“Ever heard of a mirage?” The Sandshroud Knight probed her, a dry desert laugh on his tongue, before reaching for the curved blade across his back.

“Not interested in your babble.” Thunderlight hadn’t drawn a weapon, yet her gaze cut like frost, her stance bristling with a storm’s intent.

He saw that intent, and still—

“Ha—just as they say. The Heavenly Spirit Empire breeds pride like dunes breed wind, especially in a beauty like you.” His words drifted like hot sand.

Thunderlight didn’t take the bait. Her eyes stayed cold, a thin veil of killing intent like distant thunder over flat water.

“I don’t know why someone from the Empire came here,” he went on, voice a lazy ribbon of heat, “but if you’re just padding your noble record for your house—or yourself—”

“You should turn back home.” Playfulness bled out of his pitch; his eyes flared with a mirrored hunger, like grit caught in a rising gale.

But—

“Can you shut up, mortal?” Her tone was a blade laid flat. Not arrogance, not swagger—just a clear, empty sky.

Thunderlight hadn’t put him in her horizon.

That finally angered him.

“Fine! I’ll show you a true mirage!”

The Earth Knight from Sand Bay surged his Battle Aura.

Pale gold flared over him, a rippling flame that sheathed every line like sun on dunes.

As the glow unfurled, wind rose across the field, grit whispering in the gusts—desert wildness rolled in, bending light into wavering, dream-sick shimmer.

“Is this the famed Sand-Phantasm power?” The announcer’s voice cracked with heat, while the crowd stared as if the horizon itself had split.

Who would think a mere burst of Battle Aura could tilt the sky and rewrite the weather.

“So this is your mirage?” the Thunderlight Knight asked, tone flat as slate, like she was watching a street trick.

“Heh. Of course not.” The Sandshroud Knight’s reply teased like a dust devil.

“Most mirages are just lies of light. Mine’s different. Mine are real illusions—”

“Come forth! Raging Sand Avatars!”

Sand gathered, swirled, and stood up—three doubles identical to the Sandshroud himself, faces shaped by grit and will.

The announcer shot to his feet. “Here they are! The Sandshroud Knight’s signature—Raging Sand Avatars!”

A referee on the dais rose in shock. “That’s his ultimate battle technique?!”

The crowd broke into a hundred clattering voices; the arena’s heat swelled toward a new crest.

The avatars started to move. The air shook with the promise of impact.

Thunderlight watched three sand-bodies drawing toward her from fifty meters out. Her face, a winter lake, finally rippled—her lip tilted, playful and faint.

“This is your crowd-pleaser, mortal?” Her sneer fell like cool rain on hot stone.

“You’ll be speechless soon!” Sandshroud declared. His avatars shed their sluggishness; motion sharpened, quick as knives, clean as a predator’s pounce.

One step—and all three were on her.

One in front, two to the flanks; curved blades flashed from their backs like moon crescents in a dust storm—

They slashed, fierce as cut wind, at the Celestial Spirit who hadn’t moved, hadn’t even drawn steel.

“No!” Women and children cried from the stands, seeing only a brutal ending they couldn’t bear.

Too bad—

“That’s all?” The Thunderlight Knight smiled.

Against three lunging arcs, she flicked her cloak aside and set her hand on the sword at her hip.

“She’s drawing?” the announcer gasped, voice a struck bell.

No—she didn’t draw. Her hand tightened on the hilt. Her lips shaped a name.

“Thunder-Roan Blade, Zoficar.”

Boom.

A line of lightning fell from the sky.

It struck Thunderlight, didn’t harm her, and poured into her as power—floodgate burst, river loosed, a surge of electric brilliance racing outward in wild arcs.

The sand avatars met the roar like mantises against a cart.

In a breath, they shattered.

The earlier wind fell dead; from the cloud-deep, a low, keen wail replaced it, sharp as winter on steel.

“Impossible…” The Sandshroud Knight stared.

He felt it—Battle Aura vast and crushing, far beyond his reach, like dunes under a mountain’s shadow.

He didn’t retreat. He clung to hope with chapped hands.

“Maybe that was Thunderlight’s ace.” He comforted himself with a thirsty thought.

Reality cracked that mirage.

“Fight me.” Thunderlight finally drew the blade at her waist—Zoficar.

Lightning coiled the steel as it left the scabbard, the same sky-fire that had just fallen.

So, that strike wasn’t a finisher. It was her opening move.

The Sandshroud Knight understood. Despair took his knees.

He dropped to the ground with a dull thud.

“I surrender.”

A result that stunned almost everyone outside the ring.

The announcer fumbled. “What?! The fight hasn’t begun, and the Sandshroud Knight surrenders?”

The crowd answered with melon rinds and rotten eggs. “Sandshroud? He’s a coward!”

You couldn’t blame them; common eyes couldn’t sense how Thunderlight’s Battle Aura towered over his like a storm over a candle.

Before the silence curdled the air, the host cleared his throat. “Ahem. The victor of this duel—Thunderlight Knight from the Heavenly Spirit Empire!”

Beyond the host, no one cheered.

They couldn’t feel the pressure that crushed Sandshroud. Most assumed an inside deal—Doran bowing to the Empire. The ritual grounds drowned in death-silent quiet.

Thunderlight disliked that.

She faced nearly everyone at the rite. “What’s this, humans of Doran? I’m the first duel’s winner. I’m a Celestial Spirit from the Heavenly Spirit Empire, a mighty knight. No congratulations?”

She asked like claiming what was owed.

Even so, silence stretched like a taut wire.

Doran’s restoration, the Empire’s long grip and gouge, the Celestial Spirits’ standing over humankind—

Too much hung in the air for them to smile.

Until—

“Congratulations, noble knight of the Empire.” The king himself spoke.

The Knight Festival is Doran’s solemn rite. Those who hold Doran’s lifeline and future must attend.

“Knowing restraint is noble for a knight,” the Duke of Sand Bay added, voice like a measured tide. “You taught mine that besides passion, temperance matters.”

They clapped. Scattered notes fell from the high platform; only then did the people around the grounds follow with thin, dutiful applause.

“This is better.” The Thunderlight Knight finally felt pleased.

But the air only turned more frightening.

Pressed feelings hardened into anger, yet shame and fear sealed their throats like frost.

The host patched the mood. “Next is the second bout! Two Doran knights—from the Golden Legion and Wood Bay—will bring a different kind of brilliance!”

As if remembering why they came, the faces in the crowd returned to festival-light, hopeful and bright.

Noise surged back, warm and lively.

Under the altar, before Lance stepped up, his knight-mentor Layne called him. “Kid—”

Layne wore a serious look, ready to hand him something heavy; then he saw what burned in Lance’s eyes, and swallowed every prepared word. He changed tack, casual. “Lance, I can’t cheer you later. I’m moving with the Silverwing Mage Corps. I’m going to—”

Lance cut him off, just as casual. “I know. The vampire thing, right.”

He folded his hands behind his head.

Layne jolted. “Hey! Keep it down—” He sighed, and for the first time, his eyes held a soft, reluctant care for Lance. “Forget it. I can’t be there to cheer. Stay safe, kid.”

“Mm. Got it.” Lance kept his usual offhand tone.

When Lance climbed the altar, cheers rose like sparks.

“Lance! Lance!” He had carved that name, bit by bit, into the First City’s heart.

Across the ring, the other side seemed offended. “Kept me waiting, haven’t you, Blazing Fire Knight of rumor?”

The Hardsteel Knight from the Golden Legion leaned on the words “of rumor,” like pressing a thumb on a bruise.

Lance glanced at the giant who looked like a hill even fifty meters away. “You’re a headline yourself, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you lump me with you!” Hardsteel snarled. “I fought on the front. My sword drank the blood of Fallenfolk and monsters. I took three Shadowspirit Legion officers’ heads. I led men, deep behind lines without supply…”

“I gave everything to Doran and Doran’s future.”

Lance couldn’t feel that path. To him, those words were wind against stone. “Sure, sure. Patriot of iron, got it.”

“You scum!” Hardsteel roared, and slammed his greatsword into the earth—Battle Aura ripped free in a fierce slash.

It wasn’t meant to hit. It was meant to scare.

The slash died short of Lance and carved a trench, deep and jagged, a wound in stone.

“Still, even in you—scum that you are—I see a hope for Doran.”

“You should stand with me. Support the First Crown Prince. Support Dylan Robell’s cause… not Gio’s radical, unreal demands.”

Lance knew exactly what he meant, but he asked anyway. “So? What do you want.”

“Surrender to me!” Hardsteel clenched a fist, voice ringing. “Then declare your support for the king-to-be, Dylan. With my rank as Golden Legion commander, I’ll win you wealth and status to match your power. In the name of the Light Deity, I swear it!”

Winter’s wind came cold and clean. Snow drifted down like white ash.

The world turned to ice.

Hardsteel got his answer fast. Lance raised a thumb, then flipped it down. “Go to hell.”

In that clear, cutting air, a flame rose.