Chapter 62: Reversing the Wards"I'm not passing out," Eldrion wheezed, his voice reduced to a thin, pathetic rattle that barely carried over the roar of the arena. Every heartbeat felt like a hammer striking an exposed nerve inside his skull. "Just... hold me up. Another two seconds.""You're turning gray, Eldrion!" Arabelle screamed, her shoulder taking his full, dead weight as she dragged him forward toward the center of the obsidian pedestal. Around them, the thirty-ton marble benches of the Colosseum groaned under the strain of Malakor's rampant mana pressure, large chunks of masonry raining down like lethal hail. "If you don't breathe in the next five seconds, I'm dragging your corpse out of here myself!""Focus on the runes," Eldrion managed, his boots dragging through the blood-spattered sand. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and completely locked onto the glowing matrix of blue and silver lines beneath their feet. The intricate geometric patterns were flickering erratically, st

Chapter 64: The Inquisitor’s Reckoning"It's done," Eldrion gasped, his voice tearing through his throat as he wrenched the alchemical rod upward with a sickening crack of shifting stone.The entire arena floor erupted into a blinding sheet of cerulean fire.Malakor’s advance halted instantly, the high-grade suppression staff in his hands sparking and violently discharging against his own armored gloves with a loud crackling pop. The Inquisitor staggered back two steps, his expression twisting from arrogant triumph into absolute, unadulterated shock as the academy’s ancient defensive matrix roared to life around him."What is this?" Malakor roared, his voice cracking as the massive marble benches of the Colosseum pulsed with a rhythmic, deafening bass-line that shook the dust from the high rafters. "Cut the mana flow! Disengage the circuit!""You can't disconnect what the foundation itself demands, Inquisitor," Professor Virelia shouted back, wiping a smear of blood from her cheek as

Chapter 66: Tending the WoundedThe deafening roar of the Colosseum’s defensive matrix faded into a low, subsiding hum that vibrated gently beneath the blood-stained sand of the arena floor."Someone get a medic to the east stands!" a senior faculty member shouted, his voice cracking as he pointed toward a collapsed section of marble seating where several students lay half-buried under stone debris. "Move, move! Don't just stand there gawking!"Eldrion collapsed forward onto his hands and knees, his chest heaving as a violent, rattling cough tore through his throat. Dark crimson droplets splattered against the obsidian pedestal beneath him, but for the first time in months, the frantic, burning sensation in his lungs didn't choke off his next breath."Don't move," Arabelle said, her voice shaking slightly as she dropped to her knees beside him, her fingers sliding under his arm to take his weight before he could face-plant into the dust. "Just stay still, Eldrion. You're going to tear

Chapter 68: The Infirmary Visit"Keep your filthy peasant hands off this coat! It was tailored in the capital from imported silk, and if you so much as pull a thread, my father will have your entire family exiled to the salt mines!" Zephriel’s voice echoed off the scorched marble archways of the exit tunnel, shrill, desperate, and entirely devoid of its former arrogance. Two regional guards did not even bother to dignify his screaming with a response; they simply hoisted him by his gold-trimmed elbows, their heavy boots dragging his polished leather shoes through the soot and scattered debris of the arena.Eldrion watched the pathetic spectacle from his kneeling position on the obsidian pedestal, leaning heavily against Arabelle's shoulder. "Well," Eldrion wheezed, a faint, dry cough catching in his throat before he managed a crooked smile. "Looks like his capital connections finally paid off.""Capital exile usually involves a carriage ride, not being carried out sideways by guys who

Chapter 70: A Quiet Evening in the Gardens"Relatively unhurt is a generous assessment, Headmaster, considering your personal security detail spent the last week trying to feed us to Malakor's private executioners," Arabelle snapped, stepping smoothly in front of Eldrion to block Vane’s anxious advance. Her chin was lifted at a precise, aristocratic angle, her bruised knuckles contrasting sharply with the pristine, ironclad authority in her voice. "If you are here to offer medals, save your breath. The metal is likely tainted with capital bribes anyway."Headmaster Vane flinched as if struck, his manicured fingers locking together in a desperate knot in front of his singed velvet belt. "Now, Lady Arabelle, please, let us not be hasty with accusations. The academy has... undergone a profound administrative restructuring. In light of recent... oversights regarding High Inquisitor Malakor's unauthorized excavations, the board of governors has unanimously agreed to elevate Professor Virel