The Author's Extra: My SSS Skill Turns Souls into Anything!

"That’s it! you’re done, Alden!"

Nicholas surged forward, sword already cutting the air as he closed the distance. Roselle moved at the same time from the left, a spell condensed tight in her palm, the yellow light of it already bright. Daniel came from the right, fist drawn back, body low.

Three incoming attacks from three different sides. He had no room to dodge.

Alden’s eyes moved between them.

Then his lips moved into something that was barely a smile.

FWOOSH.

He disappeared.

Nicholas’s sword cut air.

"What—?!"

He skidded to a stop, eyes snapping around. Roselle and Daniel pulled up immediately beside him, both scanning the field.

"Where did he go?" Roselle’s voice stayed steady but her eyes were moving.

Nobody had an answer.

The crowd started before the people on the field did.

"Did he leave the arena?!"

"Where the hell did he go—"

"LOOK UP!"

Every head in the arena tilted at the same time.

The noise stopped.

High above the battlefield, beneath the enormous roof structure spanning the arena, a figure stood upside down on the ceiling.

His black council coat hung downward, the gold trim catching the overhead light. Both boots planted firmly against the surface above him like gravity had forgotten he existed. One hand rested at his side. His eyes looked straight down at four people who were all looking straight up at him.

He wasn’t panicking. He was just standing there.

For a few seconds, nobody in the arena said anything at all.

"How—"

"He’s on the CEILING—"

"That’s not possible—"

"WHAT IS HE?!"

In the council section, Augustus raised one eyebrow.

"...That is unusual."

In the eliminated area, Leon and Legion were nearly out of their seats.

"He keeps doing something unpredictable!" Leon slapped his own knee. "Every time I think I understand what he’s capable of—"

"He adds something new," Legion finished.

Emilia had both hands pressed against her cheeks, eyes wide.

"Come on, Senior Alden!"

On the field, Nicholas’s expression had gone somewhere past surprise. Roselle’s mouth was slightly open. Daniel’s fist had come down without him deciding to lower it. Sierra, still pinned to the grass by Alden’s threads, could only look up.

Alden, for his part, was reading the notification that had appeared while everyone else was processing the ceiling.

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SPIDER

Known Concepts

✔ Thread

✔ Prediction

✔ Balance [Unlocked!]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

’Balance.’ He looked at his feet planted against the surface above him.

’To a spider, any surface works and gravity is optional.’ He looked down. ’Pretty useful.’

Roselle struck first. Her hand snapped up, firing a beam of yellow light directly at his chest.

Alden’s eyes sharpened.

Lightning gathered across his body in an instant, crackling over his arms and chest. At the same time, cold blue frostfire pulled in from his other arm, the two energies wrapping around each other as they built.

The air near the ceiling trembled.

He crouched. His coat whipped upward around him.

"Here I come."

BOOM.

He launched. His body dropped like a spear thrown from above, straight through the center of Roselle’s beam. The yellow spell hit the combined lightning and frostfire around him and split outward, tearing past both sides of him as he drove through its center without slowing.

"WHAT THE—?!" Nicholas’s eyes blew wide.

"He went through her spell?!" Daniel stared.

Roselle had barely enough time to raise her arms.

Alden came down beside her, twisted in the air at the last second, and drove his heel into her back.

The impact launched her across the arena. She crossed few meters before hitting the stone wall.

CRACK.

Cracks spread outward from the point of contact in a web pattern. She slumped against it, dazed, the spell she’d fired still dissipating in the air above where she’d been standing.

"ROSELLE OF TEAM TWO IS ELIMINATED!"

"YESSSSS!" Leon was on his feet, fist in the air.

"HE GOT HER!" Legion grinned.

Emilia jumped once, twice, hands clasped in front of her.

"Down to three on one now. This’ll be much less exhausting."

Nicholas’s gaze had moved to Roselle the moment she hit the wall. Then it snapped back to Alden, and everything casual about his expression was gone.

His grip tightened on the sword. He disappeared.

SHING.

The blade came for Alden’s neck, aimed to end it before Alden could set himself after the landing.

Alden tilted his head.

The sword passed an inch from his face.

He felt the air of it.

He twisted his body backward and flipped, feet coming up and over, landing clean.

Before his feet touched down—

WHOOSH.

Daniel was already there from the other side, leg swinging hard into where Alden’s ribs were going to be.

Alden caught it mid-swing with one hand.

Daniel’s eyes went wide for exactly half a second.

Then Nicholas’s sword came sweeping low, cutting toward Alden’s legs from below, the follow-through from his earlier committed arc.

Alden released Daniel and jumped.

The blade passed under his feet by inches.

He rotated in the air, Nicholas pivoted and brought the sword back around faster than the arc should have allowed, catching Alden in the middle of his rotation.

The blade sliced his coat.

Daniel was already there again on the landing, throwing high.

Alden ducked low, placed one hand on the ground, and swept his leg into Daniel’s ankle, sending him stumbling sideways.

Nicholas came straight down.

Alden crossed both hands.

The blade landed between his palms.

CLANG.

The shockwave cracked the ground beneath his feet. His arms shook with the full force of it.

Nicholas stared at his own sword.

Sitting between Alden’s bare hands.

"What—"

"Got you!"

Daniel’s hands closed around both of Alden’s legs.

’When did he—?’

Daniel jerked him down.

SLAM!

The ground slammed into Alden’s back, knocking the wind out of his chest and blowing dust everywhere.

He just blinked at the ceiling.

"NOW, DANIEL!"

Nicholas had already abandoned his sword, left it in the ground where it fell, because what he was doing next didn’t need a sword.

Golden energy flared around his fist with a roar.

He sprinted forward.

"Yeah!" Daniel came from the other direction, his own fist building the same yellow light, same intensity. "Let’s show him, Nicholas! TOGETHER!"

Both of them closed him from opposite sides at full speed.

With one second to act, Alden pressed his hand to the ground, flipped back onto his feet, and locked eyes on both attackers at once.

His coat whipped back in the pressure wave of their incoming power.

"Got you!"

"Take this!"

BOOOOM!

The collision hit like a dropped building.

Golden energy detonated outward, blasting dust and arena floor in every direction. The shockwave hit the fire wall and made the flames roar, the sound rattling the entire stadium.

The crowd went dead quiet, unable to see through the haze.

The dust drifted down, slowly revealing a figure.

First his feet on the shattered ground, then the rest of him.

Alden stood between them. Arms crossed in front of his chest.

He held Nicholas’s fist in his right hand and Daniel’s in his left.

Both attackers still channeled their power, but they were completely stuck. Their blows had been stopped dead on contact, absorbed by a stance that didn’t yield a single inch.

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