The Grand Colosseum held its breath, a vast sea of silence broken only by the ragged sound of my own breathing and the faint, arrogant hum of Light mana gathering around Eric William's blade.

He stood ten meters away, radiating triumphant confidence, the virtual blood staining my black tunic a stark symbol of his perceived dominance.

My left shoulder screamed with phantom pain, the simulated injury rendering the arm practically useless, hanging heavy at my side.

"Just getting started, William," I rasped, forcing the challenging grin onto my face even as sweat and virtual blood trickled into my eyes.

Inside, my mind was a whirlwind, Quantum Analysis Mind working overtime, dissecting the situation, calculating probabilities, searching for the narrow path to victory.

Eric's smirk faltered, replaced by a flicker of annoyance. He clearly hadn't expected defiance, only surrender.

"Still posturing?" he scoffed, the word echoing slightly in the tense arena.

"Fine. Then allow me to end it. No more tricks, no more escapes. Just the absolute power you commoners can never comprehend!"

He raised his sword, not high for a grand swing, but angled slightly downward, the tip pointed towards me.

Light mana surged, condensing around the blade with an intensity far greater than his earlier 'Purging Sun'.

The air itself seemed to thin, warping around the weapon as if reality recoiled from the concentrated power as the Golden particles swirled, forming intricate, shifting patterns along the steel – the telltale sign of a high-level, complex Light Art forming.

My instincts screamed. Stellar Parallax. The technique that had dismantled Maria. Not just a single strike, but a two-fold attack – one visible, one delayed, striking from a distorted spatial echo.

He wasn't just aiming to defeat me; he was aiming to humiliate me with the same move that took down the Frostheart heir.

Calculate. Analyze. Predict.

Initial strike vector: Direct, center mass. High velocity. Estimated impact force: D+ Rank threshold.

Spatial echo trajectory: Delayed by 0.3 seconds. Origin point shift: 1.2 meters left, 0.5 meters high. Angle: 45 degrees downward.

Counter window: 0.15 seconds between initial impact/evasion and echo strike.

Probability of successful evasion of both strikes with current mobility reduction: 12.4%.

Probability of blocking initial strike: 45% (high mana cost). Probability of blocking echo strike after initial block: < 2%.

The numbers were bleak. Dodging both was unlikely. Blocking both was impossible with my injured state and remaining mana. He had me cornered, or so he thought.

But Eric made one crucial mistake. He assumed I would react conventionally.

He assumed I would try to block or dodge the visible threat. He underestimated the nature of my perception.

As the light around his blade reached critical mass, turning an almost blinding white, I didn't focus on the weapon itself.

I focused on the subtle warp in space his mana was creating, the precursor to the spatial echo. Quantum Analysis Mind didn't just see the present; it calculated the immediate future, predicting the origin point of the delayed strike before it even manifested.

There.

I exhaled slowly, my grip tightening on Draken with my right hand. The pain in my left shoulder was a white-hot agony, but I channeled it, focused it. Mana surged – not outwards in a defensive shield, but inwards, converging. Ice. Lightning. Space. Aura Dominion snapped active, the silver-blue field flaring momentarily, pushing back against Eric's radiant pressure, buying me a fraction of a second.

"This ends now, Wilson!" Eric roared, thrusting his sword forward. "Light Arts: Stellar Parallax—Annihilation!"

The first strike wasn't a beam or a slash. It was an explosion of pure light that erupted from his blade, consuming the space between us in an instant, moving faster than sound. It was designed to overwhelm, to blind, to obliterate.

The crowd gasped. The instructors leaned forward. Denish William smirked, victory assured.

But I wasn't there.

Just as the light wave reached me, I executed the riskiest maneuver of my life. Not a full phase-step like against Leon – I didn't have the mana or the stability for that. Instead, I used a micro-application of Space affinity combined with the first principle of Siekie Ryoku's Heaven Splitter: severing connection.

I didn't try to move my whole body. I severed the space immediately in front of the echo's predicted origin point, creating a momentary, unstable void pocket just centimeters wide.

Simultaneously, I threw myself backwards, not dodging the main blast, but deliberately moving into the path of the delayed strike's origin.

The main light explosion washed over the spot where I should have been, slamming into the far arena wall with a deafening KRA-VOOM, showering the barrier with golden sparks.

Eric's triumphant smirk began to form. He saw the empty space. He thought I had been vaporized.

But then, the echo strike manifested.

The secondary burst of light, angled downwards from where my spatial manipulation had momentarily disrupted its formation. It appeared exactly where my calculation predicted – aiming for the spot I had just vacated by throwing myself backward.

It missed. Completely. Whistling through empty air to detonate harmlessly against the floor.

And in that split second, as Eric's brain struggled to process the impossible – the missed echo, the fact I hadn't been vaporized – I landed from my backward dive, rolling, ignoring the searing pain in my shoulder.

My right hand, gripping Draken, was already moving. I didn't have the strength for a full power strike. So I opted for precision.

Lightning crackled along the dark blade. Not a massive surge, but a focused, needle-thin point of energy concentrated at the very tip, amplified by Aura Dominion.

I pushed off the ground, using Swift Step in a short, explosive burst, closing the distance while

Eric was still momentarily stunned by the failure of his ultimate technique.

His eyes widened fractionally as he saw me coming, a phantom emerging from the fading light of his own attack.

He tried to raise his sword, to bring up a Light Barrier.

Too slow.

My target wasn't his body. It wasn't his sword. It was his mana flow.

Draken's electrified tip didn't stab. It tapped. A single, precise contact against the back of his sword hand, exactly where the main channel flowed from his core to his weapon.

ZZZZT!

A violent surge of disruptive lightning mana shot directly into his mana circuit. It wasn't about damage; it was about overload. Short-circuiting the connection.

Eric cried out, not in pain, but in shock, as the Light mana surrounding his body and blade sputtered violently and then extinguished completely, like a candle snuffed out in a gale. His connection to his power – severed. His sword felt like dead weight in his suddenly numb hand.

He staggered back, eyes wide with disbelief, staring at his powerless blade, then at me.

I didn't give him time to recover. I stepped inside his guard, reversing my grip on Draken.

BAM!

The heavy, dragon-carved pommel slammed into his chin with brutal, mana-infused force. His head snapped back. His eyes rolled up.

And Eric William, the heir of the Empire's mightiest family, the master of Light Arts, collapsed onto the stone floor like a felled tree, unconscious before he even hit the ground.

Silence.

A silence so profound, so absolute, that the distant hum of the Colosseum's mana core felt deafening. Fifty thousand people, millions watching across the continent, sat frozen, unable to process what they had just witnessed. The predicted annihilation hadn't happened.

The commoner hadn't just survived; he had won. He had countered an S-tier family's ultimate technique and knocked the heir out cold with a simple pommel strike

.

Then, the digitized voice, almost anticlimactic in the echoing silence:

[Match Over. Victor: Michael Wilson.]

The virtual world dissolved.

I reappeared on my platform, the real world snapping back into focus. My left shoulder throbbed with residual pain, my body trembled with adrenaline and exhaustion, but I was standing. Draken dematerialized from my grip.

Across from me, Eric William's pod opened. He didn't emerge immediately. Medical staff rushed towards it.

The Colosseum remained silent for another beat. Then, it exploded. Not with unified cheers or boos, but with a chaotic roar of disbelief, excitement, confusion, and outrage.

"He WON?!"

"How?! What was that move?!"

"He countered Stellar Parallax!"

"Impossible! A commoner can't—!"

"MICHAEL! MICHAEL! MICHAEL!" – A chant started, small at first, mainly from the lower stands, but growing.

___________________

[Viewing Boxes & Stands]

Denish William sat frozen, his face paler than the marble walls. His son… defeated. Knocked out. By a pommel strike.

The humiliation was absolute. Somiya gasped, covering her mouth.

Gideon's ancient eyes held a complex mixture of shock, awe, and perhaps… concern.

Arnab Lionheart leaned back, a slow, grudging smile touching his lips.

He beat William. He actually beat him. The boy is more dangerous than I thought.

Martin Miller whistled low. "That final sequence… disruption, precision strike, incapacitation. Ruthless efficiency. Very Ather Guild."

Aurelia, beside him, was already furiously taking notes, her analytical mind captivated.

Deiman Frostheart's icy facade remained, but his fingers tapped lightly on the armrest.

He countered Stellar Parallax… Interesting. Maria watched me, her earlier worry replaced by a profound, unreadable intensity.

Scark Stromfang roared with laughter.

"HA! Serves the pretty boy right! That commoner kid fights dirty! I LOVE IT!" Aiden, nearby, was cheering unashamedly.

(To be continued)

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