I lunged forward, driving the crude concrete lance at Michael the moment he stepped within the striking range.
But he was faster.
His hands shot out, catching the lance mid-thrust.
Before I could react, he used my own power against me and turned the lance to rubble in his grip.
I discarded the remains and backed away, but Michael closed the distance in a blur, his hands reaching for my chest.
I knew exactly what he wanted — physical contact with my clothes.
My ability wasn't strong enough to manipulate organic matter. Not yet.
I could only reshape inorganic objects, and even that was challenging sometimes. Hence, most of what I created was crude in structure.
I couldn't deconstruct and reconstruct matter, only alter its state and form.
Simple transmutation on a single target — that was the extent of my power.
That's why creating something complex like a functioning machine gun was impossible, even if I was given enough metal to work with.
My power had limits.
But it was still unfairly strong.
A touch to an open wound and I could boil someone from within.
A brush against skin and I could freeze the moisture in their flesh.
And if I gripped their clothing, I could turn the fabric into needles sharp enough to pierce flesh.
But each transmutation required a lot of focus and a bit of time.
In fact, transmuting a moving target was even difficult. It was still doable, but I needed three full seconds of physical contact.
And in a battle, where you could die in the blink of an eye, three whole seconds felt like an eternity.
Michael knew this. Yet he was confident he could hold me long enough for his ability to work.
And I feared he was right.
So I leaped back, creating space between us.
"Coward!" Michael screeched, eyes blazing with unrestricted fury. "All you've done is run from me! I thought you were brave!"
"I am!" I dropped to one knee, my palm touching the ground. "But I'm not stupid!"
The earth rippled like disturbed water and the concrete surged forward in a tidal wave before hardening into a towering wall.
But the wall shattered almost instantly, exploding into a storm of dust and shrapnel that forced me to shield my eyes.
Michael emerged from the chaos and dropped to one knee, touching the ground just like I did.
The earth groaned beneath us again as another wave of concrete rose — this one even lather than what I had created.
And this one was coming toward me!
I gritted my teeth and crossed my arms, bracing as the wave solidified and crashed into me with the force of a moving mountain.
The bone-crushing impact flung me back as if I weighed nothing. Blinding pain tore through my body when I hit the ground and rolled to a stop.
But there was no time to recover. Jagged spikes erupted from the towering wall Michael had just created.
Then, the spikes shot toward me like a hailstorm of stone arrows.
"Seriously?!" I growled, forcing myself up to my feet. And without so much as taking a breath, I began to move.
The first spike crashed right beside me, spraying huge chunks of stone shards everywhere.
I darted left, barely avoiding another one that streaked past my shoulder, tearing my jacket and skin, drawing blood.
Two more spikes came flying – one high, one low.
I dropped into a roll, dodging the higher one, but the lower one grazed my flesh and carved a red line across my calf.
Sharp pain flared up my leg and blood was drawn again.
But I had no time to dwell on it as more spikes continued to rain down on me like meteor strikes, gauging huge craters in the arena floor wherever they crashed.
I twisted and wove through the onslaught, trying to keep myself as steady as possible as each impact tore chunks from the coliseum around us.
Concrete dust rose and filled the air, suffocating and obstructing, while razor-sharp fragments whizzed past my ears.
Michael was as unyielding as his attacks were unforgiving, each one aimed at me with utmost precision.
I knew what he was doing. He was waiting.
Waiting for my exhaustion to slow me down even more.
Waiting for me to make that one crucial mistake.
Waiting for me to slip up.
But I refused to give him the opening. I kept moving and dodging as best as I could. I didn't stop. I couldn't.
Another spike struck just behind me, the impact nearly tripping me forward.
The massive wall that Michael had created was thinning, its bulk transformed into his relentless barrage of spikes.
Finally, the wall crumbled altogether. Through the falling debris, Michael stepped forward and hurled one last giant stone spear at me.
I moved to evade the incoming projectile… and suddenly felt the ground beneath me turn soft.
I immediately understood what was going on.
After all, this was my favorite trick.
Michael had turned the earth under my feet mushy in order to disrupt my balance.
A grim smile touched my lips.
Too predictable.
He was using my own move against me.
Crouching low, I solidified the ground just where my steps would fall, using as little Essence as possible.
With my footing restored, I dodged the speeding spear by a hair's breadth and launched myself at Michael, charging straight at him.
Fighting him was going to be tough.
I had to stay close enough to keep him from performing any major transmutations like he just did, but not so close that his hands could reach me.
It was a delicate balance to maintain.
•••
The duel between the protagonist and former third-rate villain had been raging on for half an hour.
The terrain had shifted again, this time into a frozen wasteland. Crystalline spires of ice thrust up from the ground as the land itself hardened into a frigid sheet of frost.
But the ice structures toppled almost as soon as they rose.
And large sections of the frozen ground were fractured and thawed, leaving patches of slick ice and exposed earth scattered across the battlefield.
The arena quaked and shuddered, trembling on the edge of collapse, each time the two of them exchanged heavy blows.
Stone splintered like glass, ice dust spiraled skyward like winter's breath, and broken concrete spikes littered the battlefield like forgotten grave markers.
What had begun as a contest of strength between Samael and Michael had evolved into… something else entirely.
It was now a full-blown catastrophe that was tearing the arena apart. It was like the world itself was buckling under the weight of their untamed powers.
Too focused on their battle, neither combatant noticed how the other Cadets around them had long since stopped fighting.
Instead, everyone retreated to a safe distance and were now watching with a mixture of awe and horror as two of their peers turned the supposed examination ground into a war zone of utter destruction.
"What in hell's name is this?!" one Cadet clutched his head. "This was supposed to be an entrance exam, not the apocalypse!"
"Exam? That's a battlefield now!" another shouted, her eyes darting from each crumbling section of the arena to the next. "They'll level this whole damn place at this rate!"
"Then go and try to stop them!"
"Fuck you, you go and try!"
No one was even entertaining the thought of intervening anymore.
Why? Because earlier a few brave — or perhaps reckless — Cadets tried to step between Samael and Michael.
…It did not end well for them.
One of them was struck by a stray barreling boulder. His body was mercilessly tossed across the arena before he landed in a heap of rubble with a wheeze.
Another barely avoided being impaled by a giant stone thorn erupting from the ground. Sure, he wouldn't have died, but he'd sure as hell broken a few bones.
"Did you see that?!" a Cadet squealed as a spear larger than a person whistled past Samael and buried itself in the coliseum wall. "That thing could've split a horse in half! It was at least four times bigger than me!"
Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd as they were caught between amazement and fear.
"Hey, it's fine, right? Nobody's dead yet," one Cadet chuckled weakly, but his voice wavered as a wall behind him exploded into fragments.
"Yet!" came the panicked reply. "You just had to jinx it!"
Despite their terror, no one could look away from the spectacle of a fight unfolding before them.
The raw power on display was terrifying, sure — but also mesmerizing. Almost hypnotic.
Samael was drenched in sweat and visibly exhausted. Each breath he took was a shallow gasp, every move he made grew sluggish by the second.
It was understandable. Like all of them, he had been fighting for a little more than eleven hours by now.
Eleven hours of continuous combat would take a toll on anyone!
Yet even now, his movements were deliberate and precise. Every step, every shift of his body, served a purpose, with not a single wasted motion.
There was no excess, no hesitation — only the focused determination of someone who had perfected the control over his body.
After all, Samael had been picking street fights with Awakened his age since he was a kid. He was also trained by many of the best martial instructors in Luxara Dukedom.
So, he possessed an edge in fighting experience and battle IQ when compared to Michael. And it was showing.
The golden-haired boy was constantly reading his opponent's intentions and avoiding attacks before they were even dealt.
However, Michael fought like a force of nature unleashed.
He had much more Essense to spare and stamina left to burn — as evident by the walls and spikes and pillars that he conjured with frightening ease.
Most of the arena's destruction was because of him. One moment he'd destabilize the ground, and the next he'd raise waves of concrete large enough to shame the sea.
The fight would have been hopelessly one-sided if anyone but Samael stood against him.
The youngest son of the Theosbane family made up for what he lacked in raw power with his sharp wit and cunning insidiousness.
He nullified the attacks that he couldn't dodge and evaded the ones he couldn't counter with his power, never allowing Michael to use his copied ability with full force.
Anyone with even half a brain could tell this battle was being fought between two of a kind — the power and tactical brilliance they possessed could not be matched by mundane folks.
"We're supposed to be equals here, right? We're all [C-Rankers], right?" one Cadet whispered. "So how are those two this… this strong?!"
"Equals? Look at them! Those two are monsters!" came the response. "That is not normal!"
Meanwhile, Juliana watched the ongoing battle from her position at the edge of the arena with a practiced calm look.
For a moment, she thought about interfering, but after witnessing literal mountains rise and fall, the earth being split open, and spears large enough to skewer titans casually fly through the air, she simply sighed.
"I don't get paid enough for this," she muttered, shaking her head and deciding to let the events play out.
At the same time, in the center of the arena, Samael was in the middle of dodging another hail of spikes.
His boots found purchase on treacherous ground as he continued running and evading despite his crippling exhaustion.
Michael's assault wasn't slowing down. Each spear he shot at carried enough force to obliterate large portions of the earth.
"They'll kill each other!" a Cadet worried aloud.
"Kill each other?" another squeaked. "They'll kill us first!"
Michael, with his eyes darker than the night sky above, thrust his hands forward.
Another enormous tidal wave of stone rose at his command and rolled onward, dwarfing everything around it.
The ground shuddered beneath the attack's weight, making the observers feel like ants before an avalanche.
But Samael was grinning despite the sweat covering his face. He was grinning like a madman as he knelt down.
With a pulse of Essence, he hardened the ground under him.
"What is he—" someone began.
But Samael was already moving, surfing the wave and using it as a springboard. He jumped up high and descended on Michael, too fast to track clearly.
"That's insane," a boy exclaimed in disbelief. Then, as if he suddenly realized something, "Wait a second… that's Samael Theosbane, isn't it?!"
The name rippled through the crowd.
"Huh…? No, yeah! It is! That's him!"
"The Golden Duke's son? The one who's going viral these days?"
"Yes! I couldn't tell from this distance before! But now that I look closer, of course that's him!"
"That explains the craziness!"
It was indeed hard to recognize individuals on the battlefield, especially during a fierce clash like this one.
In the heat of battle, the faces of your enemies were often the last thing you'd notice — and even less so when it came to those you needed to avoid, since you'd be busy running from them.
But now that they identified the young lord of Luxara, a new question arose in everyone's mind...
"But if that's really Samael... who's he fighting?"
"Yeah, who?! Who could be strong enough to not only go toe-to-toe with a Theosbane but also give him hell?!"
"Whoever he is, it's not looking good for the Duke's son!"
They weren't wrong. Samael's situation was really growing more precarious by the moment. He was not exactly losing, but it was clear he wasn't going to win, either.
Well, unless he was blessed by some miracle. If not, victory seemed to slip through his fingers like sand.
His right arm was now encased in a massive gauntlet made of jagged stone, transmuted from the arena floor.
Michael, on the other hand, wielded a brutal executioner's axe, its crude blade fashioned from a steel slab.
Samael narrowly sidestepped a powerful swing of Michael's axe.
He retaliated by swinging his stone-clad fist, but Michael easily blocked it with the shaft of his weapon.
While they were held in a bind, a stone blade suddenly shot from Samael's gauntlet, nearly stabbing Michael in the face.
The protagonist jerked back, then thrust his axe's pommel toward Samael's stomach.
From this distance, it looked like they were talking, probably throwing insults or threats at each other, but their voices were drowned out by the murmuring crowd and the clangor of stone and steel.
Just when it seemed they had reached a standstill, Michael planted his fist into the ground.
The entire arena convulsed once again as cracks split the earth and deep fissures snaked across the field.
Cadets scrambled back in panic, nearly tripping over each other in an attempt to get as far as possible from those two psychos.
…It was then, when everyone was frantically trying to run away, someone pushed their way through the crowd and began walking forward.
She was a petite girl, small in height — barely reaching up to the shoulders of those around her — wearing an oversized black jacket that fell to her knees.
Bright orange hair framed her doll-like face in slight curls, stark against her pale skin. And her glassy gray eyes seemed to reflect the world around her rather than gaze at it, like still pools of clear water.
She moved with easy confidence, hands in pockets and an amused smirk plastered on her lips.
A Cadet noticed her approach and reached out to stop her by grabbing her hand.
"Are you crazy?!" he hissed. "Didn't you see what happened to the last two guys who tried to step in between—"
But he didn't get to finish as the girl turned around, hooked her arm under his, twisted her body, and flipped him over her shoulder.
The boy was slammed hard into the ground.
A dazed yelp escaped his lips as he lay there flat on his back, staring at the stars, still trying to process how he went from standing straight to sprawling in the dust.
Other Cadets were equally horrified as the girl reached the battlefield's center where Samael and Michael were about to clash once again.
Michael swung his axe in a lethal arc while Samael punched forward with his gauntlet.
But before their attacks collided, she slipped between them, caught Michael's axe mid-swing, and wrenched it from his grip.
Within a heartbeat, she spun, using the momentum to slam the axe's shaft into Samael's gut and sending him skidding backward.
She completed her turn and drove Michael stumbling back as well with a sharp kick to his chest.
In just a single move, she disarmed one and floored the other, tossing them both aside like unruly children.
The two boys straightened up and stared in shock at this girl who had dismissed them with almost bored ease.
With a cocky smirk, she crossed her arms and shouted, her voice dripping with a mix of disdain and delight:
"Hey, boneheads! Can't you see you both are bothering other people?! And how dare you two hog all the spotlight when I'm here!"