CHAPTER 46: THE WEIGHT OF LIGHT

The moment Cyrus touched the ground, the arena dimmed.

A ripple spread from beneath his feet—slow at first, then accelerating, like oil blooming across a still pond. It wasn’t just darkness in the literal sense. The stone itself began to lose color, veins of inky magic writhing outward in a jagged network. What had been a bright dueling ring turned somber, quiet, and vast.

Aiden stepped forward, light flaring around his arms as usual. One stride. Two. But by the third, something shifted.

His step didn’t land clean.

It dipped.

Just slightly—barely enough to throw him off.

Aiden narrowed his eyes, pivoted, then pushed into another step—but again, the surface beneath his foot felt warped. Not wet. Not rough. Just... thick. The darkness was rising, like mist and pressure, coating the floor in a resistance field that dulled his motion.

His speed, usually absolute, began to lose its edge.

The crowd began to blur. Their figures, once distinct, faded into silhouettes. The torches overhead hissed softly, their fire dimming as though struggling to breathe in the presence of something older, deeper.

Light itself was failing.

And Cyrus, standing at the center of it all, didn’t move. He merely existed—still and composed—as the arena warped to match his presence.

Bands of light spiraled tighter around Aiden’s arms and shins, like a pulse fighting against collapse. His aura burned brighter now, not from confidence but from necessity. Sweat gleamed at his brow. His breathing stayed measured, but his stance adjusted. Cautious now. Less flourish, more grit.

Darius watched, arms folded tight across his chest. The wind in his lungs stilled.

This isn’t just field advantage, he thought. It’s redefinition. Cyrus isn’t slowing him down. He’s changing the rules of how light behaves.

He frowned.

This kind of control—on a public stage? That’s third- or fourth-year mastery. Not something a kid should have. Not unless he’s hiding something deeper.

A tendril whipped across the field.

Aiden dodged it by instinct. But more followed. Dozens—thin, flickering ribbons of condensed shadow magic, low to the ground and nearly invisible unless you were already hit. The shadows didn’t just slash—they curled, jagged and sharp, their edges biting like obsidian in motion.

Cyrus was attacking from every angle. High, low, across the perimeter. Spells fired without motion, no cast, just command.

Aiden ducked under one, pivoted into a backward roll, and used that twist to launch upward. He didn’t vanish in a burst of light—there was no blinking, no teleportation. He moved purely on reflex. Raw instinct.

His feet hit the stone and rebounded. He threw himself off-center again, shoulders rotating, knees bending in unnatural motion. Then light surged around his ankles, and he kicked forward—not at Cyrus, but at the ground.

A glyph sparked.

Darius recognized it. A kinetic anchor, cast not with a chant but with motion—Aiden had drawn it with the heel of his kick mid-sprint. When it activated, it slammed Aiden in a new direction. Like bouncing off a wall of air.

He appeared above Cyrus, fist cocked, eyes burning with focused fury.

He punched down.

Cyrus didn’t blink. Instead, the shadow beneath him roiled upward, arms forming from its mass—six, then eight, spiraling like skeletal wings. One intercepted the strike. Aiden’s fist shattered through the first—then a second arm caught his wrist mid-motion.

The field exploded with pressure.

Aiden’s light flared, rippling across his back. The energy along his forearm bloomed bright, sizzling against the grip of shadow—but it didn’t push through. The shadows clung, tenacious, draining momentum.

Cyrus remained unmoved. Still eerily calm.

Kai, seated a row behind Darius, leaned in. His voice was low. "This is the most I’ve seen Aiden pushed. He’s definitely going to grow from this."

Aiden twisted mid-air, his other hand planting against one of the dark arms for leverage. He kicked off it, twisting his body into a tight flip. His boot clipped the edge of another forming blade—sending a crack of light through the air. He flipped again, barely catching his balance on a ledge formed by more of his own glyphs.

Cyrus sent a slicing burst of shadow upward.

Aiden rebounded off another pre-cast glyph—this one activated with a palm strike to the wall behind them. He spun midair, positioning himself perfectly behind the burst.

Darius blinked.

He pre-planted that.

Clever. Aiden had set the stage while they fought—leaving glyphs not to attack but to move. A layered strategy, only possible if you could fight on instinct and plan two steps ahead.

Aiden landed with one knee bent. His hands moved fast now. Not for defense—but setup.

Around his fists, light coiled in small spirals—tiny, almost illegible glyphs cycling through sequences. They weren’t drawn on stone. These were pure energy. Midair arrays. No ink. No touch. No hesitation.

Darius leaned forward again.

He’s compressing.

With each twist of the glyph, light gathered more densely at Aiden’s knuckles. The glow dimmed—not because it weakened, but because it focused. The magic was denser now. Thicker. Aimed.

Aiden moved.

He launched forward and threw a direct barrage—ten punches in a second. Each one burned through the air with snapping pressure.

Cyrus raised his arms. The shadow bent around him, reforming not into limbs, but into jagged fan-blades. A cocoon.

Each punch hit a different segment. Some splintered, some rippled—but none broke through.

The barrage ended.

Aiden landed in a low crouch, arms still glowing. He didn’t retreat.

Cyrus adjusted his footing inside the cocoon. The structure of his defense changed with him—shadow breathing like a living shell.

The arena was quiet. The barrier glowed faintly. The torches above were barely more than coals now.

Only Aiden’s body illuminated the center. Gold and white, stark and defiant.

And Cyrus’s darkness curled around it, patient and vast.

The next strike hadn’t come yet.

But it would.

And the moment it did, everything would change.

Cyrus’s shadow shell contracted suddenly—edges snapping inward like a collapsing cage. In the split second before Aiden reacted, a tendril slithered out, faster than sight, slipping around Aiden’s wrist. A gloved hand detached from the shadows, gripping his forearm with crushing force. Aiden’s arm jolted, light sputtering as it absorbed the sudden resistance.

Aiden winced. He lurched—his leg slipping on the silent stone—but he planted his foot and spun, wrenching free. His fist slammed into nothing, follow-through cutting through thick air. The crowd exhaled together; even torches flickered in anticipation.

That was the strike.

Aiden closed the gap—speed spiraling again, his aura flaring hotter, brighter. His steps became drumming beats against the stone. The glyph at his feet glowed and rebounded him forward, compressing kinetic energy into each strike.

He feinted high then low, rapid elbow bursts compressed into a single, visceral combo. Cyrus blocked dotting points of impact with swirling dark shards, but each collision chipped away at the shell. Cracks splintered across the darkness’ surface.

Aiden pressed on. Five strikes. Six. Seven. Eight.

Cyrus staggered on the ninth blow—darkness flickering with each impact. His form blurred with effort. Aiden saw it: nothing about Cyrus changed, yet every movement shuddered under fatigue.

On the tenth strike, Cyrus finally backed off, the shadow armor split in two at his torso, edges ragged like torn curtain. Aiden withdrew his gauntlets—light easing, blood pulsing at his wrist. His breathing was steady, controlled.

He allowed himself a moment.

Something tumbled from Cyrus’s belt as he stumbled backward—an object wrapped in shadow, only glinting silver. A mechanical click echoed as it hit the ground, and the world shifted in tone.

Darius saw it first: a small device, no larger than a belt buckle, pulsing with dark runes and active glow. The artifact didn’t belong. Aiden stood a few feet away, eyes narrowing, awareness sharpening.

Cyrus coughed, crouching. The darkness armor frayed at the edges, flickering like burnt film. The artifact dropped into the shadows—but the light from the arena glinted across a shattered line.

Aiden froze. He stared down at it. Ironically, the moment he held back from another strike, Cyrus lunged—weak—but still dangerous. A dark blade sprouted from his wrist, lunging forward.

Aiden sidestepped. But it grazed him, scarring his cheek. He wiped blood away. Not serious, but a sting.

He stepped back, hand hovering over the artifact. What is that? he thought. Where did he get that? He shouldn’t have something like that. Not here.

From the stands, Darius’s mind spun. I didn’t write anything like this happening in the tournament, though, to be fair, I only focused on Lucien’s fight. I really didn’t anticipate cheating items. But in a world of Visionaries and arcane black markets... maybe there’s room for artifacts like that.

His eyes were locked on the object now cradled in Aiden’s palm—once flickering with black, oily pulses of magic, now shifting. A strange reaction was occurring.

The artifact twitched, twitching from deep obsidian to a dim, neutral gray—then, slowly, unnaturally, to a clean, illuminated yellow. It pulsed softly, not like corrupted magic but something reclaimed.

Aiden stared at it for a long moment.

Then his jaw clenched.

He turned.

Cyrus was trying to rise. Blood stained the edge of his mouth. His limbs trembled beneath him, shadows curling weakly from his fingers like mist retreating from the sun. And still, he pushed upward, teeth bared in effort, fury flickering behind sweat-soaked bangs.

Aiden walked toward him.

Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just steady steps—boots cracking dust underfoot.

"I expected better," he said. His voice wasn’t raised, but it carried—clear across the arena. "An opponent with honor. With skill. With respect for the ring."

Cyrus’s eyes widened, rage twisting his face. "Without it, I wouldn’t stand a chance!" he shouted, voice hoarse, desperate. "Look at your first match. You took that girl down without even trying!"

He staggered, shouting louder. "You think you’re better than everyone just because you’re faster? Stronger? You think that makes you worthy of—"

"Shut up," Aiden said. He stopped walking.

The artifact still pulsed in his hand, but Aiden raised it high now, letting the crowd see. Letting Cyrus see.

"You want it back?"

Cyrus gritted his teeth. "Yes!"

"Fine."

Aiden’s body flared with radiant light.

Not the usual soft glow.

This time, the glow was blinding.

Light surged from his core, racing down his limbs. Glyphs burned into the air around him—not pre-drawn ones, but spontaneously shaped with raw light-magic compression. Bands of energy coiled around his arms like bracers, amplifying every motion with humming resonance.

He stepped forward, raised the artifact above his head.

The light built up—his veins glowing beneath his skin.

Then, in one smooth motion, he launched upward.

A blast of pressure exploded beneath his feet, rock cracking as he propelled into the sky. High above the arena, back arched, both hands on the artifact now glowing like a newborn star.

Cyrus looked up, fear flickering behind his eyes.

"I’ll give it back to you," Aiden whispered to the wind.

And he dropped.

The descent was near-instantaneous. Air screamed past him, light trailing like a comet’s tail. He drove the artifact forward like a hammer, the weight of his body behind it.

The moment before impact, light engulfed the arena.

The beam struck Cyrus with pinpoint force.

Boom.

The artifact detonated—no longer black, but consumed by brilliant white. A wave of concussive energy erupted outward, flattening the remaining fragments of shadow still clinging to Cyrus. A flash swallowed the stage, burning away the shadows underfoot.

Cyrus was launched.

His body flew backward like a ragdoll hit by divine wrath, limbs flailing. The crowd barely tracked him before he slammed full-force into the arena barrier.

Crack.

The magical shield shimmered violently, absorbing the blow but barely holding. The entire audience flinched. The impact rang out like thunder.

Cyrus dropped.

Unmoving.

Smoke curled from the point of contact. The artifact—if anything remained—was now particles drifting in the aftermath.

Silence fell over the arena like a curtain.

Even the sky above, lit faintly by starlight, seemed to hold its breath.

And then—

"Victory: Aiden Virell," Headmaster Silas Vaunt declared, his voice smooth and booming across the stone coliseum. "A reminder of what brilliance looks like when allowed to shine without fear."

Aiden didn’t turn to acknowledge it.

He stood near center, his hands loose at his sides, breathing even.

His light dimmed slowly. Controlled.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t speak.

He only looked down at Cyrus once—expression unreadable—then turned and walked off the battlefield.

No celebration.

No gloating.

Only the soft crackle of light fading behind him as he left the wreckage of the stage behind.

My next opponent better be the best, he thought, not looking back.