(Point of View: Lexo)
The arena was a blue, celestial inferno—a maelstrom of energy and sound, as if a miniature war raged all around me. My sword, which looked more like a giant, crackling matchstick of fire, consumed my mana at a brutal rate, yet it was the only thing keeping that lizard-like fighter—with fetid breath and a mottled gray-and-orange mask—at bay. He was fast and agile, leaping at me like a frog on steroids, hurling wind claws (a mix of wind and fire, judging by the colors) that my Light barrier barely deflected.
At the same time, the Time-Water mage, clearly a master of Water rather than the pure Ice techniques Dad's partner wielded (since his jets evaporated as soon as they made contact with the hot sand), kept launching his accelerated streams. Dodging them required me to constantly invoke Spatium—making small spatial jumps of barely a meter, appearing and disappearing like an erratic mosquito. Each jump left me feeling nauseated and sapped precious mana. Now I understood Urso's power: even moving a few meters on foot was exhausting for my little body; imagine the effort required to transport his enormous mass—or even our picnic basket loaded with those delicious star buns from Quintus—across kilometers. My gigantic assistant must have a core as powerful and efficient as a small moon.
My mana reserves were dropping dangerously. The mental indicator I fought hard to ignore flashed red. The celestial flame of my sword faltered, shifting from bright blue to dark blue and orange. Fatigue from using Spatium and maintaining the Light barrier began weighing on my six-year-old muscles.
Then, as if the universe were mocking me, a third contestant entered the fray. An old man with a white beard so long he could have used it as a scarf and an earth-brown mask emerged from the sand on my right. With a gesture of his withered hands, he unleashed a storm of sand and jagged stones. Earth-Time, perhaps!
Great—just what I needed, I thought bitterly. A deadly trio: a leaping lizard-man, a guy with a temporal pressure hose, and an irate, Gandalf-esque figure.
While I dodged a jet of water, leaped over a slicing wind claw, and shielded myself with a desperate flash of Light, cheers erupted from above. I glanced toward where the stands should have been. Hundreds of Smiling Cats—multicolored, mocking, surreal copies of the original—applauded and meowed with delight every time a contestant fell. It was as if a walking nightmare of psychedelic fur and piano-key smiles had taken over the arena. This place was clearly off its rocker.
Just as the lizard prepared for another leap and the old man gathered more sand, a hissing, almost divine whisper caressed my ear—a sound as clear as if the speaker were right beside me, yet distinct from Eos or Tick-Tock:
"Meow... To your right, little one... The battle is in the arena… not in the clouds… L5396..."
L5396? Was that a code? A coordinate? Maybe the Wi-Fi password for Ethernatus? Before I could process it, I had to use Spatium again to dodge the carnival lizard, who landed exactly where I'd been a second earlier. The stench of sweaty reptile was unbearable.
The situation was unsustainable—three enemies overwhelming me, my mana critically low. I was going down.
Then I saw him: the other kid. The one who looked like me—I'd call him "Blue" for his cloak, though my creativity was nearly spent even on naming rivals. He wasn't engaged in a one-on-one duel; he was battling a group of at least twenty contestants, and he wasn't losing. He moved with fluid grace, almost as if he were floating. Thorny vines erupted from the sand around him, ensnaring and deflecting attacks as if he carried a mini-jungle within. I sensed subtle temporal fluctuations around him—brief accelerations, defensive echoes… Time-Plant! A terrifying fusion of Chronos and Nature. And while I didn't catch the bitter tang of Spatium in his technique, there was an acrid aroma I couldn't place, yet it felt strangely familiar.
Without a word, Blue dispatched his twenty foes with brutal, elegant efficiency. Then, with astonishing speed, he launched himself toward my small melee. Two of his vines swept up, pinning down one of the sand elders. Another vine deflected a water jet from the Time-Water mage. He provided me just the opening I needed against the leaping lizard.
I quickly scanned the ground and spied a fallen short bow and a scatter of arrows—likely from an unlucky contestant. Dropping my faltering fire sword (which was nearly out of mana anyway), I snatched up the bow and notched an arrow. I recalled Lyra's lessons on posture, the tension in the string… and Kael's advice: compress the air. I focused my Air affinity into the arrow's tip, not to form a dagger but to create a tight, spinning vortex right at the point.
Fwish!
The arrow streaked away—its compressed air gave it absurd speed and penetrating power. It pierced through the lizard's jerry-rigged wind defense, hitting him cleanly in the shoulder. He shrieked and toppled backward, out of the fight.
Blue had already neutralized the Time-Water mage and the Time-Earth elder, trapping them in cocoons of his thorny vines. We exchanged a brief, knowing nod—a tacit alliance, perhaps, or merely mutual recognition of our skills.
Yet all this desperate struggle was overshadowed by another presence moving through the arena like a force of nature.
It was him. My jaw—hidden behind my mask—dropped. The fighter moved like a lethal, dancing poem. I saw him activate Chronos, but not in the clumsy way I did; his was a contained bubble, fluctuating, expanding, and contracting in perfect measure. He slowed a charging enemy, accelerated his own blow so that it landed before the opponent could react—he even rewound for an instant to dodge a surprise attack. Absolute control. Precision. He wielded Chronos to pause, accelerate, decelerate—even to locally rewind time—all within a compact personal bubble that minimized his mana expenditure. It was magnificent. And terrifying.
Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he stopped. His fight was over; his opponents defeated. He gazed upward—not toward the phantom stands, but at the swirling sky.
"Get out of here, you damn feline!" he shouted, his voice bursting with fury and frustration that rippled through the arena. "I know you're there! Stop playing with your mice and show yourself!"
Above him, the Smiling Cat's mocking grin reappeared. That colossal, disembodied smile watched us with cruel amusement. At that moment, the champion launched a furious attack, combining thorny vines and spatial distortions—but the feline apparition took it all without flinching.
I stared, utterly mesmerized, as his fighting style—a breathtaking blend of elemental magic, Chronos, Spatium, and nature—unfolded before me. He was everything I aspired to be, a mirror of my own potential at its absolute peak. In that moment, a strange connection surged through me—a profound, unspoken recognition.
And then, across the chaotic expanse, our gazes locked. His eyes met mine. There was an instant of shock, of mutual recognition that transcended time.
At that very instant, a figure materialized behind him. Fast as thought, bending reality to its whim. It was Tick-Tock! The harlequin rabbit, his usual sarcasm replaced by deadly focus. In one fluid motion, he struck the fighter at the back of the neck with the heavy handle of what looked like an ornate staff—no, a spear. The mighty fighter collapsed, unconscious, before he even hit the ground. Without pausing, Tick-Tock grabbed him, and together they vanished in a flash of pink and white light.
"What the hell just happened?!" I screamed internally. Tick-Tock had knocked him out? And why? Were they in cahoots?
Before I could even process this latest madness, a crushing pressure descended upon all of us—suddenly, the remaining contestants were pinned to the sand, immobile. The force came from everywhere and nowhere at once, a pure manifestation of absolute power.
I struggled to look up. The Smiling Cat's grin hovered above, but now it was inverted—a grotesque scowl of disgust and seething anger.
"ENOUGH!" the Cat bellowed, his voice shattering the unnatural stillness. "Too much chaos! Too much unpredictability! Editing required!"
In an instant, the sand beneath us yawned open, revealing a psychedelic abyss swirling with sickly hues and broken futures.
"Now," hissed the Cat, his inverted smile devouring the light, "the next test!"
And just like that, we all fell—plunging headlong into the vortex of the unknown. Again. Damn it, I thought. I really hate portals.