The ice-blue girl, however, launched herself forward.
Starlia didn't hesitate. "I'll handle her!" she shouted, rushing to meet the girl head-on.
The Princess drew her sword, her blue aura flaring as she unleashed a flurry of rapid slash attacks. The ice girl weaved through them with terrifying precision, barely dodging the steel. Starlia pivoted, channeling her mana into a massive, heavy strike, bringing her blade down to crush the girl.
BOOM.
The impact shattered the arena floor, kicking up a massive, thick cloud of dust that swallowed them both.
"Nice hit, Starlia," I muttered, standing far back in my designated 'support' position.
But as the dust began to settle, my Spirit Sense screamed.
The girl was already gone. She wasn't in the dust cloud. She had bypassed Starlia completely.
Suddenly, a violent, sub-zero chill washed over me. It wasn't just cold; it was absolute zero. The moisture in the air around my limbs crystallized instantly. My joints locked. My muscles seized. My entire body was frozen in place.
What the hell?! my brain panicked. I was fifty feet away! How did she cross that distance without triggering a kinetic disturbance in the air?!
"So unimpressive."
The voice came from right beside my ear. It was icy, flat, and completely devoid of emotion.
A violent shudder ripped up my spine. Both Starlia and I looked on in absolute shock.
How is she this fast? How is she this powerful at this age?! my analytical mind raced, desperately trying to calculate her stats. This isn't Qi Refinement Stage 2 or 3. This is something else entirely!
And the dead-eyed boy? He was still standing on the other side of the arena, just... staring at me.
Before I could force my draconic core to thaw my frozen limbs, the girl raised her hand. It was instantly engulfed in a violently swirling sphere of dense blue energy.
Wait. Where is the chant? Where are the hand signs?!
My CEO brain completely stalled. Physics lesson: Magic requires processing. You have to convert intention into a formula (chant) to manipulate the raw mana. Using high-tier magic without a chant at twelve years old was biologically and spiritually impossible. It meant her neural pathways were acting as a supercomputer, instantly processing the spell code.
I was so shocked that my body went completely numb. For a full second, my brain just stopped working.
She didn't use a sword. She didn't use a projectile.
She just drove her glowing blue fist straight into my chest.
KRA-KOOOOM.
The impact didn't just break the sound barrier; it shattered it. The sheer, enormous concussive force of the punch exploded outward, kicking up a tidal wave of dust and debris that completely swallowed the entire side of the arena.
The force was so catastrophic that the actual earth beneath the Colosseum shook, vibrating the grandstands and sending a tremor through the entire capital city.
(Meanwhile...)
High up in the VIP viewing boxes, Akira Crimson was gripping the stone railing, his eyes wide as he watched the dust cloud swallow his son.
Suddenly, the air behind him warped. The temperature plummeted, and a suffocating, terrifying pressure filled the room.
Akira didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
"Akira," Jase Crimson—the Death Incarnate—spoke, his voice tight with an urgency that sent a cold spike of dread through the Commander's heart.
"There's something weird," Jase commanded, stepping out of the shadows. "Come with me. Fast."
"You! Wait, what do you mean?" Akira demanded, spinning around to face his ancestor.
"I feel an enormous evil presence there," Jase replied, his usually calm, eight-hundred-year-old face drawn tight.
"Whose?" Akira pressed, his hand instinctively dropping to the hilt of his greatsword.
"I don't know," the Death Incarnate admitted, a rare flicker of unease in his glowing blue eyes. "But it's huge."
"Then we have to go, fast. Ragna's down there too!"
"No. I'll go there," Jase ordered, his form already beginning to blur into the shadows. "You go and get all the powerful people that are here in the stadium. Mobilize them."
"Alright," Akira nodded, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Please... save him."
Jase vanished completely. Akira turned and sprinted out of the viewing box.
Back in the Colosseum
On the arena floor, a thick, suffocating cloud of dust and pulverized stone covered the exact spot where I used to be standing.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Starlia stood frozen, her eyes wide with shock and genuine worry.
The ice-blue girl let out a bored, arrogant sigh. She turned her back on the crater. "Alright. Let's go, my Lord," she said to the dead-eyed boy. "He's not the one. Although, he's already dead—"
Rule number one of corporate takeovers, sweetheart: Never assume your competitor is bankrupt until you see the finalized paperwork.
She was suddenly interrupted by a massive, concussive blast of kinetic force that blew her violently off her feet.
"What?!" she shrieked, her porcelain composure shattering as she tumbled through the air toward the ground.
I hadn't died. I hadn't even tanked the hit. I had melted straight into the shadows the millisecond her glowing fist made contact. And I was absolutely livid.
I erupted from her own shadow just as she was falling. "Wind Walking!" I shouted, stepping on the air to instantly close the distance. I channeled pure, crushing gravity into my blade and delivered a brutal, heavy strike directly to her flank.
The girl crashed hard into the dirt, skidding across the arena floor.
Then, the brown-haired boy finally moved. He didn't attack. He just opened his mouth.
"Interesting," the boy said.
My entire body locked up. His voice... it wasn't normal. It was so impossibly heavy, so deeply resonant, that it didn't just vibrate my eardrums—it vibrated my soul. Hearing him speak literally felt like I was physically falling into an endless, pitch-black pit. My survival instincts screamed.
The girl pushed herself up from the dirt. Her arrogant sneer was gone, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated rage.
The temperature in the entire Colosseum plummeted to sub-zero. The moisture in the air crystallized instantly around her as she raised her hands and summoned her familiar.
But it wasn't the standard Ice Phoenix I had fought earlier today. This one was different. It was massive, radiant, and possessed an aura so densely packed with frost mana that it actually felt like it was freezing the sunlight itself.
Suddenly, a voice screamed inside my head.
"Icicle!"
It was Phiona.
My CEO brain clicked the files together instantly. Icicle. The True Ice Phoenix. One of the progenitors. This twelve-year-old girl just summoned a mythical god as her pet.
"I will show you what true power is, lowly demon," the girl snarled, pointing a finger at me and unleashing the massive, freezing bird.
I tried to move, to dodge, to cast a spell—but I couldn't. My body refused to respond. The sheer, overwhelming aura of the True Phoenix had literally flash-frozen my nervous system. I was completely paralyzed.
The attack was coming right for my chest. It was going to obliterate me.
My survival instincts hijacked my frozen body. I forced a microscopic burst of mana into my skill ring, breaking the paralysis for a fraction of a millisecond.
I sank into the shadows just as the ice hit the spot where I was standing.
I reappeared heavily behind Starlia, my knees buckling as I gasped for air, my lungs burning from the severe frost exposure.
"We can't win this," I huffed, clutching my chest, all traces of my arrogant sarcasm completely gone. I looked at the Princess, my glowing blue eyes wide with warning. "She has a True Phoenix... Icicle."
"Calm down, boy."
The voice echoed in my spiritual space. It wasn't panicked. It wasn't even strained. Phiona, the Phoenix Empress, spoke with the absolute, unshakable calm of an immortal progenitor.
"That is indeed Icicle. She is one of my four children," Phiona continued, her spectral flames barely flickering. "A True Phoenix of Frost. But look at her, Ragna. Look closely."
I forced my shivering eyes to focus on the massive, radiant bird hovering above the arena. Its feathers were like jagged, flawless diamonds of frozen mana, dropping the ambient temperature to absolute zero. But there was no majestic sentience in its eyes. They were completely blank, clouded with a sickening, dark haze.
"She is not a familiar," Phiona stated, her voice dropping to a dangerous, regal chill. "She is possessed. A slave to whatever dark magic that girl is wielding. My daughter is chained."
Before I could even process the terrifying implications of someone capable of enslaving a god-tier beast, a blur of motion caught my eye.
Jase Crimson had reached the spot.
The Death Incarnate stepped out of the shadows, but he didn't intervene. I looked at him, expecting the 800-year-old Saint to obliterate the girl in a blink. Instead, his expression was as if he had seen a nightmare. The Saint was genuinely shocked at the sight of the girl. He stayed right where he was, watching from the sidelines, clearly trying to think of a plan.
(Inner monologue: Are you kidding me? The legendary founder of my family is taking a tactical pause?! That means we are completely, undeniably screwed.)
I couldn't wait for him. I turned to Starlia, my CEO-brain violently shifting from 'defense' to 'insane improvisation'.
I quickly told Starlia what to do. It was a completely irrational, suicidal strategy, but it was the only one we had.
Starlia didn't argue. She nodded and instantly summoned her lotus, starting to fight.
I tapped my locket. With a mechanical hum, I took off my Black Knight armor. The heavy adamantite vanished, leaving me in just my Azure Frost clothes. The armor was a crutch; it was acting as a dampener, restricting the absolute raw output of my Qi. If I wanted to survive a True Phoenix, I needed zero physical limitations.
My eyes flared, glowing more than ever before.
A memory pierced through the adrenaline. I remembered what the Death Incarnate had told me in the forest last night. "Believe in you and your body."
No sword. No armor. Just biology and pure, unadulterated kinetic force.
I ran straight toward the ice-blue girl.
I bypassed her spells and started fighting her with bare hands. It wasn't an elegant duel; it was a brutal, high-speed brawl. I was hitting and getting hit, relying entirely on my Draconic reinforced skin to tank her sub-zero strikes.
Seeing my strategy, Starlia ran to a safe place, covering me on my blind spots.
The absolute disrespect of it caused the girl to snap.
"What do you think, you can defeat me with bare hands?!" the girl yelled, her porcelain face twisting into pure rage.
She stepped back and raised her hands. The ambient mana in the Colosseum violently destabilized. A huge magic formation, glowing a blinding, toxic blue, materialized in the air above us.
Warning. Critical Threat Level.
Large meteors of solid ice started pouring out of the formation. This wasn't a spell; it was a localized extinction event.
"Barriers! Now!" I roared.
Ragna and Starlia threw up their hands, pouring every last ounce of their mana into defensive barriers. I layered Phoenix heat and Dragon density, trying to maximize structural integrity.
It didn't matter.
The meteors tore straight through the barriers like paper and hit them directly.
Our bodies felt a tremendous, shattering pain, and instantly froze. My nervous system completely shut down under the absolute zero impact. My vision went black. Starlia and I fell unconscious.
As the dust and frost settled over our beaten bodies, the girl laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound that echoed through the ruined arena.
Off to the side, the brown-haired boy finally reacted. He watched the absolute destruction with mild interest, and after a moment, he simply smiled.
Meanwhile
Akira Crimson finally reached the arena, bursting through the corridors with other powerful people of the Academy. He immediately spotted the white-haired Saint standing on the sidelines.
He asked Jase about the situation, and Jase replied grimly that it was bad.
Akira's eyes scanned the wreckage, eventually landing on the brown-haired boy standing calmly in the center of the frozen crater.
The moment the Commander's eyes locked onto the boy, a sudden surge of tremendous, paralyzing fear overcame him. Akira was a battle-hardened veteran who had faced down beast tides without blinking, but right now, he was utterly shocked. His brain completely stopped working.
"But... how!" Akira screamed in absolute fear. The aura leaking from that boy was fundamentally wrong. It was ancient. It was the end of all things.
Jase didn't look away from the boy. He kept his voice perfectly steady.
"He successfully made a small crack in the seal," Jase said. "But don't worry, it's just a small fragment of his soul, not even the 1000th part of his real power."