“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! The Seven Star Cup finals!”
Luna was more excited than ever, and the crowd was right there with her.
“You won’t want to take your eyes off this one, folks! The stage is set! We saw some thrilling upsets throughout the tournament, but EX-Rankers are clearly worlds above! They wiped the floor with their competition to bring us this! A battle between living gods!”
The term “battle between living gods” was nothing if not apt. Leo and Zeke were human, yet they wielded almost divine power. On this day, here in the colosseum, fifty thousand people would bear witness to a clash that could be called mythological.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to fight you,” said Zeke with an icy grin. “As a fellow EX-Ranker, I know exactly the kind of boredom you’re going through. It doesn’t matter if you have the power of the gods at your fingertips—the solitude of lacking worthy opponents is soul-crushing. That’s why you wear that mask and live life in the fast lane, no? But now you can be at ease because your boredom ends today. I will help you realize the thrill of defeat.”
While Zeke was talkative, Leo remained entirely silent. He did little more than snicker through his nose, a gesture that did not go unnoticed. Zeke knew then that Leo did not see him as an equal, and his face twisted with rage.
“War God Leo Edin versus Sword Saint Zeke Feinstein! The King Slayer versus the Innocent Blade! Let the battle begin!”
At the very instant the bell rang, Leo threw a punch at unbelievable speed—the exact punch he’d used to defeat his last two opponents. But Zeke dipped out of the way with ease and threw a right-hand counter, which slammed into Leo’s mask. The force of the blow hurled Leo backward, and he slid all the way to the edge of the ring.
“Consider me not using my sword to be an act of mercy,” said Zeke. “But you only get one. Don’t toy with me, Leo.”
As Zeke spoke, a section of Leo’s mask crumbled to the ground, revealing a left eye of deep scarlet. His eye narrowed in what must’ve been a smile, and Zeke felt the madness in it. The man was like a starving lion baring its fangs.
“It really is like a battle straight out of myth,” Leon said, pale-faced. He was watching the fight from the locker room.
The fight was a frenzied back-and-forth that felt more like a global calamity, and it seemed like only a matter of time before the barriers equipped around the ring were pushed past their limits.
Leon had seen a fight between EX-Rankers before, when Zeke fought Johann, but this was even fiercer than that. The fight with Johann had sharpened Zeke’s swordsmanship even further, and Leo was a stronger hand-to-hand combatant than Johann. But Leon couldn’t even actually grasp the battle in its entirety—it was little more than guesswork based on the brief movements he glimpsed.
“Damn it,” Leon muttered, frustrated. “I can’t catch more than 70 percent of what’s going on.”
“I thought I was catching up to them,” said Alma, her voice trembling, “but they’re still so very, very far away…”
Her eyes were wet with tears. Alma was the most skilled of everyone in Wild Tempest, but even she felt despair at the sight of Zeke and Leo in the midst of battle. The throne of the gods was truly the highest of peaks.
But there was one man who could get them there, and he stood by their side.
“Sword Saint skill: Air Burst. Zeke’s attack covers the whole ring, so Leo takes to the air. Zeke follows. They kick off the air to move, fighting and defending. Leo feints. He goes from a straight punch to a high kick. Zeke bends his body to avoid the strike and counters with an upward swing of his sword. Leo leaps backward to evade, then falls down to the ring. Zeke rushes in from the sky, but Leo uses War God skill: God of the Dharma Fist. A seal in the shape of a lotus expands from his feet. I see three thousand fists being thrown at the same time. Zeke responds with Air Burst. The skills cancel each other out. The two Seekers immediately engage in close-quarters combat. Zeke starts with a high-speed combination. At strike number seventeen, he feints with a straight thrust. Leo leans to the side, so Zeke transitions to a horizontal slice. Leo parries it with his fist…”
Noel was murmuring incredibly fast, describing the dizzying flurry of blows. But he wasn’t talking about the battle as it happened—he was predicting it all beforehand. Leo and Zeke seemed to bring his words to life as if tracing his precognition.
It was said that to look directly upon the gods was to find yourself blinded, and Noel likewise suffered for his attempts to fully grasp this battle between gods. The blood that leaked from his eyes was akin to divine punishment.
“Noel! Stop this! You’re at your limits!” Leon shouted.
Noel had overloaded his precognition. Processing battle calculations at such high speeds put severe strain on his brain, leading to his bleeding from the eyes. Leon couldn’t bear it and he ran to stop his clan master, but Alma thrust a hand out in front of him.
“No,” she said. “If you stop him now, everything will have been in vain.”
“He’s going to burn his own brain to ash! At least let me heal him!”
“Can’t. He told you himself, didn’t he? Healing works by boosting the target’s own healing abilities. If you do that, you’ll interrupt his thoughts. Usually that wouldn’t be an issue, but with Noel using his precognition…it would be fatal.”
Leon had no retort. His only choice was to wallow in his own powerlessness. He knew this was part of the plan. He knew it. But he hated seeing Noel tortured so much more than he had expected.
“I always thought that what Koga said was right.” Alma spoke as if to lessen the grief. “We shouldn’t have made Noel shoulder all this weight…”
Leon’s head drooped. He needed to be stronger. Was it really victory when it hinged on this? When they had to leave things in the hands of a friend who had such little life left?
“It’s time,” Noel announced at last, wiping the blood from his eyes. He flashed them both a bold grin. “Now we get serious. Leon, get ready for the drop. We do everything according to plan—don’t drop before I do.”
“Urk… Understood.” Unable to refuse, Leon nodded solemnly.
The shock waves from the battle of wild, rampant gods now threatened to destroy the barriers surrounding the ring. None of the fifty thousand spectators knew that, however, so they continued to cheer as the battle raged on. They had no idea what was happening, but it was for this very reason that they sat, entirely entranced—lost in all the awe and excitement. The colosseum was now a shrine to two powerful gods, and their battle only grew fiercer as the fifty thousand faithful looked on.