Chapter 176: The Duo Tournament Finals [II]

Sun did not waste the opening.

While Moon kept Thea locked in the darkness cage, Sun closed distance and forced Kalon onto the back foot immediately.

Her second light attack was wider than the first, a hard flash meant to blind and disrupt rather than pierce. Her plan was to create an opening for her to finish him off.

Kalon turned his face away in time, but the glare still caught the edge of his vision. Moon used that half-second to send a low band of darkness across the floor toward Kalon’s ankles.

Kalon jumped it and got hit in the ribs by Sun’s follow-up strike.

The impact was solid. Pain shot up his side. He slid back three steps and blocked the next light-cut with his forearm. The tournament gear scorched open. Heat bit into his skin.

Health: 400 → 326

From the stands, the shift was obvious.

Kalon was no longer dictating the match. For the first time since the beginning of the tournament, he seemed to be in a truly disadvantageous position.

Sun pressed harder. Her light came in short, controlled bursts now, not one big spear he could swallow whole.

Moon supported from range, cutting off exits with walls and spikes of darkness whenever Kalon tried to create space. Every time Kalon turned to deal with one sibling, the other punished him for it.

Thea slammed another water-coated punch into the cage bars.

"Kalon!"

The bars held. Moon did not even look at her. His focus stayed locked on keeping Kalon boxed in with Sun.

The woman dashed in with a slash of light that caught him heavily.

Blood ran down his arm.

The death-prevention field flickered once at the edge of the wound, reading the damage, then settled again.

His health dropped below 300.

The crowd noise changed.

Before, it had been excitement. Now there was doubt mixed into it. People had watched Kalon erase an arm and drop an ice shard on a semi-finalist. They had not watched him get cut, pressured, and separated from his partner in under a minute.

Sun saw the blood and moved in without hesitation.

"You’re strong," she said. "But you’re alone right now, and out of your depth."

Moon’s darkness closed in from the left. Sun’s light came from the right.

Kalon caught one, slipped the other, and still took a glancing hit across the thigh.

His stance dropped for a second. Moon used it immediately, wrapping a band of darkness around Kalon’s left wrist and yanking him off-line.

Sun’s palm hit him square in the chest.

Kalon flew back and hit the barrier hard enough for the impact to echo. He dropped to one knee, breath knocked out of him. Blood from his shoulder and thigh marked the floor under him.

In the stands, students half-rose from their seats. Scouts leaned forward. On the big screens, the replay showed the chest hit in clear angles.

For the first time in the tournament, Kalon Manchester looked like he might lose.

Thea saw it through the bars and hit the cage again, harder.

"Get up!"

Kalon stayed on one knee for another second.

Sun and Moon were already resetting their positions, clean and professional, ready to finish the exchange properly. Moon’s darkness cage around Thea remained intact. The two-on-one was still fully active.

Sun raised her hand. Light gathered again, denser this time.

Moon raised his at the same time. Darkness thickened around Kalon’s knees and boots, pinning his lower body in place for the finishing hit.

From outside the field, it looked decided.

Kalon lifted his head, a smile was on his face.

His free hand touched the floor.

Worldforge activated.

The ground under Moon’s feet collapsed inward first. It creates a narrow, sudden drop that broke Moon’s stance and disrupted the darkness pinning Kalon’s legs down. At the same moment, a dense earthen wall punched up between Kalon and Sun’s gathering light, thick enough to kill the clean line of her attack.

Kalon stood fully.

Black Sun Corpus released part of the light it had absorbed at the start of the match. Darkness flooded out from his body in a controlled surge and cut straight through the weakened bands around his legs. The residue snapped apart, giving him the ability to move freely.

Moon tried to restore Thea’s cage priority and rebind Kalon at the same time. That split his focus for a fraction of a second too long.

Kalon was already moving.

He did not go for Sun.

He went for Moon.

A short earth platform launched him forward.

Moon’s eyes widened and darkness gathered in both hands for a hard close-range defence.

Kalon did not meet it head-on. He used Photon Slash in a tight cut through the outer layer of Moon’s defence, forcing Moon to guard high, then stomped down and raised a stone column under Moon’s guard line. The impact knocked Moon’s arms off-centre.

Behind him, Sun smashed through the earthen wall with a burst of light and sprinted to support her brother.

Too late to stop the next action.

Kalon’s hand locked around the weakened edge of Thea’s darkness cage. Black Sun Corpus flared a second time, using the stored force he still held, and the bar under his palm eroded open.

The structure failed along that line. Thea forced her shoulder through the gap, water exploding outward from both arms, and the cage broke apart completely.

Thea was free.

Sun arrived in range at the same moment Thea cleared the bars. Moon was still off-balance from the column hit. For the first time since the opening exchange, the numbers were even again and Kalon was the one dictating distance.

Kalon raised his hand toward Moon, cold already gathering hard around his palm as frost crawled over the floor in a sharp line.

Eternal Winter.

The arena, which had been ready to watch him fall, suddenly saw the tides turning.

Kalon was no longer cornered.

He was flurry of attacks away from ending things.