The arena convulsed.

Sylith's Abyssal Requiem detonated in a roar of crimson distortion, reality itself tearing at the seams. The shockwave split the ground, warped the air, and flung Lucien backward. His boots skidded across the ruined floor, jagged cracks splitting further beneath each step. Dust exploded outward, blinding the tiers in a choking haze.

Sylith was no better off. Her wings snapped open to brace herself, but even she staggered under the recoil of her own attack. The crimson glow of her devil core flickered, veins of light racing across her body in jagged pulses. Her breath came shallow, strained, but her crimson eyes never left him.

The rune-etched pillars groaned, their glow stuttering like a failing heartbeat. Jagged fissures tore through the floor, sand and stone sliding into freshly carved canyons.

From the tiers, the faculty surged to their feet. Lyra's silver gown caught the dimming light as her hand twitched toward her staff. The Headmaster raised a single hand, flames dancing lazily around his palm, voice calm but edged with steel.

"Sit. Not yet."

The faculty froze.

The duel had already gone beyond sanctioned boundaries, but his word held.

Students gasped in unison as Kael shouted from the tiers, voice breaking through the roar:

"They're gonna break everything!"

In the far corner, the God Wand's sealed case pulsed once, its aura steady—a heartbeat amidst chaos.

Lucien straightened, brushing a streak of dust and blood from his cheek. His golden eyes blazed, threads of mana etched in his vision. Despite the ruin around him, a faint smirk curled his lips.

"You're strong, Sylith," he said, voice low but carrying across the arena. "You can actually match me." His smirk sharpened into a line of resolve. "Time to get serious."

Her answer was movement.

Crimson light flared, her wings snapping wide as her devil core pulsed, warping the air into jagged tremors. With a bellow, she lunged.

The runes flickered violently, light stuttering. The wards that shielded the audience screamed against the pressure, sparks running across their translucent surface.

The duel reignited.

Lucien moved first, his Eye of God unraveling her mana flow like an open book. Threads of crimson bent ahead of her strike, and he was already moving before she attacked. His hand swept outward, conjuring God's Blade.

A crescent of golden mana seared through the air, sharp and radiant, aimed directly for her devil core.

Sylith snapped her wings downward, her Eye of the Devil pulsing crimson. A Chaos Vortex exploded into being—a spiraling maelstrom of warped space. The blade was swallowed, twisted, and hurled sideways. It carved straight into a pillar. Stone split with a thunderous crack, fragments raining into the arena floor.

The ground shook, groaning under the constant abuse.

Sylith pressed, lashing out with a Psychic Lash. Invisible arcs scythed across the air, warping light as they tore deep furrows into the stone. Lucien was already gone, his foresight placing him three steps ahead. His boots scraped, cloak flaring as he slid past the arcs and countered.

His fingers flicked skyward. Divine Barrage.

Dozens of glowing spears formed above him, golden light thrumming as they descended like meteors. Each carried siphoned mana, their weight immense.

Sylith's Adaptive Veil shimmered. Reality bent, redirecting the path of some spears, but too many rained down. Explosions cratered the ground around her, dust and fire blasting into the haze. She darted between them, her wings slashing arcs through the chaos, crimson eyes narrowed.

The arena could barely keep up. The runes pulsed erratically, sometimes failing to absorb the backlash. Wide cracks split the floor like a broken mirror. Each clash left a fresh scar.

Lucien's predictions gave him fluidity, his movements exact, his counters relentless. Yet Sylith's chaos frayed his edge. Her psychic pulses warped his vision, inserting static into the clarity of his foresight. Where he saw perfect golden threads, her Eye of the Devil spliced them with red distortions. His blade passed through where her core should have been, only for her body to blur sideways, wings cutting through stone as if it were parchment.

Neither yielded.

Then Lucien's gaze deepened.

The gold in his eyes bled into violet, a violent hue coiling outward until his irises blazed a stormy purple. His breathing steadied, his stance sharpened.

The Eye of Dominion.

Mana surged through him like a flood unbound, threads of light racing down his arms in glowing veins. His control spiked into something cruel, absolute. The arena's ambient mana bent toward him, every particle responding to his will.

Sylith froze for half a heartbeat, her wings twitching as she felt the shift.

Lucien raised both hands. Power bled from his body in waves, the ground vibrating beneath him. He exhaled.

"Dominion Storm."

The arena howled.

Winds laced with mana roared outward, each gust sharp as a blade. Orbs of light crackled within the tempest, exploding in rapid succession, shockwaves tearing through the battlefield.

Sylith's wings snapped open, bracing against the gale, her devil core straining. She forced her power forward, crimson veins burning against her skin. Devil's Rebuke!

The psychic shockwave collided with the storm, detonating into a frenzy of light and distortion. Orbs shattered, their explosive backlash carving fresh craters into the floor. The winds tore stone free, flinging debris into the wards that shielded the crowd.

The duel became a war of attrition, both powers eroding the battlefield with each heartbeat.

A pillar finally gave way, collapsing in a thunderous cascade. The arena floor split wider, a canyon yawning between them.

Lucien's storm pressed harder, his Eye of Dominion amplifying his precision to the level of inevitability. Every orb struck at a calculated weak point, every gust tailored to corner her.

Sylith's devil core pulsed furiously, her crimson aura flaring in jagged bursts. Her lashes tore through his orbs, her vortexes bent his winds, but she bled for each exchange. Dust streaked her face, her wings singed, but her eyes never faltered.

The arena crumbled around them, runes failing, wards groaning, faculty shifting uneasily. Still, the Headmaster kept his hand raised.

"Not yet," he murmured, flames curling around his fingers.

From the tiers, Darius leaned forward. His blue robes swayed with the tremors, but his eyes didn't blink, didn't stray.

He'd written this. Every strike, every counter. Lucien's Eye of Dominion—the evolved state of his Eye of God. A second mode that bent foresight into domination, amplifying not just prediction but absolute control. And Sylith—her Eye of the Devil, the chaotic core designed to be his foil. Where he saw inevitability, she broke it.

Their mutual strain was his design.

Lucien's hubris, tested. Sylith, the natural rival who could match him step for step, bleed him where no one else could.

Darius's knuckles whitened as he gripped the rail. His ambition burned hotter with every exchange.

To surpass Lucien.

To seize the God Wand.

To rewrite the outcome of "that" event.

The arena's ruin mirrored his resolve. Every stone that fell, every rune that sputtered out, echoed the pulse of his own path forward.

And as the storm raged below, the system's faint hum resonated in his chest, urging him on.

The crucible was here.

The battlefield convulsed, caught in the clash of dominion and chaos. Lucien's storms of golden mana swept outward in endless crescents, each detonation carving new craters into the floor. Every explosion thundered like a war drum, sending shockwaves ricocheting off the warding barrier.

Sylith stood defiant within the maelstrom, her Eye of the Devil pulsing with unstable crimson light. Her wings snapped wide, distortion bending around her like a shield. She hurled psychic ruptures in jagged arcs, fissures of warped reality that split his storm apart and bent its light sideways.

Their powers tore the arena apart.

Pillars cracked and buckled, slabs of stone shattering under the relentless bombardment. Entire sections of the floor collapsed, exposing hollow earth beneath, sand and dust raining upward in the quaking aftershocks.

The wards groaned audibly now, translucent walls flickering as the faculty poured energy into keeping them intact. Students pressed close to the barrier, faces pale and wide-eyed. Kael let out a long whistle through clenched teeth. Even he couldn't summon bravado here.

Each exchange struck with cataclysmic force—golden lances exploding into crimson vortices, psychic lashes shredding through glowing orbs, reality buckling beneath the sheer opposition of godlike control and devilish chaos.

Lucien pressed his advantage, his Eye of Dominion calculating every breath she took. He conjured God's Lances in rapid succession, each one refined sharper than the last, hammering down like divine meteors. Sylith's distortions bent them aside, but the backlash gouged the floor into a patchwork of ruin.

Sylith countered with Crimson Rift. The air split with a keening scream, fissures of distorted reality erupting outward. They carved straight through the ground, snapping stone like brittle glass. Lucien blurred to avoid them, foresight pulling him between threads of annihilation, but even his certainty faltered at the speed of her chaos. One fissure clipped his shoulder, tearing cloth, burning flesh. He didn't flinch.

The clash escalated, a duel no longer contained to spell against spell—it was will against will, both burning to prove supremacy.

But power has a price.

Blood trickled from the corner of Lucien's golden-violet eyes. The glow of the Eye of Dominion pulsed violently, each flicker a strain on his body. His control remained sharp, but the rhythm of his attacks faltered. His breaths came heavier, ragged.

Still, he pressed on. He could not show weakness.

Sylith's own strain was worse. The devil core blazed too brightly, the veins across her body glowing crimson, threatening to tear free from her skin. Each psychic lash lashed out violently, uncontrolled, gouging random fissures into the air. She trembled under the weight of her own power, her voice slipping between laughter and ragged gasps.

The arena mirrored their collapse. The floor was unrecognizable—cratered, split, entire sections sunken into shadow. Runes sputtered and failed in bursts of sparks. Faculty exchanged wary looks, hands twitching toward intervention, but the Headmaster only raised his flaming palm higher, his eyes sharp.

"They have to finish it," he said.

Lucien staggered forward, sweat slick across his brow, blood streaking down his cheek. His storm of mana shrank into bursts, still devastating but scattered. He gritted his teeth, vision blurring under the Eye's overuse.

Sylith laughed through the tremor of her voice, wings trembling. "You're—bleeding." She pointed with a shaking hand, crimson veins crawling up her arm. "Even you—can't hold forever."

Her devil core pulsed violently. Too violently.

The climax struck in an instant.

Sylith's wings snapped wide, crimson flaring so bright the wards dimmed. Her body coiled as though about to collapse inward, but instead she hurled herself forward, the Eye of the Devil erupting in a final gambit.

Demon's Rift.

Reality screamed. A single psychic rupture, larger than anything she'd conjured before, tore across the battlefield, wide enough to swallow Lucien whole. The ground disintegrated in its path, space itself shuddering, pillars collapsing into dust.

Lucien staggered, foresight faltering. His Eye of Dominion flickered, his blood dripping freely. But instinct carried him. He thrust both arms forward, golden-violet mana erupting in one last desperate surge.

Heaven's Dominion.

The collision was apocalyptic.

Golden storm met crimson fracture. The air buckled, space tore, and the arena's runes gave out entirely in a single blinding flash. Students screamed as the wards strained to their last fibers.

When the dust cleared, the arena was silence.

Sylith collapsed first. Her body hit the ground in a heap, her devil core sputtering, its crimson glow extinguishing. She twitched once, then lay still, chest heaving shallow. Her final attack had cost her everything.

Lucien stood barely upright, one hand clutched against his bleeding eyes. His body trembled with every breath, legs threatening to buckle. Blood ran freely from nose and mouth, staining the scorched stone beneath him.

Neither looked victorious.

The arena was ruin.

Entire sections of the floor had caved inward. Pillars lay in rubble, cracked stone scattered across what little ground remained. The wards shimmered faintly, their glow collapsing in on themselves, then finally stabilizing as faculty restored them.

A single breath of silence passed. Then the tiers erupted in chaotic voices—gasps, shouts, disbelief.

"Did she kill him—?"

"No, he's still—standing?"

"They're both insane!"

Kael barked a laugh, but even his usual bravado wavered. Lira buried her face in her hands, muttering prayers to gods no one here trusted.

The Headmaster sighed, shoulders sinking, though the flames at his fingertips had never dimmed. His voice carried over the chaos, even and commanding.

"That is enough."

The fire in his palm flared, a silent warning to anyone who dared argue.

"Winner—Lucien."

His declaration was met with a mix of awe and unease. Some students cheered faintly, others muttered doubt. But none could deny it: Sylith was unconscious, her devil core extinguished.

A medic mage rushed forward, kneeling beside her, hands glowing faint green. The Headmaster gestured. "Take care of that one. She will need it."

Lucien's body swayed, his victory no triumph but survival. He forced himself upright, smirk faint but lingering despite the blood. His golden-violet eyes dimmed, the Dominion fading.

Darius's hand tightened on the rail. His pulse thundered, his resolve sharpened.

He'd written Sylith to be Lucien's rival but seeing it unfold—seeing Lucien stagger yet still stand—it burned his ambition deeper.

I will surpass you.

The God Wand pulsed in its case, aura steady and endless, waiting for the one who could claim it.

The arena lay in ruin, but the story was far from over.

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