The arena pulsed with a restless charge, mana sharp and biting, like static pressed against the skin. The sanded floor bore scars from earlier clashes—cracks spiderwebbing across its surface, scorch marks still smoldering faintly.

Lucien and Sylith clashed instantly.

Lucien's eyes blazed gold, the Eye of God snapping open, his pupils burning like suns. Mana threads lit up across the battlefield, every current and ripple mapped in perfect detail. He saw her gathering before she moved—her chest tight with psychic force, the vortex spiraling inside her core.

He blurred aside, speed born of foresight, as the pulse erupted. A shimmering shockwave bent the air where he had stood, splitting the ground in jagged scars. The runes along the arena flared in protest, struggling to contain the blast.

Lucien countered at once. His hand swept, mana gathering into a glowing orb, a miniature star pulsing at his palm. He hurled it, a comet of condensed energy streaking through the haze.

Sylith snapped her wings open. Iridescent feathers hardened to crystal mid-beat, shielding her as the orb struck. The explosion rang like a bell, rattling the arena's pillars. Sparks cascaded as she folded her wing back, eyes gleaming.

Lucien was already moving, every step predicted, every strike pre-calculated. He slashed his hand outward, conjuring a crescent of glowing mana—God's Blade. It carved the air in a golden arc, slicing straight through her next psychic lash.

The collision ripped the floor in two, dust and shards spiraling upward.

Sylith landed lightly on the ruined stone, her wings folding in tight. Her body shimmered, skin shifting to a metallic gleam. Her adaptive veil rippled, bending reality around her, deflecting fragments that would have struck. Her eyes narrowed, calculating.

She launched forward again. Psychic lashes cracked the earth, invisible arcs of force tearing through stone, twisting the air into shrieking ribbons. Lucien wove between them, his movements impossibly sharp. He saw the lashes before they struck, threads of mana highlighted in his vision, his body flowing where the gaps would be.

Each dodge was inches from annihilation.

He drew mana from the arena itself, siphoning from the active runes. Spears of glowing light formed above him—Divine Barrage. They rained in a furious volley, each one burning bright as lightning.

Sylith's wings snapped open, slashing wide. Reality bent at their tips, her veil warping space. The spears bent from their paths, detonating harmlessly against the floor or careening into the arena's wards. One ricochet slammed into a pillar, blasting chunks of stone into the tiers.

The faculty raised shimmering wards, protecting the students as the arena shook.

Darius leaned forward, lips quirking. His eyes glittered—not in shock, but recognition. So she's really going for it, huh?

Around him, whispers rippled. None of the others knew what they were truly seeing.

The duel raged hotter. Lucien's foresight kept him ahead, but Sylith's unpredictability gnawed at the edges. Her psychic waves warped perception itself, the arena's edges blurring into dreamlike haze.

Lucien's golden eyes pierced through it. He saw her core—the true vortex—spinning faster, pulling deeper.

His jaw tightened. She's accelerating already.

He steadied, drawing more mana. His voice cut sharp: "God's Wrath."

The beam exploded from his hand, blinding white, a column of pure mana slicing the arena in half. The ground ruptured beneath it, a canyon tearing through the ring.

Sylith raised her hand. Her eyes flared—not gold, not human. Crimson bled into her irises, burning from within, a second core unfurling inside her chest.

The arena's mana writhed in protest.

Her Eye of the Devil opened.

The air fractured around her, space bending, collapsing into her grasp. She lashed outward, and Lucien's beam bent—redirected, twisted like a snake. The diverted blast tore into the stone tiers, a chunk of seating collapsing in a rain of rubble.

The arena roared with the clash of god and devil.

Sylith's crimson glow surged, her psychic waves growing jagged, unstable. She thrust her hand, unleashing Devil's Pulse. Reality screamed, a distortion of pure will shattering Lucien's next surge of mana mid-formation. The backlash cracked the ground beneath him, dust spiraling upward.

Students shouted, scrambling to shield their faces. Even the faculty leaned forward now, expressions sharp.

Darius tilted his head, eyes narrowing. So soon? He exhaled through his nose. Of course. She wouldn't hold back if it's him.

But beneath the steady front, something in him stirred uneasily.

He knew the Eye of the Devil well—he had written it. Not as a gimmick, not as a weapon to throw around, but as a rival's answer to Lucien's sight. Balanced against his godlike predictions.

He hadn't expected her to burn it so quickly.

His gaze sharpened. Does she know? About his eye?

The ground cracked again as Lucien's vision flickered. Her crimson aura distorted the mana flow, twisting the threads he relied on, turning his perfect sight into static. For the first time, he staggered.

Sylith smiled faintly, wings spread, the glow of her devil's core pulsing like a heartbeat.

Darius's knuckles drummed against his knee.

"She's dangerous," Kael muttered beside him, but Darius barely heard. His lips curved into a dry smile, whispering low.

"I gave her one flaw."

As though in answer, the crimson in Sylith's eyes surged, veins of power lancing outward, her aura crackling too bright. She hurled another Reality Fracture, the attack raw, wild, too consuming.

The flaw unfolded before them: she overreached.

Her Eye was powerful—but greedy. It devoured her focus, strained her body, drew too deeply, too quickly. And every time she leaned on it, she bled control.

Lucien's golden eyes flared back to life. His foresight snapped into clarity again, her overextension leaving threads wide open.

He moved.

The arena's mana surged toward him, magnetized by the Eye of God. Lucien raised his hands, golden veins of light threading through his arms as the rune-etched pillars flared. He pulled from them greedily, draining their glow until cracks of dimness spread across their carved faces.

Then he unleashed it.

Celestial Pulse.

A wave of raw, golden mana tore outward, rippling through the arena in concentric rings. The air ignited with radiant light, sand glassed into shining fragments under its passage. When it struck Sylith, the force smashed against her Reality Fracture, splintering it apart in a violent shatter that sent dust and debris spiraling skyward.

The ground buckled, spiderwebs of cracks racing out from the impact. A pillar moaned under the pressure, stone chips raining as the arena trembled like a living thing.

Lucien's attack didn't just expend his mana—it siphoned the arena itself, bending its energy into his strike. The runes sputtered, their glow erratic, sparks of failing wards drifting like fireflies.

Sylith responded instantly.

Her wings snapped wide, feathers glinting with a crimson sheen as her devil core pulsed. She thrust her arms out, and reality itself bent, collapsing into a spiraling storm. Chaos Vortex.

The maelstrom devoured Celestial Pulse, pulling it into a distorted whirlpool of warped space. The force didn't vanish—it redirected, flung outward like a ricocheting blade. The tiers shuddered as a section of stone seating collapsed, rubble plunging. Students screamed before a faculty ward flared, catching the falling rock in a shimmering barrier.

The roar of clashing mana swallowed the arena.

Sylith didn't pause. Her devil core flared brighter, crimson veins streaking across her wings as she lunged, her voice sharp with focus. "Mind Shatter."

Invisible spikes of psychic force ripped from her in every direction, jagged protrusions of warped thought stabbing into reality itself. The air bent unnaturally, lines of sight curving, light bending into mirages. To any normal mage, the arena warped into a hellscape of illusions.

But Lucien was no ordinary mage.

The Eye of God lit up his vision. Threads of mana glowed golden, revealing the pattern beneath the distortions. He wove through them with unnatural grace, each dodge exact, his body a blur of precision. Psychic spikes carved trenches into the stone where he'd been half a heartbeat earlier, the sound like glass tearing.

His hands swept wide. A storm howled into existence. Divine Tempest.

Winds sharpened by mana tore through the spikes, shredding the earth into furrows. The gale spiraled outward, a cyclone of light and grit that howled like a living beast.

Sylith's Adaptive Veil flared, the air around her shimmering as space warped to deflect the tempest. But even so, the storm grazed her. A streak of wind kissed her wing, and iridescent feathers blackened, falling like burnt petals into the maelstrom.

She snarled, crimson eyes blazing.

The arena shook. Pillars cracked further, fissures racing across the ground. Dust choked the air, the runes blinking in frantic, unsteady pulses.

The duel balanced on a knife's edge. Lucien's control—razor-sharp, precise, fueled by foresight—against Sylith's chaos, her devil core tearing holes in reality with every pulse.

Lucien's breath came steady, eyes locked. His foresight sensed a flicker, a strain in her mana flow—a moment where her control faltered. He seized it.

God's Lance.

A spear of condensed light formed in his grasp, a sun-forged weapon, and he hurled it with all the force his Eye could guide. It pierced the haze, a golden streak aimed straight for her devil core.

Sylith's smirk deepened. She thrust both hands forward. Devil's Rebuke.

Raw will erupted from her, a crimson pulse of reality collapse. The lance shattered mid-flight, detonating into golden fragments that rained like meteors. The backlash blasted another crater into the arena, stone and sand spewing in all directions.

Lucien flowed with it, his foresight turning even missed strikes into advantage. But Sylith matched him, her devil core warping his vision with static. Psychic lashes whipped again, hammering relentlessly.

The two forces collided—golden light and crimson distortion—turning the arena into a battleground that screamed with tearing stone and collapsing air.

From the tiers, Darius's lips quirked. This is it. The clash I wrote.

Lucien pressed harder. His eyes blazed brighter, veins of gold lacing his arms as he drew deeper, threading the very air with his sight. He unleashed Heaven's Judgment.

Orbs of light rained from above, hundreds of them, each pulsing with amplified mana. They slammed into the arena floor in a blistering barrage, cratering stone, blasting shockwaves that reached the tiers.

Sylith staggered. Her Adaptive Veil flickered, her body trembling under the sheer volume of strikes. She retaliated desperately, a psychic lash carving across Lucien's arm, drawing blood. He hissed, gritted his teeth, and narrowed his eyes, his foresight locking onto her faltering core.

The orbs hammered down, shaking the entire arena, one pillar groaning as its foundation tilted.

Still, Sylith endured. Her devil core flared harder, crimson veins glowing brighter, her wings trembling under the strain. She raised her arms, gathering mana, her body shaking as though containing something far larger than herself.

Lucien felt it—the pull, the distortion, the sudden gravity of her will. His foresight strained, threads flickering out under the weight of what she gathered.

Then she spoke, her voice cutting through the roar, laced with confidence and exhaustion all at once.

"This ends now, Lucien."

Her Eye of the Devil burned at full ignition, crimson irises blazing like molten stars. The arena's mana tore free of its bindings, drawn into her vortex. The wards flickered, struggling to stabilize.

Her body shook with it, but she did not falter.

The ground cracked, huge slabs tearing loose. Dust swirled into a funnel as mana screamed into her core. Reality itself warped, the air curving, stone bending unnaturally.

She called it by name, her voice a declaration. "Abyssal Requiem!"

The arena stilled for half a heartbeat. Then it convulsed.

Crimson energy burst outward in a wave, the sheer distortion bending space, pulling the world apart at the seams.

Lucien planted his feet, golden eyes burning hotter, his hands rising to meet it.

The clash loomed—god and devil, foresight and chaos—power gathering at scales that threatened to erase the battlefield entirely.

Students screamed. Faculty rose, ready to intervene.

And Darius? He leaned forward, eyes narrow, whispering low, his voice almost drowned by the roar.

"I told you, Sylith. You'd overuse it."

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