*I imagined this could happen. I got too distracted up there. Damn it.*
It felt like that ravine had no end.
When I finally hit the bottom, I slowly pushed my body up, gasping for ragged breaths. I was exhausted from the impact, but I was still in one piece. I hadn't suffered nearly as many injuries as I thought I would from plummeting from that height.
"What the hell... how am I supposed to climb all of this back up?!" I muttered, staring at the infinite walls of stone above me.
It would take a long time.
But I wasn't going to give up.
*(Meanwhile, above the ravine)*
The three of them landed in sequence, skidding across the ground and tearing up chunks of earth.
Kimiko flashed a lethal, excited smile as she stared down into the darkness of the cliff.
"We're going down after him, aren't we?!"
Sallys answered immediately, her elven eyes gleaming with the same murderous anxiety:
"Isn't that obvious?"
Kaichin stared into the abyss, his face calm and his eyes completely cold.
"We have to kill him. It is our duty. He is more important than the entire competition."
Without the slightest hesitation, the three of them jumped into the ravine.
The voice of Hesiod, the Narrator, exploded through the arena's speakers, bordering on absolute madness:
"WHAT WAS THAT?! OUR THREE STARS JUST ABANDONED THE SURFACE OF THE TOURNAMENT?!"
High up in the VIP section, Laura shot up from her seat once again, her face contorted in fury.
"WHAT THE HELL! WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS?!"
Silver, sitting comfortably in the armchair beside her, continued watching everything through the hologram, perfectly calm.
"They know the boy could become an insane threat in the future," his voice sounded low and deadly. His green eyes darkened, exuding that ancestral coldness once again. "Some gods secretly ordered them to execute Suki during the tournament. They can't move against the boy personally... because they are terrified of me."
Laura ground her teeth aggressively.
"Bastards... I hope he makes it out of there alive."
Silver broke into a confident smile and crossed his legs.
"He will."
*(Down below, inside the ravine)*
I had been climbing for quite a while, but the exit still seemed impossibly far away. Only a few stray rays of sunlight managed to pierce through the darkness of that monstrous depth.
While scaling the damp rocks, I noticed three trails of energy descending toward me at an absurd speed.
One of them was heading straight for me.
The exact millisecond I realized it, I drew my sword from its sheath and blocked the attack crashing down from the sky.
*BOOOOM!*
It was Kimiko.
She attacked me with absolutely everything she had. The battle axe in her hands was gigantic, heavy, and brutal. The force of the impact, combined with the sheer weight of the blade, made it impossible for me to maintain my grip on the ravine wall.
I was ripped from the rock and hurled back down into the depths.
*BOOOOM!*
The impact of my body against the rocky floor sent a curtain of dust and stone exploding in every direction.
Up above, Kimiko clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, visibly irritated as she landed.
"I was fast enough... and the brat still managed to block it," she tightened her grip on the axe handle. "I should have split his chest in half."
I rose from the rubble, my blood boiling with hatred.
*Damn it... these bastards don't care about the tournament at all. Why the hell are they so obsessed with me?!*
Losing whatever patience I had left, I screamed with all the strength in my lungs:
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!"
My voice echoed violently against the walls of the ravine. But I doubted the sound could even scratch the surface of the arena up above.
It was Sallys who answered, her cold, echoing voice drifting down through the shadows:
"We do not owe explanations to an insignificant being."
And then, she attacked first.
An arrow buzzed toward me at sickening speed. Halfway through its trajectory, the projectile split into five sharp blades made of pure wind energy.
I still couldn't locate exactly where Sallys was, but my instincts reacted in time.
I intercepted each of the five projectiles with precise sword strikes. The sound of the impacts tearing through the air sounded like steel colliding with pure steel.
Fortunately, that first barrage hadn't been too difficult to deflect.
When I finished repelling the cutting winds, the dust settled just enough for me to notice something in the distance.
Kaichin and Kimiko.
They were standing on separate stone platforms, simply watching me from afar.
Waiting.
Like predators surrounding a cornered beast.
But Sallys remained hidden in the darkness above.
*Analyzing... So she's the one acting as long-range support for the group.*
I inhaled sharply.
I couldn't panic.
The numerical disadvantage was absurd, but as long as my mind remained focused within the chaos, I still had a chance to kill all three of them.
*I need to get out of this hole fast. But they won't let me. So I'm going to force my way out.*
I launched my body violently against the wall of the ravine and began sprinting vertically at high speed.
Right behind me, dozens of wind arrows began to whistle through the air. I blocked each shot with extreme difficulty, twisting my body as I fought to maintain my climbing rhythm without losing speed.
Then, I felt another presence.
Heavy.
Crushing.
A colossal pressure approaching my back. I couldn't see clearly because of the constant dust kicked up by the impacts, but I knew it was most likely Kimiko.
And if she reached me with that axe and brute strength midway through my climb, things were going to get ugly.
At the same time, I still hadn't seen Kaichin's true abilities. The short daggers he wielded looked deadly. Not knowing what he was capable of left me completely exposed to surprise attacks.
*Damn it.*
I was surrounded.
The thick dust raised by their strikes had created a dark curtain around the entire ravine. They were trying to blind me, turning the battle into target practice by shooting arrows from afar so they would explode and open massive craters in the rock around me.
I couldn't afford to be hit by even a single pebble.
*I need to find Sallys now. Before they completely control the fight.*
That was when I got an idea.
I held my sword vertically and executed a single, maximum-force spin, using the width of the blade to create a whirlpool of wind around me.
The dust was blown away and dissipated instantly.
My field of vision opened completely for the first time.
And there was Kaichin.
Less than half a meter behind my back.
His eyes widened. Clearly, he hadn't expected me to clear the vision of the arena so quickly and destroy their camouflage.
He was too close, and I didn't hesitate.
I twisted my hips, torquing every muscle, and unleashed a direct kick, concentrating my divine strength.
My heel smashed dead center into the boy's pale face.
The impact crushed his jaw with a sickening crack. Kaichin's body was launched toward the bottom of the abyss like a useless ragdoll.
*BOOOOM!*
Almost in the exact same second, I heard another deadly whistle of arrows falling from above.
I raised my head.
I finally found her.
Sallys was standing on a suspended stone platform high above, her bow drawn, focusing her total power into the next attack.
I gritted my teeth.
"Tch... annoying girl from hell."
Without wasting another second, I blasted against the wall straight toward her.
My intention was singular:
End this now.
Sallys noticed my approach and began firing a frantic rain of arrows, leaping from platform to platform across the top of the ravine in an attempt to keep her distance.
Her movements were incredibly fast.
Chaotic.
Hard to follow with normal eyes.
"Huh?! How did he get so fast?!" she screamed, her voice trembling with nervousness as I destroyed every arrow that came close.
She looked around desperately, glancing down into the ravine, but couldn't spot them.
"AND WHERE ARE THOSE TWO IDIOT?!"
The elf's calm, composed personality vanished completely.
The barrage of arrows didn't stop.
But not a single one even scratched my clothes.
I was reading absolutely everything.
Every twitch of her tendons. Every shot. Every murderous intent. My eyes tracked her jumps as if she were slow prey.
My mind was entirely focused on her, and my body followed on pure automatic instinct.
Despair took over the elf's face. She began losing control of her own magic.
"MISERABLE INSECT! ARE YOU MOCKING ME?!"
A twisted, sadistic smile slowly spread across my face as I caught up to her mid-air.
"What the hell are you talking about?" I murmured.
In absolute panic, Sallys completely changed her attack pattern. She started flying in aggressive zig-zags through the narrow crevices of the ravine wall, trying to trick my perception and land a point-blank shot.
But I never took my eyes off her for a single millisecond.
In a final act of desperation, she prepared a different arrow.
I felt it instantly when the rain of arrows stopped—a massive concentration of energy from Sallys. I felt the power pooling into a single arrowhead.
The moment she released the bowstring, the walls of the ravine began shattering along the projectile's path. Even feeling that immense pressure, I managed to dodge on pure reflex, but the arrow struck the wall right where I was.
The entire cliff face in front of me detonated into pieces of rock and fire.
Shards of hard stone pierced my left arm, tearing through flesh and bone.
The pain burned through my nerves like molten lead. I felt the heat of the blood running down my arm and beginning to drip, but I couldn't stop.
And I didn't stop.
*Now...!*
That dense smoke of dust and stone was perfect.
I used the thick cloud of smoke from the explosion she herself had created to hide my own body, and dove straight into the elf's only blind spot.
Climbing like a beast to close the distance between us, my heart pounded rapidly, my lungs burned. My hands, which I now used to climb and propel myself faster, were tearing open from the friction against the jagged rocks.
Then, when the smoke cleared, nothing could be seen but darkness and the faint sound of rocks tumbling far below.
Sallys stood still, her head darting frantically as she searched for me below. I saw her eyes narrow to see better, and heard the tension of her bow as her fingers concentrated pure light energy before firing downward.
The arrow acted as a pure flare inside that dark, gloomy tunnel of the ravine.
It completely illuminated her outfit. I saw her sharp ears twitching, trying to pick up any sound.
But she didn't notice that, right beside her, something was dripping—my arm, torn open by the stone shrapnel.
I was right next to her, behind a rock formation, completely concealing my aura as much as I possibly could, and then I moved.
I spun my entire body mid-air and unleashed a massive lateral kick straight into Sallys' chest. The sound of the impact was horrifying. The blow crushed her entire ribcage instantly.
Her small body was launched against the rocky wall of the ravine with such monstrous, relentless force that the impact blasted a dark, straight tunnel through the solid stone.
The remaining debris tumbled down below. I figured Kaichin and Kimiko probably weren't enjoying this rain of rocks.
The wall shattered, and we crashed through the rock to the other side.
An immense underground chamber, hidden in the bowels of the arena, revealed itself before me.
Sallys' broken body fell like a stone into the dark, freezing water that filled the bottom of the cavern.
The girl's face remained frozen in an expression of pure agony.
When I approached the water and stared at the wreckage, I saw the fist-sized, mangled hole blown straight through the center of her chest.
Her heart had exploded from the inside out from the sheer force of my strike.
A quick death.
And absolutely brutal.
I stared at the Star's floating body for long seconds of heavy silence, catching the breath I had lost during the intense battle.
"It was her or me."
*It was her or me.*
*It was her or me.*
*Calm down, Suki,* I thought.
I finally sheathed my sword. I felt my hand tremble slightly, but I forced myself to focus on the objective.
"There is no room for mercy here."
I turned my back on the bleeding corpse of the elf and walked out of the underground cavern, finally stepping onto the solid ground of a forest.
The dense, cold wind of the main arena hit my face, which was bathed in blood and sweat.
And then, shattering that fragile silence, Hesiod's deafening voice erupted across the skies of the arena.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT MY EYES ARE SEEING!"
The colossal hologram blinked and changed images, focusing exactly on my figure emerging from the abyss.
My face stained with fresh blood, my clothes torn over my injured arm, and the cold, dead eyes of a true predator—all broadcast in high definition to millions of spectators.
"THE FIRST STAR HAS FALLEN! SALLYS, THE DAUGHTER OF THE ELF QUEEN... IS DEAD!!"
The sheer volume of his voice seemed to make the earth itself tremble.
"THE BETTING RANKINGS HAVE JUST BEEN SHATTERED! THE ABERRATION OF LAVINSK JUST MASSACRED ONE OF THE FAVORITES IN RECORD TIME!"
The crowd in the stands plunged into a single second of absolute silence... only to erupt immediately afterward into a chaotic roar of shock, rage, and hysteria.
Despite the deafening madness exploding high above, I simply closed my eyes, feeling the breeze through the trees.
*Ignore them, Suki. Just ignore them,* I thought.
For a brief moment... the arena felt calm.
But I knew the truth all too well.
This was far from over.