Alaric’s eyes swept the battlefield.

He saw the ten reinforcements crashing into Moon’s frost pillars and others moving from the western side of the arena toward Moon’s position.

Whatever the dark organization had committed to the field, the majority of it was now converging on a single point.

The point was Moon.

Alaric’s jaw tightened.

He couldn’t leave his exchange with Ace. The moment he broke off, Ace would either follow him before attacking or attack him immediately, and neither of those outcomes was acceptable. Alaric was locked in until Ace was down or at least contained.

But his team wasn’t.

Alaric pressed a button on his sleeve. Immediately, his entire team received a signal, all turning to glance at him.

Alaric’s hand rose slightly at his side. His fingers moved through three quick gestures, the coded signals he and his squad had developed.

Redirect. Protect Moon.

Across the arena, his team responded within seconds.

Emma caught the signal from her position near the eastern wing and immediately broke off from her duty. She had been playing a defensive role, going around and saving the competitors she could.

Two more of Alaric’s team disengaged from their own fights and fell in beside her. A fourth broke away from escorting wounded civilians and joined the formation as they moved.

The four of them rushed across the arena floor toward Moon at a full sprint, their spells, weapons already redirecting toward the flanking reinforcements attempting to bypass the frost pillar line.

Emma’s voice filled the shared channel between them, "Circle on Moon. Nothing gets through. Buy him whatever time he needs to finish those on him!"

The other three answered with clipped confirmations and spread into position around Moon’s engagement zone. They didn’t try to help him directly with the two assassins in front of him. He didn’t need help there.

What he needed was for the next wave of reinforcements to be delayed, redirected, or destroyed before they could add pressure to a fight that was already running on borrowed time. Especially when the wave had surpassers in between.

The dark organisation was going all out, bringing the biggest fights towards Moon.

Alaric’s eyes remained fixed on Ace as his team moved.

Ace’s smile had thinned slightly.

"Your little friend is putting on quite a show." Ace said quietly.

"He is."

"You’re not worried?"

"He can handle it."

Ace’s smile returned.

"We’ll see."

Their blades clashed again.

♢♢♢♢

On the other side of the battlefield, Marcus was in a completely different situation.

His entire body was smeared with blood. Some of it his. Most of it someone else’s. He had survived until now through nothing but raw shrewd betrayals, ducking behind other fighters at every opportunity, letting his neighbors take strikes meant for him. Twice he had physically shoved another Evolver into an incoming spell to buy himself an escape window.

Sarah stood beside him, her hands glowing with a healing skill, patching him up from previous wounds.

"We need to run from here." Marcus hissed through his teeth. His eyes darted across the battlefield, searching for any exit that hadn’t already collapsed or filled with enemies. "Damn it, we need to escape. This isn’t a tournament anymore. There’s no point in staying."

Sarah didn’t respond, many things brewing in her mind.

Marcus hated himself for staying. He should have surrendered the moment the attack began. He should have hit the exit button on his watch, taken the elimination, and been carried off to safety with the rest of the withdrawn competitors. He had been too proud. He had wanted to prove something. Now he was bleeding on the arena floor while everyone with abnormal talent tore each other apart around him.

He was never going to win this tournament. He had known that from the very beginning. His eyes drifted back to Moon.

Even through the chaos, Moon’s position was easy to find. The aura pouring off him was visible as a slight distortion in the air.

He was fighting two Surpasser assassins, and both were bleeding from dozen of cuts that Moon inflicted on their bodies. Ten frost pillars glimmered behind Moon, firing volleys of ice at reinforcements who couldn’t get through.

Marcus stared.

"How is he so strong?" His voice came out ragged, almost dazed. "He’s a Surpasser. Look at him. That’s Surpasser strength. Nobody at his level can hit that."

Sarah’s eyes flicked briefly toward Moon, before subsiding.

Marcus’s jaw tightened.

"This tournament is rigged. That has to be it. He’s using something. An forbidden item. Something that shouldn’t be allowed. Nobody progresses that fast without cheating. Nobody!"

His mind kept working through it, his fear turning into resentment, his resentment turning into a plan.

His master would know.

The drunk swordsman who was also an Ascender. The one who had taken Marcus in when the Miller family had needed a champion sponsor. The man was rarely sober, but he was powerful, connected, and had eyes across every faction in the kingdom. If anyone could investigate whether Moon had used illegal items or techniques to inflate his rank, it was him.

Marcus made himself a promise.

’If I survive this. If I get out of here alive. I’m going straight to master. I’ll tell him everything. He’ll look into Moon. He’ll find whatever the boy is hiding. And when he does, Moon will lose everything he’s built.’

The thought made him feel much better.

It didn’t change the fact that he was still bleeding, still terrified, still ducking the waves of attacks that rolled across the arena from all directions. But it gave him something to focus on beyond the immediate panic.

Something to hold onto.

Something that meant this wasn’t over yet.

Sarah’s hands lowered as she finished casting her sustaining healing skill, "Let’s move. Now."

Marcus didn’t argue. He turned and ran, keeping close to her side, both of them threading between engagements toward the least defended section of the eastern corridor.

Neither of them looked back at Moon.