Bermuda

<A new three-way showdown—!>

“Damn it, what a waste—”

Together with the commentators’ cry, Andreas slammed the armrest of his seat and stomped his foot. Beside him, Hugo kept a flawless posture and watched the arena ahead in silence. Loren, seated nearby, did not miss the faint twitch that had just run through Hugo’s fingertips.

Her arms folded, she cut her eyes sideways. The two middle-aged men who had gotten absurdly invested from the Preliminary Round onward were showing completely opposite reactions.

In Hugo’s right hand was the Betting Ticket he had confiscated from Andreas. It was crumpled beyond use already, but the two names written in the top slots, Asher and Lion, were still perfectly clear. Never mind the frighteningly high hit rate—just the fact that the commander had not frozen the thing and crushed it into powder made it obvious how intently he had been focused on the match.

His upper body was tilted ever so slightly forward, and the way he rubbed between his brows looked unusually serious. As though someone he was rooting for was down there.

“Wow, why’d they dodge all of a sudden? I mean, it makes things more exciting, but still...”

“......”

Hugo forced himself to keep a calm expression, then turned to glance at the babbling Andreas. A transparent safety barrier stretched like a thin membrane between the arena and the spectator seats. Thanks to that, this idiot still seemed unaware of whose magic power had leaked out earlier. Though it was only a matter of time before he figured it out...

Around then, Hugo felt someone’s gaze touch the side of his face and turned left. His eyes met Loren’s directly.

She was the only person who had been present with Flinn when the news of Leonardo entering the league was first delivered. The thought in Loren’s eyes showed far too clearly on her face, and Hugo looked away with an awkward little cough.

<Neither side can move easily. The tension is razor-tight!>

<One by one, the contestants’ attention is turning toward Lion. Have they recognized a powerful rival worth suppressing?>

Gillian and Beatrice had been shaking a contestant by the neck, but the moment they felt a familiar wave of power, they turned their heads at the same time. The instant Gillian spotted Leonardo and Ero, his expression twisted.

“That idiot’s done it now. He shouldn’t be doing this already.”

“So what? He’s going to win anyway.”

“Not that. He can’t go running off this early after getting attached to some weird little stray.”

Orca, who had widened the distance after being rammed back by the divine beast, had also climbed onto a stable platform. Even so, his eyes never left Leonardo.

“Hot.”

He touched his own face and hair, where the blast of heat had hit him just before contact. The texture under his fingertips crumbled like dried straw. When he looked down at the severed strands caught in his hand, they gave off the smell of scorched protein. And that was despite the fact that he had clearly dodged before being touched.

With a dazed expression, Orca murmured,

“...He’s a real lion.”

The contestants scattered around the arena were also staring in one direction and whispering among themselves. Even for the strong contenders who had been hiding their presence while aiming for the main bracket, this was the moment the name Lion carved itself into their awareness.

Leonardo, eyes wide as he scanned the area around him, lowered his upper body at once. Then he reached down, seized Ero’s wrist in a hard twist, gave it a few sharp jerks, and used the recoil to haul him upward.

Dragged up in one go, Ero landed on the Floating Platform with his face flushed bright red. But he immediately dropped onto his backside with a thump. After coming that close to elimination, both his arms and legs were shaking pathetically.

Hearing Ero’s rough breathing, Leonardo muttered in a low voice,

“Hey. Because of you, this is ruined.”

“...What?”

“Now I’m target number one.”

Even as he said it, those golden eyes never left the rivals facing him. Ero looked around blankly and answered in a daze,

“I-I’m sorry...”

“Forget it. Since it’s come to this, I’ll draw the attention, so—”

At that very instant, Leonardo sensed something and moved first.

“Do whatever it takes and stay alive!”

Standing at the very edge of the Floating Platform, he kicked the platform Ero was riding with all his strength in midair.

As Ero drifted away toward the corner like a little sailboat cast loose, he reached out a hand and shouted like some tragic hero.

“Boss—!”

But a massive slab of rock cut between them as the distance widened. Twisting his body, Leonardo used the momentum of a single spin to kick the boulder aside. A bright, ringing crack split the air. The dented mass of stone shattered instantly. But that was not the end of it.

<Asher is launching a concentrated attack on Lion! She’s striking the Floating Platforms and using them like cannonballs!>

<It looks like she’s abandoned close combat for now and is testing his reactions—>

Beyond the cleared line of sight, countless rocks were flying at him.

“Shit.”

Letting out the curse, Leonardo hurled his body in the opposite direction from Ero. Barely a tenth of a second after he jumped from the Floating Platform, the barrage of stone slammed into it without mercy. The tangled chunks collapsed out of the Ether trajectory trailing pale smoke, like a warship going down.

Without a second to spare, Leonardo kept moving while watching Asher’s movements on the far side. Her raw jumping power was apparently monstrous—she had already bounded all the way up to the upper region of the arena and taken position there.

Like the ruler of this match, she looked down from above as though trying to predict his escape path. She drove her fingers into a drifting boulder, dragged it toward herself, and then hurled the weapon with brutal force, though its true weight had to be several tons at least. After that, she unleashed a rapid series of kicks and sprayed fragments like machine-gun fire. It looked like indiscriminate bombardment, but there was only one target.

<No wasted motion. Perfectly clean movements! But the man avoiding them is no easy opponent either!>

This was bad. Rolling his eyes, Leonardo checked the crystal board. Right then, he saw that the number of survivors had dropped into the low 300s.

That meant roughly one hundred remained to be cut. Still dodging the bombardment with light, efficient movement, Leonardo suddenly plunged into a cluster of contestants who had been standing there dumbly. Horrified, they scattered like cockroaches.

<Lion dives into the crowd! For the contestants caught in the splash zone, this is an emergency!>

<He definitely seems to have been hiding his skill. You can feel the intent in those clothes covering his whole body. But by now, too many eyes are already on him!>

<At this point, refusing to reveal his true ability could turn into arrogance—>

Kwaaang—!

Another gigantic boulder slammed into the place where Leonardo had landed. Over the heads of the contestants who failed to dodge in time, blue barriers unfolded. The bands on their wrists had activated the barriers after detecting the possibility of instant death. Their lives were spared, but any contestant protected that way was eliminated immediately.

<The number of survivors drops below 300!>

His plan had worked, and a large group was eliminated at once. Changing direction in an instant, Leonardo charged toward a Floating Platform packed with dense grains of sand. He intended to use the attacks flying at him to shatter the sand barrier where the survivors were hiding.

As the beast in the fluttering cloak moved like a streak of light, the spectators’ heads whipped left and right trying to follow him. But just as he stepped onto the dune holding dozens of people and tried to leap again, his foot sank deep into the sand and stuck fast.

<Ahh, Nefertiti! She waited for her chance and trapped the lion!>

<You can’t let your guard down out here—there are too many gifted fighters. If he gets caught in a sand bog, that could cost him quite a lot of time.>

“Damn—”

Biting his lip, Leonardo glanced down. The sand gripping his leg hardened like solid plaster and cinched around his ankle. He tried to wrench himself free, but it only stretched like sticky slime before dragging him back down into the mire. It looked like sand, but it was nothing less than a chain.

While he was pinned there for even that brief moment, a shadow fell over his head. When he looked up, two razor-sharp fragments came flying toward his golden eyes like prison spikes.

<Lion is in danger!>

Just as he was being pressed back, a strange invisible wave rippled through the hem of Leonardo’s cloak. At the same time, the whale-cry he had heard before brushed past his ears.

...What?

<Wait, what’s happening here? Orca’s ultrasound intercepts Asher’s attack!>

Because ultrasound had such strong affinity with Ether, it pushed back the fragments flying in a straight line and temporarily slowed them. There was no time to figure out Orca’s intent. Leonardo matched the timing and yanked with all his strength through his arms and legs. The two descending points of impact plunged directly into the sand chains that had been restraining him.

The sand grains binding together broke apart and scattered. From inside the dune-roofed shelter, several screams burst out. Freed from the restraint, Leonardo vanished instantly.

<Lion escapes! Nefertiti’s fortress is collapsing!>

<But did he use teleportation again? He’s nowhere to be seen—>

With her target gone from sight, Asher stopped attacking and furrowed her brow. Her nerves sharpened, she scanned the area for the slightest presence. Even if he could use teleportation, his position should have been exposed again inside the arena almost immediately, yet she could not sense him at all.

Sensing that something was wrong, her eyes darted quickly from side to side.

Then, in that instant, her ash-gray eyes widened.

Her instincts moved first. Reacting to the threat, she lowered her stance, spun half a turn, and lashed out with a kick. But even at that terrifying speed, her foot cut through empty air and struck nothing.

All she could see was the strip of her own bandage fluttering against the clear sky. Missing her target, her pale eyebrows arched upward.

Then, in the next moment, the heat-laden gust from before brushed across her back. Air so violently hot it nearly choked her bored into her lungs.

Killing intent.

Her pupils shrank in an instant. Masking her shock, she turned around—and saw that a dark figure hidden by the backlight had already closed to point-blank range.

Asher stopped breathing.

Her entire vision flooded with darkness.

And yet, within it, the gleam of those golden eyes remained perfectly clear.