The Quarter-Finals

  The tournament moved fast. Too fast.

  After Amari dismantled the Titan, the brackets became a blur of violence.

  Round 2: Amari vs. Cadet Jinn (C-Class Wind Mage) Result: The mage tried to fly, but only got ten feet off the ground. Amari threw a sandbag at his ankle, dragging him down, then knocked him out with a single chop to the vagus nerve. Time: 12 seconds.

  Round 3: Amari vs. Cadet Orix (B-Class Gravity Mage) Result: The mage increased gravity to crush Amari. Amari, who had spent 48 hours training with Iron Body in the boiler room, just stood up in the gravity field and walked through it. He slapped the mage unconscious. Time: 30 seconds.

  By the time the Semi-Finals approached, the crowd wasn't booing anymore. They were whispering. The "Glitch" was tearing through the bracket like a natural disaster.

  The Interruption

  The announcer stepped into the arena.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen! For the Semi-Final match, Amari Malik will face—"

  BOOM.

  A bolt of white lightning struck the center of the arena, silencing the announcer.

  High above the stadium, floating on a disc of static electricity, stood Prince Caelum. He looked bored. He looked annoyed.

  "I'm tired of waiting," Caelum’s voice boomed, amplified by magic.

  He looked up at the VIP box.

  "Dean Vance," Caelum demanded. "This peasant is boring me. He beats up weaklings and thinks he's a warrior. Let's skip the preliminaries."

  Caelum pointed a glowing finger down at Amari.

  "Give me the Glitch," Caelum sneered. "I want to end this farce right now."

  The crowd went wild. They wanted blood. They wanted the Main Event.

  In the VIP box, Dean Vance smiled. He tapped his microphone.

  "Request approved," Vance announced. "The bracket is adjusted. We move immediately to the Grand Finals."

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  The Fight Begins

  Amari stood on the sand. He looked up at the floating Prince.

  "He's impatient," Amari muttered, adjusting his gloves. "And arrogant."

  "BEGIN!"

  Caelum didn't even land. He ascended higher, sixty feet into the air.

  [Spell: Jupiter’s Ascent]

  He looked down at Amari like a god viewing an insect.

  "You have spirit, peasant!" Caelum shouted. "But can you break the sky?"

  Caelum raised a finger.

  [Spell: Thunderbolt]

  CRACK.

  A jagged spear of white lightning struck the sand.

  Amari rolled. The sand fused into glass where he had been standing.

  The second bolt clipped his shoulder.

  Hiss.

  The lightning burned through his uniform and scorched his Iron Skin. It hurt. It wasn't lethal damage—his dense bones conducted the electricity into the ground—but it stung like a hornet sting.

  Amari stopped and looked up.

  "What's the matter?" Caelum taunted, gathering a massive ball of electricity in his palm. "Can't reach?"

  Amari looked down.

  He stomped his right foot hard into the sand.

  THUD.

  The sand shifted. Something solid answered back.

  Caelum threw the lightning ball. [Spell: Thunder Cage].

  It wasn't a strike; it was a net. Electricity arced across the entire arena floor, creating a web of pain.

  There was nowhere to dodge.

  Amari punched down.

  CRUNCH.

  His hand buried itself deep into the sand and shattered the concrete seam. His fingers, hardened by the boiler room torture, hooked around a jagged chunk of foundation about the size of a dinner plate.

  It weighed maybe fifty pounds. Heavy, but manageable.

  [Technique: Iron Grip]

  Amari ripped it free.

  "If I can't come to the sky..." Amari growled.

  He didn't lift it over his head. He held it low, by his hip. He planted his feet and began to spin.

  Once. Twice.

  The Breath of Iron roared in his chest, flooding his muscles with oxygen. He became a human centrifuge. The fifty-pound rock accelerated until it was a blur.

  "Is he... winding up?" someone whispered in the stands.

  "He's not throwing that," another student said, horrified. "That's fifty pounds of concrete—"

  The whistle of the spinning rock cut him off.

  Caelum stopped laughing. He stared down, sneering. "A rock? You're going to throw a pebble at a god?"

  Amari spun a third time. The centrifugal force was immense—enough to dislocate a normal shoulder. But Amari’s Steel Bones held the joint in place.

  "...I'll bring the sky down to me."

  Amari released.

  He didn't throw a rock.

  He fired a cannonball.

  The jagged concrete disc screamed through the air, ripping through the wind with a terrifying whistle. It wasn't just heavy; it was traveling at terminal velocity as it flew upward, aiming straight for the floating Prince.