The Duel Above, The Demon Below
The Duel Arena was alive.
Students filled every seat. Some climbed onto the balcony rails, others hovered mid-air on flight glyphs. The air was electric, thick with mana and anticipation. Even instructors stood along the edges, silent and watching.
Two figures stepped onto the obsidian-tiled battlefield.
Leron Valis Aerion — the First Imperial Prince — glided forward like dawn incarnate. His golden robes shimmered with embedded mana filaments, the imperial crest glowing on his chest. His silver-gold eyes scanned the crowd, unreadable.
On the opposite side stood Freya Von Drakelle.
Short. Barefoot. Cloaked in dark silk that barely moved even when the wind passed. Her midnight-black hair framed a face carved in stillness, and her eyes shimmered like amethyst locked in frost. Darkness clung to her like a second skin.
The stadium dimmed as the arena's center crystal flared to life.
"Match Start in 3... 2... 1—"
The bell rang.
Freya vanished.
No fanfare. No wind. No sound.
Just gone.
Leron didn't blink. He lifted his hand.
A thread of fire formed between his fingers — narrow, impossibly dense. It spun once in the air like a blade.
Then he moved.
CRACK—
The tile beneath him shattered from raw pressure as Leron blinked across space, reappearing mid-air. Beneath him, shadows erupted — spiked tendrils aimed for his legs, his throat, his heart.
Freya reappeared, gliding between the spikes, her form more mist than flesh. A jagged dagger of pure shadow extended from her palm.
She slashed.
CLANG—
Light and darkness collided in a scream of mana. The blast shattered the nearest ward wall, sending shards of magic fizzing into the stands. Students screamed. Instructors began raising barriers around the audience.
Leron hovered mid-air, surrounded by a radiant sphere of fire and light. His cloak flared behind him like wings.
"You're aggressive today," he said quietly.
Freya didn't respond. Shadows exploded from her feet, flinging her toward him.
SLASH. DODGE. STRIKE. TELEPORT.
They moved faster than thought, spells flashing like lightning.
Freya's blades curved mid-air, forming twin crescents that struck from opposite sides. Leron rotated, fire coiling around his legs, propelling him like a comet. He slammed into her, driving her down.
BOOOOM!
They crashed into the arena, splitting it like glass. Stone ruptured. Sigils shattered.
Freya skidded across the tiles, rolling, flipping upright. Her eyes blazed with darkness.
Leron stepped out of the crater, unburnt.
He raised a hand.
The air distorted.
Freya's body froze — not in temperature, but in movement. Her shadow magic reacted instantly, forming decoys that scattered in a blur of mist.
"Spatial Lock," someone whispered in the stands. "He just froze a five-meter radius."
Freya reformed behind him.
"Wrong angle," she whispered — and struck.
Her blade pierced through his robes—
But not his skin.
Light flared from beneath.
Leron turned.
"You're too slow."
BOOOOM—
An explosion of divine fire lit up the stadium. Half the battlefield was swallowed by gold-white flame. The audience reeled, screaming behind mana shields as shockwaves cracked the outer walls.
When the flames receded…
Freya stood inside a cocoon of pure shadow.
Barely.
Her cloak was torn. Blood dripped from her arm. But she was still standing.
Leron lowered his hand.
"Yield," he said.
Freya smiled faintly — not kind. Feral.
She whispered something — and the entire battlefield turned black.
No torches. No crystals. No stars. Just cold, suffocating shadow.
Gasps echoed.
"What is this?"
"I can't see anything!"
Even instructors looked tense.
Only one person still glowed.
Leron.
His entire body shimmered like a lighthouse in a void.
"You think darkness will hide you," he said softly. "But I am the sun."
And then—
Light exploded.
Not fire. Not heat.
Light. Pure. Total. Blinding.
It tore through the darkness like a nova. The arena pulsed with unbearable radiance. Even the audience, shielded by layers of instructor-formed barriers, winced.
The shadows shrieked.
Freya dropped from the sky — caught in a net of silver flame.
She didn't move.
The darkness fell apart like ash.
Silence.
Then the announcement.
"Match Over! Victory: Leron Valis Aerion."
Applause erupted. Students screamed. A wave of heat and sound rushed through the stands.
Freya stood slowly, blood on her lips, expression unreadable.
She bowed.
Leron returned it.
They exited the field without a word.
---
Far above, in the highest tower balcony, Rael'Zhur watched.
No one noticed his eyes flickering red.
"Let the stars burn," he whispered.
"I only need their ashes."
He lingered, unmoving, eyes tracking the faint trails of mana lingering in the air — remnants of divine fire and cursed shadow. The arena below still shimmered with the aftershock of Leron's brilliance, but it wasn't the light that interested Rael.
It was the cracks.
The fractures beneath the performance.
The proof that even the brightest stars flicker.
He turned silently, slipping into shadow as the cheers rose louder behind him. His cloak, deep and liquid black, vanished into the archway like smoke pulled by breath.
Below, the students were still screaming names.
They chanted Leron's title. Debated Freya's counterattack. Mocked or praised, predicted or dismissed — all eyes remained fixed on the arena.
No one saw what he saw.
Not the instructors.
Not the spectating nobles.
Not even the fighters themselves.
Beneath the fractured obsidian tiles, just below the glowing runes of containment, something pulsed.
A sigil.
Dull red. Hidden deep. Waiting.
Not a glyph from the Academy's catalog.
Not a spell anyone still taught.
A mark of the old tongue. The demon tongue.
One that fed not on mana… but on blood.
Freya's attack had been stronger than she knew. The darkness, the backlash, the wound — just enough to awaken it. Just enough to make it stir.
Rael descended the spiraling inner stairs of the tower, tracing old stone steps layered with the dust of forgotten years. Walls here bore no banners. No candles. Just silence.
Beneath his feet, the Rift Core answered.
Thrum.
Thrum.
Soft, but growing.
He smiled to himself.
"Let them crown their prodigies," he murmured. "Let them worship golden princes and whisper about cursed girls. They're all just lights dancing above a pit."
His fingers brushed the hidden crystal in his inner robe pocket — a shard of tethered shadow, pulsing in sync with the sigil below.
"Today was only a rehearsal."
A pause.
"But soon... the curtain rises."
He disappeared into the stone-dark corridors beneath the tower, each step echoing like a countdown.
---
Far above the noise, the academy celebrated talent.
But beneath its bones… something old had stirred.
And in that silence — in the shadows beneath stone and sigil — Rael'Zhur smiled without joy.
Not all wars were fought in the arena.
Some were sown in whispers. Lit by ancient blood. Fed by ambition too dark to name.
As applause thundered above, his fingers tapped once on the wall — a pattern, a pulse.
Far below, in the forgotten depth of the academy… something responded.
A flicker. A soundless breath.
The first ripple of a storm.
Soon, the stars would shine.
But even stars fall.