Chapter 153: Chapter 153: Lark’s Fight [1]
Ariel stepped off the platform with the grace of a woman who hadn’t just drowned a core disciple in an ocean she summoned from nothing.
The crowd parted for her, their whispers trailing behind like wake.
Damon rose from his seat as she approached, his golden eyes carrying a warmth that softened the sharp lines of his face.
"That was beautiful," he said.
Ariel’s cheeks flushed, a delicate pink spreading across her jade-white skin. She tucked a strand of dark blue hair behind her ear.
"I only did what you taught me, Damon."
Damon shook his head.
"I gave you the technique. You made it yours."
Mio leaned forward from her seat, her purple eyes glinting with approval.
"You crushed him. I didn’t think you had that kind of ferocity in you, Ariel."
Ariel smiled, a soft, genuine thing that reached her vivid blue eyes.
"Neither did I. Not until Damon."
Mia nodded from beside her sister, her expression carrying a quiet respect.
"The Sea Sovereign’s Domain. That’s not an ordinary technique."
"It isn’t," Ariel admitted. "It draws from my bloodline. Without Damon’s pill and the scripture, I couldn’t have manifested it."
Neko, sitting cross-legged on the bench beside Damon, tilted her head.
"The water felt heavy. Like it wanted to eat him."
Ariel laughed, a light, melodic sound.
"It did."
Damon’s hand found Ariel’s waist, pulling her gently into the seat beside him.
"Rest. Watch. Learn."
Ariel leaned into him, her body relaxing against his side.
"Who’s next?"
Damon’s gaze drifted to the arena, where Elder Alder was already calling the next match.
"Lark."
****
Lark stepped onto the platform with measured steps, his disguised form carrying the same lean, unassuming frame he had worn since the tournament began.
His opponent was already waiting.
A mountain of a man, broad-shouldered and thick-limbed, his armor plates forged from dark iron that seemed to absorb the light. In one hand, he carried a tower shield, a slab of metal as tall as his chest and twice as wide. In the other, a spiked mace that looked heavy enough to shatter boulders.
The crowd murmured.
"Core Disciple Marcus Flint," Elder Alder announced. "Earth Spirit Realm. Ninth Level."
Lark’s opponent cracked his neck, the sound carrying across the arena.
"Lark," Elder Alder continued. "Earth Spirit Realm. Ninth Level."
Marcus Flint grinned, a wide, predatory thing.
"I’ve heard of you, Lark. The mysterious swordsman who won his first match in one move."
Lark said nothing.
Marcus hefted his shield, the metal groaning under its own weight.
"Let’s see how you handle someone who doesn’t fall for tricks."
Elder Alder raised his hand.
"Begin."
Marcus didn’t charge.
He planted his feet, drove his tower shield into the ground with a resonant clang of iron against stone, and waited, utterly still.
The message was clear.
’Come at me.’
Lark’s hand rested loosely on his sword hilt, his stance unhurried and relaxed, his breathing slow and even.
There was no tension in his shoulders, no urgency in his posture. He looked, to anyone watching, like a man in no particular rush.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
The crowd held their breath, the ambient noise of the arena fading to a hushed, collective silence. Even the wind seemed to pause.
Marcus tracked every step, his grip tightening incrementally on the spiked mace, knuckles whitening beneath his iron gauntlets.
"Closer," Marcus muttered low, almost to himself. "Closer."
Lark stopped ten feet away.
A heartbeat passed.
Then, in a single, fluid motion that seemed almost effortless, Lark drew his sword.
The blade caught the arena light, flashing brilliantly like a sliver of captured sunlight.
Then he struck.
The swing was fast, aimed at the gap between Marcus’s shield and his shoulder.
Marcus moved.
His shield shifted, catching the blade with a deafening clang that sent vibrations rippling through the air.
Lark’s eyes narrowed fractionally, her jaw setting with quiet determination as the reverberating sting travelled up through the blade and into her wrist.
She withdrew, her feet finding their footing on the cracked platform, and reset her stance with the practiced ease of someone who had drilled the movement ten thousand times.
Then she struck again, the blade whistling in a clean, precise arc aimed at a different angle entirely.
The result was the same.
Marcus’s shield met her sword with another bone-shaking clang, absorbing the blow as though her strike were little more than an inconvenience.
His grin widened slowly beneath the shadow of his brow, broad and self-satisfied, the expression of a man who had done this before and fully expected to do it again.
"Is that truly all you’ve got, little sword?" he called out, his voice carrying easily across the hushed arena, rich with lazy contempt.
He did not wait for an answer.
He swung his mace.
The weapon arced through the air with devastating force, forcing Lark to leap backward to avoid it.
The mace struck the platform where Lark had stood, and the ground cracked, fissures spiderwebbing outward from the impact point.
The crowd gasped.
Damon leaned forward in his seat, his golden eyes fixed on the arena.
’He’s testing her.’
Ariel noticed his focus.
"What do you see?"
Damon didn’t look away.
"Marcus is a wall. He’s built his entire fighting style around defense and counter-attacks. He wants Lark to exhaust herself trying to break through."
"Can she?"
Damon’s lips curved into a faint smile.
"She hasn’t even started trying."
Marcus advanced.
His shield was a battering ram, his mace a hammer, and together they formed an unrelenting tide of iron and force.
Lark retreated, her sword a blur of deflections and parries, each strike against Marcus’s shield sending tremors up her arm.
’He’s strong,’ she admitted. ’Stronger than I expected.’
She sidestepped a mace swing, the wind of its passage ruffling her hair.
But strength isn’t everything.
She feinted left, then right, then dropped low, sweeping her blade at his ankles.
Marcus’s shield dropped, blocking the strike.
But the movement left his upper body exposed for a fraction of a second.
And Lark saw it.
She drove upward, her sword aimed at his throat.
Marcus twisted, the blade scraping against his shoulder armor, sparks flying.
He grunted, swinging his mace in a wide arc that forced Lark to scramble backward.
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