Mira Voss has just vanished from the arena when Veric and Oliver move.
Kellan is alone in the open field, Zhang Xi suspended inside Rhayne’s black cocoon. The right call is to crush the last mobile piece before the monk finds a way out.
Veric takes the left, Undertow low and angled. Oliver comes from the right, Motorhead held in both hands, but the wounded shoulder leaves the hammer half a hand below its ideal point.
Kellan sees it.
He retreats without turning his back, short steps, keeping both of them in front. "Azure Trust."
Veric surges forward.
Kellan anticipates the lunge with a wide step in and throws a fast jab. The left gauntlet strikes the edge of Undertow, more test than attack, while the right stays near his chin. Veric accepts the contact, plants his lead foot, and pushes the shield to close the center line, his Azure Trust already interrupted.
Oliver enters the space Kellan made, pressing him.
Motorhead rises in a short arc, aiming at rib and arm at once. Kellan bends his left knee, lets Undertow’s pressure push his torso back, and escapes the hammer by a few inches. The head passes grazing the air where his shoulder had been.
’Clever. He used the shield’s shove to slip out.’
Veric advances with him, the gladius coming out from behind the shield.
Kellan blocks the blade with the left gauntlet, but the impact sinks his elbow against his own chest. He loses a step. Oliver spins the hammer back, trying to cut the escape before Kellan recovers his base.
They’re boxing him in.
Except Oliver still carries the bill from the bait against Mira.
His foot arrives firm, but the shoulder doesn’t follow. Motorhead lags a fraction. Kellan reads the difference, drops his center, and takes the risk. The left gauntlet deflects Veric’s gladius on the outside, just steering the cut enough to open a corridor.
The right comes from below. A closed uppercut, using the OXI stored in his biomechanical gauntlet.
The punch catches Oliver’s chin with a dry sound. The big body loses its footing all at once. Oliver leaves the ground more than five feet. The hammer falls first. Oliver comes after, slamming his back against the stone. His eyes are already empty before he lands.
[OLIVER KAMINSKI — ELIMINATED]
Kellan pays for the blow the same instant.
To reach Oliver’s chin, he threw his weight onto his front foot and left his chest open.
"Azure Trust."
It’s ugly.
No elegance, no pretty technique. The strike is vanguard, direct, all the weight and stored rage packed into the impact. The cut across Kellan’s chest is deep and red. Blood spurts in small jets, painting the stone under him.
Kellan staggers two steps back, unable to breathe, the right gauntlet still raised uselessly. Veric keeps coming and hits again, this time with the shield, throwing it and using the chains.
Kellan is hurled against the barrier, which flares when he strikes it.
[KELLAN — ELIMINATED]
The bleachers react late, caught between Oliver’s knockout and Veric’s punishment. In a few seconds, the fight has lost two whole pieces.
Veric, Rhayne, and Zhang Xi remain.
Rhayne is still holding the technique.
She’s a few meters behind Veric, hands laced in front of her chest, fingers closed in a firm prayer. Her eyes have gone completely black. The Battle Ribbon floats around her in slow rotation, obeying without touching her skin. There’s always something of a fallen angel in that posture, but the image comes torn by effort. The shadow around her arms trembles. The cocoon around Zhang Xi tightens and loosens in small pulses.
For the first time since I met Rhayne, I see her body hesitate for lack of energy.
"Veric..." The voice comes low across the arena air. "I think, for the first time... my OXI is low..."
Rhayne loses the posture the next instant. Her eyes return to normal, the darkness releases Zhang Xi in strips that evaporate before touching the floor, and Rhayne drops to all fours. Her hands hit the stone. She breathes hard, shoulders rising and falling without rhythm.
Zhang Xi comes down slowly.
She doesn’t fall. She lands with grace.
Her feet touch the arena lightly, but her face is pale. The gray tunic has dark marks where the Void gripped her. She brings a hand to her own chest and breathes twice, gathering her center before looking at Rhayne.
"That was dangerous," Zhang Xi says. "If I weren’t a monk..."
She doesn’t finish.
I’ve already understood part of it.
Void Monarch drained Zhang Xi. I saw the energy leave. The strange thing is that Rhayne recovered almost none of it. The technique pulled OXI, but that OXI didn’t become food. Maybe because it was too clean, too vertical, almost incompatible with the darkness Rhayne carries.
’Celestial energy? Rare... The opposite of the Void.’
Zhang Xi is tired because she lost energy. Rhayne is spent because she tried to swallow something the Void itself rejected.
’Interesting.’
Veric raises Undertow, too late to understand that Zhang Xi is still fighting.
The monk brings two fingers before her lips. "Susanoo’s Love."
The light leaves without hurry.
It doesn’t look like healing. It doesn’t come warm, or soft. It crosses the distance in a clear line and touches Veric below the collarbone, at the point where his OXI flow climbs to the shield arm.
His body receives it.
That’s what makes the blow terrifying.
Veric doesn’t block, because there’s no shock. His OXI opens a passage on reflex, accepting the energy before his mind catches the danger. For half a second, Undertow glows stronger. The gladius trembles. The veins in his neck light up in excess.
’Overdrive...’
Too much energy, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Veric’s eyes roll back. He falls sideways, out before he hits the floor.
[VERIC AZUREA — ELIMINATED]
I keep looking at him, trying to fit together what just happened. Zhang Xi didn’t attack the body. She attacked the body’s harmony. She gave his flow a good order in the wrong amount, and the internal system simply shut down rather than tear.
Rhayne raises a hand. She’s still on all fours. The voice barely comes.
"I surrender."
The suspended screen flickers above the arena.
[VICTORY: TEAM TWO]
[MVP: Zhang Xi]
Freya doesn’t smile.
She looks at Zhang Xi, then at Rhayne, then at me.
This time, her silence feels like expectation. For what I’ll say next. Or maybe for our next fight.
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