The God of Nothing.

As the two swords collided, both parties were sent flying.

The arena tore and cracked at the seams under such air pressure.

Caelith was augmented by the strongest Rejection he could muster, everywhere, all at once.

His blade was empowered by folded and compressed mana, causing the surrounding air to quake.

These factors allowed him to cancel out the power of Aurex's gravitational enhancements.

It was a battle between the two greatest talents in Igaria.

Caelith caught himself in the air with a burst of Rejection.

His aura naturally exploded everywhere he moved due to the properties of Rejection; however, concentrated Rejection would yield more powerful shockwaves.

Across from him, Aurex was already ready for another exchange.

Aurex vanished again.

And Caelith — moved with him.

The sky buckled. Not with color, not with sound, but with impact. Every inch of air their blades carved felt less like motion and more like subtraction. Like pieces of the world were being removed, rewritten.

They didn't just fly. They collided. Bent concepts like momentum. Denied gravity.

Ashthorn clashed with the scimitar.

One radiated with a pulse of denial.

The other distorted everything it touched.

Aurex was using gravity to bend the mana around his blade, empowering it similarly to Caelith's.

The clash exploded outward — not visually, but as a brutal, bone-jarring wave of force. A silent pressure, a physical blow that vibrated through the very ground, making teeth rattle. The air cracked. Rings of displaced mana spiraled around them like invisible saw-blades.

Aurex swept low, scimitar aiming for Caelith's spine mid-twist.

But Rejection surged into Caelith's right shoulder, flaring through ligaments like a detonated muscle memory. His body stopped. Tilted. Flipped.

The blade missed by a hand-span.

Another clash. Ground shattered below.

The remains of the central arena cracked like ancient bone. Several watching nobles were sent rolling as they could not stand under Aurex's gravity. Three-stars shielded themselves behind mana domes — not out of an attempt to keep up looks, but survival instinct.

Jorun grunted as he dug his heel into the broken arena wall, shielding his face from flying debris. "The fuck kind of match is this...?"

Vessia stopped writing.

Theryn's whiteflame stuttered.

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Even Serika adjusted her grip.

They couldn't follow the duel anymore.

They could only react to the aftershocks.

Mid-air again. Aurex dropped — no longer flying, rather he was directing gravity. His descent curved, then twisted upward unnaturally — riding his own distortion to reposition behind Caelith.

The prince's knee cracked against Caelith's ribs.

Then came the slash.

It was clean.

It was punishing.

Caelith's torso snapped sideways as the prince's knee dug deep against his ribs — the force behind it pulling flesh taut and sending blood out in a wide arc. He grunted, not in pain, but to lock his core and keep his feet beneath him.

He twisted — dropped — launched backward using Rejection off the fragmented air.

His back hit the broken terrain harder than expected. His palm skidded across the stone, stopping only as he reversed Ashthorn's angle and buried it shallowly into the rubble for traction.

Blood dripped from his side. His cloak had been torn halfway from the shoulder. The ribs were hit. Hard. Too hard to ignore.

But still...

Caelith rose.

The pressure around him flexed. Not as a roar — but a low, pulsing hum. Rejection didn't scream when he bled. It exhaled.

His aura brightened.

A low ring — like the war-drum of something ancient — began to echo around him. Subtle. But real.

Caelith had always been cautious when using Rejection. The volatile power would destroy him, tear him apart if he was not careful. The majority of injuries Caelith had suffered in the forest had come from himself after all.

Even against the bandit leader, Caelith had thrown caution to the wind, activating the Rejection Aura.

However, the prince was no layman. He was sharp, trained, and had horizons broader than Caelith could imagine.

Caelith wanted to win nonetheless.

He needed to win.

Caelith's fighting spirit resonated with his will.

The world started warping, and now, despite the Rejection Aura being invisible, save for the sparks constantly igniting around him.

Caelith had an aura... an aura of steam caused by the sweat on his skin evaporating.

He was changing. The only talent he had inherited from the Stormont family was screaming.

The original talent that had caused the Stormonts to become blessed.

His mundane talent for the first time since the forest was screaming out.

His body was strengthening once more.

Aurex, already repositioning mid-air, slowed.

'That... wasn't normal.'

He hovered.

Then dropped lightly to the ground, scimitar resting at an angle, posture loose. But his expression had changed.

Gone was the delighted madman's grin.

In its place, calculation. Curiosity. The edge of warlike fascination.

He lifted one hand.

A spiral of gravity formed above his fingers — delicate, sharp, like a coiled whip.

"You're starting to realize it," Aurex said, eyes watching every pulse of Rejection curling around Caelith's frame.

Caelith breathed once.

Rejection pulsed again.

This time it curled tighter around him — like armor half-formed. Not stable. Not shaped. But present. Responding.

Responding to him.

Another pulse. This one shot outward grazing the edge of the battlefield. Several loose weapons clattered as if they had been pushed away by an invisible force.

It wasn't Rejection flaring.

It was Rejection denying.

And Aurex saw it. He adjusted his footing slightly. The gravity spiral on his hand? Dimmer now. Subtle. Flickering.

His buff wasn't gone.

But it was being contested.

Caelith didn't smile. He didn't taunt.

He lifted Ashthorn once more, shoulder screaming from the force of the last block, ribs aching with every breath.

He walked.

Step.

Step.

Step.

With each step his body was responding to the changes.

Rejection reached and reached. It was yearning to expand outward, to consume the very world.

Slowly, it flowed out of Caelith's body, consuming more and more territory.

With each meter, the stress on Caelith's body increased.

Mere minutes ago, such a force would have crumpled Caelith like a newspaper.

Yet, now his blessing was awakening once more. His body had become stronger, facilitating the expansion of Rejection.

Just like the prince had done at the beginning of their battle, Caelith was establishing his dominion.

Aurex matched him.

One twitch from either would collapse the center of the arena again.

From the outer edge of the field, Braegor muttered under his breath, "They're not done?"

"No," Serika said flatly. "The dark horse has only just reached the threshold for a real battle to begin."

Back in the center, Caelith's hand trembled — not from fear.

From control.

The Rejection Aura rippled again.

It wanted more, it wanted the world.

Even Aurex adjusted his stance.

The next exchange wouldn't be so leisurely.

It would be deadly.

And they both knew it.

With a step, both parties shot forward again.

The prince augmented himself once more and swung his blade in an arc, parrying Ashthorne before returning the blade's backside at Caelith.

The strike landed clean.

Caelith's ribs groaned under the weight of the scimitar, the impact sounding less like a blow and more like a snapped bone trying to hold its scream in.

He didn't fall right away.

He staggered.

Dragged backward like a corpse still pretending to be a man.

Then his heel caught the cratered stone, and his body went skidding — a trail of grit and blood smearing across what used to be the center of the arena. His shoulder armor cracked first. Then the left vambrace split. The plating protecting his chest dented inward, breath forced from his lungs in one harsh cough.

The arena flinched.

Even from the crowd, there were audible gasps — brief, staccato shocks like a wave of mourning cut short. One of the three stars near the edge rose halfway, ready to step in.

Then stopped.

Because Caelith was still moving.

He planted one hand into the fractured earth and forced himself upright, legs wobbling beneath him. Shoulders trembling, chest heaving. Ashthorn dragged behind him for a moment like a broken limb.

But he stood.

Even Aurex paused — not out of mercy, but curiosity.

Because something had changed.

The air twisted. Subtle. Subterranean.

And then it came.

A breath.

A pulse.

A beat that didn't belong to the prince's rhythm.

Rejection rose.

Not from a conscious activation. Not from fury or focus.

It rose the way pressure builds behind a dam before the cracks show.

Aura bled from Caelith's body — not like fire or lightning, but like absence. Like a hole torn into the world that refused to close.