The High Dominion Hall wasn't a room. It was a weather system.

  Wilhelm stepped through the archway and immediately felt insignificant. The ceiling wasn't stone; it was a swirling nebula of purple and gold Enmagic, churning like a storm in slow motion. Clouds actual, wet clouds drifted at knee height, smelling of ozone and crushed mint.

  Floating staircases made of translucent crystal spiraled up into the void, connecting platforms that defied gravity. Books flapped their covers like birds, migrating in flocks from one shelf to another.

  "It’s... a lot," Wilhelm whispered, clutching his chest. "It’s very loud visually. Can we turn the brightness down?"

  He tapped his temple, trying to summon his Status Screen. The headache from the wine was still there, a dull throb behind his eyes, but he needed to know what he was working with before the violence started.

  He scrolled down. He squinted. He tapped the glass of his Monocle.

  "Wait," Wilhelm muttered. "Where is Perception? I had it yesterday. I swear I had it."

  He looked at the [PERCEPTION] slot. It was greyed out.

  "One," Wilhelm hissed. "I have the observational skills of a brick."

  "It’s the wine," a voice rumbled beside him.

  Gerald Falken stood there, hand on his sword hilt, eyes scanning the crowd with Ranger precision. He looked at Wilhelm with that pitying, Aragorn-esque disappointment. "You pickled your senses, Wilhelm. You drank so much that your brain decided seeing things was optional."

  "I was celebrating survival!" Wilhelm protested, adjusting his bone mask. "It was medicinal! And besides, who needs Perception? I have... intuition! And a very large cleaver!"

  "You're going to walk into a wall," Gerald sighed.

  "I will attack the wall," Wilhelm countered. "Preemptively."

  Movement ahead. The crowd of students parted like the Red Sea, but instead of Moses, it was Prince Volpert.

  The boy looked terrified. His "Glass Soul" must have been screaming. He was trembling in his silk uniform, eyes darting around the magical hall like a trapped rabbit.

  "I won't do it!" Volpert shrieked, his voice cracking. "Mother! I won't go into the pit! It’s dirty! They have knives!"

  Lydia wasn't there to save him. But someone else was.

  A man stepped out from the shadow of a floating pillar.

  He was tall. Broad-shouldered. He wore the armor of the Ironvine Elite green steel etched with gold vines. He moved with a grace that was almost predatory.

  Sir Damian Ironvine. The Prince's Uncle. The "Honorable" Ironvine.

  "Calm yourself, nephew," Damian said. His voice was smooth. Cultured. "I will stand as your Champion until the melee begins. No peasant will touch you."

  Wilhelm froze.

  He stopped swaying. He stopped breathing.

  He looked at Damian. And Damian looked at him.

  It was like looking into a mirror. A mirror that was richer, cleaner, and had better posture, but a mirror nonetheless.

  The same Eyes Brows. The same... eyes. Not the Stormsong grey. The Ironvine blue.

  "Gods," Gerald whispered, stepping closer to Wilhelm. "Wilhelm... he looks..."

  "Don't say it," Wilhelm hissed.

  Damian frowned. He walked closer. He ignored the students bowing to him. He stopped three feet from Wilhelm. He tilted his head.

  "You," Damian said softly. "The Bastard of Kaledon."

  "Wilhelm Storm," Wilhelm corrected, his voice tight. "Son of Duke Arnold Stormsong. And... a very nice lady who liked lavender."

  Damian didn't laugh. He studied Wilhelm’s face. He looked at the nose, the brow. He looked at himself.

  "You have the Ironvine eyes," Damian murmured. He sounded... disturbed. "And the Eyes. You look nothing like Arnold."

  "I took after my mother," Wilhelm sad. He felt sick."She had... strong genes. Very Beautiful eyes."

  "My sister," Damian said, his eyes narrowing. "Lydia. She hates you. She hates you more than anyone in the world. I always wondered why."

  He took a step closer. The resemblance was terrifying.

  "Maybe she doesn't hate you because you're a bastard, Wilhelm. Maybe she hates you because you're a mirror."

  Wilhelm stepped back. He gripped his rapier handle so hard his knuckles turned white.

  "I am a Storm," Wilhelm spat. "I am a drunk, a thief, and a disappointment. But I am a Storm. Don't try to adopt me, Ser Damian. My family tree is already complicated enough."

  Damian stared at him for a long second. Then, slowly, he smiled. It was Wilhelm’s smile.

  "We shall see," Damian whispered. "Blood always tells."

  Before Wilhelm could vomit or punch him, a horn blew.

  DOOO-OOOOOM.

  It wasn't a sound. It was a vibration that rattled the teeth in Wilhelm’s skull.

  "ATTENTION, MAGGOTS!" Desmus’s voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere.

  The far wall of the High Dominion Hall didn't open. It dissolved.

  The stone melted away into mist, revealing... the Crownspire Grounds.

  Wilhelm gasped.

  "Okay," he admitted. "That’s cool. That is objectively cool."

  They weren't inside anymore. They were... floating.

  The arena was a collection of shattered islands drifting in a void of endless, starry night. There was no ground. Just chunks of ancient rock, connected by chains of glowing energy. Above them? The Cosmos. Below them? The Cosmos.

  It was space. It was the void between worlds.

  And the gravity...

  Wilhelm took a step. He didn't land heavy. He bounced. He floated for a second, his coat tails drifting around him like he was underwater.

  "Low gravity," Gerald noted, pushing off a rock and flipping effortlessly. "We are light."

  "We are flying!" Pontifex Malachia screamed, zooming past them. She had jumped off a balcony and was literally swimming through the air, cackling like a maniac. "Look at me! I'm a comet! I'm a space pope!"

  Desmus floated in the center of the void, standing on a podium made of pure light.

  "THE RULES ARE SIMPLE!" Desmus roared, his voice amplified by the vacuum. "SURVIVE!"

  He pointed his bayonets at the students drifting onto the floating rocks.

  "One round! Five minutes! If you are standing or floating when the bell rings... you earn 10,000 Spirit Power! If you fall into the void..."

  He gestured to the endless darkness below.

  "...you fail. And the retrieval golems will fish you out. Eventually."

  Wilhelm landed on a medium-sized rock. He wobbled. His [AGILITY]: 11 was struggling with the physics.

  "10,000 SP," Wilhelm muttered, doing the math. "That’s... that’s huge. That’s a level up. Maybe two."

  He looked at his stats.

  "I need that XP," Wilhelm whispered. "I need to see again."

  He drew the Marrow-Cleaver. In low gravity, the massive weapon felt light. Like a toy.

  "Come on then!" Wilhelm shouted at the stars, spinning the giant blade. "Come and get the Bastard! I float like a butterfly and sting like a... heavy blunt object!"

  The bell rang.

  And the first round of the Schola Anunnaki began.

  Gravity was a suggestion here. A polite suggestion that nobody was listening to.

  Wilhelm drifted sideways, his boots scrabbling for purchase on a chunk of floating granite the size of a dinner table. His stomach filled with chicken and wine did a slow, nauseating somersault.

  "Don't vomit," he whispered inside the Hollow-Eye Mask. "If you vomit in zero-G, you drown in chardonnay. Not a heroic death."

  He gripped the Marrow-Cleaver with both hands. Even with his [STRENGTH]: 11 (10 Base + 1 Weapon), the massive blade acted like a sail, pulling him off balance every time he twitched.

  "Okay," Wilhelm muttered, eyeing the starry void below. "Everything costs thirty-five percent more. Budget cuts. We can make this work."

  A shadow fell over him.

  Not a cloud. A boy.

  He landed on the far side of Wilhelm’s rock with the grace of a cat. He couldn't have been more than nine years old. He wore a velvet suit that cost more than the Angelic Manse, and he held a rapier that glowed with faint, bored energy.

  "You're the Bastard," Morvin said. His voice didn't even squeak. It was flat. "My sister says you're a glitch in the noble bloodline."

  Wilhelm adjusted his mask. "And you're... very small. Shouldn't you be in a nursery? Or a petting zoo?"

  Morvin didn't laugh. He sighed. A long, weary sigh that belonged to a forty-year-old accountant.

  "I have to eliminate you," Morvin said, raising his rapier. "It’s efficient. You have low stats. I can tell. You're standing wrong."

  He lunged.

  Wilhelm saw the thrust coming. His brain said move. His body said buffering.

  The rapier didn't hit his heart. It hit the Rib-Cage Plate.

  CLINK.

  Wilhelm stumbled back, the force of the blow pushing him toward the edge of the rock. He flailed, grabbing a stalagmite.

  "Hey!" Wilhelm yelped. "I have extra ribs! That’s cheating!"

  "You're boring," Morvin drawled. He stepped forward, preparing a spell. His hand glowed red. Fire.

  Wilhelm panicked. He couldn't take a fire hit. His thermal limit was garbage (55°C).

  "Physics!" Wilhelm screamed. "I choose physics!"

  He slapped his hand on the rock between them.

  "Sheet Ice!"

  The rock glazed over instantly. A perfect, frictionless mirror.

  Morvin took a step to finish him off. His boot hit the ice.

  In low gravity, friction is the only thing keeping you grounded. Without it...

  Whoosh.

  Morvin’s legs went out from under him. He didn't fall down; he floated up, spinning horizontally like a top, arms flailing.

  "Wha" the kid gasped, his composure breaking.

  "And now," Wilhelm grinned behind the bone mask, aiming his hand at his own chest. "The exit strategy."

  "Wind Gust!"

  BOOM.

  The blast of air hit Wilhelm’s chest. It didn't hurt him; it launched him backward.

  He flew away from Morvin, kicking out with his heavy boots.

  His heel connected with the spinning, floating child.

  THUD.

  "Have a nice trip!" Wilhelm shouted.

  Morvin flew off the rock. He sailed into the void, arms pinwheeling, his bored expression replaced by pure, wide-eyed shock.

  "My sui" Morvin screamed as he drifted away into the starry darkness, waiting for a retrieval golem.

  Wilhelm drifted to the next rock, crashing into it with his shoulder.

  "Ow," he wheezed. "Low gravity, high impact. My favorite combination."

  He checked the time. Two minutes left.

  He just had to hide.

  He crawled behind a large crystal formation. He peeked out.

  And then he froze.

  Across the void, on a massive central platform, stood Livia Whitefield.

  She was... magnificent. And horrifying. She wore white armor that shone like a star. She wasn't fighting. She was dancing.

  Three students attacked her at once. She didn't even draw her sword. She just sidestepped, parried with her gauntlet, and kicked one so hard he broke the sound barrier flying backward.

  She stopped. She turned her head.

  Across two hundred meters of empty space... her eyes locked onto Wilhelm.

  She looked at the spot where her little brother Morvin had just been ejected. Then she looked at Wilhelm.

  She smiled.

  It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a lioness who just saw a rat bite her cub.

  She crouched. She was going to jump.

  "Oh no," Wilhelm whispered. "No no no."

  He scrambled back, trying to dig a hole in the rock with his bare hands. "End the round! End the round!"

  Livia launched herself. She was a comet. A streak of white light crossing the void aimed directly at his forehead.

  DONG.

  The bell.

  The Great Bell of the Schola tolled.

  Livia froze in mid-air. The magic of the arena caught her. A stasis field. She hung there, ten meters from Wilhelm’s face, her sword half-drawn, her eyes burning with promise.

  "Round over," Desmus’s voice boomed.

  Wilhelm collapsed on the rock. He laughed. A hysterical, sobbing laugh.

  "Safe," he gagged. "I'm safe."

  The rush hit him.

  Wilhelm lay on his back, staring at the fake stars. His blood was boiling with the level-up heat.

  He opened his menu with a shaking hand.

  "Perception," he gasped. "I need to see. I can't fight blind."

  He dumped the point.

  The world sharpened. The blur at the edges of his vision faded. He could see Livia’s face clearly now. He could see the hatred in her eyes.

  He sat up. A small, golden box materialized on his lap. The Mystery Box.

  He didn't open it. Not with Livia watching. He shoved it into his deep coat pocket.

  "Next time, Bastard," Livia mouthed silently, hanging in the stasis field.

  Wilhelm gave her a weak, trembling thumbs up.

  "Can't wait," he lied.

  He looked at his stats.

  "One round down," Wilhelm whispered to the void. "Only... four years to go?"

  He closed his eyes and let the retrieval golem snag him with a hook.