Chapter 21: The Fall and the Spark

Back on Earth—back when my dad was still alive—he used to say something like, "It's better to regret the risks you take than to regret the ones you didn't."

Or maybe it was, "Son, if you ever think 'this might be a bad idea,' it probably is."

He said a lot of things.

I'm honestly not sure anymore.

Sentimental quotes tend to blur together when you're hurtling through the air like a rejected meteor.

Because right now?

Right now, I was absolutely regretting every cell in my body that thought jumping off that giant boulder was a good idea.

This was one of those moments I wished I had wings.

Or a jetpack.

Or a parachute. Or—hell—I would've even settled for a squirrel suit.

The wind screamed past my ears like a thousand angry whispering ghosts.

My hoodie flapped wildly, tugging against my body like it wanted to escape and survive on its own.

The world spun, but my target zone remained clear:

five of the most dangerous students in the entire Battle Royale were about to clash beneath me.

Valois, Cassia, Selene, Justin, and my already half-dead sister, Glory—still catching her breath from going blade-to-blade with that damn demon Prince.

And me?

I was plummeting into the eye of the storm like a man-shaped cannonball…with no plan, no backup, and about twenty seconds away from being an embarrassing crater.

"Come on, Mack! Think of a plan!"

I shouted at myself midair, as if my brain was suddenly going to grow a parachute.

Teleportation was out.

Even if I did have enough mana left to cast Beyond the Veil of Reality, using it while falling was like trying to steer a rocket with a wet stick of gum.

I'd probably blink straight into the side of a tree and die of blunt trauma and shame.

I could use the Eyes of Horus to glimpse two seconds into the future…

But what good was seeing a future where Valois kicks my head off if I couldn't do anything to stop it?

So that left me with one usable skill:

Shadow Weaving.

The problem?

Shadow Weaving wasn't exactly designed for aerial acrobatics or midair corrections.

It was for stealth.

Silent kills.

Assassination.

Nothing I was doing screamed stealth—it screamed splat.

And I couldn't open the system shop to buy a spell scroll or a wand or a—hell, I'd settle for a frying pan at this point—because Echo was still offline.

Great. Just perfect.

'Hey! Echo! I'm literally falling to my death! Want to wake up and help out?!'

Nothing.

Figures.

I squinted at the ground.

The battlefield was rising to meet me fast—closer now, and I could see the subtle movements of the five warriors below.

A flicker of Justin's blade.

A swirl of red fabric from Cassia's dress.

A cold shimmer from Selene's aura.

Glory's ragged breath.

Valois's unshaken stance.

I didn't have time for regrets.

I didn't have time to land gracefully.

And then—wait.

I had a skill.

Something I hadn't used yet in battle because I never really learned to use it.

Arcana.

Level: 2 spellcasting.

It wasn't much. But it was something.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I remembered the tutorial screen from the early stages of Eternal Realms.

You didn't have to know a spell to try shaping mana.

If you could mold your will and elemental intent, you could cast—rudimentarily, clumsily, but still cast.

I focused, tightening every muscle in my body.

"Okay. Okay. Fireball? No. Too cliché.

And I'd burn my eyebrows off.

Wind? I'm already in the sky.

Lightning? Probably not smart. Think, think…"

A pulse.

Something that would slow me down.

A cushioning spell.

A directional blast. Anything to stop myself from turning into human confetti.

I focused harder, hands trembling in the rush of wind.

I let the mana coil in my palm—sloppy, unshaped, barely there—and tried to imagine a force.

A shockwave. A burst of kinetic pressure beneath me.

"Just do something, dammit—!"

Mana flared around my palm—wild, unstable, like trying to juggle jellyfish made of plasma.

My hands began to glow.

Warm at first, like the gentle hum of static behind your knuckles—then brighter, hotter, more volatile, until golden tendrils of crackling mana laced through my fingers like angry veins of sunlight.

It reminded me of someone.

"...Danny Rand?"

I muttered aloud, blinking.

"Wait. Iron Fist?"

Oh, shit.

Oh shit.

This wasn't some soft, mystical levitation spell or anti-gravity enchantment like I'd hoped.

This was something else. Something brutal.

The kind of move that made anime protagonists wince.

This was an impact spell.

The kind of mana-pumped, full-force, zero-brakes nonsense you'd expect from a final boss punching through a planet.

It was too late to cancel it.

And then—

I landed.

BOOM.

The explosion tore through the earth like a divine fist slamming into a war drum.

My knuckles hit stone first, the punch enhanced by Arcana and fueled by the rest of my remaining mana.

The ground cracked like glass beneath me—deep, jagged veins of ruptured stone spreading outward in a perfect shockwave.

The force detonated.

Valois was thrown back, boots skidding through dust, arms crossing in a guard as his coat flared like a banner in a storm.

He coughed, staggered.

Justin collapsed to one knee, thrown off balance by the wave of concussive force.

A grunt escaped his lips, his sword dragging into the earth as he caught himself.

Cassia flipped twice in the air, landed awkwardly, and hissed something vulgar under her breath.

Selene—of course—landed like a fucking ballet ghost, sliding into a graceful crouch, one hand brushing the ground as if she'd just stepped down from a carriage.

Not a scratch.

Not a hair out of place.

I don't even know how she does that.

Glory fell on her side, but rolled up instantly, panting, mana dripping from her fingers like violet mist.

Dust hung in the air like smoke from a holy war.

The earth I'd struck had cratered.

Not cracked—cratered.

And me?

I was on one knee, fist still buried in the stone, steam rising from my forearms as if I'd just punched through a volcano.

Then I heard footsteps before I saw my sister.

Rushed, frantic, uneven—boots pounding across stone, kicking up dirt and mana-dust.

Glory didn't hesitate.

Didn't even glance at the others still steadying themselves. She just ran.

The moment her eyes confirmed it was me kneeling at the center of the crater, chest rising and falling with shallow breath, she broke into a full sprint—half-limping, one orb left, bruised and dirty, but moving like she'd just spotted the last familiar face in a world falling apart.

"Eden!" she choked out, breath hitching somewhere between fury and relief.

"You stupid—stupid—STUPID boy—!"

And then she was on me.

Her arms slammed into my shoulders with full force, dragging me halfway up into the messiest, most exhausted hug I'd ever been on the receiving end of.

She buried her face into the side of my neck, arms trembling slightly as they wrapped around me—fierce, protective, home.

I didn't say anything.

Just breathed.

One arm raised to awkwardly pat her back.

I could still feel the tremble in her grip.

"You dropped out of the sky like a mana missile!

You scared the life out of me! I thought— I thought—" she stopped herself, voice tight, sharp.

"You're insane. You're actually insane."

"…Wouldn't have died though," I muttered, voice dry, low.

"Smartwatch would've kicked in. Auto-teleport triggers if my vitals drop into critical."

She leaned back just enough to glare at me — her face flushed, her hair a mess, dirt streaked along her cheek.

"That doesn't mean you get to test it!" she hissed.

"Just because you've got a death failsafe doesn't mean you try to use it like some kind of living grenade launcher!"

I raised an eyebrow, too tired to come up with a proper defense.

"Worked, didn't it?"

"…You're an idiot," she whispered.

I gave her a small, tired smirk.

"…Takes one to hug one."

She scoffed. Then hit me lightly on the chest.

"Don't do that again. Ever."

Her voice dropped into something quieter. Not soft, but… real.

"I can't lose you again.

Not here.

Not in front of everyone.

Not after everything."

I looked down, then reached out and bumped my forehead gently against hers.

"You won't."

She exhaled, sharp and shaky, then drew me back into another hug.

And for a second — just one quiet, stolen second — the battlefield disappeared.

But like I said, just for a second cause after that I head Cassia's voice.

Yes, you heard me right.

"Awwww,"

Cassia purred from somewhere to the left.

"That's so sweet. Makes me wanna puke and cry all at once."

Her boots clicked over scattered rubble as she strutted into view, twirling a dagger between her fingers like a child playing with fire.

Her curls were wild with static and blood, her fangs still pink from whatever chaos she'd just walked away from.

She threw me a lopsided grin — too wide to be harmless, too amused to be sane.

"You fall from the sky, punch the earth, reunite with your twin in tears..."

She made a little heart with her fingers.

"It's like a love story. Honestly, I'm disappointed you didn't land shirtless."

I blinked.

Cassia winked.

And then I heard his voice, slow, elegant, and drenched in mocking familiarity.

"Ah… Eden. Finally."

Valois Laurent stepped out from the settling dust like a ghost returning to haunt a battlefield he'd never truly left.

One of his twin blades dangled loosely at his side, the other balanced against his shoulder.

His hair was wind-swept, his coat fluttered with the wind, torn at the edges, but his gaze?

Sharper than ever.

"I must say," he continued, tilting his head with deliberate grace, "I didn't quite appreciate the way you left our last conversation.

Darting away like a ghost in the wind.

That's not how one says goodbye to a friend."

He smiled faintly — the kind of smile that didn't reach the eyes.

"Your sister, however," he said, shifting his gaze to Glory with a half-nod of theatrical gratitude, "tried her best to keep me company in your absence.

She even gave me a parting gift…" He tapped the now-missing orb at his belt, the cracked leather where it used to rest.

"Lovely of her, really."

Glory clenched her fists, stepping forward again, blocking me out of habit — like we were still kids on the manor grounds, only the stakes were far worse than scraped knees.

"But now…" Valois raised his head fully, and his aura began to rise with him — gold and crimson energy coiling like twin serpents at his shoulders.

"…the cast is complete," Valois murmured, spreading his arms with a slight, maddening smile.

"The rogue, the knight, the vampires, the heir… and the anomaly."

He said it like he was narrating a play, one hand gesturing upward as if there were an invisible audience to applaud him.

Which, knowing Silver Mist Academy, there probably was.

Selene sighed — loud, long, and entirely done with the melodrama.

"Gods, shut up," she said flatly.

And then she blurred.

I barely caught the motion — a flicker of silver eyes, the snap of wind, the brief shimmer of afterimage — before she was on me.

Justin was next.

He launched himself forward like a proper knight in shining intentions.

Cassia cackled and followed suit, flipping over debris like a crimson cyclone, blades flashing in her hands.

And Valois?

That smug bastard was just strolling, boots crunching over rubble as if he were heading for afternoon tea instead of an impending explosion of fists and fangs.

And me?

While they were coming, while I was still wobbling from my superhero landing and every bone in my body was filing complaints with Human Resources — I realized something.

While falling from the sky like a dumbass, I had an epiphany.

I could make a bomb.

A mana bomb, to be precise.

Don't ask me how I knew. I just did.

Like a vibe. Like a war crime whispered to me by the wind mid-descent.

All that Arcana knowledge and raw instinct had clicked together in the air and handed me a glowing, suicidal idea on a silver platter.

I was in no shape to fight. My ribs were wrecked, my MP was low, and my body felt like a borrowed one with the warranty already voided.

But I still wanted to do something cool.

So, naturally, I turned to my twin.

"Hey," I muttered.

Glory's eyes snapped to me — still sharp, still burning with adrenaline and concern.

"You're pretty," I added casually.

Her brow furrowed. "What—?"

THWACK.

I punched her.

Not hard enough to break bones, who I'm I even kidding, I didn't have such strength left.

Just enough to knock her backward in a forceful, sudden launch.

She flew back a few meters, skidding across cracked stone with a noise of pure shock.

"EDEN!?"

Everyone froze.

Justin stumbled mid-dash. Selene halted.

Even Cassia tilted her head like a cat watching something very interesting.

Valois?

That bastard actually smiled wider.

But by the time they processed what I'd done, I had already drawn the mana into my palm — hot, unstable, and crackling like thunder trapped in a bubble.

Selene's eyes widened.

She blinked.

Gone.

Seriously, how does she do that?

Like a ghost mixed with a ninja and way too much grace for a first-year.

The others weren't as lucky.

Glory scrambled up just as the flare in my hand reached critical mass.

"No—no no no, Eden don't you—!"

But it was already too late.

I looked up, locked eyes with her for a brief moment, and smiled through the haze of pain.

"Cool exit, right?"

And then I detonated it.

The mana bomb burst outward like a collapsing star — not fire, not lightning, not even visible energy.

Just pressure, colorless and crushing, rippling in a wave that folded the air around me with a deep BOOM that made the very ground ripple outward like water struck by a meteor.

Justin was flung like a ragdoll, crashing into a broken pillar.

Cassia screamed something — half laughter, half "you lunatic!" — before spiraling through the air like a crimson frisbee.

Valois didn't even try to dodge.

The bastard welcomed it, cloak flaring as he was blasted back into the distance with a bored elegance only he could pull off mid-explosion.

And me?

I was gone.

Just like that — teleported out mid-blast as the system yanked me from the brink of self-obliteration.

The others followed one by one.

Justin blinked out mid-roll as he tumbled through the air, caught right before slamming into the wall.

Cassia vanished with a shriek and a laugh, both cut off by the pulse of magic.

Valois, ever the dramatist, bowed mid-explosion — and then vanished in a blink, still smiling like he'd won something.

Glory.

On her feet. Running.

"EDEN—!" Her voice cracked.

She reached the spot he had stood just as the smoke curled in and the tremor passed.

But he wasn't there anymore.

She stood alone in the dust, arms trembling.

"…You absolute idiot," she whispered, her voice shaking.

Only Selene remained nearby, landing softly behind her like a whisper. She didn't say a word.

Just stood beside her and let the silence stretch — one hand resting lightly on the hilt of her dagger, eyes staring at the smoke where they had vanished.

And with that.

The Battle Royale… was over.