Chapter 140: [X] - 140: Alone in the Circle
Before Dorian finished the sentence, Alex had already completed the mantle fusion.
The dense black layer finished sinking into his body.
The cold pressure of the Shadow Element stabilized completely.
Enhanced movement under the mantle activated in the same breath.
Alex vanished from Dorian’s front.
One moment he was standing there, black-covered and still.
The next he was simply gone, leaving only a faint ripple of displaced shadow where his feet had been.
He reappeared beside Kael Veyne, the farthest of the three.
Kael’s eyes barely had time to widen.
"Wha—"
Alex’s strike was clean and decisive.
The Viper’s Spine, still at normal length, drove forward with the full weight of residual mantle strength and mana-enhanced muscle behind it.
The impact hit Kael square in the center of the chest.
CRACK! CRACK! RIP!
Kael’s feet left the ground.
He flew backward in a straight line, water threads scattering uselessly around him, and crossed the boundary of the sparring circle before he could even think about catching himself.
He hit the packed floor outside the ring hard and rolled once before coming to a stop, gasping for air, spear clattering away.
THUD!
Kael was eliminated.
"Kael!" Rylan’s voice cracked across the circle, raw with shock.
Dorian’s reaction was faster and colder.
"Together! Now! Don’t let him pick us off!"
Rylan and Dorian attacked at the same time.
Rylan’s voice rang out first, sharp and desperate.
"[ Wind Sever ]!"
A compressed blade of air screamed toward Alex’s right side with enough force to cut clean through an ordinary guard.
In the same instant Dorian’s voice cut through the noise, colder and tighter.
"[ Shadow Edge ]!"
His dual blades darkened and lengthened, the shadow coating them turning razor-sharp and hungry as he closed from the left with pure killing intent.
Alex met both.
He twisted hard, let the wind blade scrape across the mantle-reinforced surface of his shoulder instead of taking it clean, and intercepted Dorian’s enhanced blades with the Viper’s Spine in a sharp, jarring cross-block.
CLANG!
CLANG!
The combined force still drove him backward.
His boots skidded three full steps across the circle.
The mantle held, but the pressure was real and heavy.
He stayed inside the boundary by less than a meter, boots scraping the packed floor.
Their clash went on for a while, neither giving way, but the other two were already showing signs of fatigue, and Alex...
’The Mantle is reaching its limit,’ Alex noted coldly.
Even with the Mana Heart still full, maintaining Shadow Mantle this long, especially in the middle of an active battle and for the first time, was putting a heavy toll on his body and control.
He could already feel the skill beginning to destabilize.
It would deactivate soon whether he wanted it to or not.
Through the bond Zara’s voice cut in, sharp and urgent.
’Finish it before the Mantle forces itself off, you’re holding it too long for a first real use.’
’Ya, I know.’
The final exchange was short and vicious.
Rylan came in high with another wind-boosted slash, face tight with desperation, long blade screaming through the air.
CLANG!
Dorian stayed low, dual blades working in a continuous shadow-enhanced assault meant to overwhelm any single defense.
CLANG!
They had abandoned careful coordination in favor of pure, simultaneous pressure, trying to drown him in attacks before he could vanish again.
Alex deliberately took one more hit.
SLICE!
Rylan’s blade scored a deeper line across his left upper arm.
Blood welled immediately, warm against the cooling skin as the mantle began to thin.
The pain was sharp and clean, but this was nothing to him.
It created the exact opening he needed, that was all that mattered.
Alex triggered the Viper’s Spine’s full expansion in the middle of his next motion.
shhh-CLACK!-whirrrr-CLICK!
The segmented blade snapped outward to its full devastating length with that same brutal metallic sound.
At the same time he poured the remaining stable surge of residual mantle strength into his legs and core, combining it with precise mana-enhanced footwork while the skill still held.
He stepped through Dorian’s guard first.
The fully extended Viper’s Spine swept in a tight, controlled arc that caught both of Dorian’s enhanced blades and ripped them wide open.
BANG!
The follow-up thrust hit Dorian in the solar plexus with enough focused force to fold him completely.
Dorian’s feet left the ground.
He crossed the boundary line and hit the floor outside the circle hard, shadow enhancement already flickering out as the air left his lungs in a single pained gasp.
THUD!
One left.
Rylan tried to create distance with a desperate, full-power burst of wind that tore at the floor of the circle.
Alex was already inside it.
The full-length blade came around in a final horizontal cut that Rylan only partially blocked with the flat of his weapon.
CLANG!-SHRRRRK!
The impact still lifted him cleanly and drove him out of the ring.
He landed on one knee outside the boundary, long blade skidding away across the floor with a sharp metallic rattle, breathing in ragged, defeated gasps.
THUD!
Both were out.
Unable to continue.
Alex stood alone in the center of the sparring circle.
The Shadow Mantle was already dispersing.
The dense black layer peeled away from his body in thinning strands of living darkness that sank back into the floor and vanished as if they had never been there.
The temperature in the circle began to rise again.
He was breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling in controlled rhythm, blood running down his left arm from the last cut he had allowed.
The Viper’s Spine compressed back to its normal size with a series of sharp metallic clicks and settled into a resting position at his side.
Absolute silence held for two full seconds.
No one on the platforms moved.
No one spoke.
The three defeated recruits stayed where they had landed outside the circle, staring at the twelve-year-old who had just taken the match from them.
Then the hall erupted.
Abyss section exploded first, sharp shouts of pure exhilaration, fists hitting railings, voices overlapping in fierce, unrestrained approval.
Younger retainers were openly grinning.
Older ones nodded with hard, satisfied pride.
Winterfang officers were on their feet, some openly stunned, others already arguing in tight, urgent clusters about what they had just witnessed and what it meant for every report they would have to write.
Even the Bloodworth platform was no longer silent.
The dark expressions remained, Valerius’s red eyes fixed and cold, but the noise of the rest of the hall washed over them in a rising wave that no amount of composure could fully ignore.
Alex stood in the center of it all, mantle gone, weapon compressed, breathing hard, and completely alone inside the circle he had just taken from three Level 10 recruits in front of every major household that mattered.
Through the bond Zara’s presence settled with quiet, fierce satisfaction.
’You did it Alex!’
Alex’s reply was simple.
’Yeah...I think I actually enjoyed that.’
He stood there and let the noise of the hall wash over him, the message of what he was now settling into every watching pair of eyes for good.
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End of Chapter 140: Alone in the Circle
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