At the Central Combat Arena, thirty minutes later, the atmosphere in the grand combat arena was electric. Word of the duel had cleared out entire lecture halls, and the stone stands were packed to maximum capacity of eager and gossiping students.
Down on the sands of the arena floor, Damian Reinhardt was already warming up. He swung a dull, heavy steel practice sword through the air with flawless, practiced form, his smug grin widening as the crowd cheered his name.
Standing on the opposite side, Cassian was casually rolling up the sleeves of his white Academy shirt. He picked a standard, unweighted iron training blade from the weapon rack, testing its balance with a few lazy, subtle turns of his wrist.
'A bit front-heavy,' Cassian noted, his physical body acting on sheer muscle memory derived from decades of past-life trauma. 'But it'll do. In timeline four, I wielded a rusty broadsword against high-rank demon beasts while bleeding out from a chest wound. A spoiled Duke's son with a shiny toy is nothing.'
Up in the front row of the stands, Elias was aggressively biting his handkerchief, clutching a massive sack of gold coins. Next to him stood Lucien, whose arms were tightly crossed over his chest. His ice-blue eyes were fixed entirely on Cassian's relaxed, almost careless posture.
'He isn't even donning protective leather gear,' Lucien observed, his jaw clenching. 'Is it supreme arrogance, or is he truly seeking his own destruction? If he thinks a few Fourth-Circle elemental spells will save him here, he is dead wrong. Magic casting requires distance and time, and Damian won't give him either.'
"Match boundaries are set!" the referee professor shouted, raising a green flag. "First blood, a disarm, or a voluntary surrender determines the victor. Begin!"
"Let's see how long those pretty royal legs can carry you, cousin!" Damian roared, his body instantly exploding forward.
He didn't hold back. Channeling Second-Circle strengthening mana into his muscles, Damian closed the distance in a flash, executing a brutal, downward vertical slash aimed directly at Cassian's collarbone. It was a strike designed to shatter bone and end the match in a single, humiliating blow.
The crowd gasped. Elias shrieked. Lucien's hand instinctively twitched toward his own hilt, his heart skipping a violent beat. 'Move, you idiot!'
Cassian didn't move. Not until the blade was a mere three inches from his shoulder.
With a movement so subtle it was almost invisible to the untrained eye, Cassian simply pivoted his left heel backward by a fraction of an inch. Damian's heavy sword sliced through thin air, the momentum pulling the young Duke violently forward.
'First rule of surviving Sir Lucien Arden's lethal pursuits,' Cassian thought with a cold, inner calm. 'Never try to block a heavier force. Just let the lunatic's own weight do the work for you.'
Before Damian could realize he had missed, Cassian didn't swing his sword. He simply extended his left foot, perfectly tripping Damian's advancing ankle.
*THUD*.
Damian went flying, faceplanting spectacularly into the dirt and sliding several feet across the arena floor. The crowd fell into a stunned, breathless silence.
"You... you bastard!" Damian hissed, spitting a mouthful of sand out as he scrambled back to his feet, his face turning a furious, bright shade of crimson. "You got lucky! Stop running and fight me like a man!"
Damian lunged again, unleashed a frantic, rapid barrage of horizontal slashes. 'Left, right, thrust, parry.' But to Cassian, Damian's movements felt like they were happening underwater. Compared to the terrifying, lightning-fast, mountain-splitting strikes Cassian had dodged from Lucien across fourteen lifetimes of running for his absolute life, Damian's swordsmanship looked like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum with a stick.
Cassian casually dodged every single strike with minimalist, effortless sideteps. 'Left step. Duck. Tilt.' He didn't even lift his sword to parry, keeping his blade resting lazily against his shoulder. He looked like he was taking a casual Sunday stroll through a park while Damian was violently sweating and hyperventilating in front of him.
"Is this the grand Reinhardt swordsmanship?" Cassian asked, his voice a cool, deadpan drawl that carried perfectly across the silent arena. "I've seen elderly bakery maids knead dough with more speed and ferocity than this."
"DIE!" Damian screamed, entirely losing his mind to raw rage. He pulled his sword back for a wild, desperate lunging thrust aimed directly at Cassian's chest.
'Time to wrap this up,' Cassian thought. 'Moderate and swift.'
As the tip of Damian's blade surged forward, Cassian finally moved his iron sword. With a blindingly fast, crisp *CLANG*, Cassian struck the flat side of Damian's blade, perfectly redirecting the thrust upward. In the very same fluid motion, Cassian spun on his heel, stepping deep into Damian's blind spot, and slammed the heavy, solid iron pommel of his hilt directly into the center of Damian's nose.
*CRACK.*
"ARRGH!" Damian screamed as the cartilage shattered.
Before the Duke's son could fall, Cassian brought the flat side of his training blade down in a swift, merciless strike across the back of Damian's knees. Damian collapsed forward onto his knees, howling in agony, clutching his bloody face. Cassian calmly stepped up behind him, resting the cold, blunt edge of his iron sword directly against the back of Damian's neck.
The exact position of the execution block.
"Yield," Cassian whispered softly into his cousin's ear, his voice dropping into a chilling, ancient tone that made the entire arena shiver. "Or the next strike won't be with the flat of the blade."
Damian violently trembled, the sheer, primal terror of death paralyzing his lungs. "I... I yield! I surrender!"
The referee professor stood frozen for three full seconds before frantically waving the flag. "Winner... Prince Cassian Valemont!"
The stands erupted into an absolute, chaotic uproar. The commoner students were cheering, the nobles were whispering in frantic panic, and Elias was practically weeping with joy as he began counting his massive mountain of winning bet coins.
Cassian casually tossed the training sword back onto the sand, wiping a stray speck of dirt off his white sleeve. He let out a long, satisfied sigh. 'Excellent. Swift, legal, and nobody can accuse me of using dark magic. Now, where is my pasta?'
He turned his eyes toward the front row of the stands, offering a lazy, mocking little smirk directly to his personal guard.
Lucien was standing completely paralyzed against the stone railing. His ice-blue eyes were wide, his breath completely caught in his throat, his mind experiencing a violent, catastrophic paradigm shift.
'T–..that wasn't the clumsy flailing of a lazy prince,' Lucien thought, his heart hammering against his ribs with a mixture of shock and a dangerous, suffocating fascination. 'I could tell just from seeing those footwork patterns... that spatial awareness... that effortless evasion. That is the combat style of a seasoned, blood-soaked veteran who has survived a hundred lethal battlefields. He didn't just learn this overnight. He has been hiding a masterful, deadly martial prowess from the entire world.'
Lucien watched Cassian walk out of the arena, his black hair catching the sunlight. A deep, territorial, and fiercely protective obsession flared up in the knight's chest, hot enough to burn.
'You told me to just watch the space, Cassian...' Lucien thought, his teeth grinding together as his hand gripped the stone railing until it cracked. 'Who are you truly? What kind of hell did you survive to learn how to move like that? I will drag every single secret out of your vile, treacherous soul.'
*****
The aftermath of the arena duel had turned the Imperial Academy upside down. In the high-society salons and student dormitories, the political landscape was shifting fast. The rumors were no longer just about a quirky, volatile prince who hated noisy people—they were about a sleeping dragon who had suddenly opened its eyes.
"If he continues like this, even the Crown Prince will be overshadowed."
That single whispered phrase was bouncing from the mouths of high-ranking noble students to the ears of imperial spies. A royal prince who possessed Fourth-Circle elemental magic and the effortless, veteran footwork of a seasoned battlefield master was a direct threat to the current line of succession.
But inside Prince Cassian's private quarters, the "sleeping dragon" was currently sitting on the floor in a very un-royal posture, aggressively counting a mountain of gold along with his butler.
" *Yawns*... Haa, Elias, that was quite a good rest." Cassian stretched his arms over his head, blinking his sleep-deprived crimson eyes as he looked at the velvet sack on the table. "How much did we actually make, huh?"
"Plenty, my Lord," Elias chuckled, a massive, uncharacteristic grin on his face as he tied the purse strings tight.
The two exchanged a highly coordinated, casual modern wink and simultaneous thumbs-up. To Cassian, a legal hustle was the best kind of hustle. If he was going to be stuck in this dark fantasy hellhole, he might as well fund his eventual dimensional-travel research with the money of arrogant Reinhardt nobles.
Standing rigidly by the door, Sir Lucien Arden watched the display, his chest vibrating with deep, unresolved confusion.
For the past few hours, Lucien had been practically losing his mind. He had tried to subtly question Cassian on the walk back from the arena—asking which legendary hidden master had taught him such minimalist, lethal footwork—but Cassian had brushed him off entirely with a lazy, *"Oh, I just watched a lot of street performers dance."* Lucien had stopped asking. He knew a cover-up when he heard one. 'He doesn't trust me,' the knight commander deduced, his jaw clenching as he stared at the back of Cassian's face. 'He hid his magic, he hid his swordplay, and now he smiles like a common thief over gold coins. Who taught you, Cassian? I will find out on my own, no matter what it takes.'
*Knock. Knock.*
The crisp sound at the door broke the heavy atmosphere. A royal page stepped inside, bowing so deeply his nose nearly touched his knees.
"My apologies for disturbing you during your rest, Your Highness, but the Headmaster has summoned for you immediately."
Cassian blinked, pointing a pale finger at his own chest. "What? The Headmaster? Me? Did he find out about the betting ring? Because technically, Elias placed the bets—"
"No, my Lord," the page stammered, sweating. "It is regarding your... academic and practical placement."
*****