The battlefield had changed.
In an instant, the carefully structured artificial biomes collapsed into chaos—blizzards swallowing the frozen lands, sandstorms raging through the desert, and volcanic hellfire spilling across the once-contained region.
Those who had been locked in battle now found themselves fighting for survival.
Jhaeros and Nara's Perspective
Jhaeros froze mid-step, his ears twitching. The ground beneath him vibrated with an unnatural pulse, and a moment later—
BOOM.
A shockwave of energy spread across the battlefield, making the very air tremble.
High above, the sky split apart with light, a flash so intense that it momentarily blinded even his enhanced vision.
Then, the world around him went mad.
Snow and ice, thick as a mountain storm, surged from the frozen biome like a tidal wave.
"Velka!" Jhaeros called, but his dire wolf had already sensed the shift—she was at his side, growling, fur bristling.
A sudden drop in temperature hit his skin like knives.
That damn human.
Nara, standing on the outskirts of the forest, was breathing heavily, her knuckles bloodied from beating the elf responsible for drugging her.
She barely had time to look up before a gust of fire-laced wind swept through the area, setting trees ablaze.
The elf beneath her was long past unconscious, but she still grabbed him by the collar and dragged him up.
"You're coming with me," she growled, before feeling a second shift in the wind.
Jhaeros sprinted toward her just as a howling storm of ice and fire collided.
They both looked up at the same time.
A bright flash illuminated the mountains.
They knew immediately who was responsible.
"Kalem," they both muttered.
The Hunters, the Opportunists, and the Survivors
Elsewhere on the battlefield, the competitors reacted in three ways.
The Hunters—those who had spent the round hunting and fighting—now turned their attention to a greater prey: survival.The Opportunists—those who had been stalking the battlefield from the shadows—used the chaos to pick off disoriented rivals.The Survivors—those who had played defensively—fled, seeking any ground that wasn't crumbling beneath them.
A group of combatants who had been locked in brutal melee suddenly found their battle meaningless as blazing sandstorms surged toward them, cutting off their vision and scorching their skin.
Screams echoed from the frozen biome as unfortunate souls were flash-frozen, their bodies locked in ice where they stood.
A towering orc, previously reveling in the bloodshed, roared in rage as he sank knee-deep in snow, his body struggling to adapt to the sudden shift.
A team of three mages attempted to form a barrier, but the unbalanced elemental forces shattered their magic before it could take shape.
Even the most hardened warriors had stopped fighting.
The battlefield was no longer theirs.
The Noble Combatants
A group of four nobles, all from prominent families, had been locked in a battle with a pack of hyena-wolves when the disaster struck.
One of them—a young man with silver hair and runes carved into his gauntlets—staggered back, his breath fogging in the sudden cold.
"What in the gods' names—?"
He turned, seeing walls of ice forming where open land had once been.
His companion, a noblewoman with fire magic, struggled to keep her flames alight against the sudden downpour of snow and wind.
"This isn't natural!" she shouted, eyes wild. "The circuits—someone's disrupted them!"
Another noble, a broad-shouldered warrior wielding a greatshield, grit his teeth.
"We stay together. Keep moving—we need high ground."
But before they could take a step—
A sandstorm crashed into them.
They vanished into the chaos.
Monsters in the Maelstrom
The battlefield's creatures were not spared.
The Ravine Deer, usually docile, stampeded in terror, unable to escape the colliding biomes. Salamanders from the volcanic zone screeched in confusion, their heated bodies suddenly doused in freezing cold. A Chimera, once a dominant predator, found itself ensnared in a blizzard, its wings frozen mid-flight before it crashed to the ground. Even the mountain-dwelling beasts were caught in the madness—territories shifting too fast for them to adapt.
The ecosystem of the tournament was broken.
And at the center of it all, one person had made it happen.
Kalem's View
Kalem stood on the artificial mountain, overlooking the battlefield.
The ruin circuit beneath him still hummed faintly, but the main burst of energy had already been released.
A storm of frost, fire, and sand raged below.
Kalem let out a slow exhale.
"That… was a bit much," he admitted.
But he wasn't done observing.
He crouched down, running his fingers across the still-active etchings in the ground, noting how certain patterns remained stable while others had burned out completely.
His armor's focus core flickered slightly, its energy reserves drained but still functional.
Kalem opened his journal and began taking notes.
Meanwhile, in the Observation Towers
The officials had stopped talking.
The mages monitoring the event were paralyzed.
One of them slowly removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, as if trying to wake up from a bad dream.
"...How?" he finally whispered.
The headmaster, Valdris, was the first to break the silence.
He laughed.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, grinning.
"I think we've found our most interesting competitor."
The Audience's Reaction
In the noble stands, the tension was suffocating.
Lyra sat beside her father, keeping her expression carefully neutral, though her hands were clenched into fists.
She knew Kalem was reckless, but this?
"This boy is dangerous," muttered one nobleman.
"He's a menace," another agreed.
Lyra barely held back a smirk.
They were afraid.
Her father chuckled beside her.
"Interesting, isn't he?"
Lyra said nothing.
She simply watched the battlefield, waiting for Kalem's next move.