The Grand Arena had ceased to be a place of stone and mortar. It was now a domain of death.
Alvian hovered ten meters above the ground, his form transformed. The [Vestments of the Void Monarch] had fused with his [Avatar State], turning into armor made of literal space and cold. His eyes were no longer human; they were twin novas of blue light.
[Status: Avatar of the Frost Monarch]
[Mana: Infinite]
[Cooldowns: -80%]
[Flight: Active]
The crowd was silent. The faculty in the VIP box were standing, their faces pale. The Vice-Headmaster gripped his chair until the wood splintered.
"He... he assimilated the Calamity," George whispered, tears in his eyes. "He didn’t just kill it. He became it."
Down in the crater, Valeria looked up. Her golden aura flickered against the overwhelming pressure of Alvian’s presence. Her left arm was useless, frozen solid. Her stamina was draining rapidly.
But she didn’t drop her sword.
"So this is it," Valeria panted, her breath turning to snow before it left her lips. "This is the power that killed Engels."
"Yield," Alvian commanded. His voice wasn’t loud, but it resonated in the bone marrow of everyone in the stadium. "You have proven your strength. There is no shame in survival."
Valeria grit her teeth. She raised her claymore with one hand.
"A Vanguard... never... yields!"
She crouched. The ground beneath her pulverized.
"TITAN’S LAST STAND!"
She launched herself at him. A final, desperate comet of golden light aimed at the heart of the winter god.
Alvian looked at her with a mixture of pity and respect.
"Inefficient," Alvian whispered. "But admirable."
He raised a single finger.
"[Frost Descent +2]: Absolute Zero."
He didn’t cast a storm. He simply stopped the atoms in the air around her.
"SNAP."
Mid-air, ten feet from Alvian, Valeria stopped.
She didn’t freeze into a block of ice. She simply... stopped. The kinetic energy of her charge was drained instantly. Her golden aura was snuffed out.
She hung there, suspended in a prison of halted time and temperature.
Alvian floated forward. He placed a hand gently on her frozen shoulder.
"Rest now, Titan."
He flicked his finger.
Valeria fell.
She crashed to the ground, the ice shattering around her, leaving her unconscious but alive. The frost had preserved her, sparing her from fatal damage.
[Target Incapacitated.]
[Winner of the Overlords Academy Championship: ALVIAN!]
The barrier dropped.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, the stadium erupted. It was a sound of relief, of awe, of terrifying realization. The Anomaly had won.
Alvian descended, his Avatar form dissipating into motes of light. He returned to his human state, though the cold aura lingered.
He stood over Valeria. Medics rushed in, but he waved them back. He knelt and placed his hand on her frozen arm, drawing the void frost back into himself. Color returned to her cheeks.
"You did well," he whispered.
He stood up and looked at the VIP box. At the Headmaster. And the Vice-Headmaster.
"I won," Alvian announced, his voice amplified by magic. "The Genesis Forge is mine."
The Headmaster, a venerable old man with a beard like a cloud, stood up and clapped. "Indeed! A magnificent display! Come, champion! Claim your prize!"
But the Vice-Headmaster didn’t clap. He was staring at a data slate in his hand. He tapped a single red rune.
"Boom."
A tremor shook the arena.
Alvian frowned. "Another earthquake?"
"No," Seraphina’s voice screamed over his comms. "Alvian! Get out of there! It’s a trap!"
"BOOM!"
The center of the arena, right beneath Alvian and the unconscious Valeria, exploded.
It wasn’t a bomb. It was a teleportation circle. A massive, chaotic red glyph burned into the stone.
[System Warning: Forced Teleportation Detected!]
[Destination: Undercroft - The Blind Spot.]
[Interference: High.]
Alvian tried to move, to grab Valeria and [Shadow Step] away.
But chains of black mana shot up from the glyph, binding his legs. Binding Valeria.
"The Syndicate," Alvian hissed. "They aren’t waiting for me to come down. They’re dragging me down."
The Vice-Headmaster stood up, a cruel smile on his face.
"You wanted the basement, Anomaly?" the Vice-Headmaster’s voice echoed. "Then go to hell."
The floor gave way.
Alvian and Valeria fell into the darkness.
As they fell, Alvian saw the light of the sun shrinking away. He saw the panicked face of Seraphina leaping from the stands, too late.
He looked down into the abyss.
Red eyes opened in the dark. Hundreds of them.
And in the center, a massive, pulsating cocoon.
"Subject Zero," Alvian realized, drawing his Lance as they plummeted.
"Finally."
The darkness swallowed them whole. The Tournament was over. The War for the Undercroft had begun.
The sensation of falling was not new to Alvian. In his past life, he had fallen from grace, fallen in battle, and eventually fallen into the embrace of death. But this fall was different. It was a plunge into the throat of the beast, a forced descent orchestrated by the very people sworn to protect the future of humanity.
The light of the sun above the Grand Arena shrank rapidly, turning from a blinding disc into a distant, mocking star before vanishing entirely as the earth sealed shut above them. The magical darkness of the Undercroft swallowed them whole.
Alvian and Valeria plummeted through the shaft, the wind roaring in their ears. The chains of black mana that had dragged them down dissolved now that they were past the point of no return, leaving them to the mercy of gravity.
"Alvian!" Valeria’s voice was torn away by the wind, but he could see her outline flailing in the dark. Her golden Titan aura flickered, weak and sputtering. She was exhausted from the duel, her mana drained, her body battered.
Alvian’s mind, fueled by the infinite mana of the [Tear of the Infinite], worked with the cold precision of a machine. He checked his altitude. Terminal velocity achieved. Impact imminent in ten seconds.
"Inefficient way to die," Alvian muttered.
He reached out, his hand glowing with the pale blue light of [Frost Heart]. He couldn’t fly—the [Avatar State] was on cooldown—but he could manipulate the environment.
"System. Divert mana to [Runic Aegis +2]. Overcharge."