Chapter 109: Iron Phalanx
The arena floor was sand today.
Fine white sand, raked in neat lines like a zen garden.
Team Soup stepped onto it and immediately felt out of place.
Across the ring, four mountains of meat waited for them.
The Blood-Iron Academy squad were absolute giants. Each member stood over six and a half feet tall. Their shoulders were as wide as doorways. Every inch of their bodies was covered in thick, interlocking iron armor, the plates layered so densely that no skin was visible anywhere.
Their faces were a map of violence. They had scars all over their cheeks, foreheads, and chins. One of them was missing an ear. Another had a nose that had been broken so many times it pointed permanently to the left.
Their leader, the biggest of the four, stepped forward. His armor was darker than the rest, stained with what might have been old blood or rust. A massive tower shield rested on his left arm.
"So these are the famous Team Soup," he said. His voice was deep, like rocks grinding together. "I thought you’d be bigger."
"Let’s break their legs first," the one with the missing ear said, grinning. "Start with the skinny one." He looked at Renna.
"Then the quiet one." He looked at Emric.
"Save the pretty girl for last." He looked at Lyra.
The crowd began to murmur, though not with excitement. It was pure pity. Everyone in the Colosseum knew what Blood-Iron Academy did to their opponents. The murmuring turned to boos directed at the referees for allowing this matchup.
Holden said nothing. He just watched the way their armor moved.
Ding!
The bell rang.
The four brutes moved as one unit. Their tower shields slammed together with a heavy, metallic thunder.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The shields interlocked. Lines of glowing blue energy crackled along the edges where the metal met, connecting all four fighters into a single glowing wall.
"Phalanx Array!" the captain bellowed.
The blue light intensified. The four fighters became a single block of iron and energy, an impenetrable wall that began advancing across the sand at a slow, unstoppable pace.
"Renna, now!" Holden called.
Renna drew and fired three times in a single breath.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Her arrows were specially crafted storm-arrows, designed to pierce armor. They hit the Phalanx Array at full speed.
And bounced off.
The blue energy barrier absorbed the impact completely. The arrows ricocheted into the sand, useless.
"Emric!" Holden shouted.
Emric was already moving. He charged at the advancing wall with his heavy shield raised, putting every ounce of his strength into a frontal bash.
"Brace for impact!" he yelled.
Bam!
His shield hit the Phalanx Array.
The blue light flared. For a split second, Emric felt like he had hit a solid wall of concrete. Then the energy reversed.
Wham!
The kinetic force bounced right back at him like a giant wave. Emric was knocked off the ground and thrown backward into the sand thirty feet away, dropping his shield as he fell.
He hit the ground hard and didn’t move.
"Emric!" Renna screamed.
The Phalanx kept advancing. Slow and relentless. Four massive fighters locked behind their glowing shields, bearing down on the remaining three members of Team Soup.
Holden tapped his earpiece.
"Maeve."
"I see it," her voice came through, fast and focused. "I’m zooming in on the live feed. The energy links between their shields are maintaining a constant resonance field. Physical attacks won’t work. Energy attacks get absorbed. You can’t break it from the outside."
"Then how do we break it?"
A pause. The sound of rapid typing.
"Wait. Hold on. I’m looking at the resonance pattern. There’s a micro-fluctuation in the spiritual links every time they move. The connection between shields flickers."
"How long is the flicker?"
"Point two seconds. It happens when their left foot hits the ground during a step forward."
Point two seconds.
To a normal fighter, that was nothing. Impossible to react to. You couldn’t even blink in point two seconds.
To Holden’s 10,000x multiplier, point two seconds was an eternity.
"Got it," he said.
He walked over to Emric and offered his hand. Emric took it, groaning as he got to his feet.
"You okay?"
"My ribs disagree with that question," Emric muttered, but he grabbed his shield.
The Phalanx was fifteen meters away now. Ten. Eight.
"Lyra, Renna, fall back behind me," Holden said.
"But—" Renna started.
"Do it."
They moved behind him. Holden stepped forward alone, his Star-Forged Sword drawn but not ignited. No fire. No flames. Just the plain black metal.
The Phalanx kept coming.
Five meters.
Four.
Three.
Holden watched their feet.
The captain’s left foot rose. It moved forward through the sand. It began to descend.
Now.
The blue energy flickered.
It was invisible to the naked eye. A microscopic gap in the resonance field, lasting less than a heartbeat. But to Holden, it glowed like a neon sign.
He moved.
His body slid forward, low and fast. The Star-Forged Sword went horizontal, slipping it straight through the gap between two shields where the energy had momentarily died.
The black metal slipped inside the Phalanx.
Once the blade was past the barrier, Holden twisted his wrist.
Crack!
The motion was small, yet precise. The blade didn’t cut flesh or break armor. It simply disrupted the exact point where the spiritual links converged, severing the energy flow like cutting a wire.
The blue glow died.
All four shields went dark at once. The interlocking energy that held the Phalanx together vanished. The four brutes stumbled forward, suddenly individual fighters instead of a unified wall.
The captain looked down at his shield. The glow was gone.
"What—"
Holden pulled his blade back out through the gap and stood up.
The crowd gasped. One second, an unbreakable wall of shields had been marching forward. The next, a skinny kid was standing right inside their formation with his sword out, and their legendary Phalanx Array was nothing more than four guys holding heavy pieces of metal.
The Blood-Iron fighters turned to face him, confusion replacing their confidence.
Their armor was still thick. Their bodies were still massive. But without the Array, they were just four big guys in heavy plates.
And they had no idea what had just happened.
Neither did anyone else in the stadium.
Holden looked at the captain and smiled.