So it’s him? My opponent? He feels like a berserker—heat rippling off him like a forge—shouldn’t be hard.

Rafi studied the man in a white hooded jacket. His aura felt raw and iron-sour, killing intent bleeding through the cloth like winter draft. Every breath off him screamed berserker, so she filed him under that.

A cold, mechanical female voice chimed above, as if from a steel sky.

“Arena ‘Forest’ configured… complete. Participants in place… complete. Prep… complete. Match… begin!”

At the bell, Rafi’s pulse steadied—cool lake over hot stone—then she cast a body reinforcement spell. She sprang into a tree, bow up, sight locking on Ezio.

The white-clad “berserker” moved too. He lowered his body, white light filming his skin like frost, then his outline thinned into glass and vanished.

He’s fading—shoot. Her shot snapped free with a whoosh, arrow knifing air and biting the ground at his last footprint. No blood fanned, no shadow buckled—just a long gouge carved into dirt.

Damn it—where did he go?

She tightened her focus, eyes combing the tall trunks like searching a bamboo grove after rain. No white flicker answered.

I’ve got to widen my view, or I’ll get pushed around.

She ran the best plan in her head—ink and brush sketching lines—then dropped to the ground. She closed her eyes, calm as a monk at dawn, letting the crowd guess at nothing.

The audience rustled like sparrows in a hedgerow.

“Hey, is she dumb? She ditched high ground and shut her eyes. If it were me, I’d already give her one clean cut so her IQ stops dropping.”

“Exactly. Isn’t that just asking to die?”

“Mm-hmm, sounds right to me.”

Opinions rose like steam, each face sure it saw the future. Rafi couldn’t hear; she kept her breath steady and did her work.

Blue light curled around her bow like river mist. A chill trickled from the arrowhead, spreading like frost on glass. She snapped her eyes open and raised the bow skyward.

“Requiem: Silence!”

The arrow tore up into the clouds with a long, fluting hiss, cutting air and pressing wind flat. For a heartbeat, that was all—no thunder, no blaze—just the hush you get before a storm, just enough to make the crowd feel she’d done something foolish.

But was it?

The quiet sky ripped like silk. Blue arrows bloomed and multiplied, then fell fast as summer rain. Fifty meters around her became the storm’s reach, the arrows so dense they clattered into clustered rainwalls. Only the single patch beneath Rafi—barely a meter wide—held its ground like a stubborn tuft of spring grass; everywhere else left nothing alive room to dodge.

Boom…

Slender blue shafts drilled trees, trunks cracked and toppled, the ground coughing up dust in heavy waves.

Ten seconds bled away, the rain ceased, the smoke unrolled and thinned. Within fifty meters lay felled timber and pitted earth, war-scars stamped deep. Only Rafi’s little island kept one living green blade standing, thin as hope.

Even with the world opened, Ezio didn’t show. Surprise pricked her—could he clear fifty meters in under three breaths? Or did the storm shred him to blue confetti?

The next second hit like a slap.

Ezio ghosted into shape behind her, his hidden blade flicking from his sleeve with a soft click. Cold metal kissed her throat like winter rain.

“Kid, you lost.”

Shock tightened Rafi’s chest—her senses missed someone at her back? “How did you do that?”

Ezio didn’t mind the question; most marks asked it before they bled. “If you mean vanishing from your senses—simple. An assassin’s trick. If you mean dodging your wide-area shot—also simple. Find the pockets the rain leaves and slip through.”

Rafi gaped. He looked like a berserker, but he was an assassin. Who wears white to be an assassin, you maniac? How do you stalk at night dressed like a moonbeam? Kill everyone first so nobody’s left to notice you infiltrated?

The gripe was funny, but gripes stay gripes. She wouldn’t yield that easily. He was honest—too honest—and hadn’t noticed the quiet spell she’d woven like a seam under conversation. With someone that upright, not teasing him would be a crime.

She snapped her fingers—snap—and a blue magic circle flared under Ezio’s boots. Tendrils surged up like lake weeds and bound him tight, a neat tortoise-shell bind glinting with cold sigils.

Rafi pushed up the black frames that had somehow appeared on her nose, her smile thin and cutting.

“Comrade Ezio, you’re still too young. Don’t be that honest—you’ll get bullied.”

Faced with a binding this embarrassing, Ezio didn’t flinch or blush. He stayed calm and spoke like a stream under ice.

“Is that so? Looks like I underestimated you. I’ve had a few jobs from the Organization. Usually I make other people’s backs pay; this is my first time getting caught from behind. I got cocky. Thanks for the reminder. I’ll withdraw.”

Rafi nodded, wearing a perfectly polite smile. “Don’t worry. Family lesson. Also, if you weren’t talking while slicing at my tentacles with your blade, I’d believe you.”

A flicker of alarm touched his face. His hand paused. The hidden blade clicked back into its sheath.

“Don’t be surprised. It’s my magic. I feel it like a hand that isn’t mine. It doesn’t hurt, but it tickles, and if my mana keeps flowing, your weapon won’t have time to cut it through.”

As she said, his fingers traced the place he’d nicked; the bind had already smoothed over like water after a thrown stone. Ezio sighed and bowed his head as if accepting winter.

“Ha. Alright. I lost clean. I’m still green. I concede.”

The mechanical voice fell like a gavel the instant he said it.

“Match over! Winner—Rafi!”

She dispelled the bind and tilted her head. “You could’ve taken me when I cast Silence. Why didn’t you move?”

Ezio stared two seconds, then cocked his head and blinked like waking from a dream. “Oh, right!!”

Rafi let the black lines of exasperation march across her face and walked off the stage. She’d fought a fool that long? She—was way too sloppy.

The announcer rolled right into the next bout, voice bright as drumbeats. “Next up: Yufan Ling versus Arthas Menethil. Let’s hope they give us a stellar match… if nobody dies.” The last words came in a mutter.

The crowd stirred, warlike heat rising like summer cicadas—today promised another jolt of blood and thunder.

Below the stage, Alicia watched Ling step into the competitors’ tunnel. Her hand lifted, then curled back to her chest. The corner of her eye blurred like rain on a window.