The God of Nothing.-Chapter 39: Selection by Fire

Thirty.

That was how many rushed him.

Foolish. Reckless. Desperate.

The moment Aurex finished speaking—offering his challenge like a crown dropped in a pit of wolves—thirty candidates surged from the fringes of the ring and charged toward him.

Some used wind spells. Some called upon flame. Some simply sprinted, blades drawn, shrieking.

Aurex didn't move.

He raised a single hand. Not to cast. Not to threaten. Just to yawn.

And then mana erupted — not as a wave, but a reversal. As if the air had never belonged to them in the first place.

A pulse. Quiet.

Then pressure.

All thirty froze mid-charge, limbs locked as if caught in tar.

Then they crashed.

Not thrown, not cut — just broken by the sheer gravitational weight of his presence. Bodies hit the sand like dropped stone. Bones cracked. A few screamed before falling silent. Most didn't get the chance.

The arena held its breath.

Aurex didn't look at them. Just stepped over one crumpled figure and adjusted his sleeves.

Behind him, the sand was marked with crushed limbs and shattered pride.

Farren muttered beside Caelith, "That's a lesson. Don't reach for a star with wet feet."

But no one else rushed him after that.

Instead, the smart ones arrived.

The final brackets had been fully released. All gates opened now. Not out of order. Just because the order no longer mattered.

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A hundred more surged in from the coliseum gates — men and women who had trained years for this chance, now staring down a battlefield rewritten by a single man.

They weren't charging the prince.

They were watching the champions.

Because if they couldn't stand beside Aurex, they needed to make sure the ones who did wouldn't step on them.

Aurex's voice reached the crowd once more.

"If you do not wish to resist me here, then fight for me. I shall reward the winners appropriately. If I am to be defeated, then the victor can have any wish fulfilled, even the central continent is not out of reach."

The promise drew greed.

Injure the prince and live like a god amongst men, or fight with the prince and ensure your future.

That's when it started. The tension in the ring shifted — not as panic, but as calculation.

The newcomers didn't flood in randomly.

They spread.

Some peeled off toward Lysara Selyth, whose ash-wreathed silence drew wary attention. She tilted her head ever so slightly, marking them.

Others eyed Raen Vhaelor, whose pale fire and unreadable expression made him a dangerous unknown. Ice hissed softly at his feet.

Theryn Damaris drew another group — his poise too calm, too still to be ignored. His hand never strayed from the hilt at his back.

Serika Varendel, glaive spinning once at her side, met every gaze with precise confidence.

And Vaerin?

He cracked his knuckles and grinned. As if he were glad the crowd got bigger.

One step behind him stood Selphira, arms folded, watching the field like it was a chessboard. When she moved her hand, three nearby candidates immediately backed away.

They all drew eyes.

Even Caelith — who hadn't moved, who hadn't even drawn Ashthorn — noticed the glances flicking his way. Not from the heirs. Not yet.

But from the ones who wanted to prove something.

Some wanted glory. Others, revenge, maybe to defeat him and hope to be rewarded by pleased nobles.

Many simply wanted to be seen.

The newcomers weren't allies. Not yet. But they shared a motive:

Be remembered.

For that, they had to take down someone bigger. Someone with a name. A title.

Farren watched the whole thing unfold with furrowed brows. "They're not gunning for the prince. They're going for everyone else first."

"Why?" Caelith asked quietly.

"Because getting by his side means power," Farren muttered. "And you don't get that spot by kneeling. You get it by proving you can keep up."

He paused, eyes narrowing as Braegor and Jorun split away from the pack.

"Or by making someone bleed whom Aurex acknowledges."

The crowd, once stunned, was screaming again.

The proctors tried to reassert control. One shouted something about disqualifications — another tried to raise a shield field.

Aurex turned his head, and they both fell silent.

He didn't speak.

He didn't have to.

The message was clear:

The Gauntlet was dead.

This was a proving ground now.

One set up years in advance.

The strongest talents of all of Igaria are gathered in this ring right now.

'This was never truly about the academy.

No, why would Igaria be conducting something like this?

What could be coming?'

And the contenders had come to make their names known.

From the west gate — the largest of the three still open — came a burst of heat.

Not fire. Not flame. Something denser. Heavier.

Lava.

The sand beneath the arch shimmered, then melted in streaks as a towering, shirtless figure emerged. Dark skin. Scorched tattoos crawling across his chest like living runes. His steps sizzled as molten rock licked at his boots with every pace.

He didn't walk. He strode, like the world already belonged to him and the rest of them were squatters on borrowed land.

"Who—" Farren began.

"Velgrath," someone whispered from the stands.

"Jorun Velgrath."

The name rippled. Known. Feared.

Magma-wielder. Top-tier 3rd star. His footfalls left a glowing trail behind him. Lava hissed where he passed, reshaping the field.

He cracked his neck once. "Heirs, huh?" His voice was rich, baritone — half sarcasm, half challenge. "Let's see what your bloodline's really made of."

He didn't charge.

Not yet.

He waited for the others.

Because he knew he wasn't alone.

From the opposite gate, iron clanked.

Then again.

Footsteps like hammerblows.

A man emerged — broad-shouldered, taller than even Jorun. Not noble. His armor was a patchwork of commoner-forged steel and old noble plate, reworked to fit his monstrous frame. His face was rugged, scarred from war, and in his hands he held an obsidian-black spear nearly as tall as he was — pulsing faintly with mana.

He stopped beside the remains of a disqualified candidate and looked down with disdain.

Then raised the spear and slammed it once into the ground.

The earth jumped.

"Braegor Dorn," someone muttered. "The commoner warhound."

Not a name from nobility.

But from reputation.

He didn't speak. Just looked around. First at Vaerin. Then Raen. Then Aurex.

A long pause.

And then, he smiled. Just slightly.

Farren exhaled. "These aren't test-takers. They're top-end beasts disguised as students."

And then—soft footfalls.

Almost unnoticed at first.

From the final gate came no heat, no tremor, no thunder.

Just a girl.

Slender. Cloaked in simple charcoal robes. Scrolls at her hip. Hair tied back in a sharp braid.

She stepped onto the sand and calmly lifted her hand — drawing a faint pattern with two fingers.

A thin ribbon of flame curled into existence. It moved with surgical grace, slicing the air around her in a spiral before dissipating like breath in frost.

Farren blinked. "That's not normal fire. That's structured—layered. She's manipulating internal mana before ignition, that method is supposed to be from the central continent!"

Caelith narrowed his eyes.

The girl turned her gaze — and it was a gaze, sharp and dissecting. Not curious. Clinical.

She wasn't here to compete.

She was here to analyze.

"Vessia Keldra," someone whispered. "The scribe of flame. She writes heat like it's a language."

And the heirs?

They all noticed.

Serika's eyes flicked toward Vessia like a blade drawn halfway.

Raen's cold expression cracked into a faint frown as Braegor approached his quadrant.

Lysara... actually stepped back a single pace as she stared at Jorun's molten path — not in fear, but calculation.

The arena was changing.

And everyone knew it.

Even Aurex — standing still at the center — finally lifted his chin just slightly.

Watching.

Waiting.

Judging.

Because these weren't nobodies.

They were predators. Just like the heirs.

And this was their chance to make up for the missed opportunities of their youth.

And this battlefield?

It was no longer noble territory.

It belonged to whoever remained standing.

Perhaps exactly what Aurex wanted, what he needed.

Jorun Velgrath moved like a boulder breaking loose from a cliff.

Shirtless, bristling with muscle, his skin shimmered with residual heat. Jagged tattoos glowed faintly across his chest and arms, crackling like volcanic veins. As he stepped onto the scorched sand, each footfall left faint circles of darkened earth behind—lava-bursts waiting to happen. His grin was feral, not friendly. He didn't wave to the crowd. He didn't posture for nobles.

He was already scanning for victims.

The first to challenge him were three nobles from minor houses. All clad in clean dueling coats, swords drawn, spells half-formed, all at the bottom of the third star.

They should have been cautious. They weren't.

The first noble hurled a wave of flame. The second lunged, sword trailing fire behind him. The third stood back, hands twisting through sigils—preparing some kind of binding spell.

Jorun just kept walking.

The fire hit him—then warped. Steam erupted, but not from his skin. His mana twisted the flame mid-flight, absorbing it into the air like kindling into a furnace. It wasn't flashy. It wasn't fast.

But it was inevitable.

Then he struck.

One stomp, and a wave of magma burst from beneath the ground—arching in a crescent that caught all three nobles off guard.

The closest one screamed as the earth beneath his boots liquefied, sucking him downward. The second tried to leap clear—only to be caught by a second burst, this time a narrow stream of molten rock that slashed across his hip.

Jorun reached him before the boy could fall.

A knee to the gut. A kick to the chest. The noble flew back, armor sizzling from contact with lava-soaked boots.

The third noble, still weaving his spell, panicked. Jorun saw it.

He raised both fists, and slammed them into the ground.

The floor erupted.

A circle of boiling slag shot upward, turning the arena floor into a molten crater.

All three nobles were down. One unconscious. One whimpering. One silent.

The magma-wielder turned and spat into the sand.

"Next."

Across the ring, Braegor Dorn rolled his shoulders as he stepped into his own challenge.

He looked like a soldier carved from war itself.

Broad-chested. Towering. His armor was a patchwork of old noble plate and commoner's leathers, each piece dented, repaired, worn by time and blade alike. He carried no blade. Just a ten-foot obsidian spear, its shaft wrapped in scorched leather, the tip humming with restrained power.

A knight from House Selyth moved to intercept him—sleek, well-trained, aura shimmering violet-gray.

The knight raised his longsword, adopting a duelist's low stance. Proper form. Proper training.

Braegor just walked forward, boots crunching over shattered sand.

The first exchange was clean.

The knight lunged—quick, sharp. Braegor parried the strike with the length of his spear, twisted the shaft, and pivoted to the side. Not flashy. Not elegant. Just pure technique.

The knight followed up with a downward slash.

Too slow.

Braegor stepped inside, caught the knight's wrist, and drove the butt of his spear into his ribs.

A hollow crack echoed.

The crowd gasped.

The knight stumbled, mouth opening in shock.

Braegor didn't stop.

He turned the weapon, reversed his grip, and thrust it like a battering ram—right into the knight's sternum.

CRUNCH.

The armor folded. The body went limp.

Braegor let the man drop. No words. No pose.

He turned toward the crowd—and the nobles who'd once sneered at the sight of battered gear.

One of them flinched.

And finally, in the far west corner of the arena—Vessia Keldra moved like a whisper on heat.

Slender. Graceful. Deadly in the quiet way.

She wore scholar's robes reinforced with fitted armor, hair bound in a low braid. Scrolls hung from her belt—old, brittle, but clearly used. She carried no visible weapon. But fire shimmered faintly in her irises, reflecting a mind constantly burning.

Her opponent?

Serika Varendel's understudy. Another glaive-user. Young. Proud. Favored by House Varendel.

He didn't wait. He charged, fire blooming around his blade.

Vessia didn't move.

Until she did.

Her hands blurred, fingers tracing invisible patterns in the air.

The flames around the glaive sputtered.

The boy hesitated.

And that was his first mistake.

Vessia shifted. Not with speed, but placement. One step at an angle, using the heat in the air to bend light, to twist the perception of where she stood.

His slash missed by inches.

She didn't hit back. She moved again.

He struck again—faster this time.

Another miss.

Then another.

The crowd didn't cheer. Instead, they leaned in.

Vessia raised her hand—and the fire inside his weapon vanished.

The boy froze, disoriented. She stepped in, twisted his wrist, and drove her palm into his chest with an internal redirection of heat—no burn, just pain.

He dropped to his knees.

She let him surrender.

Graceful. Clean. Precise.

The crowd shifted.

The commoners roared.

The nobles whispered.

Bets were torn up. Odds collapsed. And up in the upper tier, sponsors leaned forward with expressions like cracked glass—fragile and furious.

The board had changed.

Not in power.

But in possibility.

These weren't just candidates now.

They were problems.

Farren, standing beside Caelith, let out a low whistle. "Well. Shit."

Caelith didn't answer.

His eyes were already scanning the field.

Jorun was reckless, yes—but his terrain control was dangerous. Unpredictable.

Braegor's strength was terrifying, but it was his spearwork that concerned Caelith most. Every move had weight. No waste. He was trained in killing, not dueling.

And Vessia...

Vessia was the threat.

She wasn't just skilled. She was aware. Her fire manipulation went beyond raw power—it touched on understanding. Timing. Deconstruction.

She'd studied the arena. The opponents. Their habits.

He could tell.

And as his gaze swept the arena, he felt something shift.

The champions were watching too.

Raen Vhaelor narrowed his eyes at Braegor, already evaluating angles of attack.

Lysara Selyth stood still, but her ash stirred faintly, shifting toward Jorun.

Serika? Her hand had tightened on her glaive. Her understudy still lay breathing—barely.

And above them all, still idle, still untouched—

Aurex Vykrall stood in the center of the ring like the eye of a hurricane.

He hadn't moved.

He hadn't needed to.

Not yet.

But the war had begun.

And Caelith knew one thing for certain:

This wasn't the Gauntlet anymore.ire

This was selection by fire.