Chapter 58: The Secretary’s Trap

Chapter 58: Chapter 58: The Secretary’s Trap

The arena was completely empty. The morning sun had barely crested the high stadium walls, casting long, cold shadows across the dirt of Ring Two.

Damian knelt in the center of the fighting pit. The Iron Guild’s private secretary wasn’t wearing his usual pristine suit; he wore a dark, unassuming technician’s jacket. He pressed his bare hands flat against the packed earth.

He closed his slanted eyes. An invisible, freezing pulse of A-Rank shadow magic bled from his palms into the dirt.

He was weaving a Parasitic Snare. It was a highly illegal, heavily restricted magical trap. It didn’t deal physical damage. Instead, the moment a high-capacity mana signature stepped on the runes, the snare would snap shut, isolating the victim in a localized spatial lock. It would violently and completely drain their mana into the earth, leaving them paralyzed and helpless.

Damian traced the final hidden rune with his finger. The dirt shifted slightly, concealing the lethal trap perfectly.

Kaelen could not beat an S-Rank in a fair fight. Sterling knew it. Damian knew it. So, Damian was removing the fairness. When Evelyn Vance stepped on this snare this afternoon, she would be drained dry. The opposing elemental mages would finish her off, and the Iron Guild would keep its empire.

Damian stood up, dusting off his hands. He adjusted his collar and walked quietly back into the shadows of the competitor’s tunnel.

By two o’clock in the afternoon, the Genesis City Arena was a madhouse.

The semi-finals had drawn an even bigger crowd than opening day. The noise vibrating through the concrete floor of the holding room felt like a continuous earthquake.

"Elemental mages," Evelyn said, strapping a sleek, dark bracer to her left wrist. "The Ember Brothers. Fire and Lightning specialists. They’re artillery. They’re going to try and keep us at a distance and bomb us out of the ring."

"They’re squishy," Donald noted, leaning against the concrete wall. He had his dark jacket zipped up, completely hiding the heavy Thunderclap Pile Bunker on his forearm. "If you close the distance, they fold in one hit."

"Exactly," Evelyn smirked. Her blue eyes literally glowed in the dim light of the holding room. "I’ll use [Celestial Ascent], air-dash straight through their first volley, and crack the arena floor under them. The match won’t last ten seconds."

The heavy iron door buzzed. "Ring Two!" an Association official shouted.

They walked down the tunnel and stepped out into the blinding stadium light.

The crowd roared. Half the stadium screamed Evelyn’s name. The other half booed with everything they had.

Across the wide dirt ring stood the Ember Brothers. They wore matching crimson robes, holding heavy wooden staffs tipped with glowing elemental crystals. They looked arrogant, twirling their staffs and playing to the crowd.

Donald walked toward the center of the ring, keeping a step behind Evelyn. He activated his [Valuation Eye].

The golden UI flickered across his vision, scanning the Ember Brothers. Level 31 and 33. C-Rank threats. High burst damage, terrible physical defense.

Then, Donald’s eyes swept down to the dirt ring itself.

A massive, flashing red warning box popped up in the center of his vision.

[WARNING: Hidden Magical Anomaly Detected.]

[Type: A-Rank Parasitic Snare (Shadow Affinity).]

[Effect: Isolates and violently drains host mana capacity. Triggers upon high-tier core contact.]

Donald stopped walking.

The trap was buried ten feet ahead of them. It was positioned exactly in the center of the ring—the exact spot Evelyn would use as a launchpad to air-dash toward the mages.

Donald looked up at the VIP box hanging over the stadium. Sterling was leaning forward against the glass. Damian stood right behind him, his slanted eyes locked entirely on the dirt ring.

Clever, Donald thought.

"Evie," Donald said softly, keeping his voice below the roar of the crowd.

"Yeah?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the mages.

"Don’t charge," Donald murmured, stepping up right beside her. "Hold your ground when the bell rings."

Evelyn frowned slightly, but she didn’t argue. The absolute trust was already there. "Okay. Why?"

"Just trust me. Let them cast first."

The Association referee floated over the ring on his hover-platform. He raised the red flag.

"Semi-Final Match!" the referee boomed. "Fighters... ready!"

The Ember Brothers immediately raised their staffs. The air around them began to crackle with heavy static electricity and rolling waves of heat. They were pooling their mana for a massive, combined strike.

"Begin!" the referee shouted, dropping the flag.

"[Lightning Storm]!" the older brother screamed.

"[Inferno Wave]!" the younger brother echoed.

A massive, blinding tornado of fire and jagged purple lightning erupted from their staffs, tearing across the dirt ring straight toward Evelyn and Donald.

It was a flashy, highly destructive spell. It was incredibly loud.

It was the perfect cover.

"Stay behind me!" Donald shouted, playing the role of the panicked support.

He dove forward, throwing himself directly into the center of the ring, landing precisely on top of the hidden Parasitic Snare.

Up in the VIP box, Damian’s eyes widened in shock. The snare wasn’t meant for the squishy support.

The moment Donald’s boot hit the dirt, the dark magic activated. Black, shadowy chains erupted from the ground, trying to latch onto his core to drain him.

Donald didn’t flinch. He didn’t even slow down.

He channeled a massive, highly concentrated burst of holy mana straight down his leg and into the sole of his boot.

[Purifying Touch].

The B-Rank holy energy slammed violently into the A-Rank shadow trap. Holy mana was the absolute, hard-counter to dark magic. The corrupted runes couldn’t drain the purity of the holy fire; they simply overloaded.

The ground beneath Donald’s boot violently detonated.

A loud, concussive CRACK echoed through the stadium, completely swallowed by the roaring sound of the incoming fire tornado. The dirt exploded upward, shattering the dark magic into a million harmless pieces of fading ash.

Donald purposely threw himself backward onto the dirt, acting like the explosion had knocked him off his feet.

"Whoa!" Donald yelled, scrambling backward and pointing wildly at the mages. "Your matrix collapsed! Watch your aim!"

The fire and lightning tornado fizzled out halfway across the ring, completely disrupted by the shockwave of the exploding trap.

The Ember Brothers stood frozen. They stared at the smoking crater in the center of the ring, then looked at their glowing staffs in absolute confusion.

"Did our spell misfire?" the older brother stammered, looking at his hands. "The ground just exploded!"

"I didn’t cast an explosive rune!" the younger brother argued defensively.

They were completely distracted.

Donald sat on the dirt, looking up at Evelyn. He gave her a single, quick wink.

Evelyn didn’t ask questions. She saw the opening.

She summoned her ethereal wings. The sapphire and gold light flared brilliantly. She didn’t just run; she launched herself through the dissipating smoke of the "misfire" like a surface-to-air missile.

The Ember Brothers looked up just in time to see a demigod hovering directly above them.

Evelyn didn’t draw her sword. She simply spun in mid-air and drove her heel down toward the dirt between the two mages.

[Divine Pulse].

Her boot hit the ground. The kinetic shockwave, converted entirely into pure holy force, hit the mages like a freight train. The heavy impact completely bypassed their magical shields.

Both brothers were instantly lifted off their feet and blasted out of the ring, tumbling wildly across the grass boundary and slamming into the stadium retaining wall. They didn’t get back up.

The arena fell silent for three seconds. Then, the crowd went absolutely berserk.

The referee lowered his hover-platform, staring at the unconscious mages. He raised the green flag, his hands shaking slightly.

"W-Winner!" the referee announced. "Evelyn Vance and the Investor!"

Evelyn let her wings fade. She walked back to the center of the ring, offering Donald a hand.

Donald took it, letting her pull him up from the dirt. He brushed off his dark jacket, looking entirely unharmed.

"A misfire?" Evelyn asked quietly, a knowing smile playing on her lips.

"They put too much mana into the cast," Donald lied smoothly, grinning behind his gold mask. "Amateurs."

Evelyn laughed, turning to wave at the screaming crowd.

Donald didn’t wave. He looked straight up at the VIP box.

Sterling was gripping the glass partition so hard it was visibly cracking under his fingers. The Guild Master looked absolutely murderous. But Donald wasn’t looking at Sterling.

He was looking at Damian.

The bald secretary was staring down at the smoking crater where his A-Rank trap had just been obliterated by a "clumsy" support. Damian’s perfectly blank expression finally cracked. A deep, highly visible scowl crossed his face.

Donald casually raised his hand, pointing two fingers at his own eyes, and then pointed them straight up at Damian.

I see you, cheeky boy.

Damian stepped backward into the shadows, disappearing from the window.

"Let’s get out of here," Donald said to Evelyn, turning toward the tunnel. "We’re in the finals."