Chapter 116: The National Champions
Holden’s earpiece crackled.
"Holden, I see it." Maeve’s voice was sharp and focused. "He’s not redirecting that energy with his sword. It’s all in his footwork."
Holden circled to the left and David followed him move for move. He held his broadsword in a guard position that seemed simple but had zero gaps.
"Explain," Holden muttered quietly.
"The redirection works like a mirror," Maeve continued. "He catches your force with the sword, lets it travel down his arms and body, and into his legs. His feet act as the anchor. They trap the energy and bounce it right back at whatever angle he chooses. But the second his feet leave the ground, the chain breaks. No anchor means no redirection. Without it, he’s just a guy holding a big sword."
Holden filed that away.
On the left side of the stage, Lyra was locked in a brutal fight with her Dragon-Heart opponent. The fighter kept the pressure on with sharp, fast combos that left Lyra scrambling to defend herself.
Meanwhile, Emric was barely holding his ground, his shield arm shaking from heavy blows with a war hammer. Renna had switched to close-range fighting, using her bow like a club because she couldn’t get enough space for a clean shot.
Dragon-Heart was suffocating them.
Holden needed to end this fast.
"Emric," Holden muttered into his earpiece. "I need you to do something stupid."
There was a pause. Then, barely audible over the sound of clashing metal, Emric’s strained voice came through. "I’m actually an expert at stupid. What do you need?"
"See that crack on the floor right in front of David’s left foot? The one from our first clash?"
"Yes."
"I need you to slam your shield into it as hard as you possibly can. Right at his feet. Don’t aim for him. Aim for the ground."
"That’s... actually a stupid idea. I love it. Covering you now."
Emric broke away from his war hammer opponent with a desperate push.
He sprinted across the stage with his shield raised. David’s eyes tracked the movement, but he didn’t break his guard. He trusted his teammates to handle it.
Emric reached the crack and jumped.
He came down with every ounce of his weight behind his shield.
CRACK!
The floor exploded outward. A jagged crater split open exactly where David’s feet were planted. Chunks of rock and dust blasted upward.
David reacted on pure instinct.
He launched himself backward with both feet leaving the ground to clear the collapsing stone.
Airborne.
No anchor.
Holden activated Gale-Step.
He vanished from his position and reappeared directly below David, looking up at the fighter suspended in midair. The Solar-Forged Sword was already blazing with Hellfire Cleave.
Holden swung upward.
WHOOSH.
The arc caught David in the chest. The kinetic-redirection technique was useless. No feet on the ground meant no energy to redirect. The full force of a Master-tier Hellfire Cleave hit him like a battering ram made of fire.
David was blown backward into the air, soaring off the edge of the stage. His sword flew out of his hand, and his armor was burned black across the chest.
He hit the sand pit below with a thunderous impact.
THUD.
The three remaining Dragon-Heart fighters froze. Their perfect formation broken. They looked at their captain lying motionless in the sand, and then at the boy standing with a pitch-black sword still trailing red fire.
The referee stared for three full seconds.
"D-Dragon-Heart Academy is eliminated! Team Soup wins the National Academy Wars!"
The Colosseum erupted.
[Ding!]
[Dragon-Heart Academy (4x Rank 2, 3-Star Elites) Defeated!]
[Base Reward: 2,000 KP]
[Championship Bonus: +2,000 KP]
[2x KP Booster Applied!]
[Total: +8,000 KP!]
[Global Quest Complete: National Champion!]
[Reward: +50,000 KP]
[New Feature Unlocked: Party System]
[Generating 4x Bonding Elixirs...]
[Current Balance: 204,790 KP]
Renna screamed so loud that three people in the front row covered their ears. She grabbed Emric and lifted him off the ground in a hug that nearly snapped his spine. Emric didn’t even resist. He just hung there with his glasses all crooked, muttering "we won" on repeat.
Lyra walked up to Holden. She looked at him with an expression that was equal parts pride and something much softer.
"You earned this," she said quietly.
"We earned this," he corrected.
The hotel suite was quiet for a moment after Holden locked the door.
Then he released his aura.
The pressure hit the room like a collapsing building. Emric stumbled backward into the couch. Renna’s hand flew to her bow out of pure reflex. Lyra stood still, already knowing, but even she widened her eyes at how much heavier it felt in an enclosed space.
Emric’s glasses cracked.
He pulled them off, stared at the fracture, then looked at Holden with an expression of pure, stunned disbelief.
"That’s... that is not Rank 1," Emric whispered.
"No," Holden said. "It’s not."
He pulled the aura back, and the room felt normal again. Emric sat down heavily on the couch. Renna stood frozen, her mouth opening and closing like she’d forgotten how words worked.
"Rank 2," Emric said slowly, putting his cracked glasses back on. "How long have you been keeping this from us?"
"Since the arena disaster," Holden said. "The Abyssal Rift."
"And you didn’t tell us." Renna’s voice was small, which was the scariest thing Holden had ever heard from her.
"I couldn’t," he said, dropping all the jokes and smirks to be completely straight with them. "Look, if the Royals found out I’m Rank 2, they wouldn’t send rigged domes and tournament traps. They’d send actual assassins. Rank 4 killers who would kill everyone I care about just to get to me. Keeping you in the dark wasn’t about trust. It was about keeping you alive."
Emric adjusted his broken glasses. His hands were shaking slightly, but his voice was steady.
"You have my word. I won’t tell a soul."
"Same here," Renna said, bouncing right back to her normal self. "Duh, obviously! You think I want to be the reason you die? I like you alive. You’re my favorite person to annoy."
Holden grinned.
Then he felt something appear in his pocket.
Four small objects, heavy as pebbles. He knew what they were before he even reached in.
He pulled out four golden pills, each one glowing faintly with inner light.
[4x Bonding Elixirs]
[Effect: Registers target as Party Member. Applies passive 10x Learning Buff.]
Holden stared down at the pills, then looked up at his team.
"Okay," he said, holding them out in his palm. "These are Enlightenment Pills. I found them in the Abyssal Ruin during the Borderlands expedition."
Emric leaned in for a closer look. "Enlightenment Pills? Those are... supposed to be complete myths. Ancient alchemists supposedly developed them to accelerate cognitive processing by binding a group’s auras into a shared network."
"Yeah," Holden said smoothly. "That’s exactly what they do. Ancient alchemists were crazy, guys. Just drink it."
Renna grabbed one immediately and popped it into her mouth. "If Holden says drink it, I drink it. That’s my policy."
Emric held his up to the light, examined it for a moment, then swallowed it.
Lyra took hers calmly.
Holden gave the last one to Maeve. She had been sitting quietly in the corner the entire time, just watching.
She took the pill, looked at Holden, and raised an eyebrow.
"Ancient alchemists," she said flatly.
"Ancient alchemists," he confirmed.
She swallowed it without breaking eye contact.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then Emric gasped.
"Oh," he breathed. "Oh, man... my brain is running on overdrive. Everything I look at is instantly cataloged. I can literally count the threads in the carpet. This is wild."
Renna stared, her eyes wide. "Everything is so clear. I can see the wind. I didn’t know I could see the wind. Is that normal? That’s not normal."
Lyra closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. "My energy circulation just optimized itself. Techniques I’ve been struggling with for months suddenly makes sense."
Maeve just smiled at Holden. A small smile that said she wasn’t buying the ancient alchemist story for even one second, but she was going to let it go.
Holden glanced at his invisible System screen.
[Party Menu]
[Member 1: Lyra Sterling - Rank 1, 8-Star - 10x Learning Buff Active]
[Member 2: Emric Holt - Rank 1, 6-Star - 10x Learning Buff Active]
[Member 3: Renna Vine - Rank 1, 7-Star - 10x Learning Buff Active]
[Member 4: Maeve Voss - Unranked - 10x Learning Buff Active]
He closed the screen and leaned back against the wall, watching his team marvel at their upgraded minds, and grinned.