The announcer's voice boomed through the Nexus Arena, but Noah barely registered the words. Two days. Forty-eight hours since Kelvin had disappeared. Forty-eight hours of searching, planning, and hitting nothing but dead ends. And now he was expected to fight like nothing had happened.
"...AND IN THIS CORNER, FROM ACADEMY NINE, THE RISING STAR WHO'S SHOCKED VETERANS WITH HIS UNIQUE DEFENSIVE STYLE—ELIO VAAN, THE FEEDBACK DEMON!"
The crowd roared as a lean figure with shock-white hair entered the arena. Elio Vaan moved with liquid confidence, his Academy Nine uniform modified with pitch-black accents. He raised one hand to acknowledge the cheers, but his eyes—heterochromatic, one ice-blue and one amber—remained fixed on Noah.
"FACING HIM FROM ACADEMY TWELVE, THE SURPRISE SENSATION OF THIS TOURNAMENT—NOAH ECLIPSE!"
