The roaring thunder within the Colosseum of Caelora reached its peak—
then vanished into absolute silence the moment Elara and Noah faced one another at the center of the arena.
Thanks to the blessing of the Bardfish Eggs bestowed by King Alexander, neither of them showed signs of exhaustion anymore. Their bruises had vanished, and more importantly, their mana reserves now surged violently beneath their skin.
The air itself trembled around them.
On Noah's side, moisture thickened until countless droplets of water floated through the atmosphere like drifting pearls.
On Elara's side, the sunlight above seemed to bend unnaturally, gathering at the tip of her staff in radiant streams of gold.
Noah moved first.
As a prince of the Merfolk race, his connection to water far surpassed that of ordinary humans.
This time, he did not wield his royal trident as a spear.
Instead, he gripped it tightly as the weapon transformed within his hands.
"Abyssal Sword!"
The scattered water across the arena was instantly pulled toward him, condensing into a gigantic dark-blue blade so dense it resembled a fragment of the deepest ocean itself.
An overwhelming gravitational pressure burst forth from the weapon, as though the weight of an entire sea had descended upon the land.
Then Noah vanished forward.
His speed was almost impossible for someone wielding such a massive weapon.
The colossal blade descended in a vertical slash that split the marble arena clean in half.
Yet Elara did not panic.
Her harsh training atop the mountains with Gorion had sharpened her instincts far beyond what they once were.
She raised her staff calmly.
"Halo Refraction."
Instead of forming a rigid barrier, layers of curved light manifested around her body like translucent mirrors.
When Noah's blade struck, the immense weight of the Abyssal Sword failed to collide directly against a solid defense.
Instead—
the attack slid along the curved surfaces of light and veered away from its target.
Noah's eyes widened slightly.
Though his strike had landed perfectly, his weapon had somehow been redirected.
"You learned how to redirect force instead of resisting it," Noah praised as he spun mid-motion and unleashed a kick empowered by surging currents.
Elara staggered backward several steps before retaliating with a barrage of blinding spheres of light.
Noah leapt away immediately.
He understood now.
Elara was truly dangerous.
"If that's the case…" Noah said quietly, "then I'll drown your light."
He drove the Abyssal Sword into the ground.
"Abyssal Tide: Full Flow!"
The entire arena transformed instantly.
Water erupted from nowhere, flooding the battlefield until it resembled a massive ocean basin over two meters deep. The waters spiraled violently into a gigantic vortex that sought to drag Elara toward its center.
Within the sea he created, Noah moved like a true predator of the abyss.
He disappeared beneath the currents and reappeared from impossible angles, unleashing rapid slashes that were almost impossible to predict.
Elara felt her feet slowly lifting from the ground.
Inside the vortex, she was losing her balance.
The temperature around the spiraling waters rose from the immense friction of mana—a terrifying technique capable of crushing opponents from within.
Then Elara remembered Ardan's teachings.
And her experiments with the lava of Yur'gan.
She closed her eyes briefly.
She could not fight this energy directly.
She had to absorb it.
"Cold Radiance."
Silver-white light exploded from Elara's body.
The technique acted like a sponge for energy itself.
Her radiance absorbed the heat and momentum flowing through Noah's vortex. Gradually, the once-raging currents began to slow.
The warm waters turned ice-cold within seconds.
Noah immediately noticed the change.
His movements inside the water became heavier, sluggish—
as though the sea itself was freezing under Elara's continuous absorption of energy.
"Enough!"
Noah erupted from the vortex and gathered every remaining fragment of mana into one final attack.
The Abyssal Sword tripled in size, radiating a terrifying aura of darkness.
"Abyssal Heart: Deep Sea Lock!"
Invisible chains of water burst upward from beneath the flooded arena, binding Elara completely.
She could no longer move.
At the same instant, Noah descended from above with the gigantic Abyssal Sword poised to strike her down.
The entire Colosseum held its breath.
In the stands, Sylveras shot to his feet, gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles turned white.
He knew Elara was in mortal danger.
Yet even in that critical moment—
Elara showed no fear.
Instead, her eyes focused upon Noah's mana flow.
More specifically—
the concentrated nexus of energy gathered at the tip of his sword.
The core.
The very point controlling the entirety of Noah's magic.
Elara gathered every last fragment of mana granted by the Bardfish Egg into the tip of her staff.
The light did not grow larger.
It condensed.
Smaller and smaller—
until it became no larger than a needle.
Yet its brilliance surpassed even the sunlight above.
"Lumen Cascade."
Instead of unleashing a massive explosion, Elara fired an impossibly thin beam of concentrated light directly into the mana nexus of Noah's sword.
The beam did not cut through the weapon.
It entered it.
Disrupting the frequency of Noah's mana from within.
In an instant, the legendary Abyssal Sword trembled violently before shattering into ordinary droplets of water mere moments before reaching Elara.
The magical backlash exploded outward.
Noah was hurled across the arena and slammed against the stadium wall.
The chains binding Elara vanished immediately.
Elara herself staggered backward, her staff cracking under the unbearable pressure of the mana she had released.
Silence consumed the Colosseum.
Then—
The great gong rang out across Caelora.
"Winner: Elara of Kozto!"
The stadium erupted.
The cheers that followed seemed powerful enough to shake the heavens themselves.
Elara collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath.
For the second time that day, every ounce of her strength had been exhausted completely.
Despite his defeat, Noah slowly rose to his feet.
Step by step, he approached her.
Then, before the eyes of the entire kingdom, the Merfolk prince extended his hand toward Elara—a gesture of absolute respect between equals.
"You're… not merely strong," Noah whispered with a faint smile. "You understood my magic better than I did myself."
Elara accepted his hand with a weak smile of her own.
"Thank you, Noah. Without that training… I never could have won."
Yet amidst that heartfelt moment of victory—
the atmosphere near the edge of the arena suddenly shifted.
A suffocating pressure spread silently through the Colosseum.
Lurk, who had vanished earlier from the waiting chambers, now stood at the arena gate.
His head hung low.
But the aura emanating from him no longer felt human.
Dark violet veins crept across the skin of his neck like spreading corruption.
And deep within his eyes—
the wicked whispers of Numrath had already consumed his mind completely.
The celebration of the world had only just ended.
Because the true storm—
was finally beginning.