Unknown. Threat level: Significant. Current status: Waiting. ]
It had one more thing to add.
[ It knows you are up here. ]
I looked at my cup.
Completely not an issue. Absolutely nothing to worry about.
Then I felt someone's hand aggressively land on my shoulder.
I turned around.
It was Seph.
He wasn't smiling. He wasnt performing. The chin was finally down for the first time since I had met him. His eyes had new emotion in them that had not been there before. Not anger. Not jealousy.
He leaned in close enough so that only I could hear him.
"Enjoy it while it lasts buddy," he said quietly, in a low sarcastic tone.
Then, the ground started to shake.