The arena had stopped feeling like a training ground.

Julian threw his arm wide and three water spears formed in above him.

Aries vanished again.

The ground where he’d been standing cracked from the force of the step. He reappeared behind Julian, fist igniting crimson, and swung hard.

Julian turned at the last second, throwing up a water barrier that burst apart.

Before the mist from that collision could clear, Aries was already gone again.

Using Flash Step again and again.

He came from the front, then the diagonal, then directly from above.

Julian could barely keep up, his water reshaping and reforming with every hit.

Steam filled the arena.

BAM!

The shockwave hit all of them, pressure forcing every spectator to shield their eyes as two figures blurred through the center of the arena.

Valea managed to shield her eyes from the dust and spectate. "Aries is doing better than expected. He has the upper hand in the fight."

Julian’s patience ran out. "That’s it! You’re actually getting on my nerves!"

He slammed both palms together.

The ground trembled as streams of water burst upward from the cracks beneath his feet, pulled together by his mana, circling and merging and accelerating until a full vortex churned around him.

Then both columns crashed together in a single deafening collision.

It started to swallow the entire arena in seconds.

From the sideline, everything disappeared into white.

Aries stood in the middle of it and scanned the fog slowly.

Shadows moved in every direction — Julian’s silhouette there, then gone, then somewhere else, then back, the mist refracting his shape in a dozen places at once.

"Surprise!"

The voice came from directly beside him.

Aries turned and saw he was already there, fist wrapped in spiraling water, driving straight toward his ribs.

Aries dropped low. The punch tore through the air above his head.

"DAMN IT!" Julian snarled, momentum carrying him forward a step as the strike missed.

Aries grabbed for his arm and Julian was gone.

The shadow shifted right. Then behind him. Then multiplied, a dozen identical silhouettes circling through the mist.

"What is that?!" Valea’s voice came through from somewhere outside the fog. "He was right there — how is Julian doing that?!"

Alaric’s response came. "Aqua Mist. It’s Julian’s technique — he fills the space with mana-saturated vapor and creates illusion doubles. Reflections built from water and mana. You can’t tell which is real until he reveals himself."

"Then how is Aries supposed to counter it?!" Eren questioned.

"He can’t fight his way through it," Alaric replied. "He has to think his way through it."

Inside the fog, Aries gritted his teeth.

’Can’t see him or even track him. Every shadow looks identical and all of them move.’

His eyes swept all sides where the footsteps echoed from three directions with no clear source.

Then something clicked.

’Wait, that’s it! Water vapor. Mana conducts through moisture.’

He closed his eyes.

He stopped trying to see and started trying to feel.

His heartbeat slowed. The fog stopped being an obstacle and became information — every shift in the air, every displacement of vapor, every ripple in the mana field feeding back to him like an echo returning from a wall.

He could feel the doubles behind them.

And he could feel one that wasn’t.

Julian was moving fast, directly above, diving from height for a strike aimed at the top of his skull.

"Heh..." His smirk bled through even in the haze. "Got you now—"

"No you don’t."

Aries threw his palm upward.

Flames erupted from the air itself, not from his hand but from the ambient heat he’d been building since the mist formed.

Julian’s eyes went wide midair.

"What—?!"

He wrenched his body sideways desperately. The fire grazed his cloak, caught the edge of it, burned a chunk away as he hit the ground hard and skidded several feet.

The mist thinned in patches from the heat.

Julian stood across the arena, soaked and seething, one shoulder of his cloak missing entirely.

From the sideline:

"HE DID IT!" Adrian was clutching the railing with both hands, practically vibrating.

"He found him in the mist," Eren breathed. "He actually found him."

"Brilliant," Alaric said and he meant it. "Instantaneous read of the situation, used the vapor’s own mana conductivity against the technique." He shook his head. "His instincts are something I haven’t seen in a very long time."

"Told you," Cedric said, in the tone of someone who had been watching this coming for weeks.

Nico said nothing. He was smirking so faintly it was almost invisible. ’Good. That’s it. Don’t you dare lose now.’

In the arena, Aries’s breathing had gone ragged. The fire he’d pulled from ambient heat to catch Julian in the mist had cost him, and the Flash Steps before that had cost him, and the reserves he’d started this fight with were somewhere considerably below where he’d want them right now.

’I’m running low on mana... damn it’ he registered, feeling the hollow space.

Across the field, Julian’s jaw was locked, his hands trembling with something that had moved past frustration into something colder. He raised both hands, fingers interlocking slowly.

"Fine," he said. "No more playing."

The water on the ground surged upward all at once — every drop that had accumulated from the previous clashes, every wet patch and puddle the fight had left behind, every remaining thread of his mana drawing moisture from the air itself and pulling it inward, compressing it, spinning it faster and faster.

Aries felt it before he saw it. Something cold touched his ankles.

He looked down.

Water circling his feet like a ring. He stepped back and it followed. He moved aside and it adjusted. The streams thickened as more joined them to rise the circle.

Within seconds the whirlpool was taller than he was. Then taller than two of him. Five meters of vortex enclosing him in a perfect cylinder of impossible current.

Aries pressed his hands flat against the inner wall and felt the force immediately shove him back. He tried a step forward. The current caught him and spun him sideways.

He couldn’t move.

"What?!" Valea’s voice from somewhere impossibly far outside. "A whirlpool — he’s completely trapped—"

"He can’t get out of that current," Nico said.

Alaric exhaled. "So he’s using it. His final move." He folded his arms. "Aerial Strike. He traps the opponent completely and then ends it from above. The current is self-sustaining once it reaches that size — Aries would need a massive burst of mana to counter it with fire." A pause. "And Aries doesn’t have a massive burst of mana left."

"Don’t say it like that!" Valea’s hands found the railing. "Don’t just — don’t talk like it’s already decided—"

Alaric’s eyes stayed on the whirlpool, soft but certain. "Look at it. He used Flash Step repeatedly, he pulled fire from ambient heat, he ran mana sense through fog. He’s been spending since the first exchange." He shook his head quietly. "He did brilliantly. But that thing is five meters tall and Julian has his full reserves behind it."

Nico’s fists went tight against his sides.

Cedric drew one slow breath. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Inside the whirlpool, Aries had stopped trying to fight the current.

One hand pressed to his shoulder where the pressure had already found a bruise, breathing in short pulls against the force pressing on his chest.

’I can’t push through it. Can’t Flash Step — nowhere to step to. And I can’t see anything past the wall. Also, my mana’s almost gone.’

Julian’s laughter reached him through the roar, distorted and echoing.

"BWAHAHAHA! Now then—"

Both his arms drove forward.

"IT’S OVER!"