Chapter 21: Chapter 21
The heavy steel gates opened and Isla Sinclair stepped out onto the white sand. She wore her signature combat duster her dark hair tied back tightly. She drew her dual mana pistols spinning the heavy cylinders with a practiced fluid motion.
Her opponent Marcus Thorne stood across the arena. He was a B Class Pyromancer the older brother of the boy Glen had humiliated back at the academy. Marcus was older more experienced and carried a massive glowing red grimoire chained to his waist.
"A Sinclair" Marcus sneered his voice amplified by the arena acoustics. "I thought your family went bankrupt and crawled into a hole. Are you here to beg for a sponsorship?"
Isla did not change her expression. Her piercing green eyes were cold and calculating. "I am here to win Marcus. Try not to burn yourself."
The mechanical chime echoed through the stadium.
"Begin."
Marcus immediately opened his grimoire. He was not arrogant like his younger brother. He knew Isla was an A Class Spirit Gunner and he treated her as a lethal threat. He chanted rapidly summoning a massive wall of swirling orange fire that completely surrounded him acting as a defensive barrier while he prepared his offensive spells.
Isla raised her right pistol. The runes on the barrel glowed a brilliant icy blue.
"Glacies."
She fired three rapid shots. The bullets of absolute zero energy struck the wall of fire. The clash of extreme temperatures created a massive cloud of thick white steam that instantly blanketed the entire arena obscuring visibility for the cameras and the crowd.
Up on the balcony Glen narrowed his eyes. He did not rely on his normal vision. He focused his mind tapping into the sensory experience he had gained from using Predator Domain. He watched the flow of mana in the arena.
Through the thick steam he saw Marcus channeling a massive amount of fire mana preparing to launch a blind area of effect attack.
But Glen’s attention was entirely on Isla.
She was moving through the steam with incredible precision. She raised her left pistol the runes glowing a fierce fiery orange. She fired a single shot aiming perfectly through the fog to strike the exact center of Marcus’s defensive wall. The explosive fire bullet shattered the barrier knocking Marcus off balance.
It was a flawless tactical execution. But as Glen watched the flow of her mana his brow furrowed in confusion.
Because of his Skill Predator class Glen had an intimate understanding of how spiritual cores operated. He had felt the raw unrefined power of a C Class monster. He had felt the dense focused energy of an A Class Hunter. He had even felt the suffocating overwhelming pressure of Evander Buchanan’s S Class aura.
As Isla fired her pistols Glen noticed something fundamentally wrong with her mana signature.
When a normal Hunter cast a spell their core pushed mana outward through their body and into their weapon. It was a fluid expanding motion.
Isla’s mana was not expanding. It was fighting to escape.
Glen focused harder his dark eyes tracking the glowing runes carved into the barrels of her heavy pistols. To the rest of the world those runes looked like standard elemental amplifiers designed to convert her mana into fire and ice.
But Glen saw the truth. The runes on her mana pistols were not amplifiers, they were limiters.
Every time Isla pulled the trigger a massive terrifying ocean of mana surged up from her spiritual core. It was a tidal wave of raw power so dense and heavy that it made the air around her warp. But the moment that power hit the pistols the runes flared violently acting like a dam. They choked the mana crushing it down compressing it until only a tiny fraction of the energy escaped as an A Class bullet.
For a microsecond just before the runes clamped down Glen felt the true pressure of her aura.
It was suffocating. It was ancient. It felt more terrifying than the pressure Evander Buchanan had released in the hallway.
"She is not an A Class" Glen whispered his voice barely audible over the roar of the crowd.
Caleb who was chewing on a pastry looked over at him. "What was that?"
"Nothing" Glen said quickly masking his shock with a neutral expression. "Just admiring her footwork."
Down in the arena the steam began to clear. Marcus Thorne was panicking. His defensive wall was broken and he could not track Isla’s movements. He raised his hands screaming a desperate incantation to summon a massive fireball.
Isla appeared directly behind him stepping out of the lingering steam like a ghost. She did not fire her pistols. She simply raised her right leg and delivered a brutal sweeping kick to the back of Marcus’s knees.
Marcus collapsed his spell fizzling out as he hit the sand. Before he could recover Isla pressed the hot barrel of her right pistol directly against the back of his head.
"Yield" Isla commanded her voice echoing through the silent stadium.
Marcus trembling and completely outmatched raised a shaking hand. "I yield."
"Match Twenty Five Winner" the announcer boomed. "Isla Sinclair."
The crowd cheered politely. It was a clean efficient victory exactly what was expected from an A Class elite. But it appears that no one else had noticed the anomaly. No one else had seen a glimpse of the terrifying ocean of mana she was hiding inside her core.
Isla holstered her pistols and walked calmly toward the competitor exit her face an unreadable mask.
Up on the balcony Glen leaned back against the glass railing a slow dark smile spreading across his face.
Isla Sinclair the fallen aristocrat who claimed she needed his raw power to take restore her family’s name was lying. She was hiding a class that was at least S Rank maybe even something completely unique. She was wearing limiters to disguise her true strength from the Association and the major guilds.
She was playing the exact same game he was.
"Well well well Sinclair" Glen thought to himself his dark core pulsing with amusement. "It looks like I am not the only monster hiding in the shadows."
