The arena was silent. Not because the audience was absent—but because of the sheer tension that hung in the air. Rank 2 wasn't a fight. It was a reckoning.
Leon stepped onto the obsidian stage, armored only in layered cloth reinforced with mana threads, his breathing calm and measured. His muscles ached faintly from the previous battle, but his mind was sharp. His Shell Reverb had reached 93% mastery. The Shell Pulse Core Fragment embedded in his palm pulsed softly, syncing with the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Then the earth split.
Out from a rift of blackened stone emerged a being wrapped in soot-colored armor, its shell rippling with hardened scars of molten glass and crystallized mana. Its name—Rhaz-Vorr, the Titanbane. A war hero of the Ants, now turned into their executioner for challengers bold enough to reach the penultimate rank.
Rhaz-Vorr didn't speak. It simply slammed one of its twin hammers onto the ground.
The arena shifted.
