From the stands, most people couldn’t see what was happening inside the battle ring, the smoke had swallowed the entire arena whole.

All they caught were brief flashes: sparks from clashing blades, sudden bursts of power in one corner, and then silence again and in the center, where everyone expected the main clash to erupt—everything went eerily quiet there, leaving the crowd uneasy and guessing at what was unfolding within the fog.

That blindness was mostly limited to low-rank mages, and even some mid-rank mages with weaker mental strength, as those with a much stronger mental power in the mid-ranks pushed their mental power over their eyes, forcing their perception through the smoke.

For many, it was still blurry, more like shadows and movement than clear images. but at least they weren’t completely in the dark like the low-rank mages around them.

And just like they were better than others there were also a few mages around who could see far better than them too, since they weren’t inside the smoke or being targeted by its effects, the fog didn’t hinder them as much, and their mental perception cut through it almost cleanly.

Agnes, however, was one of the unlucky ones. She could only make out parts of what was happening on one side of the ring, not the full picture, though her mental strength was solid, but it was definitely not enough to give her total clarity of the situation she was in.

The only reason she could peer into the fog at all was because she walked the magician path which was known to help build a mages mind by far in comparison to the other paths, and because controlling multiple golems had steadily strengthened her mind over time.

Even if commanding five golems strained her, it also tempered her mental power, little by little.

—

“Who the hell are you?” Aeron Blade asked, his expression turning cold in an instant.

Neriah and Selara didn’t fully understand what had just been said, but they could tell it hit a nerve. Aeron almost never showed anger—no matter what happened. He was the same man who never challenged Kaelus openly, so for him to do these two things he would never do on a normal day, they were sure today was clearly not his day.

“Oh, please. You heard the judge call my name and you’re still asking who I am?” Takeda replied with a careless shrug, as if the answer should’ve been obvious.

“So let me rephrase it, how do you know about that title?” Aeron said, his gaze sharpening.

“Oh, spare us the pleasantries,” Shin Jae-Hyun cut in, his tone smooth and unapologetic.

“We’re a shadow institution, who work in the dark, therefore knowing other shadow mages is literally our business.”

Then Takeda stepped forward, his voice calm, but the words were a knife.

“What I’m interested in now is simple, who’s truly the most talented Blade Prince?”

He pointed his chin toward the haze, as though Kaelus stood right there.

“Is it Kaelus—the one who the public recognizes, the Patriarch’s son? Or is it you... the one who’s been hiding behind his shadow, taking missions no one else would touch?, just hoping no one notices you”

Takeda’s eyes gleamed with certainty before he continued.

“I’ve heard there are elders in your clan who would back you a hundred percent if you ever showed interest in leading, but you’ve never liked the spotlight , now do you?.”

He spread his hands.

“Not that it’s my business, I only want to know which of you actually deserves the title of prince.”

Aeron shook his head slowly, the School of Silent Night knew far too much, far more than he ever wanted dragged into the open, especially in front of his own teammates.

“You shouldn’t have said all that,” Aeron muttered, before he slid forward.

His short swords flipped into an inverse grip, like twin daggers, and he moved straight for Takeda—silent, fast, and deliberate.

“Neriah. Selara, you two can handle that one, right?” Aeron’s voice rang out without him looking back or even indicating but they understood immediately that he meant they should take Shin Jae-Hyun out.

And from the way they tightened their grips, neither of them had a problem with that order, but when they realized what that meant—

-that Aeron would be left alone against Takeda and his clone, a flicker of fear crept into them, then Aeron’s voice came again, this time directly inside their minds through a transmission.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Those few words just steadied them, with their resolve hardened, Neriah and Selara surged toward Shin Jae-Hyun, their eyes locked on him with determination, seeing them close in, Shin pieced their plan together instantly.

“I’ll be leaving for now,” he said to his captain, as he slid away from beside him.

He lifted his hand, began summoning particles of wind that gathered in his right palm, when they solidified, a kunai formed in his grip, and it had a wired hook trailing, as the line ran all the way back to his left hand.

Clang!

The moment Aeron entered striking range, he snapped forward, his right-hand short sword flashed toward Takeda’s neck, so close it should’ve ended everything, Takeda looked distracted—almost caught off guard.

But at the final instant—The clone cut in.

It slammed its body into Takeda, shoving the real one backward, and raised its katana in an inverse grip to knock Aeron’s blade aside.

“Hmph!” The clone grimaced as it absorbed the impact, but Aeron never stopped as he followed his first attack with another as his left hand moved.

He twisted the short sword in his left grip, letting it spin in a tight rotation, as he drove the hand forward without losing control or letting it fall, the blade shot in like a needle and plunged straight into the clone’s head.

The clone froze for a heartbeat, as if trying to understand what had just happened, then it burst into grey mist and vanished.

As Aeron landed light on his feet, only a few steps from Takeda now, yet he immediately sensed something was off, and that was because Takeda still wasn’t focused on him.

He was looking toward another angle, and from that direction, Kaelus stumbled out of the smoke—bloodied, breathing hard, a spear clenched in his hand, while his aether blade and katana floated around him in midair.

“Looks like you’re late to the party,” Takeda said, staring him down with a faint smirk.

“I’m going to kill you!” Kaelus snarled at Takeda, but he looked like he couldn’t wait to get into battle as without hesitation, he raised the spear in his hand and hurled it straight toward Shin, who was effortlessly blocking attacks from both Neraih and Selara.

Shin’s eyes narrowed as the spear streaked toward him, in one fluid motion, he flicked his right wrist, launching two shurikens from a hidden mechanism in his sleeve, the blades cut through the air, forcing the two Blade Clan warriors to leap back and deflect them with their weapons.

Using the brief opening, Shin retreated smoothly, while spinning the wired hook in his left hand as he moved, as the chain whirled, he channeled his shadow mana into the motion, imbuing the weapon with dark energy.

Causing a small rift to tear open in the air before him, and a shadow portal was born from the spinning hook and his infused mana, the instant the spear reached the portal, it vanished into the void.

Shin then yanked the wire back sharply, recalling his weapon, as the shadow portal lost support, it destabilized and exploded outward in a violent burst of shadow energy.

Unfortunately for Neriah and Selara, who had just deflected the shurikens and were lunging forward to close the distance again, they were caught squarely in the blast, as the two warriors were thrown back, scorched and disoriented, as the dark shockwave rippled across the battlefield.