CHAPTER 42: The Forty-Second Fracture

The glyphs around the ruined battlefield pulsed back to life, burning with sharp clarity as the platform began to stabilize—rebuilding from scorched ash into polished stone, repaired by unseen divine mechanisms.

A voice rose—calm and absolute.

“Next match: Alric of the Fractured Academy of Light… versus Elunara of Seraphyne Institute.”

Xena’s voice echoed through the coliseum like the command of a god.

No delays.

Alric and Elunara moved.

They stood in silence at the center of the arena—law and stars, poised like opposing fundamental truths.

Alric’s eyes didn’t waver. Neither did hers.

A smile tugged at the corner of Elunara’s lips. But it wasn’t kind. It was the kind of smile stars wore when they watched civilizations burn.

“You’ve changed, Alric,” she said softly. Her voice didn’t rise—but it carried. “You used to believe in order. In purity. In the divine structure that kept chaos in its cage.”

Alric’s jaw clenched. “And I still do.”

“Do you?” Her celestial array shifted behind her, constellation fragments spinning into sharp arcs. “You stand beside them now. Her. The one who reverses causality. And him—Sukara. The anomaly. The heretic.”

He didn’t flinch.

Elunara stepped closer. With each step, stardust sparked from her heels like embers on silk.

“You defend science now. You respect it. You don’t scorn it like you once did.” Her tone sharpened. “You tasted the fruit of knowledge—and instead of spitting it out, you swallowed it whole.”

Alric’s voice was low but unwavering. “Because I finally saw what it was. Not sin. Not corruption. But possibility.”

Her eyes flared, white-hot. “Possibility is the excuse of those too weak to enforce destiny.”

“You mean like you?” he asked.

Her smile turned razor-thin. “I mean like the fallen.”

Her celestial aura brightened—the constellations behind her aligning into sharp, violent patterns.

“You could’ve been great. You could’ve come to the same academy as me. We could’ve stood together—become something sacred. But you chose uncertainty. You chose mortals.”

“I chose my own path and my own truth,” Alric said.

She raised a hand—light curling between her fingers like galaxies unraveling.

“Then the truth will be your grave. I don’t care that we grew up together.” Her eyes flared like twin novas. “Heretics must be punished.”

The bell rang, sharp and final.

Elunara’s fingertips traced glowing sigils into the air, summoning a cascade of lunar beams that unfurled across the arena—precise, paralyzing strands of slow-moving moonlight. The air grew thin, chill, crystalline.

Alric reacted instantly. His platinum-black vambraces flared, etched runes blazing to life. Behind him, a golden arc of law-glyphs bloomed into existence—a silent tribunal, cold and judgmental.

With a sweep of his arm, he cast the Edict of Binding—freezing the lunar beams midair. They cracked like brittle glass, shattered into harmless motes. A temporal bubble distorted the space between them, anchoring her motion in sluggish ripples of time.

Her smile darkened.

The celestial array behind her sharpened. The battlefield bent. Space folded around Alric, warping the ground beneath his boots. Gravity remained—but orientation didn’t.

She surged forward, boots trailing cosmic light. Her fist blazed with collapsing-star energy as she drove a stellar judgment strike into his vambrace. The shield cracked on impact. Shockwaves rolled through his bones. He didn’t fall.

Alric inhaled through grit teeth, the rotating sigil on his back pulsing faster. He invoked the Edict of Cancellation—stripping away her spatial manipulations and forcing the field to stabilize around him.

She sneered.

The constellation fragments behind her reformed into long, spear-like constructs. They launched—a barrage of star-shards, streaking like comet trails.

Alric summoned a dome of golden-silver runes. Each shard struck with concussive force, but the law barrier held—barely. Each defense drained more from him. His breath became ragged.

Her eyes narrowed with hunger.

“You fight with law and reason…” Her voice dropped, like a secret. “But the stars burn for chaos. And chaos… I will rain upon you.”

Her nebula cloak unfurled like a blooming singularity. From its depths, illusions emerged—multiple Elunaras spinning around him in a mocking, celestial dance.

Alric struck at them—each blade slicing empty air.

The real Elunara stepped through the mirage and cracked her lunar whip across his ribs.

Pain exploded.

Still, he stood.

“I fight for balance,” he rasped.

Her laughter rang like cracked crystal. She etched a glyph into the air—branding him with the Mark of the Star, a glowing seal that began draining his strength.

“Balance is weakness,” she murmured. “You chose the heretic. You chose doubt. This mark will bleed you dry until nothing remains.”

Alric dropped to one knee, his hand clutching his chest. The sigils on his vambraces blazed—he released a desperate pulse of cancellation to erase the mark.

But her celestial array devoured it—amplified it—and hurled it back.

His left vambrace shattered. The light from the impact scorched his skin.

Elunara descended like a comet.

“It’s over.”

She raised one hand. A solar beam formed—pure, divine, and absolute.

Alric tried to lift his arm.

Too late.

The beam struck his chest, burning through armor and flesh, branding his soul with its light.

He collapsed.

The bell rang.

But Elunara didn’t stop.

She stepped forward, constellation fragments spinning into jagged, chaotic spirals.

“You should’ve accepted your place,” she whispered.

Her hand swept down—lunar energy slicing across his side.

He gasped. “Enough—”

She raised both hands and unleashed a flurry of star-shards, riddling his body in precise, agonizing bursts. A spatial cage twisted into place—warped light and bent dimensions locking him in.

“I will crush you until the light you cling to is snuffed out.”

Then the ground shattered.

Elunara’s body slammed into the stone like a meteor.

The arena cracked.

The pressure that followed was not magic—it was judgment. The air turned thick. The sky darkened. A crater erupted beneath her, growing wider by the second.

The barrier protecting the crowd groaned and splintered. The island itself shook.

A voice fell like a divine decree.

“Touch him again… and I will kill you. Match or no match. Rule or no rule.”

I stood at the crater’s edge, glowing with unchained fury.

“I’ve killed gods leagues stronger than you without blinking. You’re nothing but a spoiled little parasite playing dress-up with divinity.”

The glyph beneath his feet pulsed once—three deep purple orbs rotating in perfect formation along its edge. Another set hovered behind him, moving in precise, silent arcs.

His aura deepened into a shimmering oriole-violet, distorting the very air. The gravity around him twisted the battlefield like a collapsing star.

Elunara screamed.

“GAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

She was forced deeper into the crater, bones cracking under the weight.

He didn’t look away.

He pressed harder—fracturing the earth beneath her until it threatened to break the island itself.

Two figures appeared—Lyra and Xena—one hand on each of my shoulders.

Saaya dropped to her knees beside Alric, her hands glowing with golden glyphs.

“You’re okay now. Just relax.”

The damage began to reverse—not heal, but unhappen.

Alric’s eyes fluttered shut, and he passed out with a smile.

Karna stood in the stands, fists clenched.

Avalon and Yuuka turned toward him.

They had never seen that look on his face before.

Rage.

The kind that shook gods.

Selkira landed and reached for Elunara.

I stared at her down—no words, no mercy in my gaze.

He was ready to crush them both.

And the stars held their breath.