If she wished to test my limits, then I would show her why the Chimera Crew followed me.

  I exhaled slowly and allowed the restraint I had wrapped around my core to loosen.

  Heat bloomed beneath my skin.

  It began in my sternum, a steady ember, then flared outward through until my aura surged free in a violent ignition. Flame roared up around me in a pale, ghostly blue edged in violet. The fog recoiled as if burned by memory alone. Gravestones nearest to me hissed, their surfaces frosting over before cracking under the sudden shift in temperature. The crowd's roar deepened into something reverent.

  The most tantalizing sight, however was Iza's eyes widening. The moment was ruined as she laughed, grinning with a fanatic glee. "There she is."

  I thrust both hands outward. "{Spectral Flame}." The fire did not spread in a straight line. It spiraled. A vortex erupted at Iza's flank, a twisting funnel of ghostfire that chewed through the cemetery floor and hurled shards of conjured stone skyward.

  A second vortex formed behind her, cutting off retreat. The flames did not merely burn; they consumed the spiritual residue of the conjured terrain itself, distorting the air with shrieking currents.

  Iza vanished from where she stood, and the vortexes were left to collide with nothing but afterimages. She reappeared to my right, blade already descending.

  I pivoted and sent a barrage of {Spectral Fireballs} screaming toward her in rapid succession. Each sphere left a contrail of luminous embers, detonating upon impact with the ground in concussive bursts that shattered gravestones and sent waves of heat rippling outward.

  "Good!" Iza cut through the first. Her katana flashed, and the fireball split cleanly in two before detonating behind her. She slipped between the explosions with unnerving grace, her kimono fluttering but never catching flame.

  The second fireball she deflected sideways. The third she allowed to burst at her feet. Smoke swallowed her form.

  I did not hesitate. Instead, I drew my arm across the air and unleashed a crescent of flame.

  "{Fire Slash}."

  The spectral arc carved through the cemetery, leaving a glowing trench in its wake. The ground blackened where it passed, then shimmered strangely.

  The smoke parted, but Iza stepped forward unharmed. Her blade flicked outward and met my {Fire Slash} head on. The impact detonated in a ring of compressed air that flattened nearby gravestones. My attack split apart under the force of her counterstroke, dissolving into flickering embers.

  She tilted her head. "You're warming up nicely."

  I clenched my jaw and altered the field. The burned earth beneath us liquefied. Flame sank into the soil, not incinerating it but transforming its property. Stone softened into a shallow sheet of shimmering water that spread rapidly across the battlefield, reflecting the false moon in fractured patterns.

  The act caused Iza's sandals to splash. Yet with another revision of the water's properties, it froze. A sudden drop in temperature cascaded outward as the spectral flames inverted their nature. Ice bloomed in intricate patterns across the surface, locking the field into a slick mirror of frost.

  It didn't surprise me when gasps rippled through the stands. However, I was left to calculate. She will lose traction, I thought. Even a master requires footing.

  Iza glanced down, then her aura flared with a thin crimson sheen coating the soles of her sandals. The ice beneath her hissed and fractured as she shifted her weight. Then, impossibly, she pushed off and glided. She startled me when she began skating.

  Her movements became fluid and swift, gliding across the frozen surface with dancerlike grace. Each step left a faint red streak in her wake as her aura maintained friction precisely where she desired it.

  My surprise must have shown because she grinned. "Oh, this is delightful! You're making it interesting."

  She lunged, and her blade swung horizontally. The air screamed. I felt it before it reached me. A pressure, dense and razor sharp, racing toward my throat. I ducked instinctively, and the invisible arc behind me cleaved through a cluster of frozen gravestones. Stone split cleanly in half. The pieces slid apart as though separated by a surgeon's hand.

  I hurried away, as I proceeded the deadly strike. Air pressure. Not flame. Not aura projectile. She is slicing the atmosphere itself.

  I refused to accept it, even as another swing followed. I erected a wall of spectral fire in its path. The pressure wave struck it and sheared through the flames, dispersing them like torn silk. The cut grazed my shoulder, slicing fabric and drawing a thin line of blood particles. I almost cried out, but gritted through the anguishing pain and retailing with heat that surged in response.

  Behind me, crystal shattered. Oath had been forced back as Ume's webbing descended in layered sheets. Silk cocooned one of Oath's crystalline shields entirely, tightening until the structure cracked. Oath countered by driving her hand into the frozen ground. Crystal erupted upward in jagged towers, impaling and severing strands midair.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ume's voice drifted through the fog, calm and focused. "Your posture is lovely, Lady Oath. Allow me to tailor it." Webbing twisted, forming a spiral cage around Oath's position. The silk thickened, weaving into complex patterns like lacework on a bridal gown. Each strand vibrated under telekinetic control, adjusting tension with meticulous care.

  Oath answered with light by thrusting both palms forward, and a lattice of crystal expanded outward, colliding with the cocoon in a burst of fractal brilliance. Ice and silk exploded in opposite directions. One of Ume's threads snapped and recoiled like a wounded limb.

  I turned away when a trail of bone fragments burst through the field's floor. Suddenly Iza's laughter cut through the chaos. "Eyes on me, KiAera!" She skated forward, blade flashing. I met her head on. Our forces collided, my ribbons igniting with spectral flame as they wrapped around her katana. Heat poured into the steel, frost cracking beneath our feet as our auras warred for dominance.

  She twisted and the pressure wave from her blade erupted at point blank range. I crossed my arms and poured energy into a concentrated barrier. The impact blasted me backward across the frozen surface, ice fracturing beneath me as I slid to a stop midair.

  The crowd had gone silent. Even Jalkra no longer leaned lazily against his balcony. He was upright now, both hands gripping the railing.

  Iza rested her katana against her shoulder. "You really can alter a battlefield," she mused. "Fire that freezes. Water that betrays. I like that. It keeps a warrior honest." She pointed her blade toward me. "But let me show you something else."

  She inhaled and aura thickened around her weapon, compressing until the air warped visibly along its edge. When she swung this time, the pressure wave was no longer subtle. It roared.

  A crescent of compressed atmosphere tore forward, slicing through ice, flame, and crystal alike. Oath reacted instantly, launching a massive crystalline bulwark into its path. The structure split cleanly down the center, shards scattering in glittering arcs. The wave continued toward me.

  I braced, spectral flames coiling around my form in a defensive spiral. The impact swallowed me in white noise. I staggered backward, realizing there was nothing but force and resistance. Then the wave dispersed.

  I stood. Breathing harder. Hair singed at the ends. Flames still burning. Across the field, Iza lowered her blade, eyes alight not with malice but exhilaration.

  "You're not breaking," she said softly, almost fondly. Behind her cheerfulness, I felt it. The hunger of a true swordswoman. And I realized, with a flicker of cold clarity beneath my flames, that she had not yet shown me the limit of what her blade could truly cut.

  I steadied my breathing, flames still coiling around my form, ice cracking beneath my boots.

  Across the frozen cemetery, Iza lowered her blade and studied me with an expression that shifted, just slightly, from exhilaration to mild disappointment.

  She clasped her hands together. The gesture was almost childlike. "KiAera," she said, tilting her head. "You're still holding back." Her tone was not accusatory. It was regretful. "I can feel it. You're measuring me. Testing. Protecting your stamina."

  Her fingers interlocked more tightly. "That makes me a little sad." The frost beneath her sandals began to tremble. "So I suppose I will have to bring out some old buddies from my travels. That usually helps people get serious."

  Alarm lanced through me.

  The kanji symbol of mana ignited across the backs of her hands, glowing a deep crimson that pulsed in rhythm with something ancient. The frozen ground around her shattered as eight coffins of varying sizes erupted violently from the cemetery floor, blasting ice and spectral flame into the air.

  The arena shook. The crowd gasped in collective disbelief.

  The coffins stood upright in a semicircle behind her. Some were narrow and elegant. Others were grotesquely massive, iron bound and cracked with age. One towered above the rest, large enough to house a siege engine.

  The kanji on Iza's hands flared brighter, and with another gesture the coffin doors exploded open.

  The first to step forward was a Lich Sorcerer, robes tattered and regal, skeletal fingers curled around a staff crowned with a dim violet crystal. Its empty eye sockets burned with sickly orange flame as it drifted rather than walked, its jaw moving in silent incantation.

  A roar followed beside the sorcerer.

  The largest coffin splintered outward as a gargantuan skeletal Carnotaur forced itself free, bones thick as tree trunks, ribs exposed and reinforced with blackened iron bands. Its skull turned slowly, hollow sockets scanning the arena.

  "Rassith the Hollow!" someone in the stands screamed.

  The name spread like wildfire.

  "That's Rassith!"

  "He devoured three clans during the Eastern Wars!"

  The Carnotaur exhaled a plume of dust and let out a thunderous bellow that rattled the citadel towers.

  Another coffin creaked open. A samurai dullahan stepped out, headless armor lacquered in faded crimson, one gauntleted hand gripping a curved blade while the other held its own helmeted head by the hair. The eyes within the severed face glowed faintly as it scanned the battlefield with disciplined silence.

  A skeletal archer emerged next, bones lean and precise, drawing back a bowstring formed of translucent sinew. The arrow it nocked shimmered with necrotic energy.

  From a coffin bound in vines, a levitating, decaying plant horror rose. Its skeletal frame was entangled in rotting foliage, roots writhing like serpents as it hovered inches above the ground, spores drifting from its body in faint clouds.

  And then came the laughter; high pitched and giddy. The final coffin door burst outward as a hooded skeletal figure stepped into view, scythe resting casually across its shoulders. Its bones were polished and clean, almost pristine, and its jaw hung open in a perpetual grin.

  "Oh ho ho," it cackled, voice echoing unnaturally. "You called, Lady Alruin? I was getting so bored in there."

  The arena had descended into madness. Undead legends. Named horrors. Entities that should not exist in a tournament setting.

  Iza turned in a slow circle, gesturing toward them proudly. "KiAera," she said brightly, "meet some of my companions. We have traveled quite a bit together."

  She pointed to the Lich. "Master Vilmcore. He loves theory."

  To the Carnotaur. "Rassith the Hollow. He loves terrorizing."

  To the dullahan. "General Kenryu. Very disciplined."

  To the archer. "Elidreth. Excellent aim."

  To the floating plant. "Thornmother Vire. She enjoys gardening."

  The hooded skeleton bowed exaggeratedly. "And this troublemaker is Syth. He enjoys everything."

  Syth waved the scythe at me enthusiastically. "I've been wanting to meet you, leader girl!"

  My aura flared instinctively. This was no illusion. No simple summoning construct. Each presence radiated weight, density, history. Their mana signatures were distinct and terrifyingly stable.

  Iza clasped her hands behind her back.

  "You see, KiAera, I do not mind fighting alone. But if you are going to hold back, I will not be polite about it anymore."

  Her gaze sharpened. "I would like you to fight me earnestly."

  Her palms slammed into the frozen graveyard. The impact shattered the ice in a massive shockwave. Mana surged outward in a crimson pulse.

  The ground erupted with hundreds— No thousands of skeletal hands bursting from the earth, clawing through ice and gravestone gravel alike. Ribcages followed. Skulls snapped upward. An army of skeleton soldiers hauled themselves free from beneath the conjured cemetery, rusted weapons clutched in bony grips.