Ludger’s stride lengthened, pace increasing, but his thoughts stayed cold and orderly behind the momentum. He wanted this finished quickly, clean, efficient, controlled. But he also didn’t want to empty his pockets in front of thousands of strangers. Every trick shown now was ammunition for someone else later: nobles plotting outcomes, guilds predicting counters, assassins studying his style.
He liked having enemies. They sharpened him. Forced him to learn. Forced him to adapt… But he wasn’t a masochist.
He didn’t want every fight to turn into some exhausting, multi-layered tactical chess match that required juggling a dozen possible futures at once. Some battles were just battles. Some opponents didn’t deserve a master plan. Horvan fell into that category.
The mage’s mana wall still hovered between them, thick and glasslike, sparkling with power. Ludger sprinted straight into it, but at the last second angled upward, bending into a leap. He aimed to vault over the barrier, treat it like a short obstacle instead of something worth breaking.
Horvan reacted instantly. The wall surged.
It widened, curved, rose, and swallowed space, transforming from a vertical pane into a domed sphere that sealed the mage inside. A shimmering half-globe of mana wrapped around him like a bunker, locking Ludger out mid-air.
Ludger’s boots hit the barrier, momentum smacking against the curved surface before he dropped back to the sand.
The crowd erupted again, shocked at the sudden transformation, the seamless shift from wall to dome. Horvan, safe behind it, raised his hand and fired another bolt.
This time the lightning didn’t reach Ludger… it fizzled against the inside of the sphere, barely arcing before being snuffed out like static under a blanket. Ludger blinked once.
There it was. He understood.
Lightning bolts and the shield weren’t independent. Horvan couldn’t maintain both without total focus, his mind was too busy holding the shield intact to channel offensive spells through it. That was why he could shoot lightning behind the wall: the barrier was flat then, directional, not fully sealed.
The moment he made it a sphere, the moment he closed every angle… he lost the firing line. Ludger exhaled, amused. A puzzle worth exactly two seconds of thought. Then dismissed.
He looked up at the glowing shield, mana shimmering like rippling glass, then at the mage inside, rings pulsing as he struggled to maintain control.
Before Ludger’s boots fully hit the sand, Horvan made his move.
The sphere around him shuddered, then exploded outward with heat. One ring at his knuckle flared scarlet, and a cluster of fireballs materialized overhead, orbiting him like infernal satellites.
Then they fired.
A rapid, staccato barrage… thoom-thoom-thoom-thoom-thoom —
launched in tight succession, streaking across the arena like burning cannon shells. They weren’t big. They weren’t dramatic. They were fast, each one moving just slightly faster than thought, perfectly timed to leave Ludger no space between impacts.
This was Horvan’s real rhythm. His real weapon. Lightning was flash. Fire was function. Ludger didn’t bother dodging.
He lifted one hand and snapped mana into shape, faster and heavier than Horvan could track. A fireball surged into existence, many times the size of the mage’s, dense enough to distort the air around it, heat waves bending the sand beneath. It was born ready, no delay, no flourish.
It fired forward in the same instant. The streams met midair. An explosion hammered the arena, shockwave battering the stands hard enough to make the lower benches shake. Fire collided with fire, cores destabilizing, mana twisting into volatile backlash.
The blast swallowed both attacks… then grew.
Sand erupted upward in a violent plume. Smoke rolled outward in a dense wave that devoured lines of sight. The sound rippled through the stadium like distant thunder, rattling the arena walls. Within seconds, the world vanished in a churning storm of grit and heat.
Spectators squinted uselessly. Northerners shouted, half-laughing. Judges leaned forward in alarm. From every direction came the same question, echoing across the chaos:
“What just happened?”
The smoke and dust slowly began to dissipate, the arena clearing in fits and bursts as the crowd held its collective breath. The oppressive heat of the explosion still hung in the air, thick with the tang of burnt sand and sizzling mana. The sounds of shifting earth and the lingering crackle of distant embers made the atmosphere feel almost suspended, as if everything was waiting to see what came next.
And then, from the center of the arena, Ludger emerged.
He stood tall and unruffled, his movements languid but deliberate, stretching out his legs in smooth arcs that sent ripples down his body. First one leg straightened with a satisfying crack, followed by the other, each stretch a controlled, fluid motion. The aftermath of the blast didn’t touch him, no signs of strain, no tremors in his posture. He was calm, unaffected. As if the explosion had been little more than a brief inconvenience.
And there, in front of him, was a cluster of small, perfectly round rocks.
They were scattered across the sand in neat little rows, no bigger than his forearm, and no higher than his knees, their smooth surfaces glistening faintly under the arena lights.
The crowd frowned. The stones didn’t belong there. They didn’t make sense . They didn’t fit into the chaotic aftermath of the explosion. But there they were, sitting in odd, meticulous formation at Ludger’s feet.
The older mage, Horvan, blinked twice, confusion clouding his usually sharp expression. His gaze flicked from Ludger to the stones, then back to Ludger again, clearly puzzled. He couldn't understand what they meant, why they were there, or how they fit into this strange game Ludger was playing.
Ludger didn’t bother explaining. He simply took a step back. His weight shifted, then he dashed forward.
The sand parted beneath his feet with the explosive force of his charge. His body coiled, focused, and without any hesitation, he lifted his foot and drove it into one of the round rocks with everything he had.
The sound was sharp, piercing, like the shriek of metal slicing through air. The rock shot forward faster than a cannonball, a blur of motion that stretched the laws of momentum. It screamed through the air, its smooth surface cutting through the smoke, the pitch of its velocity rising high, high into the ears of every spectator.
Horvan’s eyes widened just in time to see the rock slam into his mana wall.
For a moment, it looked like the barrier would hold. The sphere rippled, vibrated, but didn’t give. Then, crack , the force of the impact hit. The mana shield buckled. A jagged fracture ran through it like glass under stress, the rock cutting through with frightening ease.
The rock punched deep into the barrier, deeper than it should have, deeper than anyone could’ve anticipated. The crowd gasped.
Horvan’s jaw clenched, fingers twitching at his rings. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, one of his barriers, his pride, shattering like cheap pottery. The rock, a small, unassuming thing, had crushed through his defense like it was nothing more than a curtain of air. Ludger stood motionless, a barely perceptible smile ghosting his lips.
He had an idea, sure, he always did. But some battles weren’t about showing everything. Some battles were about leaving the world to question how the hell you’d managed to break it.
Ludger’s stance shifted slightly, and his eyes narrowed, locking onto the remaining stone balls. His foot twitched in anticipation, he wasn’t done yet, not by a long shot. The warm-up had just been a prelude, a simple demonstration. Now it was time to press his advantage, to see how far he could push before his opponent had to admit the fight was over.
The old mage, Horvan, was already scrambling, frantically working to repair his mana barrier. It flickered back to full strength, but the cracks were still visible, like fractures in glass that had been hastily sealed. Ludger wasn’t about to let him catch his breath.
He lifted his leg and kicked the first stone ball. The sound was sharp, crack , and the ball launched forward like a bullet, faster, harder than before. The ground beneath it seemed to vibrate with the force. Horvan barely had time to react. His hands flashed, rings pulsing to channel mana, trying to reinforce his shield in time. The barrier trembled under the impact, but it held, just. The old mage’s face twisted with concentration as sweat began to bead on his forehead.
But Ludger wasn’t finished.
He kicked the second stone with even more power, the ball screeching through the air with an ear-piercing high-pitched whine. Horvan’s eyes widened, his hands shaking as he struggled to mend the damage. The mana wall rippled violently, but this time, it seemed to be less about control and more about sheer desperation. The second rock slammed into the shield, causing a burst of crackling energy that sent a shockwave through the sand. The barrier nearly collapsed, but somehow, it didn’t.
The old mage was sweating bullets now, his robes sticking to his skin as he panted, eyes darting frantically to the next incoming threat. But Ludger was far from done.
This time, Ludger didn’t just stand there. He grabbed three stone balls in a fluid motion, tossing them into the air with a precision only he could manage. The crowd held its breath as the three rocks spun, hovering above him for a heartbeat. Ludger’s body coiled like a spring, and with a single, powerful leap, he shot upward, twisting violently in mid-air, his body a blur of motion. He kicked the first ball, sending it rocketing toward the mage’s wall with all the power he could muster.
But he didn’t stop.
Before Horvan could even react, Ludger spun again in the air, kicking the second ball with pinpoint accuracy. The air hummed with the raw energy of his movement, and the stone flew like an unstoppable force toward the barrier.
Horvan’s eyes were wide with panic now, his entire focus on the wall that was rapidly buckling under the relentless assault. He poured every last bit of his mana into the barrier, reinforcing it with desperate urgency, sweat dripping down his face in torrents. His rings flashed brighter and brighter, mana surging from his fingertips to keep the shield from shattering entirely.
But it wasn’t enough.
The second stone ball hit the mana wall with a violent crack , sending a shockwave through the arena. The entire barrier wavered, a deep crack running along its surface as it groaned under the force.
Horvan’s breath came in ragged gasps. He could barely keep the barrier up, let alone repair it in time. His fingers were shaking with exhaustion, and his face was pale beneath the beads of sweat that streaked down his temples. He was on the edge of losing control.
Ludger wasn’t finished.
He kicked the third ball, his body already twisting to launch it with every last ounce of strength he had left. The stone shot through the air like a comet, cutting a blazing path toward the crumbling mana wall. The audience gasped, the tension palpable as everyone realized what was about to happen.
Horvan saw it coming, but there was no time.
The third stone slammed into the mana wall with a deafening explosion. The wall crumpled under the impact like paper caught in a fire, the mana shielding shattering into brilliant sparks. Horvan's hands flew up instinctively, but the force was too much, he couldn’t reinforce it in time.
The last stone crashed through the shattered barrier, its trajectory unerringly precise. It slammed into Horvan’s right leg with a sickening crack , the bone snapping like a twig under the force. He screamed in agony, collapsing to the sand as his leg buckled beneath him.
The arena fell silent for a moment, the weight of the impact reverberating in the stunned air.
Horvan’s body went limp, his right leg twisted at an unnatural angle, a sickening snap still ringing in the ears of the spectators. The mage rolled sideways, his body spiraling into the sand as he lost consciousness, the remnants of his shattered barrier flickering out like a dying light.
Ludger landed lightly on his feet, his breath even, his eyes calm. His expression didn’t shift, no triumph, no pride, just the quiet certainty of a fight concluded.
The arena erupted into chaos, half in disbelief, half in roaring approval. But for Ludger, the fight had already ended. The old mage was done. And so, it seemed, was any pretense of resistance.
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