Kael was still reading the point update on his bracelet when he heard it. A wet, guttural screech from inside the building across the street. Glass fragments tumbled from the broken window frame, followed by the unmistakable sound of metal claws scraping against concrete as something hauled itself back from the edge of death.

The eagle.

"Stubborn little bastard," Kael murmured, a smirk tugging at his lips.

The Razor Wing Eagle erupted from the window in a shower of dust and shattered masonry, its right wing hanging at a grotesque angle but its left wing beating with furious intensity. Blood streamed from the arrow wound in its wing root, dark streaks trailing behind it like ribbons. One of its metal-clawed talons was missing, likely torn off in the crash.

It was wounded but it still dove straight for Kael with murder in its beady eyes.

Kael didn’t even draw his blades. Five runes suddenly ignited in the air around the eagle.

They appeared out of nothing, pale blue symbols that hung suspended like frozen stars, arranged in a perfect pentagon around the struggling bird. The eagle faltered, its remaining wing beating erratically as it sensed the trap it had flown into.

Lightning erupted from all five runes simultaneously.

CRACK-BOOM!

The coordinated strike was precise and devastating. Five bolts of electric death converged on the eagle from every angle, the current flowing through its body with nowhere to escape. The beast’s screech cut off abruptly as its muscles seized, its wings locked rigid, and its remaining metal claws extended in a final, involuntary spasm. Smoke rose from its feathers as it plummeted, trailing the acrid stench of burnt flesh and ionized air.

It hit the ground ten meters from Kael, twitching once. Barely alive. The lightning hadn’t killed it outright, but it had reduced the Mana Heart Rank 2 eagle to a convulsing wreck with maybe seconds of life left.

And then an arrow flew past Kael’s ear, close enough that he felt the fletching brush his hair.

THUNK.

The arrow landed dead center in the eagle’s skull.

The beast stopped twitching.

Kael’s bracelet chimed softly.

[1,200 PTS]

No change. The points from the eagle had not transferred to him.

He turned his head lazily, toward the direction the arrow had come from. Two kilometers. The same rooftop. The same elf.

Dark Emperor’s Eyes.

There he was. The elf already nocking another arrow with the calm efficiency. The elf’s expression was unreadable at this distance, but Kael could see the slight tension in his shoulders.

A smirk spread across Kael’s face.

"You think you can steal from me and walk away?" Kael murmured, his voice carrying a quiet, dangerous amusement. "How terribly optimistic."

Lightning crackled along his feet, pale blue arcs dancing across the cracked asphalt. He bent his knees slightly, then activated gravity manipulation in a pattern he had only theorized until now. Push behind him, pull in front, a rune drawn in half a second on the ground to stabilize the vector.

The effect was immediate and violent.

Kael launched himself like a living catapult, a streak of gray and blue that tore through the air at a speed that made the wind scream in protest. Buildings blurred past. The distance between him and the elf’s rooftop shrank with terrifying rapidity.

The elf’s eyes widened.

He broke his stance immediately, abandoning his drawn bow and sprinting across the rooftop before leaping off the edge. A desperate maneuver, but a calculated one. If he could change his trajectory mid-air, Kael’s straight-line charge would overshoot.

Except Kael had anticipated exactly this.

The elf jumped off the building, angling his body to fall toward a parallel structure and escape laterally. Kael, still rocketing forward at catapult speed, did something that shouldn’t have been physically possible.

He kicked the air.

Literally. Gravity manipulation compressed the air beneath his foot into a momentary solid platform, and he used it as a springboard to change direction mid-flight while maintaining his initial speed. Then he did it again. And again. Each kick was a gravity-forged stepping stone, each one angling his trajectory sharper toward the falling elf.

He was literally bouncing off empty air, closing the gap with mechanical precision while the elf’s desperate evasive pattern fell apart.

The elf’s face, as Kael appeared in front of him, was a picture of perfect despair.

Kael’s smile was like the smile of the devil himself.

Lightning crackled along his right hand, condensing from chaotic arcs into a tight, blade-shaped sheath of electric death that hummed with contained destruction.

"Lightning Blade," he murmured.

The elf reacted on instinct, hurling a fire blast from his free hand. A desperate, poorly formed thing, more panic than technique. Kael tilted his body in mid-air, letting the fire wash past his shoulder by a hair’s breadth, and drove the Lightning Blade forward.

It pierced the elf’s chest with a sound like tearing silk. The lightning sheath expanded on contact, flooding the elf’s body with electric current that stopped his heart before he could even scream. His eyes went glassy. His bow slipped from fingers that no longer obeyed him.

Kael pulled the blade free and let the body fall.

He landed on a lower rooftop a moment later, boots absorbing the impact with bent knees. He checked his bracelet.

[1,900 PTS]

700 points from a Mana Heart Rank 2 elf. Not bad for thirty seconds of work.

Back in the stadium, the male elf’s body materialized on the stage. The second student eliminated. Somewhere in the stands, an Iron Nexus student had also been eliminated, their body appearing in a crumpled heap beside the elf. The Commentator made a brief, amused note of both deaths before returning his attention to the live feed.

Three kilometers away, in what had once been a multi-level parking structure attached to a collapsed shopping center, Rooley was having a considerably worse time.

Four criminals had cornered him on the third level. Two Mana Heart Rank 1. One Mana Heart Rank 2. And one Mana Heart Rank 3 who stood back and watched with the casual disinterest of someone who didn’t believe this fight warranted his participation.

Rooley gripped his staff with both hands breathing hard. He’d already been fighting for four minutes, and the criminals hadn’t even broken a sweat.

"Little academy brat," one of the Rank 1s sneered, a wiry man with a scarred face and a rusted short sword. "You look tired."

All four of them laughed. It was the maniacal laughter of people who had nothing left to lose, death row inmates who had been promised freedom if they killed enough students and knew they would die either way.

The two Rank 1s attacked simultaneously. Rooley deflected the first strike with his staff, twisted to avoid the second’s grab, and slammed the butt of his weapon into his attacker’s ribs. The hit landed solidly, but the criminal barely flinched.

"He hits like a girl!" the other Rank 1 cackled, circling around to flank.

The Rank 2 criminal, a heavyset woman with fire mana radiating from her fists, hadn’t even moved yet. She was waiting. Savoring.

Rooley’s eyes darted between all four opponents. His heart was hammering. His arms ached. But beneath the fear, his mind was cold and calculating, running through options.

You’re a summoner. Stop fighting like a brawler. Use what you have. But save it for a moment of surprise.

Rooley slammed the base of his staff into the concrete.

"Come forth," he snarled.

Mana erupted from the impact point in five distinct streams, each one coalescing into a hulking shape of shadow-black fur and glowing crimson eyes. Obsidian Wolves. Mana Heart Rank 1. Five of them, each the size of a small horse, their fangs dripping with condensed shadow mana.

The criminals’ laughter died instantly.

"You didn’t know," Rooley said, his breathing still heavy but a flicker of something harder entering his voice. "Did you?"

The wolves didn’t wait for orders. They moved with the coordinated precision of a pack that shared a hive consciousness through their summoner’s will. Two lunged at the scarred Rank 1, forcing him onto the defensive. Another two flanked the second Rank 1, cutting off his escape angle. The fifth positioned itself between Rooley and the Rank 2 woman, a living barrier of fang and claw.

The scarred man panicked. Fire erupted from his palm, a wild, undisciplined blast that one wolf dodged by melting into shadow and reappearing at his flank. The other wolf clamped its jaws around his sword arm and twisted. Bone snapped. The man screamed.

The second Rank 1 saw an opening. While the wolves engaged his companion, he broke free and sprinted directly at Rooley.

If I kill the master, the summons go back.

It was sound logic. The oldest counter to summoners in the book.

He was three meters from Rooley when the ground beneath him began to shake.

Rooley smiled.

A massive shape burst from the concrete floor of the parking structure with a sound like a bomb going off. A wyrm, its serpentine body as thick as a man’s torso, its maw wide enough to swallow a car whole. It erupted directly beneath the charging criminal, jaws closing around his torso before he could even scream.

The crunch of bone echoed through the parking structure. Wet, final, absolute.

The other criminals froze. One of the wolves used the momentary paralysis to tear the scarred man’s throat out. The remaining two wolves finished him before he hit the ground.

That left the Rank 2 woman and the Rank 3 man who still hadn’t moved.

Rooley raised his staff again, mana flowing. A sixth shape materialized beside the five wolves. Larger. More heavily muscled. A Mana Heart Rank 2 Obsidian Wolf, its fur streaked with veins of pale blue light, its eyes burning with intensified crimson.

The Rank 2 woman’s composure finally cracked. She looked at the six wolves, at the wyrm still burrowed halfway into the floor with blood dripping from its jaws, and at the boy who had hidden his true capabilities until the perfect moment.

"Vareth!" she shouted, turning to the Rank 3 man. "Vareth, help me!"

Vareth didn’t even look at her. His eyes were fixed on Rooley with an expression of interest.

The wolves surrounded the Rank 2 woman. She swung her fire-filled fists, but there were too many of them, attacking from too many angles. A wolf latched onto her leg. Another clamped onto her sword arm. The Rank 2 alpha drove its fangs into her shoulder and shook. Her screams filled the parking structure before cutting off abruptly.

Rooley watched her fall, then turned to face Vareth.

The Mana Heart Rank 3 criminal was still standing with his arms crossed, perfectly calm, a faint smile on his weathered face.

"As expected of the top fifteen academies," Vareth said quietly, his voice carrying a note of genuine appreciation. "You hid your summoning until the optimal moment. Used the terrain. Let your enemies underestimate you. And you’re Mana Heart Rank 2 yourself, aren’t you? Not bad at all."

He uncrossed his arms, and mana pressure rolled off him like a tidal wave. The air grew heavy. The wolves instinctively backed up a step, their hackles raised, their crimson eyes fixed on the far more dangerous prey.

Rooley tightened his grip on his staff. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. But he didn’t step back.

Vareth’s smile widened.

"I’m going to enjoy this."