25. Try Not to Monologue Too Much

The entire colosseum was still trapped in a state of collective shock. Five thousand people were staring at the cratered sand where a high-tier wind spell had been completely neutralized by the back of a bare hand.

Arion didn't stick around to soak in the silence.

He turned his back on the unconscious noble, casually shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, and strolled toward the heavy iron gates of the waiting tunnels.

"Hey," Arion called out, tapping the shoulder of a completely petrified arena proctor. "Where's the snack table? I skipped breakfast for this."

The proctor just pointed a trembling finger down the dark corridor.

Up on the elevated Faculty Balcony, absolute chaos had erupted among the older professors.

"Preposterous!" the Senior Theory Professor sputtered, gripping his golden cane so hard his knuckles turned white. "A physical shockwave of that magnitude without a single chant?! He must have used a concealed artifact! A kinetic ring! A localized explosive rune!"

Teacher Sophia Irene slowly set her delicate porcelain teacup down on its saucer.

Clink.

The sound was impossibly soft, yet it somehow cut through the frantic murmurs of the older faculty.

"An artifact, Professor?" Sophia asked. Her voice was pure, liquid silk, dripping with an arrogance she had spent the last three weeks desperately hiding. "The arena is embedded with high-fidelity mana sensors. If a foreign artifact had been triggered, the central alarms would be screaming."

The old man’s face flushed a deep, unhealthy purple. "Then he... he must have pre-cast the spell! He swallowed a compressed magic crystal!"

"Or," Sophia smiled, leaning back in her plush chair, "he simply flicked his finger."

The Senior Theory Professor looked like he was going to have a heart attack. He spun around, frantically signaling to one of the head proctors standing near the balcony stairs.

"Adjust the brackets!" the old man hissed under his breath, his eyes wild with panic. "I don't care about the randomizer! Put him against the heavy-hitters!"

Directly behind Sophia, the strange female teacher with the triangular rune obsession leaned over the stone railing, her breath heavy.

"Oh, look at them panic," the woman whispered, a dark, thrilled smile spreading across her face. "They think it's a trick. They don't realize he is absolute perfection. Teacher Sophia... if you don't watch your back, I am going to sneak into the waiting room and legally adopt him."

Down in the competitor's waiting room, the atmosphere was suffocating.

The sprawling underground chamber was filled with the first-year noble students. A few minutes ago, they had been loudly boasting about their complex chants and practicing drawing magic circles in the air.

Now, they were all pressed tightly against the far walls, staring in absolute, unblinking horror at the center of the room.

They had parted like the Red Sea.

Arion was standing alone by a long wooden table covered in a white cloth. He held a small plate. He picked up a tiny, triangular cucumber sandwich, inspected it with a disappointed sigh, and tossed it into his mouth.

"Needs mustard," Arion mumbled to himself.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The crowd of terrified nobles parted further as Exousia Ignis marched directly toward the snack table. Her black ponytail whipped behind her, and her dark eyes were burning with absolute frustration.

She slammed both of her hands flat onto the wooden table, rattling the plates.

"You didn't even try to hide it!" Exousia hissed, keeping her voice low so the other nobles wouldn't hear.

Arion blinked, slowly picking up another tiny sandwich. "Hide what? I flicked him. It was very subtle."

"It was not subtle!" Exousia shrieked quietly, sparks of red heat snapping across her knuckles. "Teacher Sophia specifically begged you to at least pretend to cast normally! You could have drawn a fake magic circle! You could have mumbled a few ancient words! Instead, you swatted a high-tier gale like it was a housefly in front of five thousand people!"

"I wasn't going to memorize a twelve-word just to fake a spell," Arion sighed, pouring himself a glass of water. "Besides, wind is just moving air. It still has mass. If you hit it harder than it hits you, it breaks."

Standing a few feet away, completely ignoring the tension, Sebastian Ambrose was furiously writing in his leather notebook.

"Fascinating application of blunt force trauma to raw elemental mass," Sebastian muttered to himself, not even looking up from his parchment. "No dimensional drift today. He simply reinforced his skeletal structure and treated the wind like a solid object. The utter disrespect for orthodox theory is staggering."

Exousia rubbed her temples, feeling a massive headache coming on. She knew he was overpowered, but his complete lack of competitive decorum was driving her insane. "The older professors are not going to let this slide, Arion. They are going to target you now."

"Let them," Arion shrugged.

The magically amplified bell rang through the waiting room, cutting off their conversation. The large glowing projection board mounted on the stone wall shifted, the golden names spinning rapidly to announce the next match.

The noble students turned to look, expecting to see two new competitors.

Instead, the board flashed Arion's name right next to a ridiculously long, incredibly pompous aristocratic title that Arion didn't even bother to read.

The room went dead silent again.

"Match two?" a student whispered in confusion. "But... the Old Guy just fought. The randomizer should give him a resting period. He shouldn't be called again until the second bracket."

Exousia stared at the board, her tactical mind immediately putting the pieces together. "They rigged it. The Senior Theory Professor is panicking. They're throwing a terrestrial defense specialist at you before you can catch your breath."

A massive, heavily-muscled noble cracked his knuckles. He stepped forward from the crowd, a confident, booming laugh echoing through the room.

"It seems the heavens want you disciplined immediately, commoner," the hulking student sneered. "Lucius was fragile. Let us see your little finger flick shatter a tier-three terrestrial defense!"

Arion stared at the glowing board. He looked down at his half-eaten cucumber sandwich. He looked back at the board.

He let out a long, deeply exhausted sigh.

"You guys are really going to make me work for this nap, aren't you?" Arion muttered. He tossed the rest of the sandwich onto his plate and turned back toward the dark tunnel leading to the arena.

"Hey, big guy," Arion called back over his shoulder, not even looking at the giant noble. "Try not to monologue too much.”

The unnamed noble easily stood six-and-a-half feet tall with shoulders as wide as a carriage. He pounded his heavy fists together, a confident, booming laugh echoing across the sand.

"I won't fall for a cheap physical trick, commoner!" the hulking student roared.

The giant student slammed both of his hands onto the ground.

He rapidly traced a massive, incredibly thick magic circle into the sand itself. It flared to life with blinding, heavy yellow light.

"Sto ónoma tou theoú tis gis!" (In the name of the God of Earth!) the student chanted at the top of his lungs, his voice shaking the ground.

He fired off the first nine words, his magic circle expanding until it covered a thirty-foot radius.

"...tha sou diatáxo to kástra!" (...I command the fortress!) he yelled, executing the final three words of binding perfectly.

The ground violently ruptured. Massive slabs of dense, magically reinforced bedrock tore themselves out of the arena floor, stacking rapidly around the student until he was completely encased in a towering, impenetrable dome of solid stone.

The crowd went wild. It was a flawless.

"Let’s see you punch through three feet of condensed bedrock!" the muffled voice echoed from inside the dome.

Arion stood fifty feet away, staring at the giant rock igloo. He sighed, aggressively scratching his messy hair.

He thought back to the waiting room. He remembered Exousia vibrating with frustration, demanding he at least pretend to cast normally. He remembered that if he kept blatantly ignoring the rules, Teacher Sophia would probably have to deal with endless paperwork from the older professors.

Fine, Arion thought, pulling his right hand out of his jacket pocket. They want a chant? I'll give them a chant.

Up on the Faculty Balcony, the Senior Theory Professor leaned forward, smiling smugly. "A flawless defense. Let us see the commoner try to bypass that without a proper magic circle."

Down in the arena, Arion raised his right hand. He casually pointed his index finger at the stone dome.

He didn't draw a circle.

He just started speaking.

"Ákousé me, aima tou kósmou..." (Hear me, blood of the world...)

His voice wasn't loud, but it somehow echoed directly into the minds of every single person in the colosseum. The air pressure in the stadium instantly dropped.

Up on the balcony, the Senior Theory Professor frowned. "What... what dialect is that? That isn't standard incantation theory."

Behind the protective barrier, Exousia's eyes went wide. A manic, terrifying grin slowly spread across her face. He's actually doing it! You idiots wanted to see his magic?! Here it comes!

"...ksýpna apó to skotádi..." (...awaken from the dark...) Arion continued casually, his golden eyes glowing faintly.

VZZZT!

A magic circle tore open in the air in front of his finger. But it wasn't blue, or green, or yellow.

It was a deep, blinding, terrifying crimson red.

And it was massive.

As Arion spoke his ninth word, the magic circle expanded, instantly dwarfing the stone dome. As he spoke his tenth word, it expanded again, casting a heavy, bloody red shadow over the entire stadium.

"Ten words?!" the Senior Theory Professor gasped, gripping his cane as he stood up. "He passed the shaping phase! He must bind it now!"

Arion didn't bind it. He just kept talking.

"...fotiá pou kaíei tous theoús..." (...fire that burns the gods...)

Thirteen words. Fourteen. Fifteen.

The red magic circle was now the size of a three-story building. The sheer thermal heat radiating off of it was so intense the sand beneath Arion's boots began to melt into glass. The sky above the colosseum actually started to warp from the terrifying gravitational pressure.

Down on the balcony, Teacher Sophia Irene, who had been gracefully sipping her tea, suddenly choked.

Wait. Nineteen words? Sophia thought, genuine horror finally gripping her soul. He's using the same spell he used in my office! He's going to vaporize the entire stadium!

"Stop him!" the Senior Theory Professor screamed, his voice cracking as he pointed a trembling finger at the glowing red sky. "That is too many words! He is bypassing the absolute limits of mortal containment! It's going to explode!"

"...katarreúsei." (...collapse.)

Nineteen words.

The stadium braced for absolute annihilation. The noble students behind the barriers screamed, throwing their arms over their heads.

Arion casually closed his fist.

The massive, building-sized crimson magic circle didn't explode. Instead, it violently imploded.

With a deafening SHWIIIIP, the terrifying mass of ancient energy instantly compressed itself down, folding inward a thousand times in the blink of an eye, until the entire colossal spell was reduced to a single, glowing red pebble hovering right at the tip of Arion's finger.

The heat vanished. The red shadow disappeared. The pressure was gone.

Arion flicked his finger.

Pew.

A microscopic beam of condensed crimson light shot across the arena.

It hit the massive, impenetrable dome of bedrock. It didn't explode. It just cleanly punched a hole straight through the three feet of solid stone like it was wet tissue paper.

For two agonizing seconds, nothing happened.

Then, the entire stone dome silently crumbled into a massive pile of fine, powdery dust.

Standing in the center of the dust pile, with a perfectly round, smoking hole burned straight through the top of his uniform jacket—missing his shoulder by exactly one inch—was the hulking Earth student.

The massive noble looked down at the smoking hole in his jacket. He looked up at Arion. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fainted out of sheer, unadulterated terror, hitting the sand with a heavy thud.

The match had lasted twelve seconds.

The silence that followed was so profound you could hear the wind blowing through the stadium.

Arion lowered his hand. He looked up directly at the elevated Faculty Balcony.

"Nineteen words," Arion called out, his voice echoing clearly. "Was that traditional enough for you guys?"

Up on the balcony, the Senior Theory Professor slowly collapsed back into his chair, his soul actively leaving his body.