Chapter 37— The Calamity’s Prelude.
Chapter 37— The Calamity’s Prelude.
The smell of ozone and burnt blood still hung thick in the air of Vault Room B-4 as thirty heavy-armored royal wardens flooded through the shattered entrance, their enchanted halberds glowing with harsh blue containment magic.
"FREEZE HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!" the Warden Captain roared, his voice amplified by a brass throat rune as he stepped over the melted marble tiles.
Behind him, two dozen crossbows were leveled directly at Kaelen, Lyra, and Tsubaki.
Kaelen didn’t move a muscle. He stood over the unconscious, blood-soaked body of Malakor, his arms crossed casually across his chest, his galaxy-specked violet eyes staring through the line of guards with chilling indifference.
"Lower your weapons, Captain," a sharp, authoritative voice echoed from the rear of the guard force.
The wardens parted instantly, bowing their heads as High Chancellor Sterling made his way through the archway.
The old archmage was clad in pristine blue velvet robes, but his hands were trembling slightly as his eyes swept over the horrific—the melted pillars, the shattered adamantine doors, and the utterly broken body of the infamous Blood Mage lying helpless on the floor.
"By the Ancestors..." Sterling whispered, his gaze falling upon the empty stone altar where the S-Rank Void-Core Fragment had once rested.
"Malakor... defeated? And the artifact?"
"The blood cultists attempted to detonate the core to destroy the subterranean foundation," Kaelen lied effortlessly, his voice smooth and devoid of guilt.
"My team intercepted them. Malakor is neutralized, but the core was destroyed in the containment shockwave."
Sterling’s sharp, weathered eyes searched Kaelen’s face for a long, agonizing five seconds. He looked at Lyra, whose chest was covered in her blood and whose high-grade rapier lay broken on the floor, then at Tsubaki, whose left arm was dripping crimson onto his dark scabbard.
The evidence of a desperate, life-or-death struggle against an A-Rank terror was undeniable.
"You... you three held off an A-rank threat beneath the academy?" Sterling breathed, a mixture of awe and deep apprehension filling his voice. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure.
"If this is true, the Kingdom owes you an unimaginable debt, young man."
"Save the medals for after the tournament, Chancellor," Kaelen replied coldly, taking a step past the line of guards. The wardens flickered back instinctively, sensing the invisible, crushing weight of his newly ascended [Spatial Domain].
"My team needs medical attention. And I have a third-round match to prepare for."
Sterling hesitated, a dark shadow flickering across his aged face.
" Kaelen... the Council of Nobles has already convened above.
Julian Vance’s father, Marquis Vance, is demanding the immediate suspension of the tournament due to the northern breach. He is pushing to take full military control of the grounds."
Right on schedule, Kaelen thought, the Red-Eyed Player’s warning echoing in his mind.
"Let him demand whatever he wants," Kaelen said, his dark smile sharp enough to cut glass.
"Tell the Marquis that if his son forfeits Round 3, I will personally announce to the entire arena that the Vance family fled from a commoner."
Sterling gasped, but Kaelen didn’t wait for a response. He brushed past the Chancellor, ushering Lyra and Tsubaki up the dark spiral staircase toward the surface.
An hour later, inside a high-security infirmary beneath the main arena colosseum.
The muffled, thunderous roar of eighty thousand spectators filtered through the thick stone ceiling. The northern district attack had been contained—or rather, covered up—by the academy administration, framing the violent explosions as an
"unfortunate rogue mana reactor surge."
The crowd above was hungry for blood and entertainment, blissfully ignorant of the geopolitical trap closing around their necks.
Lyra sat on the edge of a pristine white medical cot, her upper torso tightly wrapped in white mana-infused bandages.
Her golden eyes looked down at the shattered remains of her rapier resting on the site table.
"It was forged by my grandfather," she said softly, her voice carrying a rare trace of vulnerability.
"It survived three campaigns against the border beasts... and a single threat of that masked man’s magic turned it to dust."
"We will forget you a better blade," Tsubaki said, sitting against the wall across from her.
A light healing salve was slathered over his deep forearm wound, though his hand never left the hilt of his katana.
"One capable of channeling your only light without cracking under high-density spatial pressure."
Kaelen stood near the stained-glass window, looking down at the massive central arena below.
In the center of the sand pit, workers were installing massive, six-foot-tall black iron pillars around the perimeter of the dueling ring.
Each pillar was etched with complex, glowing golden runes that suppressed ambient spatial flow—a high-grade [SpatialLockNetwork.]
— CLING!
[-SYSTEM ANALYSIS: A-RANK ANTI-SPATIAL FORMATION INSTALLED ]
[ -EFFECT: DISABLES ALL TELEPORTATION/DASH SKILLS WITHIN A 50-METER RADIUS]
"They aren’t even hiding it anymore,"Tsubaki muttered, noticing the pillars as well.
"Julian Vance is terrified of your speed."
"Let him build his cage," Kaelen said quietly.
He brought up his system interface, reviewing his updated status window following his mid-stage ascension.
==================================================
PLAYERSTATUS: KAELEN
CLASS: VOID ARCHITECT (MID-STAGE ASCENDED)
LEVEL: 24
STATS:
- STRENGTH: 68—AGILITY: 72
- INTELLECT: 110
- MANAPOOL: 4,500 / 4,500 (HIGH-DENSITY VOID MANA)
NEWUNLOCKEDPASSIVE:
- [SPATIALDOMAIN (10M)]: Absolute authority over all ambient space within 10 meters. Enemy spells entering the domain lose 40% structural integrity.
NEW UNLOCKED SKILL:
- [VOIDANNIHILATION—ABSOLUTECOLLAPSE]: Convert surrounding physical and magical mass into compressed vacuum tears.
==================================================
Kaelen closed the interface, his galaxy-bright eyes flashing with absolute confidence. The noble faction believed that by locking down external spatial travel, they would strip him of his greatest asset. They didn’t realize that his mid-stage ascension hadn’t just upgraded his mobility—it had turned his very body into a living singularity.
The door to the infirmary opened abruptly.
A young academy page stepped inside, trembling under the weight of a heavy silver scroll. "C-Candidate Kaelen... High Chancellor Sterling has officially overruled Marquis Vance’s motion to cancel the event. The third-round matches are set."
The page cleared his throat, reading from the scroll with a shaky voice:
"Match 1: Tsubaki vs. Lady Beatrice of the Northern Marches.
Match 2: Lyra vs. Commander Drake.
Match 3... The Feature Battle: Kaelen of the Outer Slums versus Julian Vance of the High House of Vance!"
The air in the room instantly dropped by ten degrees.
"Julian has requested an ’unrestricted duel,’" the page added nervously, sweat dripping down his forehead. "No referee stoppages. No surrender option until one candidate is rendered completely incapable of combat."
Lyra stood up, her jaw tight. "That’s an execution request!"
"No," Kaelen corrected smoothly, stepping away from the window and draping his long, dark coat over his shoulders. "That’s an invitation."
He walked over to Lyra, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. A subtle pulse of refined Void mana surged into her body, soothing her bruised ribs and restoring her drained mana reserves instantly.
"Rest," Kaelen commanded softly. "Both of you. Save your strength for when the sky turns red."
"Kaelen," Tsubaki said, his dark eyes looking up as Kaelen reached the doorway.
"Don’t just defeat him. Break the illusion that the nobility is untouchable."
Kaelen didn’t answer with words. He simply offered a dark, razor-sharp tilt of his head before stepping out into the torch-lit corridor leading toward the grand arena entrance.
The rumble of eighty thousand voices hit Kaelen like a physical wall as he stepped out of the dark stone tunnel and onto the white sand of Arena Alpha.
Above, the afternoon sky was beginning to turn a sickly, bruised shade of orange and purple as the sun dipped behind the western mountains.
The four high-level VIP balconies were packed with high-ranking nobles, royal generals, and Senate members, all draped in silk and gold, staring down at him like wealthy spectators watching a dogfight.
In the center of the VIP box, Marquis Vance sat on a velvet throne, his face cold and arrogant, clutching a dark wooden staff topped with a glowing red gem—the master control key for the northern military units currently surrounding the city walls.
Beside him, standing on the opposite end of the dueling ring inside the ring of black anti-spatial pillars, was Julian Vance.
Julian looked spectacular. He was clad in gleaming, dragon-scale plate armor forged from rare white mithril, a pristine blue cape billowing behind him. In his right hand, he held a massive, double-handed broadsword that hummed with blinding, high-density storm-and-lightning magic—an S-Rank family heirloom weapon.
"Welcome to your execution, commoner," Julian called out, his voice amplified across the entire colosseum by magical announcers.
The noble spectators in the stands erupted into loud cheers, waving white banners stamped with the Vance family crest.
"Look around you!" Julian sneered, gesturing toward the six black iron pillars surrounding them.
"These anti-spatial pillars are locked with A-Rank suppression runes! Your pathetic little portals and shadow-dashes won’t work in here. You’re just a frail rat in a steel cage, stripped of your tricks!"
Kaelen slowly walked into the center of the ring, stopping exactly ten paces away from Julian. He didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t take a defensive stance. He simply stood there, his hands resting casually inside his coat pockets.
"Are you done speaking?" Kaelen asked softly.
Julian’s face flushed with violent rage at Kaelen’s utter lack of fear. "You arrogant swine! I am going to tear your limbs off one by one and make your little knight friend watch from her hospital bed!"
Above the ring, the head referee raised a glowing white flag.
"UNRESTRICTED DUEL—MATCH START!"
"DIE!" Julian roared!
—BOOM!
Julian exploded forward like a thunderbolt. His white mithril armor burst with blinding blue lightning as he swung his giant broadsword downward in a terrifying, vertical execution arc aimed directly at Kaelen’s skull!
The force of the strike created a localized sonic boom, kicking up a massive wave of sand and shattering the marble tiles beneath Julian’s boots!
The noble crowd cheered, expecting Kaelen to be sliced in half instantly.
CLANGING.
The entire colosseum fell into a deafening, terrifying silence.
The dust cleared.
Julian’s giant S-Rank broadsword, humming with thousands of volts of roaring lightning, had stopped dead mid-air—less than three inches from Kaelen’s forehead.
It hadn’t hit a metal shield. It hadn’t been parried by a sword.
Kaelen had caught the massive, roaring blade between two fingers.
A thin, dark ring of pitch-black spatial distortion hovered around Kaelen’s hand—his [SpatialDomain]. The terrifying lightning magic coating Julian’s sword was being instantly unraveled, shredded atom by atom, and sucked into a vacuum tear before it could even touch Kaelen’s skin.
Julian’s eyes bulged in absolute, blood-curdling horror. He pulled with all his physical strength, his veins popping against his neck, but the blade wouldn’t budge a single millimeter—as if it were fused into the absolute bedrock of the universe itself.
"You thought these pillars were keeping me locked in with you?" Kaelen whispered, his galaxy-bright violet eyes locking onto Julian’s trembling face.
Kaelen took a single step forward, his voice echoing like a cosmic bell across the quieted arena.
"They were put here to protect you from me."