Chapter 110: Crystal Shatter
The Ember Step fighter left another footprint — burst — and another — burst — and another, pivoting and darting across the rocky terrain in a zigzag pattern designed to create a minefield of delayed explosions.
Ethan walked through all of them.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Each small detonation washed over him like a warm breeze. The kinetic energy sank into his body, feeding his muscles, sharpening his reflexes. By the fifth explosion, Ethan was moving noticeably faster. By the tenth, his punches cracked the air.
The Aztec fighter’s breathing was ragged. He’d burned through nearly a third of his mana already and hadn’t landed a single meaningful hit.
"You don’t get it," Ethan said, cracking his neck. "Every explosion you create makes me stronger. You’re literally punching yourself."
The fighter snarled and launched a desperate combo — three rapid kicks, each leaving a footprint on different parts of Ethan’s body.
Three seconds.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Ethan absorbed all three. His body pulsed with stolen energy. A red aura flickered to life around him — Berserker Form activating, his S-Rank Kinetic Absorption feeding directly into his A-Rank Berserker. His muscles bulged. His eyes gleamed with faint crimson light.
"Wait—"
Ethan closed the distance in a single step. His fist connected with the Aztec fighter’s chest.
BOOM.
The impact was catastrophic. A shockwave rippled outward, cracking the rocky ground in a spiderweb pattern. The fighter flew backward like a ragdoll, arms and legs limp, tumbling across the terrain before crashing into a boulder.
His bracelet flashed blue before he even stopped moving.
"ASA — one eliminated."
Ethan shook out his fist, the red aura fading. He turned and walked toward the Aztec crystal without a word.
On the eastern side of the arena, Arthur and Clara had engaged the two Aztec Mid Core Realm fighters simultaneously.
The first one — a tall woman with short black hair — had her eyes locked on Arthur. Her pupils were glowing red, the air around her eyeballs shimmering with heat. A-Rank Destructive Laser Eyes.
The second one — a stocky man with thick arms — held a sphere of compressed gravity in his palm. It rotated slowly, distorting the air around it. B-Rank Gravity Orb.
Arthur moved first.
"Clara, take the gravity one. I’ll handle the eyes."
Clara nodded and broke left.
The laser woman fired.
Zzzzt—
A beam of concentrated light screamed toward Arthur’s head — fast enough to vaporize steel. Arthur raised his forearm. Metal erupted from his skin — liquid metal that shaped itself into a flat reflective shield.
The laser bounced off at an angle and carved a glowing trench across the rocky ground twenty meters behind him.
"You think metal can stop me?" The woman’s eyes flared brighter. Two beams this time — one high, one low, from different angles.
Arthur’s metal shifted. His shield split into two smaller panels, deflecting both beams simultaneously. The reflected shots missed their mark but scorched the terrain.
"How annoying, he has ridiculous control," the woman muttered. She started firing rapidly — zzt, zzt, zzt — beam after beam, each one from a slightly different angle, forcing Arthur to constantly reshape his metal defenses.
But Arthur wasn’t just defending. While his forearms handled the lasers, metal spikes erupted from the ground beneath the woman’s feet.
She leaped back, eyes still firing. The spikes missed. She landed, fired again.
Arthur closed the distance. Metal formed around his fists — dense, compressed, hammer-like. The laser woman tried to track him, but he was too close now. The beams lost effectiveness at point-blank range — she couldn’t focus them fast enough without hitting herself.
She swung a fist instead. Arthur caught it with his metal-coated hand. Squeezed. Her knuckles cracked.
She screamed and fired a laser point-blank into his chest.
The beam hit. Arthur’s metal chest plate glowed red-hot but held. Steam rose from his uniform.
He headbutted her.
Crack.
Her nose shattered. She staggered, eyes watering, unable to focus her laser vision. Arthur grabbed her by the collar and threw her.
She crossed the boundary.
"ASA — two eliminated."
Clara faced the gravity user alone.
The man was cautious. He’d seen what Clara could do in the group stage — ice, psychokinesis, overwhelming mid-core combat ability. He kept his distance, rolling the Gravity Orb in his palm, waiting for an opening.
Clara didn’t give him one.
She raised her hand. Psychokinesis grabbed a boulder the size of a car and hurled it at him.
The man reacted instantly. The Gravity Orb pulsed — and the boulder’s trajectory bent downward, slamming into the ground ten meters short of him.
"I control gravity in a five-meter radius around the orb," he said, his voice steady despite the sweat on his brow. "Anything that enters that space is mine to direct."
Clara raised both hands. Two boulders. From opposite angles.
He redirected the first. Started redirecting the second — but Clara was already moving. She’d used the boulders as cover, closing the distance while his attention was split.
Ice erupted from the ground beneath his feet. He jumped, but Clara caught him with Psychokinesis mid-air — freezing him in place, his arms pinned to his sides, the Gravity Orb still clutched in his hand.
"Freeze," Clara said.
Frost crawled up his body — legs, waist, chest, arms. The Gravity Orb’s field weakened as his fingers went numb.
"No—"
Clara squeezed with Psychokinesis. His frozen body cracked. She threw him at the boundary like a statue.
He crossed it in pieces.
"ASA — three eliminated."
Elias Schwarz was already behind the Aztec crystal.
Shadow Merge. He’d dissolved into the darkness between two rock formations at the start of the match and had been moving through shadows ever since — unseen, undetected, a ghost in the darkness.
Two Aztec fighters guarded their crystal. One combat type and one defensive ability user — a woman who had raised a stone barrier around the crystal the moment the match began.
Elias watched from the shadow of a boulder ten meters away.
Shadow erupted from the ground beneath the fighter’s feet. Tendrils of darkness wrapped around his ankles, his knees, yanking him downward. The man’s eyes went wide — he opened his mouth to shout —
A shadow blade sliced across his throat.
Not deep enough to kill. The bracelet would handle that.
The man’s bracelet flashed blue a second later.
"ASA — four eliminated."
"Where did—"
The defensive woman screamed and reinforced her barrier, pouring everything into protecting the crystal.
Back at EASA’s crystal, Amira and Rose hadn’t moved.
Their double barrier — sand and Aegis — was impenetrable. Not a single Aztec fighter had gotten within thirty meters of their crystal.
One tried.
A slim man with a wind ability had circled around the main battle, using speed to approach from a blind angle. He got within twenty meters before Amira’s sand detected him.
Sand spikes erupted from the ground — pam, pam, pam — one impaling his leg, another grazing his side. He screamed and stumbled.
Rose’s eyes glowed green. A concentrated blast of Aegis force hit him square in the chest — boom — launching him backward. He crossed the boundary before he hit the ground.
"ASA — five eliminated."
Arthur was already moving toward the Aztec crystal. The defensive woman saw him coming and screamed, pouring every remaining drop of mana into her stone barrier.
Arthur didn’t slow down.
He raised his right hand. Metal gathered from the rocky terrain itself. Iron ore, trace minerals, even the metal fastenings from the destroyed arena sections. It all spiraled toward his palm, compressing, spinning, condensing into a single point.
A thin spear formed — no longer than his forearm, perfectly spiraled like a drill bit, gleaming with dense metallic luster.
Compressed Metal Drill.
He threw it.
Whoosh.
The drill hit the stone barrier and didn’t stop. It punched through the stone like paper — crack, crack, crack — layer after layer shattering as the spiraling metal tore through the defense.
The defensive woman’s eyes went blank with shock.
The drill hit the crystal.
Chime.
A single, pure note rang out across the stadium — resonant, crystalline, beautiful. The Aztec crystal cracked. Then it shattered completely, fragments dissolving into blue particles that floated upward like fireflies.
Silence.
Then the stadium exploded with noise.
"Match over," the referee announced. "European All-Star Academy wins. Time: nine minutes, thirty-seven seconds."
The EASA section roared. Arthur brushed metal dust off his hands with a flat expression.
Amira and Rose dropped their barriers and walked toward the group, Amira stretching, Rose looking slightly bored.
In the stands, Lucian watched the aftermath with his arms crossed.
This tournament is getting kinda boring, he thought. I need someone who can push me in a fight.