"He's not all that."
The voice was cold, clipped, and carried no hesitation. It cut through the air like a blade forged from arrogance and disdain. It came from the other side of the Lightning Guild's elite seating section—a young man, tall and imposing, with a build similar to Ali's.
Though his muscles were less refined and compact, his stature alone commanded attention. A long, jagged scar ran down from the edge of his right eye to the base of his jaw, the shape resembling a bolt of thunder carved deep into flesh.
The guild leader slowly turned toward the source of the voice. His expression was calm but hardened by familiarity and irritation. He knew that voice better than most.
"Overconfidence will be the end of you one day, baby brother," the guild leader said, locking eyes with the young man beside him.
Mateo, the younger brother, didn't flinch. He leaned back lazily in his seat, stretching his arms behind his head as if the conversation bored him. His eyes, however, were anything but relaxed. They flicked to the gorgeous woman sitting beside them.
"It hasn't so far," Mateo said with a smirk. "And it never will be."
His gaze drifted sideways to Celestia, the apostle of the Lightning Guild, who was seated just to the left of the guild leader. Her hair shimmered faintly under the light, her eyes fixed forward on the arena screen. She hadn't so much as acknowledged Mateo's presence.
'And I will have you under me very soon…' Mateo thought, his eyes narrowing as a possessive hunger flared inside him.
"Mateo," the guild leader's tone hardened slightly, "how about you back up those words with action? When will you break into the top 1000? You've set the duels aside long enough. The guild's strength isn't just about words—we have to show it."
"Just let Celestia do it," Mateo shrugged dismissively, not even looking at his brother anymore. "Fighting weaklings is embarrassing."
His words floated in the air like venom, but Celestia didn't react. She didn't look at him. Didn't flinch. Her stoic expression remained as unfazed as stone, as though he were nothing more than a distant murmur in the crowd.
Mateo clenched his jaw slightly.
It wasn't always like this.
Back on Earth, people hung on his every word. He was a prince among his peers—firstborn of a powerful family, talented, feared, and respected. But here? In Paradise? Since she had arrived and risen above him, all of that seemed to crumble beneath her silent presence.
The guild leader glanced at his brother once more and sighed. Mateo had always been arrogant, but in Paradise, that arrogance had calcified into something more toxic. After all, he was an apostle before Celestia had arrived. Being stripped of that title had not sat well with him.
Down in the arena, Ali watched the door open once again.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
The final opponent.
The last to face him before the day's duels concluded.
A woman stepped through the wide gates. She walked with impeccable posture, her movement showed great composure. She wore a tight black bodysuit that clung to her slim, athletic figure, the material matte with sharp, angular red lines running across its surface. The lights flickered in patterns, pulsing like circuitry with every step she took.
Her head was covered by a sleek black helmet. The same flickering red lights danced across it, but then the lights suddenly shifted—gathering and condensing at the front of the helmet. A visor formed, thick and glowing crimson like a line drawn across the face of a killer drone.
Ali's eyes followed her calmly, his expression unreadable.
She raised her hands into the air, palms open as if summoning something from the void.
CLACK.
With a surge of red sparks, a weapon materialised—long, heavy, and metallic. A sniper rifle, easily as tall as the woman herself, emerged from nothingness. But this wasn't any ordinary sniper rifle. Its design was futuristic—alien even. Red arcs of electricity pulsed across the rotating barrel, the entire frame radiating heat so intense it scorched the sand where it pointed.
A holographic red sight flickered to life on the top of the weapon, and strange metallic plates along the barrel vibrated faintly, humming with an ominous rhythm.
The barrel rotated slowly, steam hissing from the seams.
"I request a field change," the woman's voice emerged from the helmet. It was robotic and distorted, altered by a voice changer so thoroughly that even her tone felt inhuman.
"And what would you like?" Toto asked, intrigued.
"Metal Field."
"Very well."
The arena shifted once more.
Where there had once been sand, metal erupted. Huge slabs of reinforced steel shot from beneath the ground, forming a complex grid of towering metal pillars, interconnected by walkways, support beams, and platforms. It resembled the inside of a high-tech factory—multi-levelled.
Cover. Sniper nests. Flanking lanes.
It was a hunter's playground.
Ali didn't flinch.
The countdown began.
"3…2…1…FIGHT!"
The woman wasted no time.
Her body blurred with motion as she darted behind one of the metallic pillars, levelling her massive rifle with practiced fluidity. Her hands moved apart, and sparks of red energy leapt between her fingers.
CRACKLE.
ZAP.
Suddenly, metal shards swirled around her and assembled mid-air—parts clicking and locking together into dozens of small, agile drones. They hovered above her for a brief moment before lifting into the sky in perfect unison.
The drones were sleek and spherical, each no larger than a clenched fist. They had no visible weapons, but their quiet menace was unmistakable. They fanned out above the arena, rising into the air like a swarm of metallic wasps, all glowing red and spinning silently as they ascended to form a high perimeter.
Ali's eyes calmly tracked the drones as they locked onto him from above. Their tiny red lights blinked in sync….
Ali only had two seconds.
Two seconds to track them—those faint flickers in the air—before every single drone shimmered and vanished from sight. They disappeared into stealth mode, blending perfectly into the sky and becoming invisible to the naked eye. In an instant, the battlefield changed. The threat was no longer visible, and that made it exponentially more dangerous.
But his opponent wasn't finished.
Tens of metallic spider-like automatons began forming out of thin red light, assembled piece by piece from shimmering particles emitted from the woman's gloves. They clicked into place rapidly, forming compact, efficient robotic frames with precision that only a technomancer could manage.
The spiders scuttled across the ground and pillars with eerie silence, their mechanical limbs extending and retracting with inhuman speed and grace.
They dispersed, climbing the towering steel structures that now made up the arena. Each one embedded itself into the side of a metallic beam before extending twin barrels from its back, locking into place with magnetic claws.
In seconds, they transformed—no longer mobile units, but autonomous, smart-targeting turrets.
Each turret had twin machine guns mounted on swivels, ready to unleash fire from any angle. Their sleek black forms merged with the metal background, making them nearly impossible to notice unless they fired.
"All drones and turrets in place," a soft voice echoed inside the player's helmet. It was her artificial intelligence assistant, the onboard combat AI responsible for monitoring every system in her suit and controlling her war machine network.
"Drop the mines," she commanded coolly.
High above the field, the invisible drones responded without hesitation. Each one silently released small, circular mines no larger than a coin. They rained down silently like metal raindrops, embedding themselves in the metallic walkways, behind barriers, beneath ledges—anywhere Ali might step. The colour of the mines perfectly matched the field's dull steel, rendering them nearly indistinguishable even under direct light.
"Begin the hunt," she whispered.
Her bodysuit began to fade. First, the red lines dulled to black. Then, the suit shimmered like hot air on pavement before finally vanishing. Her entire form, along with the six-foot sniper rifle that had been resting against her shoulder, disappeared—leaving behind nothing but a faint distortion in the air and a ripple of heat that evaporated in seconds.
The hunter had vanished.
On the opposite side of the arena, Ali exhaled deeply, his eyes scanning the war zone laid out before him.
A jungle of steel. Shadows cast by towering pillars. Beams of light filtering through the lattice of scaffolding. A symphony of machinery hummed in the background, and yet everything felt eerily quiet.
'Another trapper. But this time… robots. Great,' Ali thought, unamused. He summoned his crimson lightsaber, the familiar hiss and flash of red lighting up his side of the field.
Then, he ran.
A blur of motion, his saber trailing like a red comet behind him, Ali sprinted across the metallic ground.
But just as he began moving—
WHISTLE.
His eyes shot upward.
'Something's falling…'
A small black object tumbled from above—barely visible against the sky.
BOOOOOOM
The explosion thundered through the arena as Ali dove to the side, narrowly avoiding a direct hit. The ground he'd just vacated was engulfed in smoke and shrapnel.
'Grenade launcher,' Ali deduced, even before the second object hit.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The sky lit up as more explosives rained down. The woman had turned the battlefield into a deathtrap—every angle covered, every movement predicted.
Ali surged forward, weaving through the chaos.
Each detonation behind him was deafening, a wave of concussive force that pounded his ears and rattled his bones. Metal debris flew like shrapnel through the air, tearing into walls and denting steel walkways.
From the screens above, it looked like a war movie. Ali moved like a ghost through hellfire—black smoke trailing behind him, shockwaves blasting out in slow motion. Each frame was cinematic, every moment a picture of danger and determination.
Then it came.
ZOOOOOOOOOOM.
FLASH.
A searing beam of red light tore through the air like a wrathful god's lightning strike.
Ali's pupils dilated.
The shot was instantaneous. There was no warning, no telegraph, no build-up. The sniper had waited until the perfect moment—no intent, no killing intent at all until the shot was already fired. His senses, honed as they were, were still just a beat too slow.
'She's good,' Ali thought, a flicker of respect forming amid the tension.
The beam screamed toward him, slicing through five steel pillars in its path like butter. The red-hot bolt burned everything it touched, cutting a line of destruction straight toward Ali.
In one fluid motion, Ali whipped his lightsaber upward.
CLANG—ZZZZZZZZZZ!
The lightsaber met the beam in mid-air, an explosion of sparks and heat showering the battlefield. Ali's grip tightened as the force of the blast drove him backward, metal groaning under his heels.
He gritted his teeth.
'I'm not strong enough to hold this back…'
BOOOOOOM
CRASH—CRASH—CRASH!
The blast hurled Ali backward with titanic force. He crashed through one metal beam, then another. Bones in his spine cracked. His skull rattled inside his head. A wave of nausea hit as the second collision happened.
Yet…
He stood.
Wobbling—but standing.
Above him—more grenades.
Ali's head snapped upward as dozens of small grenades dropped from above
"Force Push," he growled.
With a precise flick of his wrist—delicate, deadly—the lightsaber twisted upward, channeling the Force with blinding precision.
BOOOOOOM!
The sniper beam tilted upward with Ali's push, redirecting its path just in time to avoid turning him into ash.
That single move burned two full points of Spirit, but it worked.
The redirected beam sliced into the upper rafters of the metal field and finally detonated. The explosion erupted like a contained supernova, the shockwave hitting the falling grenades mid-air.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Dozens of grenades went off like a sky full of fireworks, each miniature blast painting the metal jungle in black flashes.
Ali dropped low, crouched like a panther.
BANG—BANG—BANG—BANG—BANG!
Gunfire erupted from one of the hidden turrets.
Bullets ripped through the air, but Ali's blade was already dancing.
CLANG—FLASH—ZZZT!
With calculated angles and lightning reflexes, Ali deflected each bullet—his lightsaber carving red arcs through the smoky air. He sidestepped as the fire intensified and—
CRASH!
He used the Force to fling a chunk of molten debris into the turret's nest. It collided with a thunderous slam, obliterating the spider turret in a shower of sparks and twisted metal.
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