SSS Rank: Strongest Beast Master

The piercing alarm blared. Red lights flashed in the corridors, and the excited chatter of the tournament crowd was replaced by a confused murmur.

In the workshop, Jonah and Vanessa exchanged a look of grim understanding. "The Bureau," Jonah said, his voice flat. The near-kiss, the moment of vulnerability, felt like it was from a different lifetime. The shadow war was here.

A moment later, a sharp chime came from the console. A direct communication from the Headmaster. His voice echoed through the room. "The alert is being handled. Security is checking the lower levels. The match will proceed as scheduled. Do not show them they have rattled us. Go. Now."

Jonah nodded, looking determined. This was no longer just a tournament. The arena was a battlefield.

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The atmosphere in the stadium was filled with tension. The crowd was uneasy, whispering about the alarms. The usual pre-match hype was gone, replaced by a nervous energy.

"And in the south corner, his mind as sharp as his creations' claws… JONAH!" the announcer boomed, his voice straining for its usual enthusiasm.

Jonah walked onto the stage, his senses on high alert. He could feel the eyes of the Headmaster, of Ariana, and now, of unseen enemies, all focused on him.

"And in the north corner!" the announcer continued, "The Blademaster reborn! The unbreakable shield of the Academy, the mighty… DRAVEN!"

Draven walked onto the arena floor, not with the arrogance of their first encounter, but with the solid confidence of a true warrior. His greatsword was already in his hand, a blade of clean, glowing power. He met Jonah's gaze from across the stage, and there was no animosity there. Only a shared, fierce respect. He nodded slightly towards the VIP box, where the faculty were.

The starting gong rang, its sound heavy and final.

GOOOONG!

This was not a match of tricks or mercy. This was a duel. A powerful clash between two of the Academy's strongest.

Jonah summoned Nyx and Specter. Draven had trained against his illusions for months; a simple trick wouldn't work. This would be a test of pure skill.

Draven charged, not with blind rage, but with disciplined power. CLANG! Jonah used a quickly formed shield of Specter's mana to stop the first strike. The hit sent a painful shock up his arm.

They moved too fast to see. Draven was a storm of steel and golden light, his attacks powerful and precise. Jonah was a master of misdirection, using Nyx's disorienting dust and Specter's phantom clones to stay one step ahead, looking for an opening.

It was the best fight of the tournament. The crowd, forgetting the tension of the alarms, was on its feet, roaring with every block and dodge. This was the fight they had been waiting for.

For ten minutes, they were perfectly matched. But Jonah's unique style, his ability to command multiple Progeny at once, gave him the edge. He used Nyx to attack Draven from the air while Specter created a fake copy that attacked from the flank.

Draven had to defend from two sides and was momentarily overwhelmed. He blocked Specter's attack, but that left him open for a second.

It was the opening Jonah needed. He commanded the real Specter to solidify a blade of shadow-mana and press it against the back of Draven's neck. It was a perfect, flawless checkmate.

He was about to declare victory.

And then he felt it.

A sudden, sharp spike of chaotic, unstable energy from directly beneath the arena floor. His Weaver's senses screamed a warning.

It wasn't a familiar magical signature. It was something else. Something… tampered with. It was one of the arena's own regulatory runes, the ones used to absorb stray magical energy, but it felt wrong. It was overloading.

He looked down. A faint red light was beginning to glow from the seams in the stone floor, directly at Draven's feet.

The Bureau's trap.

It was all happening in a fraction of a second. The rune was designed to overload and release its stored energy upwards. But someone had sabotaged it. The energy wasn't going up. It was being aimed into a single, deadly blast, shooting sideways.

And it was aimed directly at him.

Jonah's eyes widened. He had no time to move, no time to summon a shield.

Draven saw it. He saw the glowing red light. He saw the look of shock on Jonah's face. He saw the trap. He didn't know what it was or who had set it, but he knew one thing: it was meant for Jonah.

He didn't hesitate.

He didn't shout a warning. He didn't try to disarm it. He made a choice.

With a roar, Draven spun around. He dropped his sword and lunged forward desperately, covering the last few feet. He positioned his own body, covered in its manifested Awakened armor, directly between Jonah and the glowing rune.

FWOOOM!

The sabotaged rune unleashed its payload. A focused, burning beam of wild energy shot from the floor.

It was a focused beam, not a broad explosion. A spear of raw power, meant for a quick, secret assassination.

It slammed into Draven's back.

CRACK BOOM!

The sound was sickening, a mixture of shattering stone and a thunderclap. Draven's manifested armor, armor that could withstand a blow from a charging monster, shattered into a million pieces of golden light.

The force of the blast lifted him off his feet and threw him into Jonah. The two of them crashed to the floor in a tangled heap, skidding across the stone.

The arena fell into a shocked, horrified silence.

The crowd stared at the smoking hole in the floor, at the unconscious, heavily wounded form of Draven, and at Jonah, who was slowly pushing himself up, his expression a mask of cold, murderous fury.

This was no accident. This wasn't a malfunction.

This was an assassination attempt, in front of the entire nation.

The shadow war was over. The Bureau had just declared open war.