​Riiiiiip.

​The pitch-black tear in the sky above the Colosseum ripped wider.

​Initially, it had looked like nothing more than a knife scratch on the surface of a giant glass dome. But slowly, the fissure was forced apart. It swelled and throbbed hideously, resembling a freshly slashed, weeping wound. The dark purple sky around it churned sluggishly, forming a spiral vortex that ravenously devoured the remaining afternoon sunlight.

​In a matter of seconds, the entire Colosseum was plunged into a bleak twilight. A dusk that had arrived far too soon and in the entirely wrong place.

​Then, the hum began.

​Vrrrrrm... It wasn’t a sound that could be heard with the ears, but a vibrational wave. Its sheer pressure crept into their chests, rattling their ribcages, and making the teeth of every spectator grind with a sickening ache.

​And from the darkness of that tear... they crawled out.

​Ten demons.

​Their webbed wings stretched wide enough to blot out the sky, as pale as the skin of a corpse. Their horns curved sharply, resembling crescent moons snapped at the tips. Their eyes burned a hellish red. Their bodies seemed to be forged from molten asphalt and churning shadows, living and breathing entirely on their own.

​The euphoric cheers of victory in the stands evaporated in a single breath. Replaced by screams of absolute horror.

​Panic erupted.

​Thousands of spectators scattered blindly. Bodies shoved and trampled one another for a sliver of safety. A mother clutching her child tripped on the stadium steps, nearly crushed beneath dozens of boots before a rough hand yanked her back to her feet.

​Merchants who, just minutes ago, had been smiling broadly to peddle their talismans, now flailed and elbowed their own customers just to reach the exit gates. The marble pillars, which had previously looked like artistic masterpieces, suddenly transformed into the bars of a colossal death cage.

​BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

​In the main arena, three demons landed brutally. The sheer impact of their descent cracked the compacted sand, cratering the floor.

​The main referee of the match—a middle-aged man in a silver robe—had less than two seconds to react. He raised his hands. A thick shield of holy light instantly materialized before him.

​One demon lunged, swinging a claw coated in pitch-black energy.

​CRASH! The first swipe severely fractured the light shield. The second strike followed a millisecond later. SHATTER! The shield exploded into shards of light.

​The unfortunate referee was swatted away like a ragdoll. Thud! His body smashed against the arena wall with a sickening crunch of bone that turned stomachs. He slumped to the ground. He didn’t move again.

​"MR. REFEREE!" Lira shrieked hysterically from the upper stands, tears instantly streaming down her face. But her voice was completely swallowed by the ocean of screams from tens of thousands of people.

​Razan—who was still kneeling weakly after his defeat to Liana—witnessed it all from point-blank range. He was panting heavily, his mana reserves practically bone-dry. But the youth had no intention of running. He forced his trembling knees to stand. Sparks of blue lightning were forcibly ignited between his shaking fingers.

​"Instructor Liana... I will—"

​"Don’t be an idiot!" Liana cut in sharply, intercepting Razan’s path and dropping into a defensive stance in front of him. "You’re practically bleeding out!"

​"I-I won’t leave you to die alone!"

​The second demon folded its leathery wings and dive-bombed like a missile straight for Razan. The youth raised his hands high, squeezing out the very last drop of his mana to unleash his strongest pillar of lightning. CRACK! The lightning struck the demon squarely in the chest. The creature stalled in mid-air for a brief second.

​Only a second.

​The demon roared. SKREEEEEECH! The sound did not originate from its vocal cords, but was a pure psychic blast that drilled directly into their brains.

​Razan groaned in agony, clutching his head before his body was thrown backward into the sand. The lightning in his hands died completely. He was still breathing, but his eyes were unfocused, unable to process his surroundings.

​Now, Liana was truly alone. Three massive demons surrounded her from three flanks.

​In the northern stands, the four Fire Arcanum instructors who had served as overseers leaped into action, scattering in different directions. Their red robes fluttered in the chaos.

​"EVACUATE EVERYONE! NOW! OPEN THE GATES!" one of them roared, his voice magically amplified.

​However, the remaining seven demons had already spread like a plague throughout the Colosseum stands. One landed heavily in the eastern tier, sending spectators scattering so violently that several plummeted over the edge to the floors below. Another perched in the main corridor, completely blocking the largest exit.

​There was no way four Fire Arcanum members could sweep them all alone.

​Teachers from other Arcanum factions and independent mages present in the stands began to snap out of their shock. Survival instincts took over. They spontaneously formed makeshift defensive perimeters.

​In the southern stands, the chaos was successfully halted by a single man.

​Dom.

​The man stood as still as a mountain between a flock of demons and a crowd of trapped civilians. His greatsword was already drawn from its scabbard. Shing. Dom’s physical Aura—which he had kept tightly suppressed until now—erupted, coating the broad blade with a silver luminescence.

​The fourth demon, rampaging in the southern tier, dove toward Dom. The giant didn’t bother dodging. He swung his greatsword in a brutal upward arc.

​CLANG!!

​The blade clashed violently against the demon’s claws in mid-air. The shockwave from the impact exploded, shredding the surrounding rows of wooden spectator seats into splinters. The demon was violently repelled backward. Dom was pushed back three steps by the sheer force of the recoil.

​He steadied his breathing for a brief second, then stepped forward again, challenging the monster.

​Naya stood poised behind Dom’s broad back, her twin daggers twirling in her hands. "I assume you can hold this ugly bastard off on your own?"

​"I can," Dom answered without looking back.

​"Good. Then I’ll handle crowd control."

​Naya spun around with lightning speed. Her eyes caught a small child who had tripped and fallen in the lower corridor, while his mother cried, desperately pulling at his arm. A fifth demon was crawling rapidly toward them.

​Naya had no intention of clashing blades with the monster—brute force wasn’t her specialty. She darted forward like a phantom. Grabbing the child by the collar, she shoved both the boy and his mother into the emergency evacuation stairwell.

​The demon roared in fury at the loss of its prey, instantly pivoting to hunt Naya. Fortunately, two academy instructors arrived just in time, blasting the monster’s face with a miniature tornado. Naya didn’t waste a second looking back; she immediately sprinted to the next corridor to find other victims.

​Meanwhile, near the main exit tunnel.

​Eva stood frozen. Her left shoulder, freshly bandaged just yesterday, throbbed with a sharp pain. Her crimson Scarlet Aura flared to life around her body—flickering dimly, incredibly raw, and unstable.

​Her eyes swept over the fallen mages. She saw Dom locking horns with a beast. She saw Naya dancing through the fray to save civilians. And she saw... a sixth demon that had just landed on the stairway, cutting off their descent.

​I... I can’t possibly hurt that thing, Eva’s pessimistic inner voice whispered. The hand gripping her sword hilt trembled slightly.

​But her gaze subconsciously drifted to the side. She saw Adul.

​The same Adul she had desperately saved from a lightning strike days ago. Now, he stood huddled near Roland’s back. His face was as white as cotton, but his legs... his legs hadn’t taken a single step to abandon her.

​Eva bit her lower lip until it bled. Her eyes turned sharp. She forced her Scarlet Aura to detonate brighter.

​Not to defeat the demon. But to buy them enough time to live.

​"M-My Lord... Lord Roland... where... where do we go?!" Adul stammered, frantically tugging at the edge of Roland’s coat.

​Charis and Lira stood huddled closely together. Cold sweat drenched their foreheads.

​"I know." Roland’s voice was as cold as ice, his eyes glued to the arena down below.

​Liana was still fighting. Moving desperately against three monsters straight out of hell. Alone.

​"We get out of here. Now," Roland decided with finality.

​"B-but Instructor Liana—!" Lira pointed frantically toward the arena, her voice hoarse, fighting back tears.

​Roland didn’t entertain Lira’s plea. He grabbed Charis hard by the shoulder. "Charis. Take Lira. Run through the east corridor and don’t you dare look back. Understood?"

​Charis swallowed saliva that felt as sharp as razor blades. He looked at Roland’s face for a fraction of a second, then gave a stiff nod. He grabbed Lira’s wrist in an iron grip. "Come with me, Lira!"

​They bolted, pushing their way through the hysterical crowd.

​At the bottom of the arena, Liana had already emptied her entire deck of trump cards.

​Illusion mist. A hail of ice projectiles. Walls of raging water. She dodged like a madwoman, cast spells, and ducked again. But fighting three anomalous monsters at once? It was impossible.

​BAM! One demon swung its webbed wing, slamming squarely into Liana’s flank. The woman was sent flying, tumbling across the sand that was now mixed with her own blood. Wincing in agony, Liana forced her body back up. She fired one last ice spear straight into the eye of the second demon. Squelch! A direct hit. But the demon merely roared in fury; it didn’t die.

​The third demon behind Liana leaped into the air. Its claws, dripping with lethal black energy, were raised high, ready to cleave the instructor’s body in two.

​Liana was out of breath. Her legs were numb. She stared at the shadow of death descending upon her. And for the very first time in her life, Liana resigned herself to fate. I’m... done for.

​At the edge of the upper stands, Roland had already turned around, ready to follow his party’s evacuation route. But his steps halted abruptly. He turned back in shock. "RIANOR?!"

​Rianor was still standing perfectly straight in the exact same spot. Petrified.

​The man hadn’t moved an inch, let alone joined the panic. His eyes were wide open, unblinking. The veins at his temples bulged—a sign that his brain was being forced into overdrive.

​The frequency of magical rotation. The breathing patterns of attacks. The mana molecular structure of the demons.

​The strings of raw code he had inadvertently collected over the past few days since the Sanctum tragedy—reading the mana stabilization book, the vibrational feedback from touching the Measuring Crystal, the rhythm of Liana and Razan’s duel just moments ago... all of it collided wildly in his head within fractions of a second.

​He had almost cracked it. Almost. He was missing just one final piece of the logarithmic puzzle to synchronize it all.

​Down below, Liana was thrown back. The demon swung its claws for the final execution.

​And in that most critical, razor-thin margin between Liana’s life and death... the final puzzle piece in Rianor’s brain snapped perfectly into place. Click.

​Rianor understood it.

​Entirely. Completely.

​The fundamental nature of the Mirror Attribute. The mana code structure of the human body, juxtaposed against the anomalous mana code of the demons. Everything was laid bare before his eyes—not as fictitious magical incantations, not as mystical natural elements. But as a pure system database.

​A string of frequencies that could be deciphered. An architectural structural blueprint... that could be copied.

​The Mana Glove on Rianor’s right hand suddenly flared out of control. Its color was no longer a calm ocean blue. The hue erupted into pure white. A blinding, absolute white. A pristine light representing a blank canvas before it shattered into a palette of other colors.

​"I can calculate it," Rianor whispered softly. His eyes gleamed. "I... can copy that creature."

​Without a second of hesitation, Rianor vaulted over the spectator railing, free-falling straight toward the arena below.

​"RIANOR!!" Roland screamed in absolute desperation.