Chapter 69: [PS Bonus Ch 1/2] Unofficial Match [4]
Augustus walked.
Each footstep sent a crack of lightning outward from where his boot met the floor. The arena lights flickered with every step. The air between him and Alden had gone heavier.
The announcer flew between them.
"Wait — Participant Augustus, your opponent has admitted defeat. The match is over. I don’t think—"
"He’s playing games."
Augustus didn’t slow.
"If he had actually taken me seriously, I would have accepted the win and walked away." His jaw was set. "But he’s doing this deliberately."
Another bolt crossed his shoulder, snapping against nothing.
"He thinks I’m someone he can dismiss." His voice dropped. "How dare he."
"President, but procedurally—"
"I’m not accepting his defeat." He stepped around the announcer. "Not until he fights me for real."
Three people moved into his path.
Nicholas. Leon. Roselle.
Nicholas raised one hand.
"President. He’s admitted defeat. The match is finished. I’m asking you to leave it here."
Leon nodded fast. "Match is over. Let it go."
Augustus stopped.
Looked at all three of them.
Then:
"Don’t."
BOOM.
A wall of pressure erupting outward from Augustus in every direction, the force of contained mana suddenly finding no more reason to stay contained.
Nicholas went back three steps, heels scraping stone.
Roselle’s arm came up to shield her face as her hair whipped sideways.
Leon stumbled, caught the barrier railing, barely kept his feet.
"What the HELL—?!" Leon grabbed his own head. "He’s lost his mind completely!"
Roselle’s expression had gone somewhere serious.
’I’ve never seen him like this.’
Her eyes moved to Alden.
’What happened between them?’
In the front seats, Seris hadn’t moved.
She was watching Augustus’s back. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her eyes showed she was processing the situation way faster than anyone else realized.
’Alden.’
Augustus reached him.
Alden was still where he’d landed, against the cracked wall, sitting with his back against the stone. The swelling on his cheek had already started. Blood was running from his temple down the side of his face from where the wall had hit.
Augustus stood over him.
"Get up."
Alden didn’t respond.
"I said get up!"
Still no response.
Augustus bent down. His hand closed around Alden’s collar and lifted him until Alden’s feet left the floor.
Alden’s head hung forward.
He didn’t move, he just hung in their grip like someone who’d made up his mind and wasn’t going to budge.
Augustus stared at him.
The silence made it worse.
"Are you ignoring me NOW?" He released the collar.
THUD.
Alden’s back hit the floor. He coughed. Blood touched the corner of his mouth.
The arena had gone completely still.
Augustus grabbed him again.
BAM.
Slammed him down.
BAM.
And again.
BAM.
Each impact echoed off the walls, hitting everyone in the stands differently. It was no longer the sound of a fight—it had stopped being a fight a while ago, morphing into something else entirely.
"Someone stop this already!"
"HE’LL KILL HIM—"
Students were on their feet. Some were already moving toward the exits to get help. Some were frozen.
Leon’s knuckles had gone white around the railing.
"Damn it—" His voice was shaking. "DAMN IT!"
He wanted to run into the arena. His feet were already pointed that way. But the lightning crawling across Augustus from shoulder to shoulder was the kind of pressure that made the body say no before the brain finished saying go, and even Leon was standing at the railing unable to take the step.
Legion’s hand was on his sword.
His eyes hadn’t left Augustus for thirty seconds.
Nicholas stood at the edge of the arena boundary with his expression carved into something grim. He’d seen Augustus fight. He’d seen Augustus serious. He knew what Augustus looked like when he was serious. But this was something else. The gulf between expectation and reality held him motionless, overriding every urge to intervene.
Augustus grabbed Alden one more time.
Yanked him forward.
CRASH.
Face against the floor.
The body went limp.
Augustus straightened up, standing over Alden. He was breathing the way people do when something inside them has run too hot for too long and is finally starting to bleed off the heat.
He looked down.
Then he reached down and pulled Alden up by the collar again.
Alden’s head lolled sideways. Blood had spread across his forehead, running down from the temple, covering half his face in red.
The students who’d been shouting had gone quiet.
"Stop this match!"
"Why isn’t anyone going in there—"
Leon’s knuckles were bleeding from the railing.
"I’m going in."
Legion’s hand closed on his arm. "You can’t. That pressure—"
"I don’t CARE about the pressure—"
"You’ll get killed before you reach him."
Leon’s jaw locked.
His eyes were wet and furious and completely useless to him right now, and he knew it, and knowing it made it worse.
Nicholas stared at the arena floor.
His grip on his sword was the kind of grip that was making a decision it hadn’t communicated to the rest of him yet.
Augustus looked at Alden’s face.
The blood. The closed eyes. The body that wasn’t holding its own weight anymore.
"You’re quite stubborn."
He lifted Alden higher.
The lightning that had been crackling across his body started gathering into his other hand, the electricity condensed into a blade, causing the surrounding air to scream at a pitch just beyond hearing.
It was longer than his arm.
Brighter than the arena lights.
The students closest to the field took several steps back without deciding to.
"If you want to keep pretending ’I don’t exist’."
The blade rose.
"Then die."
He swung.
BOOM.
A presence hit the arena like a door coming off its hinges.
"STOP."
The voice remained low, it struck the chest of everyone in the arena simultaneously. It was the weight of pure authority.
Augustus’s arm stopped.
Not because he chose to stop it but because a hand had seized his wrist.
And another arm had caught Alden’s body before it fell.
Augustus’s eyes went wide.
Darius stood between them.