Seducing Aliens For SSS-Rank Skills

Kalon ate a light breakfast in the stadium residential block and checked the bracket one more time on his phone.

The Year One side had narrowed fast. His semi-final was scheduled for late morning in The Garden Arena. The winner would go through to the final. The loser was done.

He looked at his opponents.

Levian Ashcroft and Larissa Hart.

Levian was the lightning user Kalon had noted a while back. He was fast, aggressive, and known for chaining short-range bursts into longer pressure sequences.

Larissa Hart did not have a flashy affinity of her own. She specialised in reinforcement and timing support, strengthening her partner’s body, sharpening his reactions, and covering gaps when his aggression left him open.

Together they had looked organised in the earlier rounds. They had also been one of the pairs people expected to go deep before Kalon’s matches started rewriting the bracket.

Kalon closed the phone and started gearing up. The standard tournament wraps. The light sparring kit issued for the event.

Thea met him in the corridor outside their assigned rooms. She looked focused. Whatever leftover softness from the night before had been put away for the match.

"Y-you ready?" she asked, stuttering.

It seems she is still thinking about yesterday then...

"Yes ma’am. Depending on how they open up will determine how we fight against them."

Thea nodded. She understood what he meant.

They walked the internal route down to the competitor tunnels together. Staff passed them with tablets and headsets.

Other semi-finalists from different year groups moved through the same halls with coaches and small support clusters.

The deeper they went toward the arena floor, the more the sound of the crowd leaked through the walls.

The Garden Arena was full again. If anything it was louder than the second day. Word of the darkness affinity had spread overnight on top of the light reveal. Camera drones were already in position. The big screens cycled between slow-motion clips of the arm erasure and updated competitor profiles.

Kalon and Thea waited in the west tunnel until the green lights activated. The barrier doors opened. They walked out onto the field under a rising wall of noise.

Across from them, Levian Ashcroft and Larissa Hart stepped out of the east tunnel at the same time.

Levian was lean and sharp-eyed, dark hair cut short, lightning already faintly static-crawling over his fingers as he walked. Larissa kept pace beside him, calm, scanning the field the way a support fighter did before a real match.

Neither of them looked arrogant. Neither of them looked like they had come with animosity.

The four of them stopped at regulation distance while the barrier dome sealed and the death-prevention field layered over the combat area.

Levian glanced once at the crowd, then back at Kalon. He raised his voice just enough to carry across the gap.

"Manchester. Bluegale. Congrats on the run so far. We’re not here to waste the semi. We’ll give you a proper fight."

Larissa inclined her head slightly.

"We have the utmost respect for you both." She added.

Kalon studied them for a second. A lot of people in this bracket had looked at him with fear, resentment, or calculation. These two just looked prepared, and earnest.

That earned them his respect as well.

"Alright," Kalon nodded with a smile. "Let’s have a proper match then."

The announcer’s voice rolled over the arena, listing both pairs, restating the semi-final rules, and reminding the crowd that the death-prevention field was active. Skills permitted. Affinities permitted. Medical teams on standby.

"Begin!"

Levian moved first.

Lightning cracked across his arms and he shot forward at an angle, not straight into Kalon’s centre line.

Larissa’s hands glowed with a low reinforcement light as she boosted his initial acceleration and stayed a step behind, ready to correct.

Thea slid left to keep Larissa from having a clean support lane. Kalon stepped forward to meet the pressure without committing everything at once.

Levian’s first exchange was sharp. A jab of condensed current snapped toward Kalon’s shoulder. Kalon turned it aside with a raised forearm and felt the static bite across his sleeve.

Levian followed immediately with a low sweep kick, then a rising elbow. Kalon blocked the elbow, took a half-step back, and let Thea cut across Larissa’s attempt to close the support gap with a burst of pressurised water.

The early fight was a real contest instead of a demolition.

Levian chained lightning into his footwork, using short bursts to change direction and keep Kalon from setting a clean counter line.

Larissa timed her reinforcements carefully, sending a pulse into Levian’s legs when he needed an extra push, creating a stabilising layer over his torso when Kalon’s attacks started landing heavier.

Thea stayed mobile, forcing Larissa to split attention between supporting her partner and not getting pinned down herself.

Kalon tested them instead of ending it. All because he wanted to give them a chance to show what they could do.

He used controlled earth to break Levian’s footing once, then let the lightning user recover rather than capitalising fully. He answered a clean lightning thrust with a short flare of light that forced Levian to abort the line, but he did not follow with Photon Slash.

When Larissa tried to create space, Thea pressed her with water needles and tight movement, but neither Academy fighter overcommitted into a finish.

The crowd, which had been waiting for another instant highlight, gradually shifted into focused noise.

Levian wiped a thin line of blood from a cut on his cheek and grinned despite himself.

"You’re holding back."

"Am I?" Kalon said with a smirk.

Levian smiled too, and then attacked harder than before.

Lightning surged greater around his body.

Larissa poured more output into him, accepting the risk that her own defence would thin.

Levian blurred in a series of sharp, high-speed exchanges. Thrust, cut, pivot, rising current strike.

Kalon blocked two, slipped one, and took a grazing hit across the ribs that left his gear scorched and his skin stinging.

Thea intercepted Larissa before the support girl could fully restore Levian’s next burst, slamming a water-coated palm into her guard and driving her back three steps.

The fight became more intense.

Levian used a half-second to land a clean lightning palm against Kalon’s upper arm. Numbness flared and faded. The death-prevention field did not need to intervene yet, but the hit was strong.

Kalon exhaled once through his nose.

They had earned the respect. They had earned a proper fight.

It was almost time.

Levian came in again, lightning concentrated along his right arm for a finishing thrust meant to force Kalon into a hard defence. Larissa, still half-caught recovering from Thea’s pressure, tried to throw one last reinforcement into him.

Kalon decided it was time to end it.

He planted his feet, let the agility buff from Daily Blessing settle through his legs, and pulled on the ice affinity he had not shown anyone in the tournament yet.

Cold gathered hard and fast around his right hand, dense enough that the air in front of his palm whitened. Frost crawled outward along the floor in a thin, sharp web.

Levian’s eyes widened mid-charge as the temperature dropped in a clean line between them.

Kalon raised his hand and called the skill.

Shard of Itztla.

Above Levian, the air cracked and whitened. A massive shard of ice formed out of nothing. It was dense and heavy enough that the space under it seemed to sink. A full thousand kilograms of frozen mass hung there for a fraction of a second, edges sharp, surface steaming with cold.

Levian’s eyes went wide. He tried to cut sideways with a burst of lightning. Larissa screamed a warning and threw everything she had left into one last reinforcement.

The shard dropped.

It hit with overwhelming force.

The impact drove Levian straight into the floor and shattered the reinforced layer around his body in an instant. Ice exploded outward from the contact point. The death-prevention field screamed on at full strength, locking Levian in place before the raw damage could go further, flooding his system with emergency stasis and forced stabilisation.

Frost spread across the surrounding floor in a wide ring. Larissa, caught inside the radius, locked up mid-step as residual cold seized her limbs and killed her remaining skill output for the moment.

The Garden Arena went silent for half a second.

Then the noise came back ten times as hard.

Another affinity. Ice. On top of fire, earth, light, and the darkness from the previous round. The screens above the stands updated in real time while the announcer’s voice struggled to stay steady.

People were on their feet across multiple sections with their phones out.

Levian was finished.

Larissa stayed half-frozen and stunned, guard broken, staring at the melting ruin of the ice shard and the partner she could no longer support.

Thea held her position, water still ready around her hands, waiting to see if anything else was required.

Kalon lowered his arm. Residual frost clung to his fingers and the front of his gear.

The battle was over.