Chapter 5 – The Flaw in the Shadow

The first thing that came when the arena gates opened was sound.

Iron doors groaned, the vibration traveling through the soles of Hope's worn boots.

Behind him, the darkness of the holding cells felt as if it were trying to pull him back. Ahead, the blinding white light of the arena promised violence.

"Don't forget," Deniz's voice said from within the shadows, low and hurried. "Spectre isn't like the others. He doesn't fight for the crowd. He fights to kill."

Hope didn't turn around. He was busy tying his shoelaces with obsessive precision. "Double knot," Hope murmured. "Reduces tripping risk by eighty-four percent."

He stood up, brushed the dust from his knees, and stepped into the light.

The scrape of metal chains, screams bouncing off stone stands, heavy air mixed with the scent of gold and blood. Hope stood still for a few seconds. His feet didn't fully press into the sand-covered ground.

His body decided before his mind did.

One step.

He stopped.

The ground… was smooth. Too smooth. The sand wasn't scattered naturally, as if held in place by invisible lines. A faint tingling crawled up the back of Hope's neck. The Dungeon Architect's instinct stirred from a long sleep.

There's something here.

The crowd roared, but it wasn't admiration. It was a wave of boos, mockery, and curses. Rotten fruit, stones, and beer mugs were hurled onto the arena floor. Some admired Hope. Others hated him. Yesterday, he had disrupted their sacred entertainment.

"Is he scared?"

"The new kid can't even step forward!"

"Pathetic, he'll go down in one move!"

Hope raised his head. The man across from him stood among the shadows. A tall, thin silhouette. His body was wrapped in black cloth, not armor, more like a veil. His face was half visible.

His eyes were… too calm.

The man inclined his head slightly.

"Those who stop before taking their first step into the arena are either cowards," he said, his voice cutting through the roar, "or prey struggling not to die."

Hope didn't answer. He gathered mana into his hands and summoned his scythe. He looked up at the sky. Not to shield his eyes from the sun, but to greet it, raising a hand to his brow.

"Hello again," he whispered to the massive ball of fire. "You look great today."

This time, his eyes weren't on his opponent, but on the ground. On the shadows. On the shapes cast by chains, the dark zones formed by pillars.

This…

This was a field.

The arena wasn't a battleground. It was a trap formation.

"THE ROMANTIC REBEL HOPE IS HERE, FOLKS! AND HIS OPPONENT… THE INVISIBLE ASSASSIN! THE KILLER WHOSE FACE NO ONE LIVES TO SEE! SPECTRE!"

Everyone held their breath. Hope and Spectre prepared. Hope tilted his head. Blinked.

And then, the world changed.

[ARCHITECT'S SIGHT: ACTIVE]

The crowd's roar dulled into a muffled hum. Colors drained from the world, replaced by a monochrome grid. Blue lines covering the arena floor. Red vectors showing wind direction. Green zones marking stable ground.

"BEGIN!"

Spectre vanished in an instant, merging with the shadows.

A gust passed to Hope's left. The scythe rose on reflex. It didn't strike metal; darkness scattered along its edge. Spectre was behind Hope. A hand reached for his neck.

Hope bent his knees and slipped past the grasp with a sudden motion.

The stands screamed.

Spectre… was a flaw that disrupted Hope's abilities.

Hope saw the mana flowing through the assassin's body. It wasn't just smoke; it was a complex network binding Spectre to the shadows of the arena walls.

"Structural analysis initiated," Hope thought, his inner voice turning clinical."Opponent Level: 28. Uses Shadow Bind. Interesting. He siphons mana from ambient darkness within the stadium architecture to fuel his speed. Clever. But the connection points… sloppy."

To the naked eye, Spectre had simply disappeared. The crowd held its breath. But to Hope, he was a bright red line moving across a blue grid.

WHOOSH.

A shadow blade formed in the air, aiming for Hope's carotid artery. Hope didn't panic. He didn't even raise his hands. He simply stepped half a pace to the left and tilted his neck fifteen degrees.

The blade sliced through empty air where his vein had been a millisecond earlier.

Spectre appeared behind him, eyes wide in shock. He spun and launched a storm of kicks and punches, each reinforced with shadow spikes.

Left. Duck. Turn. Slide.

Hope moved like water. Or rather, like a mathematician solving a real-time equation.

"Trajectory error," Hope analyzed as he ducked under a spinning kick. "Overcompensating for sand friction. If he continues pivoting on his left heel, he'll create a 0.4-second opening."

Hope wasn't fighting.

He was dancing between the gaps in Spectre's design.

The crowd began to fall silent. They had come for blood. They had expected the "Janitor" to be torn apart in seconds.

But they weren't getting what they wanted.

"WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!" Spectre screamed, his composure cracking. He slammed his hands into the ground.

"SHADOW NETWORK!"

The shadows of the arena walls tore free. Hundreds of thin black tendrils shot across the ground, slithering toward Hope like snakes. They wove a lethal, razor-sharp web of darkness, cutting across the arena.

Hope's eyes widened.

Not with fear.

With excitement.

"Ooo!" Hope shouted as he leapt over a sweeping shadow whip. "Look at that tensile strength! Are you using the stadium's own shadow geometry as anchor points? This… this is actually brilliant engineering!"

He landed on a safe patch of ground, calculating the next wave. "But you're putting way too much stress on the southern quadrant!" Hope yelled like a worried site manager. "I won't bore you with technicalities though. Care to show me what else you can do?"

Spectre ignored him. He was furious. He poured more mana into the shadows. The web grew tighter, faster, leaving Hope less room to move.

The arena had become a labyrinth of black lasers. One touch meant losing a limb.

On the Royal Balcony, King Kharonos leaned forward. His golden armor struck the stone railing.

"He's not attacking," the King murmured. "He's… just analyzing his opponent."

Back in the arena, Hope was cornered. Spectre stood at the center of his network, breathing heavily. He clenched the ends of every shadow thread in his fists.

He looked like a spider god.

"I've got you," Spectre growled. "There's nowhere left to run, rat. One pull, and you'll be diced into cubes."

Hope looked around. Red warnings blinked across the blue grid of his vision.

[WARNING: SHADOW STRUCTURE INTEGRITY CRITICAL.][WEAK POINT IDENTIFIED.]

Hope smiled. "You know," he said casually, brushing dust off his shoulder, "you really should've taken what I said earlier seriously."

"What nonsense are you spouting?" Spectre drew his hands back, ready to pull.

Hope looked down at his feet. At a loose patch of ground that served as the primary anchor point for the entire network. They hadn't fully repaired the massive damage Kubo had caused.

"Calculation complete," Hope thought. "Honestly, why didn't you take me seriously?"

"Structural failure," Hope whispered.

CRACK.

The ground beneath his feet shattered.

Spectre hadn't expected that. Every bond in the arena began to snap. Dust filled the air.

Behind his mask, the assassin's eyes widened. He realized his mistake too late.

Hope threw his scythe. The blade severed every shadow thread Hope could see.

The shadow network collapsed inward, wrapping Spectre like a cocoon of razor wire. The barrier saved him from crashing into the ground.

Spectre lay at the center of the crater. He wasn't dead, but he was bound so tightly by his own shadows that he looked like a mummified fly. His armor was cracked, his body covered in cuts, groaning in pain.

No one had touched Hope.

He hadn't thrown a single punch.

Hope touched his chin. "See?" he said to the unconscious assassin. "I told you. Too much stress in the southern quadrant. You really should work on load distribution."

He walked forward slowly, dragging his scythe along the ground, disabling every remaining trap. When he stopped in front of Spectre, he noticed a smile on the assassin's face.

"This isn't over… I'll come for you."

Hope drove his scythe into Spectre's chest. Green spirit light flared as he ended his life.

"I would've liked to see more of your abilities. A shadow clone technique would've been pretty cool."

The crowd didn't know how to react. They stared at the boy who had turned a terrifying assassin into a neatly wrapped package simply by stepping on the ground.

Then, slow applause began.

It wasn't the King.

It wasn't the barons.

It was Deniz, standing near the medical tunnel, grinning like a madman.

Hope didn't care about the applause. He didn't care about the King staring at him with hunger and fear mixed in his eyes. He deactivated [Architect's Sight]. The blue lines faded. Color returned to the world.

He scanned the stands. The nobles' section. The commoners' section.

And there.

In an isolated part of the VIP box, likely brought there by priests or the King himself to witness an execution.

Lypin.

She wore a white dress instead of her healer's robes. Her face was pale, her hands covering her mouth in shock. She looked frightened… worried something might happen to Hope.

When their eyes met, the chaotic noise of the arena vanished for Hope.

He raised his hand. He didn't wave like a gladiator. He waved like a clumsy boy who'd spotted the girl he liked in a schoolyard.

Lypin lowered her hands. Fresh tears filled her hazel eyes, but a smile appeared. A sincere, relieved smile that outshone even the sun Hope loved so much. She raised her hand and waved back, small and shy.

"Lypin, I won! I'll be able to come to you soon!"

"THE WINNER!" the announcer finally shouted, confused. "ROMANTIC REBEL HOPE!"

Hope turned his back on the crowd and walked toward the gate.

As he disappeared into the dark tunnel, he left behind a kingdom that was confused, horrified, and strangely moved.

Deniz waited in the tunnel's shadows. Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his muscular chest shaking with silent laughter.

"You…" Deniz shook his head. "You beat him with a single move."

Hope passed by him, adrenaline fading, hunger taking its place. "It was fun," Hope said. "It's my first time seeing a shadow-using warrior. Most people who came into my dungeon had very similar abilities and weapons."

"The King saw it," Deniz said, falling into step beside him, his tone turning serious. "He saw you manipulate the arena. That wasn't fighting, Hope. You were dominating the entire field."

"I just fixed a flaw in the ground," Hope shrugged. "Is it lunchtime yet? I heard gladiators get meat. What kind of meat do you eat?"

Deniz grabbed Hope's shoulder and stopped him. "Listen to me. You're not just a gladiator anymore. You're valuable. The barons will try to buy you. The King will try to use you. And the other gladiators… they'll fear you. You need to be careful when this many eyes are on you."

"Nice," Hope said. "So am I a hero now?"

Deniz stared at him for a long moment, then let go. A grin spread across his face again. "You're insane. I like that. But watch your back, Architect. There are monsters in this arena. The strongest don't just use shadows. Some of them can cause earthquakes. Could you beat them in one move too?"

Hope's eyes sparkled. "Earthquakes? THAT'S SO COOL! Can I fight that too?"

Deniz sighed and shoved him forward. "Just walk, Hope. Just walk."

…

Meanwhile, in the Royal Box.

King Kharonos leaned back into his velvet throne. The golden goblet in his hand had changed shape. He hadn't realized he'd crushed it.

"Did you see that?" the King whispered.

The old man beside him, the one who had tested Hope, slowly nodded.

"I did, Your Majesty. The boy didn't just see the weakness. He could dominate a confined area."

"An Architect," the King murmured. A cruel smile played on his lips. "My father was right to lock him away. We cannot let this power fall into other kingdoms' hands. That power must be mine…"

The King stood and looked down at the empty arena where the shadow network had collapsed.

"I will create a war for him."

…

In the deepest cell of the prison.

A figure sat in the darkness. Not a prisoner. Not a guard. Someone who didn't belong there.

Field examined the tattoo on his arm. The ink was fresh, the lines rough. It was a map of the sewer system, though he was almost certain the tattoo artist had drawn the exit into a crocodile pit.

"Damn it," Field muttered. "Was it left or right at the junction?"

A shadow fell on the wall.

NO9.

"The Architect won," he whispered. His voice sounded like dry leaves scraping over stone.

Field jumped, dropping his map. "Don't do that! You almost gave me a heart attack."

"He's a key," NO9 continued, ignoring him. "His eyes… they see everything. He might see the exit too."

Field picked up his map and sighed. "Great. Another freak for the team. We've got a walking disaster, a moving skeleton, some Dungeon Kid with no clear origin, and you. Worst prison escape team in history."

NO9 smiled in the darkness. Sharp, fox-like teeth glinted.

"It'll be legendary. We're getting out of this cursed place."