The crowd could no longer follow the individual blows. They could only see flashes of light bursting like miniature suns across the the platform below. Every collision sent shockwaves rippling up into the stands, shaking the very seats beneath the spectators’ feet.

  Yet none dared look away.

  The announcer had long stopped speaking, his voice drowned out by the sheer roar of the audience and the chaos within the ring. Regardless, his commentary would not have been able to do justice to what they were all witnessing.

  Rasta lunged again, his movements savage and unrestrained, the beastman’s fangs coated with mana so thick it hissed against the air. Lukas sidestepped, the Internal Arts combined with the Divinity of the Seas amplifying his ability to react to another level. Each time Lukas moved out of harm's way, it was an echo of the lessons carved into him by Lord Jaren and the endless battles between them in the worlds within the Crest.

  On the other side of the arena, Adonis and Jesse clashed in a storm of light and sound. Jesse’s fists struck like thunderbolts, the manifestation of his Divinity coursing through his veins. Each strike was faster, heavier, his aura crackling with electricity that painted the world in flashes of silver. But Adonis was like a mirror—his equal—every blow returned and every movement countered. Blood streaked both their faces, yet neither seemed like they would slow.

  Then, the dragons moved.

  Rasta and Adonis hesitated, their instincts screaming warnings their bodies couldn’t yet understand, as they sensed the sudden rise of magical energy emanating from both Lukas and Jesse.

  By the time realization dawned on them, it was already too late.

  Lukas’ body began to dissolve, not as though melting away, but as though transcending the limits of flesh entirely. His skin shimmered with an otherworldly gleam before liquefying into pure motion, every droplet of summoned water drawn toward him as if commanded by the will of the ocean itself.

  Within seconds, Lukas Drakos was gone.

  In his place towered a living wave, vast and alive, pulsing with life.

  But even that was not enough, with Lukas demanding more from the Divinity of the Seas.

  A hum filled the coliseum—deep and resonant—like the breathing of something ancient…like a leviathan from the deep. The moisture in the air began to condense, faint droplets forming first along the arena’s shattered tiles, then rising in a slow, reverent crawl toward the body of water that was Lukas Drakos. Then, in an instant that felt both eternal and fleeting, the gathered vapor collapsed toward him.

  The crowd gasped.

  All around the stone platform that the fighters of the Tournament stood on, the air was thick with magical energy that seemed almost foreign in nature from its sheer density.

  It was no longer simply rain or mist, it was the ocean itself reborn within the confines of the Colesium. Walls of water rose up, crashing against invisible barriers that barely held them in place, as if in defiance against the Tournament’s defensive enchantments. The magic that protected the audience began to groan, struggling to contain the storm that had been unleashed.

  Rasta and Adonis watched, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

  They looked around frantically, their instincts screaming at them to retreat, to flee from the tide that was building, but the rules of the Tournament were absolute.

  The platform upon which they stood—the ring carved from sacred Khaitish stone—was their battleground and now their prison.

  Defeat was not an option for them, not after what was on the line here.

  The twins roared, unleashing everything their bodies could muster. Rasta’s claws cut through the air, ripping apart streams of water with bursts of violent energy. Adonis’ strikes came like falling meteors, every blow detonating with explosions of sound. The sheer physical force behind each movement sent shockwaves that tore holes through the wave’s surface, scattering water in glittering arcs across the battlefield.

  But it was futile.

  For every droplet that fell away, thousands more took its place. Lukas’ will was boundless, the Divinity of the Seas answering his call. The water reformed faster than the twins could destroy it, swirling back into unity as though alive, an endless tide of mystic fury. The roar of the water drowned out everything; the crowd’s screams, the struggle of fang and claw, even the sounds of their own hearts pounding in their chests.

  In an instant, Rasta and Adonis were swallowed whole.

  The crowd rose to their feet, roaring in approval at the display of magical prowess that Lukas was putting on for them.

  From the stands, the platform itself was no longer visible.

  In its way was a vast vortex, churning waters trapped within stone walls. The surface shimmered under the sun, reflecting fractured beams of light like a thousand shattered mirrors.

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  Somewhere deep within that storm, two figures fought for breath and for life.

  The waters began to twist. Slowly at first, then with growing violence, a spiral formed at the heart of the tide. The whirlpool was a construct of magic, a manifestation of elemental supremacy.

  The water spun faster and faster, rising upward into the air until it became a towering spout that reached toward the sky. The pressure within it was immense, the kind that could crush bone and tear apart even the strongest of defenses, yet even that would not be able to put an end to the twins.

  Spectators clung to the railings, their hair whipping wildly from the gusts. The roar of the spout was deafening, like an entire ocean being funneled through the throat of a hurricane.

  Inside that swirling abyss, the twins struggled.

  The Overdrive of the Internal Arts coursed through their bodies still, bright lines of power webbing across their skin as they fought against the overwhelming pressure.

  Within the waters, their strength mattered little against the currents. There, surrounded by an endless tide of crushing force, their bodies felt heavy, sluggish. Each swing of the arm took the strength of ten. Every breath was a battle. No matter how hard they swung, there was no target they could hit. The sea had no form to strike, no single point of weakness to exploit.

  The Divinity of the Seas was infinite, its nature fluid and merciless.

  The harder they fought, the more it consumed them.

  All eyes were fixed on Lukas and his Divinity in that moment. The tornado of water raged across the Coliseum floor, towering waves and torrents of water driven by the magic of House Drakos. It was chaos incarnate, a tempest born of the sea’s wrath, and it demanded very ounce of attention.

  But that was the point.

  It was never meant merely as an act of destruction.

  It was a diversion, grand deception woven into the choreography of combat.

  Exactly as Lukas and Jesse had planned.

  While the world looked down at the seas, they forgot to look up towards the skies.

  Above the Coliseum, the brilliance of the midday sun dimmed, its light strangled by the sudden formation of thick, dark clouds. They had appeared too quickly for it to be a natural occurrence, rolling in and swallowing the blue horizon whole.

  A chill rippled through the air like a prelude to the storm that was to come and the audience shifted in confusion, their cheers faltering as the light dimmed further, until the great arena—once drenched in golden sunlight—was cast into the shadow of darkness.

  Because while Lukas commanded the endless seas, another commanded the infinite skies above them.

  His Divinity was not merely the wind—it was everything that touched the world above—it was the storm, the thunder, the lightning and the unseen forces that moved the clouds themselves.

  The dark clouds churned violently, veins of silver light pulsing within their depths.

  Then, from the heart of that storm, a shape began to form.

  Lukas had drawn the world's scrutiny onto him, allowing the dragonborn could rewrite the heavens unseen.

  It started as a flicker of light—a silhouette outlined by streaks of lightning that illuminated the writhing skies.

  Slowly, the shape grew clearer, the form sculpted from wind and cloud, his body fading between storm and flesh. When Jesse finally solidified, wings of wind unfurled behind him, vast and luminous, spreading across the expanse of the darkened sky.

  Magnus Elarion—the Head Mage of the Magic Tower late King of Easthaven—had written many papers in his time within the Land of the Living. His writings were studied for generations after his passing, his theories on reversal techniques, his studies of the structure of mana and most notably, his work on Runic Magic.

  Yet there was one piece of writing, buried in obscurity, that few had ever seen on his own Divinity.

  The Divinity of Lightning.

  This power, in the hands of Magnus Elarion, had ended a war, brought a Conqueror to his knees, and sealed his legend in the annals of history as the King of Lightning.

  In that document, Magnus had written with startling…humility. Because even if all of Hiraeth had regarded his power as godlike at the time, the old Head Mage of the Magic Tower had known otherwise.

  “My Divinity,” he wrote, “is lightning, simply a spark within the storm. But there exists another power, ancient and untamed, born not of human will but of draconic blood. There is one. A magic that belongs to one of the Great Houses of Linemall, House Sterling. They call it the Divinity of the Skies and it is to my lightning what the sun is to a flame."

  Below, Lukas’ waters roared higher, the massive spout of ocean crashing against the boundaries of the arena, sealing Rasta and Adonis within a prison that only guaranteed their defeat.

  The storm obeyed Jesse's every movement. The clouds parted around him as though bowing before their master. Trails of lightning followed his fall, twisting and splitting the air with violent precision.

  The Coliseum trembled, the static charge so thick that the hairs on every spectator’s body rose.

  This was no mere magic.

  This was Divinity of the Skies.

  The twins tore through the torrent, desperate to escape the crushing water, but even as they broke the surface, a blinding flash from above.

  This was not Lukas’ battle to end.

  The Divinity of the Seas had done its part, drawing the world’s gaze and setting the stage.

  That honor belonged to the future of Linemall, Jesse Sterling himself.

  Through it all, Jesse remained still, standing amidst his own tempest. He looked down upon the twins, his expression calm and almost serene. There was no malice in his eyes, only inevitability. When Jesse raised his hand once more, the clouds obeyed. The heavens split apart, light pouring down like judgment itself, and with it came the final strike—a bolt that burned brighter than the sun and fell with the weight of all the Skies.

  Then, Jesse descended, heralded by thunder so loud it shattered stone, by a flash so brilliant it erased all shadows for a moment. The crowd did not know it then but they were witnessing history for this was the beginning of the legend that would be known as the Emperor of the Skies.

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